Glossary R - Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z #
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- S -
Another term for the Self
is the individual psyche. The psyche includes:
- everything we were;
- everything we are, known and unknown;
- all of our human potential;
- all functional means of dealing with our internal and external world;
- all functional means of dealing with each other; and,
- the keys to understanding our similarities and our uniqueness.
- SENSATION
Just like a comp
licated industrial control system, the human psyche has an information gathering function (or sub-system). If you examine the qualities of the typical information gathering features of a control system, you would find there are two general types. One type is very binary in its response to the system and limited to the immediate. It has a "what's happening now" quality. The limit switch is perhaps the most frequently used example of the binary, on-off sensor used in industrial control systems. Functionally, the limit switch has no functional ability to maintain a history of previous actions, and in human terms, is therefore only aware of the situation here and now.
Another type of sensor is the analog. With the reduction in size of the digital to analog or analog to digital converter, it is becoming more and more popular in control systems design. With this type of sensor, the control system can make decisions based upon more information than mere existence or non-existence of a target object
. It can tell how close or intense the object. With an appropriate logic system, these sensors can 'evaluate' the condition against predetermined standards. Still, the information gathering has an immediate quality; the sensor, binary or analog, cannot act based upon a history or plan, or evaluate on its own.
The sensors upon which our psyche depend have the same qualities. Binary and analog sensors (sensors coupled with judgment sub-systems) allow the psyche to determine if objects are, are not, how much, or the intensity.
The `touch' sense helps the psyche determine the existence or non-existence of the object of touch and the intensity of the touch. Our eyes determine the existence of color and the intensity. All senses are capable of transmitting information in terms of the immediate.
It is important to remember the time quality of the sensory function of the psyche. This understanding will be helpful as you develop your performance engineering knowledge and skills.
It is also important to consider all of the senses in learning to appreciate the scope of the human psyche. Basic psychology textbooks have excellent descriptions of the sensory functions of the human psyche including very detailed accounts of how sensitive they are. They do not mention, for obvious reasons, the relationship of these functions to the time frame.
Since the modern basic psychology text book goes into excellent detail on the function of sensation, I won't dwell upon it now, except as the information applies to developing program plans or for considering what is not covered such as the relationship of the senses to time.
I suggest, if you haven't had the opportunity to review a Psychology 101 text book recently, do so. Review the section on the sensation faculties of the human psyche. The Senses are the keyboard for communicating with the psyche, therefore the understanding of the features and limitations is essential to the program designer.
Jung uses the following definition, which I think you will find useful in developing an understanding of the function:
- "I regard sensation as one of the basic psychological functions.... Sensation is the psychological function that mediates the perception of a physical stimulus. It is, therefore, identical with perception. Sensation must be strictly distinguished from feeling, since the latter is an entirely different process, although it may associate itself with sensation as "feeling-tone." Sensation is related not only to external stimuli but to inner ones, i.e., to changes in internal organic process."
William James said the following of sensation and perception:
- "The words Sensation and Perception do not carry very definitely discriminated meanings in popular speech, and in Psychology also their meanings run into each other. Both of them name processes in which we cognize an objective world; both (under normal conditions) need the stimulation of incoming nerves ere they occur; Perception always involves Sensation as a portion of itself; and Sensation in turn never takes place in adult life without perception also being there. The nearer the object cognized comes to being a simple quality like 'hot,' 'cold,' 'red,' 'noise,' 'pain,' apprehended irrelatively to other things, the more the state of mind approaches pure sensation. The fuller of relations the object is, on the contrary; the more it is something classed, located, measured, compared, assigned to a function, etc., etc.; the more unreservedly do we call the state of mind a perception, and the relatively smaller part in it which sensation plays.
- Sensation, then, so long as we take the analytic point of view, differs from Perception only in the extreme simplicity of its object or content. Its function is that of mere acquaintance with a fact. Perception's function, on the other hand, is knowledge about a fact; and this knowledge admits of numberless degrees of complication. But in both sensation and perception we perceive the fact as an immediately present outward reality (underlines by author), and this makes them different from 'thought' and 'conception,' whose objects do not present in this immediate physical way."
It is important to understand that neither data gathering functions (Sensation or Intuition) operate individually but through the judgmental functions (Feeling and Thinking). While today's psychology text books treat sensation as a separate subject, if we think about our own experiences, the possibility of a sensation of sufficient strength to rise above the threshold of consciousness, without a corresponding feeling or thought is very unlikely, if not impossible. (This is true even if the only reaction is a neutral feeling tone).
William James:
- "...Most books start with sensations, as the simplest mental facts and proceed synthetically, constructing each higher stage from those below it. But this is abandoning the empirical method of investigation. No one ever had a simple sensation by itself. Consciousness, from our natal day, is of a teeming multiplicity of objects and relations, and what we call simple sensations are results of discriminative attention, pushed to a very high degree."
The product of the sensation function are senses.
- SENSATION TYPE
- C. G. Jung:
"No other human type can equal the extraverted (object oriented) sensation type in realism. His sense for objective facts is extraordinarily developed. His life is an accumulation of actual experiences of concrete objects, and the more pronounced his type, the less use does he make of his experience..."
In the "forest for the trees" allegory, these are the experts in bark and leaf patterns. Their world is made up of forgotten experiences assembled in the quest of object details. Because the details of the object are most important, no time is left for the analysis of the connection between the object and others. Time-wise, they are only interested in the here and now and have little to spare for plans, historical evidence, long term schemes, or the big picture.
Perception is an end product of sensation or intuition (the information gathering functions of the psyche) combined with existing knowledge. Since the Sensation Type has developed the Sense function so well through years of practice, the information gathered through the sense will be detail complete. Since they are interested foremost in the here and now, the knowledge they will apply to the sensory signal to form the perception will be, depending upon the adult development of the individual, skewed toward details and a narrow time frame. The image that comes to consciousness is correspondingly modified according to this detailed, narrow time perspective. The logical and value judgments through the thinking and feeling function will also reflect this one-sidedness. Usually, one of the two rational functions is habitually relied upon by the sensor over the other, with the expected behavioral results.
The judgment activities of the sensation type, are likewise colored by the detail and rapidly influenced knowledge and perceptions. More important would be the noticeable lack of patience for the judgment processes, or those who would dare to carefully use them.
The sensation type seldom has difficulty in reaching or making a decision. They can and will do so with the speed unmatched by any of the other types. We must remember, contained within that benefit may be the loss of the quality of the decision due to the speed with which it was reached.
The action resulting from the speedy decision could also be defined as impulsiveness.
You will see, especially after you've read and began to apply some of these concepts, that there are positive and negative sides to every type. The distinction will be less noticeable with the adult development of the individual. The more developed they are, the more they have developed their weaker functions and the more those functions are brought into play in their problem solving and life living. As a trainer, preparing men and women to handle the unexpected, we are obliged to present challenges that develop the weaker and to motivate the trainee to grow in that area. We should also prepare team development challenges encouraging the recognition and appreciation of the strengths individual members bring to the problem.
The Sensation type would be developed through exercises which develop:
1. Patience
2. Logical judgment
3. Value judgment
4. Interpersonal effectiveness
5. Social Sensitivity (Teamwork)
Opposite type: Intuitor
Have you ever wandered into a crowd of strangers and almost immediately focused upon one individual who creates within you an immediate, unmistakably negative response like anger, hatred, jealousy, etc? If you have, you have faced your shadow! You have succeeded in projecting the negative side of your self, that side that you have spent years ignoring and pretending didn't exist, upon that innocent person.
Shadow is the term that applies to the personification of the negative, undeveloped side of a person which may be projected upon another person, usually (but not necessarily) of the same sex. This effect results in extraordinary negative reactions in the person affected. This could be particularly devastating to the trainer/trainee or manager/employee relationship.
The ability to apply reference and/or process information (knowledge) along with your personal attributes to achieving a peformance goal.
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- THINKING
Thinking, the second judgmental function we shall consider, is the function that links concepts using the rules of logic. It is our psyche's cold calculating mode with which technology is most comfortable. It comprises the connecting ability of numbers, meaning, formula and terms, and is our function of planning.
Jung said of thinking:
- "This I regard as one of the four basic psychological functions. Thinking is the psychological function which, following its own laws, brings the contents of ideation into conceptual connection with one another. It is an apperceptive activity, and as such may be divided into active and passive thinking. Active thinking is an act of will, passive thinking is a mere occurrence. In the former case, I submit the contents of ideation to a voluntary act of judgment; in the latter, conceptual connections establish themselves of their own accord, and judgments are formed that may even contradict my intention. I may afterwards recognize their directedness through an act of active apperception. Active thinking, accordingly, would correspond to my concept of directed thinking...Passive thinking...today I would call it intuitive thinking.
- The term "thinking" should, in my view, be confined to the linking up of ideas by means of a concept, in other words, to an act of judgment, no matter whether this act is intentional or not..."
- "Thought is the specific content or material of the thinking function."
While we generally define any process that seems to go on in our head as thinking, it would be useful for the purposes of this book to confine the term to those processes we actively employ to arrive at a decision, define purpose, plan or draw a conclusion through the rules of logic.
The product of the thinking function are `thoughts.'
- THINKING TYPE
- C. G. Jung:
"It is a fact of experience that the basic psychological functions seldom or never all have the same strength or degree of development in the same individual. As a rule, one or the other function predominates, in both strength and development. When thinking holds prior place among the psychological functions, i.e., when the life of an individual is mainly governed by reflective thinking so that every important action proceeds, or is intended to proceed, from intellectually considered motives, we may fairly call this a thinking type..."
"...This type of man elevates objective reality, or an objectively oriented intellectual formula, into the ruling principle not only for himself but for his whole environment. By this formula, good and evil are measured, and beauty and ugliness determined. Everything that agrees with this formula is right, everything that contradicts it is wrong, and everything that passes by it indifferently is merely incidental. Because this formula seems to embody the entire meaning of life, it is made into a universal law which must be put into effect everywhere, all the time, both individually and collectively. Just as the extraverted thinking type subordinates himself to the formula, so, for their own good, everybody around him must obey it too, for whoever refuses to obey it is wrong- he is resisting the universal law, and is therefore unreasonable, immoral, and without conscience. His moral code forbids him to tolerate exceptions; his ideal must under all circumstances be realized, for in his eyes it is the purest conceivable formulation of objective reality, and therefore must also be a universally valid truth, quite indispensable for the salvation of mankind. This is not from any great love for his neighbour, but from the highest standpoint of justice and truth. Anything in his own nature that appears to invalidate this formula is mere imperfection, an accidental failure, something to be eliminated on the next occasion, or, in the event of further failure, clearly pathological..."
Jung points out that "oughts" and "musts" are always parts of their plans. The thinker may be guilty of attempting to force him/herself and others into one mold. Of course if everyone would or could agree to that, the construction of plans and rules would be dramatically simplified for the thinker since the number of human variables he/she would have to consider would be reduced considerably. I have also observed thinkers, caught in a behavior not observably logical, who go to great lengths to convince the observer of the true but hidden logic behind their action.
The Thinker could be developed using exercises in:
1. Interpersonal Effectiveness
2. Value Judgment
3. Speculation
4. Teamwork
Opposite Type: Feeling
The term used to describe the minimum level or strength of an object's becoming conscious through the sensory functions. For instance, the minimum light or color, sound, touch or taste needed to make us aware of the object, or to establish a relationship to the ego.
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- UNCONSCIOUS
C. C. Jung:
- "...In my view the unconscious is a psychological borderline concept, which covers all psychic contents or processes that are not conscious, i.e., not related to the ego in any perceptible way. My justification for speaking of the existence of unconscious processes at all is derived simply and solely from experience, and in particular from psychopathological experience, where we have undoubted proof...the ego knows nothing of the existence of numerous psychic complexes, and the next moment a simple hypnotic procedure is sufficient to bring the lost contents back to memory."
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- V -
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- W -
- WORTHY PERFORMANCE (after Thomas F. Gilbert, Ph.D.) When the value of the accomplishment exceeds the costly behavior, you have worthy performance.
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- Y -
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- Z -
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Copyright © 1997-1999 by Wesley W. Stillwagon, Sr. All rights reserved..
All trademarks or product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.EMail:Wes Stillwagon
Revised: 30 Jul 2012 07:27:13 -0400 .
Quotes from the Collected Works of C. G. Jung used with written permission of the Publisher.
