Jung’s Personality Theory

Carl Jung is seen by many to be among the foremost authorities on personality.  His theories on personality have endured for years and stayed largely the same as he originally conceptualized them.   Jung felt that by realizing what type one was they would better understand their own partiality therefore keeping them from “heaping abuse, suspicion, and indignity upon [their] opponent" (Cranton, 249).  At the most basic level he came up with eight psychological types made up of one attitude type (either extrovert or introvert) and one function type (thinking, feeling, sensing, or intuition).  These attitudinal and functional types are described, in detail, below along with Jung’s eight personality types. 

Attitude Types

Extrovert

          Extroverted people are outgoing and have a need to get involved with whatever is going on.  They interact with others openly and are usually either thoroughly enjoyed by other people or extremely disliked by them.  Because of all this interaction and relating with people they are also affected by them in some way.  They enjoy being in the middle of things and like the hustle and confusion of groups (Cranton, 249).

Introvert

          Introverted people are the opposite of extroverts.  They are often withdrawn into themselves and enjoy the quiet of being alone.  They appear calm to others, but at the same time are perceived as anxious and not forthcoming.  Introverts trust their own thoughts and play down the importance of other opinions because of this.  They are usually not found in groups, but if they do interact with others they rarely participate in the conversation instead enjoying their own inner world of thought (Cranton, 249).

Function Types

Thinking

          Thinkers are the intellectuals.  They rely on knowledge and application of concepts to guide them.  Logic and reason are very important aspects of the thinker’s personality (Cranton, 250).

Feeling

          Feelers are the judgers of the four functions.  They assign a value or a feeling to everything that comes along and act on it.  They will decide if something is good or bad, liked or disliked reality or fiction and use this feeling to decide what they do about it (Cranton, 250).

Sensing

          Sensing is the “process of conscious sense perception” (Cranton, 250).  These people rely on their sense organs and body senses to create their own image of the world however strange it may appear to others.

Intuition

          Intuitives are instinctive people.  They act on unconscious indirect perceptions of the world based on ideas or associations that the link together without any factual knowledge.  Someone that says another seems “creepy” for no reason apparent to anyone else would probably be acting on an intuition (Cranton, 250).

Jung’s Eight Personality Types

          By linking both an attitudinal type and a functional type a person’s personality can be more accurately described. 

Extraverted Thinking

          Extraverted thinkers concentrate their energy into their intellectual ideals.  The use facts, accepted ideas, and objective thinking to lead their behavior.  They are creative in their thinking but very logical about how they reach their conclusions.  Most of their activities are based on self-developed principles that they use to dictate their lives (Cranton, 251).

Extraverted Feeling

            These people are the extroverts that allow people and situations to control their life more so than the other personality types.  They want to “go with the flow” so long that’s what everyone else is doing.  Even though feelers are usually individualized the extraverted feeler is completely influenced by the circumstances she is involved in (Cranton, 251).

Extraverted Sensing

            These people live in a world of facts and data.  They are very well adjusted, easygoing, and make for good friends as they have no desire to dominate or overpower.  They live their lives to the full, within the boundaries of their factual reality and enjoy spending time with others (Cranton, 251).

Extraverted Intuitive

            Extraverted intuitives enjoy looking into people and objects.  They look for relationships between things and attempt to gain insights into what will happen in the future.  They are intriguing to listen to and can often convince you of what they believe which is not, in any way, normal or conventional as these things bore them (Cranton, 251).

Introverted Thinking

            Introverted thinkers enjoy developing ideas and theories that don’t fit with traditional ones.  While facts are needed by most people the introverted thinker will ignore the facts that don’t fit in with their particular line of thinking.  In order to do all this, these people require solitude and self reflection (Cranton, 252).

Introverted Feeling

            These people dwell on things that have no place in reality.  They hide their feelings deep within their own inner sanctum where people can only assume what they are feeling.  They give off a calm outward appearance that does not seek to change or impress others as much as it keeps others from trying to change or impress them (Cranton, 253).

Introverted Sensing

            Introverted sensors add their “subjective dispositions to objective stimuli, their personal meaning to what they perceive to cling to things or people” (Cranton, 253).  What they appear to see may not have any root in reality but it is real enough to them to become fact.  They base their decisions both on what they are really seeing and what they sense.

Introverted Intuitive

Introverted intuitive people “can apprehend age-old images and archetypes from the collective unconscious, which become activated in the form of images and visions” (Cranton, 253).  They then can readily associate external aspects of life with what internal images and feelings that they have.  Allowing them to readily identify and understand situations and people.