The 8 personality types according to Carl Gustav Jung

This Freud-influenced thinker proposed different typical personality profiles. What are they?

Have you heard about the eight types of personalities proposed by Carl Gustav Jung? 

It is no secret that one of the main concerns of psychologists, historically, has been to describe personality traits. In some cases this has been due to the need to create more or less objective parameters with which to create personality profiles useful for personnel selection, the description of client typologies or research into mental disorders and risk factors.

In other cases, it could be explained by less pragmatic motivations. At the end of the day, the simple fact of bringing some order to the chaos of behavior that human beings can exhibit can be, in and of itself, satisfying. That is why several psychometric tests have been developed over the decades. psychometric tests (such as Raymond Cattell's 16 PF) that have offered the possibility of measuring aspects of personality and intelligence in a systematic way.

Carl Jung, however, was not interested in this type of classifications because he considered them too rigid. This follower of the psychodynamic paradigm initiated by Sigmund Freud preferred to wage war on his own.

The eight personality profiles, according to Jung

At the beginning of the 20th century, when psychology was beginning to enter its adolescence, one of the most important representatives of the psychodynamic current set himself the task of describing the personality types that define us, according to Jung. the personality types that define us from a mystical from a mystical perspective, fundamentally esoteric, and probably without much consideration of the possible practical applications of his proposals.

His name was Carl Gustav Jung, and even if you haven't heard of him, chances are you have at some point used two of the terms that were popularized by him: introversion and extraversion.

Carl Jung and his approach to personality types

The relationship between Carl Jung, philosophy and psychology (understood as the exploration of the spiritual and the non-material) goes back to his early years and lasted until his death in 1961. During this time he attempted to describe the logics that make the human psyche function and the way in which it functions. and the way in which it relates to the spiritual world, using concepts such as the collective unconscious or archetypes. It is not for nothing that Carl Jung is remembered as the founder of depth psychology (or analytical psychology), a new "school" distanced from Freudian psychoanalysis in which Jung participated during his youth.

Carl Jung did not want to describe physical mechanisms that could predict to a greater or lesser extent how we behave. He wanted to develop tools that would allow us to interpret the way in which, according to his beliefs, the spiritual is expressed through our actions.

That is why, when the time came in his career when he set out to investigate personality types, Carl Jung did so without renouncing his particular vision of the immaterial nature of the mind. This led him to use the concepts of introversion and extraversion, which despite being very abstract have generated much interest.

The introverted and extraverted personality

Introversion has usually been related to shyness and extraversion to openness to meeting people. Thus, introverted people would be reluctant to engage in conversation with a stranger, would prefer not to attract too much attention and would be easy prey to nerves in situations where they have to improvise in front of many people, while extraverted people would tend to prefer socially stimulating situations.

However, Carl Jung did not define introverted and extraverted personality by focusing on social. For him, what defined the introversion-extraversion personality dimension were attitudes towards subjective phenomena (fruits of the imagination and one's own thinking) and objects external to oneself (what happens around us).

Introverted people, according to Carl Jung, are those who prefer to "withdraw into themselves" and focus their attention and efforts on exploring their own mental life, whether by fantasizing, creating fictions, reflecting on abstract themes, etc. The extraverted personality, on the other hand, is characterized by showing greater interest in what is happening at every moment in the outside, the real, unimagined world.

Thus, introverted people would have a tendency to prefer to be alone than in the company of unknown people, but exactly because of their shyness (understood as a certain insecurity and a high concern for what others think of oneself), but as a consequence of what makes them introverted people: the need to be interested in those peopleThe need to be interested in these people, to maintain a certain degree of alertness for what they might do, to look for topics of conversation, etc. Extraverted people, on the other hand, would feel more stimulated by what is going on around them, regardless of whether it has to do with complex social situations or not.

The four basic psychological functions

In Carl Jung's personality types, the introversion-extraversion dimension is mixed with what he considered to be the four psychological functions that define us: thinking, feeling, perceiving and intuiting.. The first two, thinking and feeling, were for Jung rational functions, while perceiving and intuiting were the irrational ones.

From the combination of each of these four functions with the two elements of the introversion-extraversion dimension, Carl Jung's eight personality types emerge.

The psychological types

Carl Jung's personality types, published in his 1921 work Psychological Types, are as follows.

1. Introverted-Thinking

People belonging to the category reflexive-introvert are much more focused on their own thoughts than on what happens beyond them.. They are particularly interested in abstract thoughts, reflections and theoretical battles between different philosophies and ways of seeing life.

Thus, for Jung this type of personality is the one that in the popular culture we could relate to the tendency to philosophize, the restlessness for the relations between ideas.

2. Sentimental-introvert

People belonging to the personality type sentimental-introvert are not very talkative, but sympathetic, empathetic and without special difficulties to create affective bonds with a small circle of people. with a small circle of people. They tend not to show their attachment, among other things because of a lack of spontaneity in expressing how they feel.

3. Sensation-introvert

As it happens in the rest of personalities defined by introversion, the sensitive-introvert personality sensitive-introvert is characterized by being focused on subjective phenomena. In this case, however, these phenomena are more related to stimuli received through the senses than to feelings or abstract ideas. According to Carl Jung's definition, this personality type usually describes people who are engaged in art or craftsmanship.

4. Intuitive-introvert

In this personality type intuitive-introvertIn this intuitive-introverted personality type, what centers the person's interest are fantasies about the future and what lies ahead. about the future and what is to come... at the expense of neglecting the present. These people would be rather dreamy in character, showing detachment from immediate reality and preferring to give space to the imagination.

5. Thought-extravert

This type of personality reflective-extraverted is defined by the tendency to create explanations about all things from what the individual sees around him/her.. This means that these rules are understood as immovable principles on how objective reality is structured, so that this type of people would have a very characteristic way of seeing things that changes very little over time. In addition, according to Carl Jung, they try to impose this vision of the world on the rest of the people.

6. Sentimental-extraverted

This category sentimental-extraverted would be composed of highly empathic people, with ease in connecting with others and who enjoy company very much. According to Jung, this personality type is defined by the fact that it is related to very good social skills and a low propensity for reflection and abstract thinking.

7. Sensation-extravert

In this personality type sensitive-extraverted the search for new sensations new sensations with experimentation with the environment and with others.. People described by this personality type are very likely to seek pleasure in interaction with real people and environments. These individuals are described as being very open to experiences they have never had before, so they show the opposite disposition to those who are opposed to what is unfamiliar to them.

8. Intuition-extraversion

Carl Jung's last personality type, the intuitive-extraverted type, is the intuitive-extraverted typeis characterized by the tendency to undertake all kinds of projects and adventures of medium or long duration, so that when one phase is over, one wants to start another immediately.So that when one phase ends, one wants to start another one immediately. Travels, creation of companies, transformation plans... future prospects related to interaction with the environment are at the center of these people's concerns, and they try to get the other members of their community to help them in their endeavors (regardless of whether or not others benefit as much as themselves).

Are Jung's personality types useful?

The way in which Carl Jung created these personality types is a far cry from the way it is attempted today, based on statistical analysis and research involving hundreds of people. Neither in the first half of the 20th century did the methods and tools exist to create personality models with any robustness, nor did Jung's thinking ever fit with the way research is done in scientific psychology. scientific psychologyThe Myers-Briggs Indicator, which was very concerned with creating objective criteria for delimiting personality traits and testing theories by contrasting expectations with reality, has emerged from Carl Jung's eight personality types and the concepts of introversion and extraversion have greatly influenced important psychologists of individual differences.

Carl Jung's eight personality types have given rise to the Myers-Briggs Indicator and the concepts of introversion and extraversion have greatly influenced leading individual differences psychologists, but in themselves these descriptions are too abstract to predict typical behavior. Sticking to such definitions of personality can easily cause us to fall prey to the Forer effect.

However, that Carl Jung's proposal has an almost non-existent scientific value does not mean that it cannot be used as a philosophical point of referenceIt is a way of looking at ourselves and others that is suggestive or poetic. However, its objective value is no greater than that of any other classification of personality types that a person not trained in psychology or psychometrics might make.

Bibliographical references:

• Clay, C. (2018). Labyrinths: Emma, her marriage to Carl Jung, and the early years of psychoanalysis.. Madrid: Tres Puntos Ediciones.
• Frey-Rohn, L. (1991, 2006). From Freud to Jung. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica.