Innate vs Learned Behaviour

[koan]

You've probably already had this conversation but I'm not going to look.

I lean towards favouring learned behaviour, including most disease. I don't rule out innate disposition towards certain things and there are definitely survival instincts that are innate reactions, but I'm wondering where personality types fit in. I'd guess it's all learned, either via imitation or observation and a choice of desired result.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Is this just a thread for the general topic or specifically types?

While personality is definitely affected by popular culture and memes, social traditions and values, the basis for psychological types must be something inborn, or there would be too many variations to be of any cognitive significance.

Innate typology tells something about the human design(which is the goal of cognitive science and psychology), whereas learned behavior typology only tells something about the environment.

 

[koan]

It's a thread for meanderings on all variations of the subject. I'd not paid attention to typing systems in the past because they seemed to have no cognitive significance. Too many variables in any one person's formation.

I am starting to think there is something in MBTI typing but not convinced it's innate.

 

[Words]

Innate. Completely.

Because

Too many variables in any one person's formation.

and yet there is enough cognitive differences/similarities to cleanly box into 8 functions and 16 types. Assuming that functions have some validity, of course. In line with ESC's argument, if it were learned, then there would be too many differences and it would be too arbitrary. the idea of "type" wouldn't be practical.

Other reasons I have is personal data that i don't how to formalize, and too lazy to attempt.

 

[koan]

My dad is, likely, an INTP. My mother is an ESTJ. I figure I learned all of my behaviour by seeing how my dad is a survivor and my mother an emotional basketcase.

I also share some traits with Virgos and also share some traits with Buffy The Vampire Slayer though I'm more likely to got the way of Willow the Dyke Queen of Witches.

Twins in the womb generally have one dominating the other before they exit the womb. That's got to be a learned experience as well. They end up different despite the same DNA.

 

[Words]

My dad is, likely, an INTP. My mother is an ESTJ. I figure I learned all of my behaviour by seeing how my dad is a survivor and my mother an emotional basketcase.

Or...from an innate perspective, you could be some other type that adopted Ti values. It is frequent with INFJs(NiTi). The determining factor from this line of thinking is usually Ni or Ne. INTPs necessarily have Ne whereas INFJs necessarily don't and vice versa.

My dad is INTJ and mom is ISFP. I know many other children, including INTPs, who are different from their parents. but that's just personal data.

I also share some traits with Virgos and also share some traits with Buffy The Vampire Slayer though I'm more likely to got the way of Willow the Dyke Queen of Witches.

Ok....

type, i think, is only one aspect of personality. the natural aspect. there are many learned aspects, and maybe they are equally or more relevant than type.

Twins in the womb generally have one dominating the other before they exit the womb. That's got to be a learned experience as well. They end up different despite the same DNA.

The relationship between DNA and environment is loose, but technically twins don't necessarily have the same DNA.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/342342/title/Study_shows_where_identical_twins_part_ways

 

[SpaceYeti]

Children are born with pattern recognition already a part of their functioning. They seek out faces, specifically. Straight from the womb, that's not exactly something you could have learned. While I can't claim that I think environment has nothing to do with a person's general personality, I tend to think that people are born not as blank slates, but as specific kinds of slates, each with a different method of getting written upon. I would liken it to computers (as is convenient). You're running the OS you're running. That's the core, the part that you're "born" with. That and the hardware features. What you add to that later never significantly changes those base parts, it merely adds to them.

 

[Cognisant]

Children are born with pattern recognition already a part of their functioning. They seek out faces, specifically. Straight from the womb, that's not exactly something you could have learned.

But that's just not how a neural net works

I'm guessing when in the FOV of an infant people twnd to be more expressive and move their heads around more because they want the baby to look at them, they want it to see them, to remember them and to recognize them when it sees them again, which they achieve by making their heads, faces and eyes the most dynamic/interesting thing in the infant's FOV, and from then on this impression is supported by confirmation bias.

But hey if you can explain how billions of neurons organize themselves into a highly specific data crunching recognition system geared specifically for the vaguely defined input signature of "human facial features" based upon genes which they all have in common then by all means please blow my mind.

 

[SpaceYeti]

But that's just not how a neural net works

I'm guessing when in the FOV of an infant people twnd to be more expressive and move their heads around more because they want the baby to look at them, they want it to see them, to remember them and to recognize them when it sees them again, which they achieve by making their heads, faces and eyes the most dynamic/interesting thing in the infant's FOV, and from then on this impression is supported by confirmation bias.

But hey if you can explain how billions of neurons organize themselves into a highly specific data crunching recognition system geared specifically for the vaguely defined input signature of "human facial features" based upon genes which they all have in common then by all means please blow my mind.

How do you figure that's not how neural networks work? Studies have shown that newborn eyes seek out patterns resembling those of faces. A simple Google search should be enough to show you. The explanation is almost unbearably simple, too; Evolution. The more ready a child is for being part of human society at birth, the more likely that child will survive in it. Of course human children are born ready to be human. Their neurons need to develop in very specific ways in order to function as one. It's not like their brain is initially a purposeless mass of neurons. It has to, at the very least, provide life support functions. Is it not obvious to anyone, from any culture, what crying looks like, or what laughter looks like?

Of course children are born with very basic social characteristics, as we're a social species. It seems almost silly to presume all of those social impulses are learned. I mean, sure, specifics are learned, hence culture, but how could basically every human be so strikingly similar without at least some portion of it being innate? Notice how alien people seem when they have some sort of abnormality like the inability to feel fear, or something. Why do children tend to identify more with same-sex parents even without prompting? Etc...

Here's a good one; Sexuality. Are people naturally attracted to people of a specific gender or not? Is gender recognition something we learn, and then rely on that to determine which gender we want to have sex with, or is it something someone is just naturally attracted to? I like how women look. Why, then, do many people seem to have no control over which sex they're attracted to?

If something as distinguishing as sexuality is innate (ignoring specific fetishes or other aspects which are probably learned, but the mere natural distinguishing of, and taste for, specifically sexual differences), then why would we presume there are no other natural preferences or abilities to distinguish one thing from others? Why does sex sell? Why sex at all if there's no natural sexuality?

I tend to think of society as both an instructor of young minds as well as the result of them. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.

 

[addictedartist]

Original behaviour is contrived because learning is remembering the significance of meaning, understanding a problem is more valueable than to solve a problem; as long as a problem is solvable, it will be solved but to understand an unsolvable problem is to avoid making the mistake of endorsing the problem, just as an absolute solution is unavoidably going to assimilate any and all incongruencies of an equation regardless of input or attention paid.

 

[redbaron]

But hey if you can explain how billions of neurons organize themselves into a highly specific data crunching recognition system geared specifically for the vaguely defined input signature of "human facial features" based upon genes which they all have in common then by all means please blow my mind.

Even things that only loosely resemble facial features will draw more attention from babies than something without. I'd say that's pretty highly specific, that they respond only to a representation that is in likeness of a face - two eyes, nose and mouth below. But they don't respond to the same thing when they're in a random order.

There was an experiment done in the late 90s where babies were shown cartoon pictures of a face, and cartoon pictures of a nose/eyes/mouth in a random order that didn't resemble a face. They all paid more attention and gave a stronger response to the picture of the face.

Crying, laughter, smiling, facial expressions and to an extent body language are all universal. Tribes and cultures far isolated from the rest of the world still associate smiling and laughter with positive.

It's quite simple really. The same as we have evolved in such a way that we have universally recognizable non-verbal ways of communicating, we have evolved to be able to recognize members of the same species.

The same as cats recognize other cats - not learned.
Humans recognize humans - not learned.