gloomy-optimist
Used to live here
- MBTI
- INxJ
- Enneagram
- 4w3
Feeding Functions
- Thread starter VH
- Start date
magister343
Permanent Fixture
- MBTI
- INTP
- Enneagram
- stupid system (5w4)
No! Why does clicking backspace after accidentally clicking outside of the text box take one back to the previous page?! I had a really long reply which I just lost!
I'm not a huge fan of defining introversion and extroversion based on whence one draws "psychic energy." I prefer Eysenck's model, based on physiologically demonstrable differences and the empirically demonstrated Yerkes-Dodson Law. The Yerkes-Dodson law says that performance is best under moderate arousal, or a moderate level of stress. We do not perform with too little or too much arousal. (Ok, actually for extremely simple tasks performance does not diminish with increasing arousal, but such simple tasks are rare.) Social interaction, especially with strangers, is a known stressor that increases arousal in anyone. According to Eysenck, introverts are those whose default level of cortical arousal is relatively low and extroverts are those whose arousal levels are naturally low. As such, introverts can usually reach a comfortable level of arousal on their own and can easily be overstimulated, while extroverts cannot function well without without more outside stimulation. It has been demonstrated that introverts have higher bloodflow to the frontal lobes and frontal thalamus while extroverts have more bloodflow to their anterior cingulate gyrus, temporal lobes, and posterior thalamus. It is also known that active areas of the brain often need more nutrients than the blood can deliver, and that performance drops when one area of the brain remains too long too active for the blood flow to properly nourish it.
Since the various functions are roughly localized in different areas of the brain, I suspect that this concept can be extended to the use of each function. It is possible for any function to be overstimulated or understimulated. Our preferred functions would tend to be those which we prefer to have more highly aroused, in areas of the brain where the plumbing of our blood vessels allows higher blood flow. What VH describes as ways to recharge fuctions sounds to me more like ways to stimulate them. As we likely prefer these areas to be more aroused and the brain is arranged so as to allow more activity in these regions this stimulation would often be percieved as positive. However, it is still possible for our favored functions to be too aroused. The way I learned MBTI (largely from cognitiveprocesses.com) we recharge ourselves through the use of the tertiary function, or relief role (which incidentally has the same attitude as the dominant function, being it too is introverted in introverts and extroverted in extroverts). This is done when our dominant and auxiliary functions are both overwhelmed, that is overstimulated rather the understimulated. It would seem like this involves specifically avoiding the use of your favorite functions long enough for those neurons to be re-nourished. Really high stress can lead to more use of the 4th function too, but that often makes things worse rather than better, That could mean that the areas of the brain which deal with the 3rd function still receive plenty of blood flow but that the areas dealing with the aspirational role do not and thus can much more easily reach a state of over-arousal.
I'm not a huge fan of defining introversion and extroversion based on whence one draws "psychic energy." I prefer Eysenck's model, based on physiologically demonstrable differences and the empirically demonstrated Yerkes-Dodson Law. The Yerkes-Dodson law says that performance is best under moderate arousal, or a moderate level of stress. We do not perform with too little or too much arousal. (Ok, actually for extremely simple tasks performance does not diminish with increasing arousal, but such simple tasks are rare.) Social interaction, especially with strangers, is a known stressor that increases arousal in anyone. According to Eysenck, introverts are those whose default level of cortical arousal is relatively low and extroverts are those whose arousal levels are naturally low. As such, introverts can usually reach a comfortable level of arousal on their own and can easily be overstimulated, while extroverts cannot function well without without more outside stimulation. It has been demonstrated that introverts have higher bloodflow to the frontal lobes and frontal thalamus while extroverts have more bloodflow to their anterior cingulate gyrus, temporal lobes, and posterior thalamus. It is also known that active areas of the brain often need more nutrients than the blood can deliver, and that performance drops when one area of the brain remains too long too active for the blood flow to properly nourish it.
Since the various functions are roughly localized in different areas of the brain, I suspect that this concept can be extended to the use of each function. It is possible for any function to be overstimulated or understimulated. Our preferred functions would tend to be those which we prefer to have more highly aroused, in areas of the brain where the plumbing of our blood vessels allows higher blood flow. What VH describes as ways to recharge fuctions sounds to me more like ways to stimulate them. As we likely prefer these areas to be more aroused and the brain is arranged so as to allow more activity in these regions this stimulation would often be percieved as positive. However, it is still possible for our favored functions to be too aroused. The way I learned MBTI (largely from cognitiveprocesses.com) we recharge ourselves through the use of the tertiary function, or relief role (which incidentally has the same attitude as the dominant function, being it too is introverted in introverts and extroverted in extroverts). This is done when our dominant and auxiliary functions are both overwhelmed, that is overstimulated rather the understimulated. It would seem like this involves specifically avoiding the use of your favorite functions long enough for those neurons to be re-nourished. Really high stress can lead to more use of the 4th function too, but that often makes things worse rather than better, That could mean that the areas of the brain which deal with the 3rd function still receive plenty of blood flow but that the areas dealing with the aspirational role do not and thus can much more easily reach a state of over-arousal.