Question

ErikThor

Published: 07-24-2015 05:47 am

I have some suggested changes to further clarify the relationship between Execution, Prefrontal regions, and Proactive control. These should clarify the relationship between health, energy, and personality, as well as improve our understanding of the existing personality traits. Much of this article is based on Christians 'a scientific argument for personality types' which you can read here.
Minor errors and some speculation may exist in this article, if you find any feel free to leave a comment. :)

The COMT genotype Met/Met causes the highest dopamine rates in prefrontal regions, which cause higher use of proactive control. It should be correlated to ME or OE

The COMT genotype Val/Met causes moderate dopamine rates in prefrontal regions, which cause moderate proactive control, and a higher working memory. It should be correlated to VA, VC, XA, XC.

The COMT genotype Val/Val causes the lowest dopamine rates in the prefrontal regions, which cause the weakest proactive control. It should be correlated to MP or OP

In relation to our system, those who show the Met/Met genotype rely more heavily on proactive control than other types, causing the type to strongly resemble the Fighter temperament in Neojungian Typology. It is for example much more difficult for the Fighter to stop a task once they have started it, than it is for other types, indicating low task-switching. Val/Val show the strongest use of reactive control, high cognitive flexibility and task-switching speed, which makes them resemble the Teacher temperament.

The Val/Met genotype seems to capture both the Explorer and Leader temperaments considering both of those show a moderate use of both proactive and reactive control. While there is less information on Val/Met, studies interestingly show those types have a considerably higher attention span and focus than those of the Val/Val or Met/Met genotype, for example a higher working memory. That’s why I arrive to the conclusion that Val/Val and Met/Met are energy modulation types primarily involved in control and decision making, while Val/Met is an attention modulation genetic type, primarily involved in understanding and assessing information. More research is needed in order to fully clarify the genetic relationship between Explorers and Leaders.

Energy and attention

Some of our mental functions function as incentives, causing us to experience high energy and motivation when using them (-He) while others function as deterrents, causing us to experience low energy (-Le) when using them Other functions increase our attention, causing us to experience high attention during use (-Ha) while others function implicitly, causing us to struggle to remain focused during use as a result of low attention (-La)

Energy modulation

Bottom-up and top-down processing is used to modulate your attention, while proactive and reactive control modulates your energy, functioning as either a deterrent or an incentive for you to make certain decisions.

Proactive and reactive control is used to primarily modulate energy and motivation / striatal dopamine. When an execution type uses proactive control, they gradually increase their energy and feel more motivated, (E-He) causing proactive control to be the type’s primary motivation incentive. Reactive control will gradually decrease their energy and motivation, causing it to function as a motivation deterrent for the type. (P-Le) When a processing type uses reactive control, they gradually increase their energy and feel more motivated. (P-He) Processors gradually decrease their energy and motivation when engaging in proactive control. (E-Le)

Attention modulation

Attention and focus is the highest in explorers and leaders. An explorer/explorative type relies on bottom-up processing to increase their attention (X-Ha), while a Leader/evaluative type relies on top-down processing to increase their attention (V-Ha). Engaging in bottom-up processing will decrease a leaders overall attention span (X-La), while top-down processing will decrease the attention of an explorer. (X-La) We tend to naturally be motivated to engage in activities which increase our attention/consciousness.

Temperaments, Energy & Attention

The executive function for a Leader is proactive control, while top-down processing has an evaluative function. Now, if a Leader uses proactive control along with Top-down processing, a Leader should balance out their dopamine levels in the prefrontal regions and the striatum. When dopamine increases in the striatal regions, a leader should experience a rush of motivation and energy. The combination of high attention top-down processing and high energy proactive control is what makes it accurate to call Leaders Evaluative & Executive types (VEs). Teachers rely on reactive control for attention, while relying on top-down processing for energy. (VP) Fighters rely on proactive control for attention (XE), while relying on bottom-up processing for energy. Explorers rely on bottom-up processing for attention, while relying on reactive control for energy. (XP)

Energy & Attention dichotomies

Some changes should however be made to the technical names, in particular the Cognitive / Affective / Implicit / Explicit dichotomy.
Instead of being given the technical type VAOGE-XCMFP, you should be given the type VAOE+, where + indicates increased attention through VA and increased motivation and energy through OE.

Active states (+)

For a VAOE+ type, VA-Ha is used to increase attention, while XC-La is used to decrease attention (prefrontal dopamine). OE-He is used to increase energy and motivation (striatal dopamine) while MP-Le decreases energy and motivation. When using VA and OE simultaneously, you should gradually increase both your attention and motivation, entering an active state.

Stable states

When a VAOE+ type engages in MP-Le their energy and motivation is inhibited, while their VA-Ha gradually increases their attention and focus, causing potential hyperfocus at the cost of feeling dull and unenthusiastic. The actual state here would be VAMP and closely resembles what we previously referred to as a Cognitive (G) state.

Hyperactive states

When a VAOE+ type engages in XC-La their attention and focus gradually decreases. But if they use OE-He simultaneously, their energy and motivation should still be increasing, causing long-term use to put us in an emotional state where we easily make mistakes and where we struggle to modulate/control our emotional responses, causing this state to be similar to what we previously called Affective states. The VAOE+ would in this state resemble a hyperactive XCOE.

Passive states (-)

When a VAOE+ type engages in XC-La, their attention gradually decreases. When they also use MP-Le their energy and motivation also decreases. Long-term use makes us passive, puts us on auto-pilot. It also makes us submissive, and easily controlled/manipulated. They would in this state resemble a XCMP-.

Conclusions

In future tests, we should measure for active and passive representations of different functions to more easily differentiate between the different types, instead of relying on G and F to do so. We already do to some extent. We should measure for abstract and concrete types using evaluative and explorative traits along with attention span / consciousness concepts, and we should measure for organic and mechanic types using proactive and reactive traits along with energy / motivation concepts. (High energy/Low energy)
GP: Cognitive Processing should be renamed to P-He: High energy Processing

GE: Cognitive Execution should be renamed to E-He: High energy Execution

FP: Affective Processing should be renamed to P-Le: Low energy Processing

FE: Affective Execution should be renamed to E-Le: Low energy Execution

XF: Explorative Affective should be renamed to X-La: Low Attention Exploration

VF: Evaluative Affective should be renamed to V-La: Low Attention Evaluation

VG: Evaluative Cognitive should be renamed to V-He: High Attention Evaluation

XG: Explorative Cognitive should be renamed to X-He: High Attention Exploration

M-He: High Energy Mechanic should be added to balance A-Ha and C-Ha dividers.

O-He: High Energy Organic should be added to balance A-Ha and C-Ha dividers.
M-Le: Low energy Mechanic should be added to balance A-Ha and C-Ha dividers.

O-Le: Low energy Organic should be added to balance A-Ha and C-Ha dividers.
CG: Concrete Cognitive should be renamed to C-He: High Attention Concrete Association

CF: Concrete Affective should be renamed to C-La: Low Attention Concrete Association
AG: Abstract Cognitive should be renamed to A-He: High Attention Abstract Association

AF: Abstract Affective should be renamed to A-La: Low Attention Abstract Association

64 questions in the recommended version. The rest of the questions should be moved to the advanced test. (15-20 minutes)

Example trait sequence:

A-Ha, C-La, M-He, O-Le, V-He, X-Le, P-Ha, E-La

= VAMP+ / Intellectual Teacher

The following traits should be moved to the advanced test:

ME: Mechanic Execution should remain as is.
OE: Organic Execution should remain as is.
OP: Organic Processing should remain as is.

MP: Mechanic Processing should remain as is.
AE: Abstract Execution should be changed to VA: Evaluative Abstract Association

CP: Concrete Processing should be changed to XC: Explorative Concrete Association
CE: Concrete Execution should be changed to VC: Evaluative Concrete Association
AP: Abstract Processing should be changed to XA: Explorative Abstract Association

AO:

AM

CO:

CM

VP

VE

XP

XE

64+64 questions for this version. (40 minutes+)

Example result:
A-Ha, C-La, M-He, O-Le, V-He, X-Le, P-Ha, E-La, AP, AM, VP, XP, OE, CE, AO, AE, CM, CO, ME, VE, XE.

= VAMP+ / Intellectual TeacherHope this post was atleast somewhat easy to understand!

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