Personality Type in Congregations by Lynne M. Baab

Personality Type in Congregations by Lynne M. Baab

Author:Lynne M. Baab
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781566996013
Publisher: An Alban Institute Publication


Second Path to Growth: Learning to Use All Functions

In the book From Image to Likeness2 one of the authors, Harold Grant, the director of a community of Catholic lay volunteers, proposes a theory of type development over life. He believes that we develop our dominant function from age 6 to 12, our auxiliary function from age 12 to 20, our tertiary function from age 20 to 35, and our inferior function from ages 35 to 50. After 50, we grow in our ability to integrate each of these four functions. Understanding this developmental process and learning to use all these functions is a second area of spiritual growth described by type. (See Table 3 on page 17 for a list of dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior functions for each type.)

Within the type community there is disagreement about one small aspect of this pattern of type development. Almost everyone agrees that the dominant function (sensing, intuition, feeling, or thinking) is used in the preferred attitude (extraversion or introversion), that the auxiliary function is used in the opposite attitude, and that the inferior function is also used in the less-preferred attitude. For example, an ESTJ has a dominant function—thinking—which is used in the extraverted attitude. The auxiliary function is introverted sensing, and the inferior function is introverted feeling.

The dispute is about the attitude (extraversion or introversion) of the tertiary function. Harold Grant believes that the tertiary function is used in the same attitude as the dominant. Carl Jung, in Psychological Types,3 believed the opposite. Using the example of an ESTJ, the tertiary function—intuition—could be either extraverted (in Grant’s view) or introverted (in Jung’s view). If you look closely at Table 3 on page 17, you’ll see that the attitude of the tertiary function is left blank because of this disagreement. Perhaps the best explanation is that the attitude of the tertiary function varies from one person to the next.

Many people report that Grant’s scheme is helpful to them in understanding their personal development. My own life closely parallels Grant’s formula. In elementary school I spent hours and hours reading fiction and daydreaming (introverted intuition). In my teens I discovered science, math, and debate, and at 19 I returned to the faith of my childhood because I became convinced of the truth of Christianity (extraverted thinking). In my 20s and early 30s, I was involved in a lot of Christian ministry, and I worked hard to develop empathetic listening skills (extraverted feeling), so during this time my life follows Jung’s scheme and not Grant’s. In my late 30s and early 40s, I began to write fiction, an activity which drew on my extraverted sensing skills as I strove to incorporate details into my writing to make it come alive.

Others find Grant’s scheme less helpful because they don’t see the pattern of their lives reflected as clearly as I do. Whether or not a person’s growth fits Grant’s pattern, an important principle remains: we will develop different functions over the course of our lives.



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