Temperament and typology

Abstract

This paper takes a cue from Harvard neuroscientists Jerome Kagan and Nancy Snidman's (2004) comment that Jung's work on typology has remarkable relevance to their research on neurobiological correlates of temperament and develops the links between the theorists separated by almost a century. The paper begins with a brief review of temperament traits in personality psychology. Kagan and Snidman's 11-year longitudinal study is then analysed and correlated with Jung's psychological attitude types of introversion and extraversion, demonstrating that Jung's close empirical observations of human nature fit explicitly with objective measurements of neurobiological sensitivity thresholds and their expression in temperament. Emerging research on neurobiologically sensitive adults and children from Aron (1997, 2004, 2011) and differential susceptibility theory (DST) is presented as extrapolating the same links between temperament and physiological sensitivity found in Jung's introversion and Kagan and Snidman's high-reactive type. The paper concludes with a consideration of the subjective psyche as a necessary aspect to understanding the self and human consciousness as whole.