What's Your Personal Equation & How Does it Affect How You See the World?

By Julieth Diaz MD

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Last Updated: August 14, 2023

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Have you ever heard the term, personal equation? 

The term personal equation, in 19th- and early 20th-century science, referred to the idea that different observers have different reaction times, which can introduce bias when it comes to measurements and observations. - Wikipedia

Originating in the world of astronomy, the concept was moved into the area of social science by William James, then later adopted by Carl Jung who said,

"one sees what one can best see oneself."

Carl Gustav Jung - Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst - founded a theory that each one of us experiences the world according to a particular combination between the way of "recharging energy" and the degree of development of the four psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition.

In psychology, this combination is called personal equation, knowing it helps us to better understand our way of seeing and experiencing the world.

The purpose of this article is to review some aspects of personality according to Jung's theory and put into perspective not only our own way of observing what surrounds us, but also to recognize that each one does so from a different and equally valid place.

 

 

How do you direct your psych energy?

Jung claimed that there are two types of people.

  • those who recharge their energy from the outside, whom he called extroverts
  • those who recharge it from within, whom he called introverts

This explains why some of us seek to be around lots of people to feel revitalized, while others experience the same thing by spending time alone.

Introversion and extroversion are the two ways of directing psychic energy.

Introverts tend to look into their inner world, be it to plan for the future, understand what is happening to them in the present, learn from their past, etc.

Being an introvert does not necessarily imply being shy, insecure or unsociable, instead it implies having a strong desire for self-exploration.

Extroverts, on the other hand, focus their energy on the world around them, objects and people, tend to be more interested in social activities and usually express themselves through words.

Each person has a dominant way of directing their psychic energy. This does not mean that an introvert is never interested in the environment that surrounds them or doesn’t enjoy contact with others, nor does it mean that an extrovert never becomes reflective and enters their inner world.

You have undoubtedly heard of the Myers Briggs Personality Types, which has added in the Judgment and Perceiving elements to come up with 16 personality combinations. Developed in the 1940s by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Cook Briggs, it was based on the psychological concepts that Jung proposed.

 

 

The four psychological functions

To find out our own personal equation, we need to know how we perceive the information that comes to us. Both from the external world and from our internal world – and how we process it to make a judgment.

A person can perceive information in two ways, either through sensations or through intuition.

If you are a person who is guided by sensations, you tend to:

  • resort to your experience
  • lean on what you have learned
  • capture details
  • follow habitual procedures
  • implement practical solutions
  • avoid ambivalence

On the other hand, if you are an intuitive person, you:

  • follow your hunches
  • have a kind of imprecise perception guided by the unconscious
  • may not be very clear how, but you know where something comes from and where it is going

 

On the other hand, the information processing necessary to make a judgment can be carried out through thought or feeling (affection).

If thought predominates in you, you:

  • tend to be impartial
  • are interested in the origin and why of things
  • choose what makes sense to you
  • are logical and you like to question some things that others take for granted.
  • Reason is a vital element for you.

If you are one of those who are guided by feeling, you:

  • tend to feel responsible for your decisions
  • question whether something is ethical or not
  • if something is good or bad
  • choose what makes you feel good
  • avoid arguments
  • try to harmonize
  • do not conceive the world without love

Carl Jung summarizes all of the above as follows:

"Sensation establishes that something is present, thought allows us to recognize its meaning, feeling tells us its value, and intuition tells us where it comes from and where it is going."

In theory, we all develop each of the four psychological functions to a greater or lesser extent, but we have one that predominates over the others.

So far we have talked about the way in which people recharge their psychic energy, how they perceive information and how they process it. Now let's see what your personal equation is and thus your type of personality according to Jung.

 

 

What is your personal equation?

For Jung, the combination of your psychic energy direction and your most developed psychological function defines your type of personality. In terms of personal equation, it's a reminder that we each see the world differently. We all have a personal bias that makes our interpretation and approach to life vary.

Below we briefly describe the 8 personality types, also called cognitive functions, according to Jung's theory.

 

Extraverted Sensing

This type of personality seeks to experience new sensations both physically and socially.

  • They participate spontaneously in new experiences either in the company of friends or acquaintances
  • They're jovial people who can sometimes be perceived as intense
  • They have the ability to take advantage of the dynamism of the situation and act according to the opportunities that arise at the moment

 

Extraverted Intuiting

These people have the ability to discover how to transform “what is” into “what could be”.

They tend to:

  • anticipate results
  • predict trends
  • forecast the course of their own or others' interpersonal relationships, and share their vision with them

Inventors, entrepreneurs, and innovators are a good example of this group.

 

Extraverted Feeling

In this personality, consciousness is focused on the good or bad nature of each situation.

They are:

  • conciliatory
  • empathetic
  • honest
  • charitable

In short, they are humanitarian people who tend to be concerned about unification and social progress.

 

Extraverted Thinking

This group includes people who tend to seek explanations for the phenomena that occur both in the external world and in their internal world.

They make use of the norms, laws, theories and principles to structure reality accurately.

In a few words, they are logical-mathematical people.

 

Introverted Sensing

This type of personality is interested in the vibrations they experience from the stimuli captured by their senses, that is, the influence of the senses on themselves.

These people can:

  • recognize their emotions in real time
  • remember in great detail a taste, sound or tactile sensation associated with a significant memory
  • relive a sensory experience each time they are exposed to a situation similar to the one that triggered the memory

 

Introverted Intuiting

These are dreamy people, a little detached from reality and the present moment.

They:

  • constantly explore new possibilities in their inner world
  • tend to fantasize about the future and better ways of doing things
  • tend to be perfectionists

Their imaginary potential allows them to anticipate changes at a social level and more easily identify the meanings of certain symbols.

 

Introverted Feeling

This group experiences the world linked to feeling.

Their way of feeling, cultivated within, gives them peace and authenticity that can sometimes be seen as indifference towards the periphery.

Despite being more reserved, they also show empathy, solidarity and affection in smaller social groups.

 

Introverted Thinking

Their main interest is deep reflections, abstract ideas and theoretical battles between different ways of seeing life.

They are people who tend to philosophize and enjoy literature.

 

 

What is Your Personal Equation?

After having finished this brief review, you may have realized that both your vision of the world and your personality are made up of various elements, some of them present in a greater proportion.

You'll understand that everyone observes the same world from a very different perspective, giving greater priority to what connects with them.

You may also have noticed that you have a bit of each psychological function. You may remember times when you went by feeling rather than reason, or when you decided to go by a hunch ignoring what your senses told you.

We are dynamic beings, with some more accentuated tendencies, but with the ability to make use of our potential and adapt to the demands of our environment.

If you identified your personal equation, now you understand a little better what your strength is and also what aspects of you require more work to achieve a sense of wholeness.

Photo by Andriyko Podilnyk on Unsplash

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