What is Cognitive Typology? Is it a personality theory, is it related to MBTI, Carl Jung, or is it something else? How is this different from other systems? If you’re completely new, you’ve come to the right place.

Cognitive Typology (CT) is first and foremost a research project, with an evolving model attached to it. It gathers body-mannerism data and forms testable hypotheses from that data about the connection between mind and bodily expressions.

Normally, personality models are constructed as theory-first (a priori), then aim to fit data to the theory, but CT takes the opposite approach. The principles in place are themselves being questioned in falsifiable ways. Nothing is added to the model which can’t also be refuted later. The model’s hypotheses are always accepted with varying degrees of certainty, rather than in absolute terms.

The CT project arose from the investigation of whether Jungian psychological types have a physically measurable reality to them in facial expressions and bodily expressions; what we call vultology. No hypothesis put forth by Jung is taken for granted, and each element of his ideas is questioned independently.

From there, a model is constructed from the ground up based on what concepts can be shown to have a physically corresponding reality to them. Since not all of Jung’s concepts are equally translated over into physical forms, Cognitive Typology differs from Jung’s original ideas in specific ways.

Thirdly, as a research project, CT is aiming to establish a new field of study. Jungian typology has hitherto lacked a scientific investigation, and no scientific papers are being published on this topic. CT has taken it upon itself to pave open this domain.

Rather than being the product of a sole theorist, CT is designed to be built collaboratively through shared tools of experimentation, such as the codifier. A formal journal has been started, aiming to publish a new issue every year, with the findings of scholars and individuals involved in this field of study. The eventual aim is for these studies to be replicated by other universities and labs across the world, to help integrate Cognitive Typology into the scientific community.

Personality is the sum collection of all life experiences that have contributed to us being a one of a kind individual. Personality is broad and includes our persona, our character, our emotional defenses, our likes, wants and fears, our cognition, and our memories. Thus, by definition, personality is not completely innate; personality develops. CT is not a personality model, as it does not aim to approximate all aspects of personality, it specifically targets cognition - our mode of processing information. 

In CT, two people can have the same cognition, while having very different personalities due to different ideas and perspectives they inherited from upbringing. Therefore, a CT typing may not match "personalities" together, but it should match processing styles together.

For those who are coming to CT from introspective self-reporting models like the MBTI, it’s important to note that CT is not one such model. Type classification in CT is determined by external criteria, by how a person fits or doesn't fit the bodily expressions of others. This allows for classification to be impartial and based on evident facts, rather than subjective self-perception, which has been shown to be unreliable. Given our placement at the center of ourselves, we are not the most equipped to give an objective account of who we are. To get a better handle of why self-assessments are notoriously faulty at giving us genuine insights into personhood, the following article provides a summary of the problem and CT's solution.

Many people may come to CT hoping to find an objective way to pin down their MBTI or Socionics type, when introspection has failed to offer them a consistent answer. While this is understandable, it's important to remember that CT is a model existing alongside the MBTI and Socionics, but it is not identical to them. A typing in CT will not necessarily verify or falsify your typing in other models. Jungian typology is not a fully unified discipline, and whether two people are talking about the same terms or not, when describing types, is something that has to be understood case by case. For more information on the similarities or differences between CT and other Jungian systems, see the article below.