Blog post image

Are the cognitive functions driven by emotional responses?

  • Published: 07-24-2016 Edited: 12-31-1969
  • The Affective & Cognitive Functions My hypothesis is that exposure to certain neurotransmitters at an early age drive our brains early development. People with higher levels of certain neurotransmitters have a built in higher need for certain neurotransmitters, and the higher the need, the more you need of a certain form of stimuli in order to feel satisfied. My hypothesis is that Carl Jungs eight cognitive functions can be divided into four cognitive and four affective functions, where the affective functions have emotional, affective, reflexive roles, and the cognitive functions have reflective, nuanced, introverted roles in the psyche. The cognitive - affective dichotomy is common in neuroscience and psychology and often refers to the top-down and bottom-up networks of the brain. [1] [2] The dopamine footprint

    Extroverted Sensing Dopamine regulates your attention and your needs. A person with high levels of prenatal dopamine is more driven by things like interest, hunger, stimulation-seeking, prenatal dopamine makes you more responsive to boredom, and more interested in a varied life. Dopamine also makes you less adaptable - because you build cravings and addictions to things, in particular physical things, it becomes harder to adapt to changes in these things. [4] Extroverted Sensing is like earth in it’s hedonistic, pleasure-seeking mentality and it’s firmness. A good explanation is that these types need more dopamine to feel satisfied, and that they have a higher emotional range with extroverted sensors jumping from bored, hungry, to hypervigilance, and to gluttony. Se seeks physical, tangible rewards, and it does not get hyped or excited in the same way as a Ne-type.

    Introverted Intuition has a cognitive response to dopamine - it reflects on it’s interests, needs, and how to best receive stimulation. Any environmental affect is processed before acted upon. If it is not processed it can be filtered out entirely, ignored. Ni has both an introverted and a judging part in that it takes time to generate dopamine and that it is slower for IN*Js to become excited by anything, but also that it takes a longer time to lose an interest in an activity once started. Ni types also are more likely to pursue unusual routes of getting their needs filled.
    The serotonin footprint Extroverted Intuition Serotonin regulates your attention and your interest. When serotonin is high we experience a higher awareness of morals, cultural norms, and our character and our virtuosity. Serotonin also regulates how we organize society and our life. Extroverted Intuitives are highly open to new cultural beliefs and norms. They are constantly coming up with new ways to organize their life. The affective extroverted intuition is like water in it’s ability to adapt to almost any situation. Extroverted Intuition thinks of options and alternative routes when blocked. While serotonin in itself makes us more calm, a lack of serotonin can make these types become highly exciteable. Intuition is always thinking of alternative, optional routes to order and organize things. This means they’re constantly reorganizing their environment in new ways, constantly imagining different ways to order things. Extroverted Intuition has a high emotional range ranging from concern or worry, to almost delirious excitement and hype for what is to come. Extroverted intuition pursues more abstract than physical rewards. Intuition makes them imaginative, creative, and sometimes rebellious to the traditional order. [5] Introverted Sensing has a cognitive response to serotonin in that it reflects on it’s interests, needs, and strategies to maintaining order and structure around it. Si also has a sensory response in that it pursues traditional, rehearsed means of structuring and ordering their information. And Introverted Sensing has a judging component in that it takes the longest to accept changes in the natural order and that it maintains it’s traditions and moral beliefs longer than the extroverted intuitive types. The endorphine footprint Extroverted thinking

    Endorphines regulate your comfort and discomfort, your emotional as well as physical pain and response to anxiety and emotional issues. Types with higher prenatal endorphine will need more work out, exercise, and motion in order to satisfy their higher need of endorphines. They will also need more challenges and more work and focus. Extroverted Thinkers think more in terms of hierarchies, power, and the need for protection against harm and violence, but also punishing and judging harmful or malevolent behavior, making it literally a judge-function. A high endorphine footprint makes these types develop a higher need for endorphines, a higher responsiveness to pain, and a stranger emotional range, from pained, wounded, avoidance of harm, and to total relief and comfort. [6] It is in many ways like the element air. Introverted Feeling has a cognitive response to endorphines. In the light of pain or discomfort they have the ability to hope for change and improvement. Fi reflects on pain and wounds and order and power and questions it. Introverted Feeling daydreams and imagines better days to come and processes pain and discomfort rather than acting on it in the moment. Fi considers options and different methods to become free from difficult experiences. The oxytocin footprint Extroverted feeling. Oxytocin regulates your shame and connection to the group. Shame, criticism, and social feedback can affect anyone, but people with higher levels of prenatal oxytocin are more likely to need higher levels of social feedback, arguments, clashes, and appreciation in order to satisfy their higher need for oxytocin. Oxytocin types have a higher emotional range, more emotional expressiveness, more animated behavior, more passion for what they say, but can also display more malevolent, angry, negative emotions. It is like fire in this sense. [7] Introverted Thinking has a cognitive response to oxytocin. They reflect on, work past, and think about shame, and pursues cognitive thinking strategies rather than affective, social strategies. This means they are more likely to try to persuade and build an image as experts, skillful, and good and knowledgeable at what they do, whereas an extroverted feeling type would get around simply by being passionate and energetic about the subject. The introverted thinking type tends to avoid affective emotional outbursts and prefer to hold back emotional expressions, but if the shame becomes too strong to avoid, you can expect their faces to turn quite red. Read more

    1. The cognitive and affective personality system.
    2. Top-down (Introverted) and bottom-up (Extroverted) attention.
    3. Thinking types have a higher use of the task-positive networks and feelers use the default-mode network more.
    4. Dopamine regulates hunger and appetite and makes us pursue physical rewards.
    5. Serotonin influences morality, virtuosity and moral character.
    6. Endorphines manage stress and pain
    7. Oxytocin manage social behavior.