Thursday, October 30, 2008

Don't Laugh

Here's a story about psychology influencing a person's political preferences.

I am qualified as a practitioner of the Myers, Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI) which is based on the work on Personality Type by Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, the distinguished Swiss psychiatrist who practiced until his death in 1963.

In the story found at the above link a strong correlation has appeared between residents of Red States and those who consider themselves conscientious, less open(to differences), responsible and traditional.

Jung's theory of personality and the MBTI sort people according to Extraversion vs Introversion, Sensing vs Intuiting, Thinking vs. Feeling and Organized/Planful vs Spontaneous/ Open as a way of living.

Data gathered over decades support the expectation that those who report in the MBTI preferring sensing, either feeling or thinking and a Planful approach to living would describe themselves using the same descriptors found to be predictable by the researchers who conducted this recent study.

The MBTI data indicate that people with these preferences represent about 25% of the general population. What's quite interesting is the correlation with Red States, and that the 25% figure is similar to the statistic associated with the Conservative base.

Leanderthal, Lighthouse Keeper

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