Why are so many Pi-leads old?

[fayest42]

Why are so many of the Pi-leads in the database older people? I know Pi-leads have senex energy, and I think I've seen Auburn propose somewhere that Pi development might go up as we age whereas Pe development might tend to happen in younger years, but since type (as opposed to development) is supposed to be unchanging through your lifetime, it shouldn't be the case that there are any more older people among the Pi-leads than in any other group. So what's up with that? I haven't done any statistics stuff to determine to what extent this trend really exists in the database, but it seems pretty clear just from a glance. These are the possible explanations that have occurred to me so far:

• Perhaps some people actually do switch the order of their functions as they age.
• Perhaps some people are mistyped because their age suggests a youthful (Pe) or older (Pi) energy that isn't their true baseline.
• Perhaps Pi-leads tend to enter the public sphere at older ages for some reason.

Any other ideas? What do you all think?

[bella]

People don't switch functions as they age, although the development levels may change.  The other options you brought up are possible, however, I am not seeing what you are describing to be the case in the first place.  I don't know about the full database but I looked in the codifier videos just now and there are young people in all four Pi lead groups, and certainly people in middle age.   In the NiTe, SiTe, and NiFe I'm seeing a normal distribution of age.  Maybe in the SiFe samples specifically there does seem to be a higher age average but even there not everyone is old.

[fayest42]

@bella, I think you'd have to look in the database to see what I'm talking about

[Connie]

I am a Pi lead who is 72 and I just discovered CT last year.  I have always been interested in how people tick but it wasn’t until I retired from work that I began surfing the internet and came across vultology.  Also I am a somewhat private person who is uncomfortable being in the public eye and I prefer being in my own head, so not sure if I am in the database for members to view.  (Since I would like to add to the CT knowledge of understanding I give consent to have my video open to viewing.). My mother used to refer to me as an “old lady” even as a child and I know that I have always wanted the big picture to be able to understand a subject so I think that I must have always been an Si (therefore a Pi) lead. Also, of interest Auburn says that I am an NeFi withi an Si lead (I-II) and as A child I did a lot of fantasizing.  Hope this helps and not confuses the issue of why so few of us (Pi leads) in the database.  Perhaps the others can add their thoughts.

[Connie]

Interesting side question:  why are there only four of us SiTe in here?

[EpicEntity]

@connie
Someone can probably say this better, but it seems to me there's a lot of conductors (Je & Pi leads) that know about CT yet still mostly hang out with or run more established communities. As if it's more about consensus than accuracy for conductors. They may even be hoping for CT to get to a certain level of consensus so that they can justify using it on a daily. I could be wrong.
 

[Connie]

Probably, when I worked I did so in clerical positions which suited my SiTe cognitive orientation.  Although now I am using my Si/Ne to explore vultology and get to know myself better.  Although for me CT just made more sense than MBTI and Socionics as both of their typing of me seemed just a bit off.  And Auburns typing of me resonated (Fi). So perhaps with age we Pi s will more readily come to CT?.

[Robert Mitchell]

I’d put it down to a combination of public limelight avoidance and emotional development.
Self promotion, attention seeking and people shepherding are just not their thing.
NiFe types(who do become public figures later in life) need to figure out the world before they sacrifice themselves to it for their calling. It can take a lot of refinement to form a coherent vision, since Fe/Ti seeks perfection of social harmony.
Then there is the inherent shortage of Ni doms in the first place, and locally the common under representation of Sensors in online communities.  (Si isn’t one for seeking out novelty)

[Alice]

@connieabrams
It seems that mostly revisers are interested in this site - at least those are the people who usually post in the forum. It's interesting, your fully polarized development might have something to do with it. You may have more patience and interest in a theory that is still growing and discovering itself than other conductors, who might tend to be more interested in things that are more "complete". If Je finds uses for things and Pi finds contexts for things, a still-growing and fairly fringe theory like CT might seem uninteresting to a conductor-heavy person. For you though, having both Ne and Fi active in your surface-level psyche, a preference for Pe exploration and Ji definitional investigation might be motivators for you to remain interested in discussion about CT!

[Robert Mitchell]

That being said, the lovely Vera blue appears to be a Pi lead if my novice CT interpretation is correct. What do people you think? (Haven’t ruled out Pe)

[Alice]

^ @robert-mitchell, I think you may have actually found a heavy Ji user with a lot of E development! Not sure if she is a Ji lead, but my first guess after my admittedly very limited exposure to her would be either FiPe ll-l, or PeFi ll--, maybe lll-. She has a very rigid posture, and she seems to always return to an upright spinal position, implying high Ji priority. She has more conversational energy than I'd expect a Ji lead to have, but this may come from a conscious Je function, most likely Te. This may be editing though! She also disengages her eyes a lot, which is another Ji signal. She contains a lot of her motion into that tight spinal baseline, another Ji cue, and she has a lot of fludity of motion, a P cue, but there is no real viscosity to imply Pi. I hope this helped!

[Robert Mitchell]

Thank you, She has a bit of mixed signals. So its hard to know if she’s a J lead with two strong perception functions (FeNi III-) or P lead with stage training (posture adjustment) like a SeTi I-II or NiFe II-I. I will go have a look at the database and her early videos.

[Robert Mitchell]

@alice apologies, I glanced over your J typing. Its wasn’t the focus of analysis, my bad. Other videos show she is Fe strong, and is appears to be a P lead, but oscillates between Pe and Pi motion/energy.  So I am still confused to her type. My instinct is SeTi I-II adaptive. Although  a combo of Se-FeNi would be super high energy you would think. I suppose these are the kind of challenges the system needs at this stage.
Looking at Ni & Se P leads with dual usage they do have a similar oscillating energy and semi lowered eyelid.
Seems like a thread discussing Pi—Pe/Pe—Pi (oscillators) typing is in order if one hasn’t been started. They seem to be a fairly rare type that could cause issues.
Also I just noticed Vera blue (Celia Pavey) has some asymptomatic mouth motions which I don’t think is discussed as a possibility for Fe users, and therefore could lead to potential miss identification with Fi types. (I’m a highly asymmetrical Fe users myself so i could provide a video. It would be a useful comparison with asymptomatic Fi mouth motions.)
Anyway I will look through the forum and see if there is anything on these topics.
Thanks again for the feedback!

[fayest42]

@robert-mitchell I'm still very much a beginner at reading people's vultology, but one thing I noticed about Vera Blue is that she does a lot of what I thought at first were diagonal eye drifts, but then when I looked at the signal in the codifer I realized that with diagonal eye drifts both the eyes and the head are supposed to drift. With Vera it generally looks like her eyes are drifting, but not her head. So perhaps that is Ji disengaging eyes rather than Pi diagonal eye drifts.

[Robert Mitchell]

@fayest42 Well I’m back to NiFe II-I. Your obviously are picking up the introvert energy (Hence thoughts on Ji) but this video (from earlier in her career)shows off her obvious Fe much better while showing she is P lead. (And she talks through her zone outs so its not Ti, but Ni visualisation) I have come to the conclusion that Pi lead double extroverts may be problematic for the codifier algo. (But easy to account for through IvsE and NvsS) Basically her Se lowers her Ni, pushing up her Fe,(making her look more J lead) while also heightening her emotions (Fe/Se) and making her withdraw in a Ji lead way. Yet once your realise she is a P lead and uses the Combo of Ni, Fe and Se then the only way to explain her introversion and withdrawal is as a NiFe II-I. The only other option is SeTi I-II and that would be hyper Pe lead double extravert!

[Animal]

Maybe they characteristically don't like sitting in front of a camera or an audience when they're young and don't have enough of a knowledge base to make a statement - whereas Pe leads will just get up and improvise regardless?
Just a suggestion. I have no idea, but I wonder if their psychology is wired differently, to make them consider more carefully whether they want to make themselves a public figure.
No clue though. I have no data to back this up. Just musings.

[Connie]

You nailed it Animal.  Camera?  Ugh .  I felt very uncomfortable doing my video.

[Robert Mitchell]

Oh Oh! I know he’s previously been calculated as TeNi but if my calculations are correct the POTUS is NiFe.
Zyg smile, warm swelling, Ni zone outs, rambling worldview, soft voice, sinking energy, disengagement, P lead body motion.

[fayest42]

@animal, I could definitely imagine that being a factor. The fact that the database is mostly made up of celebrities skews things, I'm sure. And indeed, of the few young Pi-leads in the database, they do mostly seem to be non-celebrities.
Given that the qualia of Pe and Pi are age-related though, it seems like there must be a correlation between Pe vultology and being young and Pi vultology and being old. Otherwise how did we ever come to associate Pe with puer energy and Pi with senex energy?

[Connie]

Interesting thought.  I have mentioned in another forum post that my mother used to call me an old woman when I was a child .  So maybe I have always been Pi lead?

[fayest42]

@connieabrams I certainly wouldn't doubt that there are young people who are Pi-leads. There are a few young Pi-leads in the database too. I've really just been thinking out loud in this thread. But I do suspect that there might be an increase in Pi vultology (on average, not in every individual) as people age. Perhaps it's possible that that could make some people who didn't appear to be Pi-leads in their youth to look like Pi-leads when they're older. But I really don't know ??‍♀️. That's why I was curious to hear other people's thoughts on it.

[Ninth]

@robert-mitchell Hm...I don't think I'm seeing the P-lead body motion. Also: 07:45.
But, why did you bring that up? (I didn't read all about page 1, so I might have missed something)

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What if we make a collection of old people and type them?
Possibly, people that we could also type from their youth.
I mean, we may gather here and share and compare our ideas…
Why not going to the next step, then, now that we're at it?
(If that's already been suggested, feel free to ignore me)

[fayest42]

@nintheme, I'm not sure if typing a bunch of old people would solve the mystery, really. I imagine some of them would be Pi-leads and some of them wouldn't be, but that wouldn't tell us why the Pi-leads in the database are disproportionately older people. It might be helpful to see if we can find videos of the older Pi-leads in the database from when they were young to check and see if they still had Pi-lead vultology. It might be challenging though because I think many of them were not in the public eye when they were young.

[Ninth]

@fayest42
Typing a bunch of old people will not solve the mystery, but I don't even know if there is any: maybe the asymmetry in the database is due to the sampling itself.
Anyways. I thought that the implication here was that people would "switch" (vultologically) to Pi-leads as they reach the old age? That's where my suggestion (comparing youth to old age) came from.
I noticed (irl) that some Pe, when their mood changes to a hyper-relaxed one or they enter the "energy saving mode", display more Pi signals than usual (not only the energetics). I'm not even sure that it would count as a change in development because I once read that there's a different quality to "modulation" from actual development.
To me, it makes sense that aging could "add" more Pi energy. But changing the leading function? That would be a whole different matter... Were it to be true, then there would be actually something to solve.

[fayest42]

@nintheme, The reason I think there is a mystery is because if people are supposed to stay the same type throughout their lives, then if you typed a random sample of people, the distribution of ages within each type should roughly match the distribution of ages among the general population. So the mystery to solve is: Why is the distribution of age among Pi-leads in the database uneven? One possible explanation is just because the database is not a random sample, so that's why one of the possible explanations I mentioned in the OP was that there is some feature of the Pi-leads' psychology that makes them avoid the public eye when they're young, but then enter it when they're older.
Another possibility is that people in general tend to have more Pe vultology when young and more Pi vultology as they get older. Their type doesn't actually change, but their age needs to be taken into consideration when typing them as a "baseline." This is actually a possibility that was suggested by Auburn once (here, third post from the bottom: https://cognitivetype.com/forums/topic/vultology-quiz-4-1-sample/page/3/#post-17080). Of course, given that type is defined vultologically here, the difference between this and saying that those people's types have actually changed might just be a choice in definitions. But I suppose we'd want to look at their psychology to see which perspective would make more sense.
I think your suggestion to compare youth to old age would indeed be helpful. I was just saying that I don't think typing a bunch of old people and stopping there would be helpful. But if we could compare videos of old people to videos of the same people when they were young, I think that would be very helpful.

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