An Informal Study on MBTI and Cognitive Functions in Children
By: Choy Yuki
Aim
The aim of this study is to attempt to hypothesize the MBTI type of a participant through deducing cognitive functions and their positions from participants' written and/or drawn responses to designed questions.
Methodology
The nine participants, aged around 5 to 14, were asked to respond to these five questions either through drawings or written descriptions. These responses were then analyzed to infer potential MBTI types by examining the participants' answers through the lens of cognitive functions.
Given the young age of the participants, they are unlikely to have developed all of their functions and any strong indication of any cognitive function would likely be the dominant or auxiliary function.
When conducting the study, I was also able to interact with some of the girls and used these observations to aid me in my typing process.
Questions
Each of these questions were designed in attempt to flesh out clues as to their perception and decision making processes, as well as the level of prioritization they place on them. This will then lead to a hypothesis on their type.
1. "Draw and/or write down what you like to do"
2. "Draw and/or write down what you don't like to do"
These two questions are designed to determine where their interests and inclinations lie to give a tentative clue as to what the middle two letters of the type are - SF, NF, NT or ST. However, this was certainly not conclusive and some might prefer their tertiary function over their auxiliary function.
What would be more conclusive though, is if the response features an extensive list of many things the participant likes and/or dislikes. This would indicate that the participant is highly attuned to their feelings towards various things and is thus indicative of strong Fi, likely to be in dominant or auxiliary position.
3. "Draw and/or write down what you would like to see in your future."
If the response to this question features a very specific and singular vision of the future, this would quite conclusively point to a strong Ni, likely to be in dominant or auxiliary position. This is because Ni is future-oriented and tend to cause a "tunnel vision" in high users, which would manifest in one specific vision of the future.
4. "Draw and/or write down your strengths"
5. "Draw and/or write down your weaknesses"
In asking for the strengths and weaknesses of the participant, we might be able to deduce some connection to cognitive function. Given the limited development of the participants, weak functions would likely correspond to a lower position on the function deck and strong functions would likely correspond to a higher position on the function deck.
Case Studies
Three girls stood out in the analysis based on the richness of their responses and the observable cognitive patterns they exhibited.
Case Study 1: Girl #6
What immediately jumped out at me looking at her responses for the first two questions was the extensiveness of the list. She listed over 20 items which indicates that she is very aware of her likes and dislikes, a behaviour that strongly correlates to strong (and high) Fi. Moreover, quite a number of the things that she listed in what she likes is to do is sensory in nature (boxed in blue). This indicates an attunement to sensory information which seems to suggest that her primary perceiving function is Se.
I also noticed that something that she struggles with (as suggested by what is boxed in green) In her "weaknesses" section, she mentioned being "not aware of surroundings," which suggested that her Se might not be dominant. This self-assessment, combined with her tendency to prioritize how she feels over external feedback, led me to hypothesize that she could be an ISFP, with Fi and Se in dominant and auxiliary positions, respectively.
Hypothesis: ISFP
Case Study 2: Girl #7
For this participant, what stood out to me was her ability to see things from multiple perspectives. As she was answering the questions, she explained to me her thought process behind some of her responses -"mm...I don't know...I'm sensitive and sometimes it's a bad thing but sometimes it's a good thing you know" (in pink) and "sometimes I think I am quite smart but sometimes I think I am not very smart" (in yellow). These responses indicate a strong eye for nuances and is highly indicative of a strong Ne.
Her mention of being "emotional", "sensitive" and "pessimistic" also seems to indicate high Fi, as high Fi-users tend to experience emotions at a greater intensity and are oftentimes overtaken by their own emotions. Their emotions take a hue of self-focus as is suggested here by her responses, which is in contrast to high Fe-users who are more influenced by others' emotions.
A less strong evidence but nonetheless would still confirm the hypothesis of her top 2 functions being Ne and Fi, is her aptitude and interest in History, a subject that would appeal to the Ne-Si function axis. This is because Si is a past-focused function and the studying of History often involves examining multiple perspectives of past events as Ne would be drawn to.
Overall, as I was talking to her, I saw her jumping from idea to idea and elaborating a lot to me about her responses (She also mentions liking and being good at talking a lot in red) - which is indicative of an Ne dom. Hence, I hypothesized that she is an ENFP.
Hypothesis: ENFP
Another striking thing I observed was her inferior self-view, as suggested by her mention of being "pessimistic" and "[lacking] in confidence" (in blue above). While unrelated to MBTI, this is strongly indicative of an Enneagram Type 4, as they tend to focus on their negative qualities, which causes many of them to lack confidence and be pessimistic. Different combinations of Enneagram and MBTI types would lead to different hues and sub-distinctions within the same MBTI type - something that I hope to explore more in future studies.
Case Study 1: Girl #9
What was extremely striking about this participant was that she displayed a particularly strong and assertive personality. She expressed her passion for math with conviction, even suggesting that others who do not enjoy math should be "condemned." This firm imposition of her personal standards on others signalled a dominant use of extraverted judging (Je), pointing to an EJ type.
She also expressed a very clear vision for her future, telling me that she wants to go to the US to study medicine and become a doctor - an extremely specific and clear vision for a 10-14 year old. This indicates that she uses Ni rather than Ne, as the latter would be torn between multiple possible possibilities while the former tends to be fixed on one specific vision, thus leading me to the hypothesis that she is an ENTJ.
Hypothesis: ENTJ
Limitations
1. Question Design
One regret that I have with regards to the question design was that I did not specify the strengths and weaknesses to be character strengths and weaknesses. As a result, most participants listed strengths and weaknesses concerning their aptitude (except Girl #6 and Girl #7 who were also older in age compared to the others). This resulted in less conclusive evidence and I was not able to draw as much conclusions from those questions as I could have potentially.
2. Older vs Younger Participants
Another key limitation I noticed was that the responses from younger participants (ages 5-9) were less conclusive compared to the older participants (ages 10-14), which were the girls I talked about in the case studies. Unfortunately, I was not able to draw any hypotheses from the younger participants. This could be due to the fact that they have not yet developed their functions to a prominent enough degree for me to draw more conclusive hypotheses. I did not want to impose a hypotheses that I was not extremely sure about.
3. Small sample size
The number of participants was also way too little but I still wanted to share some of my methodology and findings as I think that I was able to find a lot of conclusive evidence and make strong deductions. There is no way to confirm the results presently however.
Conclusion and Recommendations
All in all, despite the limitations, I am still very happy that I was able to conduct and I am glad that I was able to derive enough conclusive questions from the questions I designed such that I could arrive at 3 hypotheses I am very sure about. I do plan to conduct the study at a larger scale with the improvements to the questions made and perhaps limiting the age range from 10-14 or 12-14 so that the cognitive functions would appear more prominently and I can derive more conclusive results.