Observations on Debates and Personality Types

ProgressiveU is a place of passionate debates, no doubt. I'm generally attracted to topics of more an abstract nature and have recently been most intrigued by the debates that invariably crop up around religion. One thing I've noticed, though, is that the people that are actively participating in the debates are nearly always very firmly on one side of the fence or the other. A few of the prominent writers have also mentioned that they do a lot of their debating with the people of the opposite spectrum not for the other vocal person, but for the less vocal readers, who are supposedly "on the fence" about it.

Now, while some topics truly have people on the fence due to things like, say, lack of knowledge of scientific evidence (the global warming issue, for example), other topics that, by nature, don't have scientific basis (primarily because they're issues of morals and ideals, as opposed to facts and figures) I've noticed that the various people who are one side or the other tend to share similar personalities with those on the same side, and are quite opposite to those on the other side.

Well, I was catching up on my personal blog's buddies and such and one of the topics of someone's blog was personality tests (including the well-known Myers-Briggs test), and it got me thinking.

Now, I can't say for sure that this is the case, but it seems to me that it would explain a lot about the people that engage in some of the various debates on the site. For example, I'm an INFJ, and it is evidenced by my stances on several different issues. However, I know of a couple people here who I'd venture to guess are ESTJ and ISTP, and the emphasized characteristics on this site are the middle two, which describe how a person perceives the information they get from the world around them.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say on those two dichotomies:

Sensing and intuition are the information-gathering (perceiving) functions. They describe how new information is understood and interpreted. Individuals who prefer sensing are more likely to trust information that is in the present, tangible and concrete: that is, information that can be understood by the five senses. They tend to distrust hunches that seem to come out of nowhere. They prefer to look for details and facts. For them, the meaning is in the data. On the other hand, those who prefer intuition tend to trust information that is more abstract or theoretical, that can be associated with other information (either remembered or discovered by seeking a wider context or pattern). They may be more interested in future possibilities. They tend to trust those flashes of insight that seem to bubble up from the unconscious mind. The meaning is in how the data relates to the pattern or theory.

Thinking and feeling are the decision-making (judging) functions. The thinking and feeling functions are both used to make rational decisions, based on the data received from their information-gathering functions (sensing or intuition). Those who prefer thinking tend to decide things from a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what seems reasonable, logical, causal, consistent and matching a given set of rules. Those who prefer feeling tend to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation, looking at it 'from the inside' and weighing the situation to achieve, on balance, the greatest harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the people involved.

It always seemed to me that there was a fundamental difference between the people in the various debates, and because of these fundamental differences, the debates would never truly end. I couldn't pinpoint it, though, until I saw the Myers-Briggs test again. I'd venture to guess that the fence-sitters on the abstract debates are such because they share, in part, a similar personality trait (perhaps an *SF* or *NT* or even a swinger, that sits squarely in the middle of one of the sets), but not a close enough match to share the same views already.

What's this mean for the people on the site? I don't know, to be honest, except that we'll probably never agree with the people that are our opposites. Of course, those who are, for one reason or another, already aware of that are also the ones who don't talk to the people with whom they are debating, but instead, to the passive readers.

Anywho, this was pretty much just a thought I wanted to share and I feel like I'm rambling, so I'm going to stop now.