Psychological Types #4: “NEUROSCIENCE OF PERSONALITY”

This is the 4th of four courses on the Myers-Briggs / Jungian psychological types.

The other courses in this series are informed by 15 years of hands-on neuroscience research. Now is your chance to go deeper into the results and implications of that research to appreciate the brain. The research relies on EEG technology to provide a "snapshot of the developed self". Over 500 people have participated from all walks of life and multiple countries. The results align with established neuroscience and also clarify our understanding of personality type, understanding that "type" means a pattern of cognitive preferences, akin to handedness.

Ideally, you’ve taken the basics course in this series: “Find Your Best-Fit Type”.

We begin with  brain basics, with a focus on the neocortex, the brain's thick outermost layer. The brain is home to numerous functional regions. There are also brain waves and neural networks. Activity shifts, and networks get more or less active, as people try various tasks. Trying a diverse set of tasks over an hour is a great way to reveal normal, sustained variations among persons. While you likely cannot get a brain scan today, you can complete the downloadable coloring poster to better understand how your brain likely works.

We cover typical brain differences and similarities between people of various personality types. Other factors such as cultural upbringing, choice of career, and the kind of organizations people work in also strongly influence results. After all, whatever you are doing everyday will alter your brain wiring. The sum of these factors result in one's "subtype": Dominant, Creative, Normalizing or Harmonizing.

There are video out-takes from EEG sessions of two people to give you an idea of what the process is like.

You will also learn about the role of emotions. This is an area that the Myers-Briggs framework tends to neglect. In fact, emotions show up in many ways in the brain, impacting perception, motivation, cognition, and behavior. As a part of this, we will touch on the broader nervous system and the importance of body-mind practices.

We can hardly cover everything in this course! We will limit ourselves to pieces relevant to Dr. Carl Jung’s take on personality. Although we refer to Myers-Briggs terms at times, really we are using Jung’s terms with the neuroscience. And although this is not much of an application course, you will leave significantly more informed about the neuroscience of personality. Don’t worry too much about technical complexity. We will follow a gentle slope with lots of graphics!