Speculations on the Brain and Personality

I think an oft time neglected aspect of personality theory is how it relates to the brain and how the brain functions. After all, at the end of the day cognitive functions are literally the result of the physical organ inside your cranium processing and deciding what to do with everything. Your brain is essentially the gatekeeper for all things personality for two reasons. One, it processes the otherwise non-physical and abstract, producing your interpretation of it. Two, it is the signaling center that triggers any and all action in your body (provided you aren’t manipulating it through external sources like drugs, alcohol, medication, and etc.). That ranges from the actions you take to how much chemicals are released to change your hormone levels which induce emotions within you.

The brain is the bridge between the non-physical and the physical as it pertains to you. So, understanding brain function can offer insights to how cognitive functions work in the first place. The best part is that brain function is something that is measurable and observable so that makes my Te all kinds of happy.

I would like to take a pause here and throw in a disclaimer that I am not a scientist, psychologist or any other expert on brain function. This is just my current understanding on how the brain works based on my own research and experiences. I may be unknowingly ignorant, but I’ll do my best to explain this as I think it makes sense, and I’ll try to include relevant sources to back up my understanding. If you feel I have misunderstood something about brain function or are an expert with a better understanding, feel free to share. I am all for better understanding how the brain works.

The brain is ‘lazy’ or rather energy conserving

What I believe this means in terms of personality theory is that people will gravitate toward and adhere to whatever level of function use and development they are used to. People seem to universally agree that lasting change is hard. This ties back to the energy conserving nature of the brain. It’d rather continue on its current path than try to spend extra effort instituting some kind of change. This would also extend to cognitive function use.

Essentially, the brain thrives off of consistency. Every thought, every action, and every belief activates neural pathways and connects them across your brain, and the brain requires these pathways to be reinforced and repeated in order to be remembered. I believe the same is true when it comes to cognitive functions. Good use of Te is practiced use of Te. The neural pathways that constitute that way of reasoning must be repeated and reinforced in order to be remembered and developed. I think this is ultimately how our cognitive function stack is formed.

Early personality development

My best guess is that, during fetal development, there is most likely a preset preference in those neural pathways that are given to you through your DNA. So, when called upon to reason, those pathways are the ones you use right from the start. According to what I have read, at the beginning of life, the whole brain is connected together, but as we go through life, it prunes any unused pathways. So, any pathways that were not preferred (or are for cognitive functions you don’t have) would have been pruned long before you had a chance to develop them. The brain likes to do what is easiest, and it will default to those genetic preferences. That being said, those preferences will become the strongest and most developed pathways which the brain will then use to do as much as possible. Because we must both interact with the inner and the outer world, and both make judgments and process information, you consequently would end up with both a judging and a perceiving function at the top of your stack, one of them being introverted and one extraverted. (To clarify, T or F functions are for the judging, and S or N functions for the perceiving.) One function would be extraverted to deal with the external world, and one would be introverted to deal with the inner one. This would be the easiest way for the brain to lump as much processing as it can into the fewest amount of neural pathways.

In early life, the brain can essentially get away with dealing with most of its processing needs via only one extraverted function and one introverted function, one judging and one perceiving. This may be how the two top functions end up getting formed. Obviously, one cannot get away with ignoring the other half of cognitive functions for long, so the brain must start enforcing pathways to deal with those things as well. Let’s say you start out life with your brain using the Si-Te neural pathways to fulfill your needs. You will eventually have to deal with feeling information and internal judgements, along with external perceptions and intuitive based information. Each cognitive function is born out of a processing need, and once the brain has fulfilled all those needs, the brain will stop developing functions.

The brain won’t form a pathway for an unnecessary function

It would be counter intuitive for a Te- Fi brain to try and develop Ti as a cognitive function, since all of the needs that Ti fulfills have already been fulfilled by other more preferred pathways. The Thinking information is covered by Te and the internal judgements are covered by Fi. It would not be productive for the brain to try and develop a set of neural pathways that directly oppose how it already functions. It wouldn’t be conservative in the way of resources or natural in the way of reinforced pathways.

Those who desire an opposing cognitive function probably don’t understand how it truly works or how they can essentially do the same thing with slightly different preferences. Those claiming both high Te and Ti don’t seem to understand that using Thinking in the extraverted sense and Thinking in the introverted one are literally on opposite ends of a spectrum and cannot be used simultaneously. One would literally have to suspend the use of one and switch to the other in order to use it, simply because their preference on how to process that type of information is completely opposite. Additionally, they would also have to suspend the use of Fi, as now you would have another function attempting to fill the same role in the opposite way (that role being what to use for introverted judgments). This is why you frequently hear people say they can’t comprehend the use of their ‘8th function’. Using that function would require the suspension of their dominant because it serves the same role. (For example, both Si and Ni share the same role of internal data processing just with a preference for the opposite type of information.)

Needless to say, something like this would be incredibly taxing on the brain and would have no perceivable benefit as it isn’t filling any kind of actual need, but rather wreaking havoc on the act of processing information. I believe brain function is much more synergistic than that. It would, as I have proposed, make much more sense that the brain would use the tools it has already developed (and is familiar with) to combine insights, giving similar results to someone with opposite cognitive functioning. Through the use of Te-Fi, I believe the user could produce what is typically viewed as a Ti-like result without disturbing their psyche by forcing a completely different way of processing upon itself. To clarify, they would, in a sense, be emulating Ti, but not actually using it. Of course, you can apply this to the other cognitive function pairs as well. (Ti-Fe in combination could emulate Te, Si-Ne could emulate Se, and etc.)

All humans (including the chaotic inconsistent ones) are creatures of habit due to brain function

Even the most perceiver of the 16 types cannot escape the fact that they form and follow behaviors. Behaviors are things we form subconsciously as a result of the way that the brain functions. Behaviors are basically like instinctively learned habits that are deeply integrated into the way we operate.

This leads back into the way the brain works on a foundational level. Brains can’t consciously hold and process that much stuff at the same time. To circumvent this problem, the brain does what is known as ‘Neural Linking’. Neural linking is the process of the brain ‘chunking’ information together in order to hold more things in consideration at one time. So basically, you can only hold (focus on) 5 or 6 conscious thoughts at the same time. In order to hold more than that, you’d have to combine the first 5 thoughts into a chunk or concept, in order to open up space for more conscious thoughts.

This is the basis on which learning and intelligence is built. This process, however, is also what causes us to make assumptions, create biases, and form habits. The linking of thoughts or actions together to take up less conscious brain space is essentially what a habit is. So, if you are human and you exist, most of the things you don’t have to put thought into are actually habits, even if you don’t realize it.

By extension, cognitive functions would be formed off these same concepts

Your cognitive functions are, in part, foundational lenses which all of the behavior and habits your brain has developed sit upon. Shifting them to a set of functions that you do not use would be like having to relearn how to walk and talk. Am I saying it is impossible? Not exactly. I am saying that it is highly, highly unlikely (meaning there is probably less than a one percent chance you’d be able to do it).

It is possible that some extreme external trauma could fundamentally alter those foundational ways which your brain processes information. I suspect that would be the most likely way someone would accomplish changing the functions they use. There are also cases, such as multiple personalities, in which it is plausible each separate personality may use different functions. However, in that case, each one is still compartmentalized, and they are not using, for instance, Te and Fe simultaneously; but that is a subject for a different article.

There are also stories about people who go undercover and report feeling as though they are losing themselves inside of the fake identity after having to act that way for prolonged periods of time. I suspect this again has to do with repetition and habits. It’s possible staying within character for an extremely long time without ever coming out of it could fundamentally alter your personality as a whole. Although, I would not say that it would be enough to change your function stack, as you would most likely be still using all your same functions when in character.

In conclusion…

I’m not really sure exactly where I was going with this. I guess I was trying to explain how my understanding of brain function and personality theory line up. Anyway, hopefully it made sense and was at least thought provoking. I provided some links for some of the terminology I used that better explains those concepts, but I was unable to find material that covers basic brain function directly so I didn’t bother linking to the indirect sources.

Sources:

Discover How to Rewire Your Brain with Neuroplasticity

The Science of Thinking

When Does Your Brain Stop Developing?