Bre-Day #3 - MBTI and religion, culture, etc.

It's Bre-Day #3!! Breanne Potter has been so gracious as to answer my never-ending and sometimes off-the-wall questions. As usual, my questions range from blogging, religion, culture, and misc. I think for future Bre-Day posts, I should stick to one topic. (I need to take a deep breath and ask myself What would a J do?)

Linda: Do you think there is a correlation between type and blogging? Do you think certain preferences are more attracted to blogging than others? (How about if we go into the Step II facets?)

Bre: I love this question! I asked this on one of my blog posts and assumed it would be similar to any writer in general. The reality is that blogging is different from just being a writer. In my informal nonscientific poll, INTP and INTJ’s were overwhelmingly the most frequently occurring blogger types. In many ways this makes sense. I feel that both I’s and E’s are equally likely to be bloggers. N’s would have the fantastic ability to be more verbose and create meaningful connections between ideas and concepts. T’s would be comfortable tacking an idea/topic and create structure to their opinion. J’s would likely set a schedule to updating their blog and be consistent in posting topics. This is just my guess!

Linda: You have mentioned before that there are some cases where the type can change, such as when there is trauma or other major life changes. How about spiritual enlightenment? Could that bring about a change? (Weird question, but I’ve always wondered this.)

Bre: I have thought and thought and thought about this for 3 days. You really challenge me!!! I suppose it’s possible for a large spiritual rebirth to affect the way you look at the world and values enough to affect the way you answer MBTI® questions. I would guess that trauma and spiritual enlightenment aren’t all that different in terms of the affect on the mind other than whether it is a positive or negative perspective. They are both likely to shift value systems, trust issues, and orientation to the world…so I guess it could affect the way one answer the MBTI®.

Linda: I’ve heard somewhere that when making decisions, given the type vs. strong cultural influence, the culture tends to trump the type. Firstly, do you think there’s any validity in this statement? Secondly, do you think this would be also true with religious influence (i.e. fundamentalism)?

Bre: I’m not sure about the idea that culture trumps preferences. I say that from my personal perspective as a Thinking female. If cultural expectations trumped my preferences I’d probably be married with 3 kids by now! I would guess that it largely depends on two factors: how strong the person’s preferences are and how strongly the culture reprimands those who reject the norm. For instance, if I had unclear preferences between T-F I might be more inclined to follow the cultural norms. Also, if the result of rejecting the cultural norms were negative, I would be more inclined to do what was expected of me. I don’t know how this in with non-Western cultures. As an example, in Japanese cultures, Extraversion does not look like an Extravert in the United States. What if someone in the Japanese culture tried to look like an American Extravert? Would they be culturally reprimanded? I’ll defer to anyone with more world experience on this one!

Linda: In her recent post on MindBlink, Ruthie referred to a VLS test which was a part of a class (marketing) assignment. Have you heard of this test?

Bre: I have not heard of that. I certainly would like to learn more though. There are hundreds of thousands of assessments out there. I try to stay on top of the ones that are based on Jungian core concepts, but it is a mountain of a task to keep up with!