Brain Types

Brain Types

Brain Typing is a system developed by Jonathan P. Niednagel that applies elements from neuroscience, physiology, and psychology to estimate athletic ability. It is based on the psychological typology of Carl Jung and the later work of Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. Currently, no controlled experiments have been done to assess the effectiveness of Brain Typing (though there are anecdotal reports of both successes and failures, along with a pilot study on blood samples conducted in conjunction with Divyen H. Patel of Genome Explorations), and as a result the American Psychological Association considers Brain Typing a pseudoscience.

What separates Brain Typing from Jungian typology (and its offshoots such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Socionics) is its emphasis on motor skills. Each of the sixteen Brain Types is said to specialize in certain regions of the brain responsible for varying degrees of mental and motor skills. Niednagel believes the types are inherited, possessing a genetic basis. The Brain Types web site and books also explain how it differs from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in that it believes the ENTP/FCIR type is by far the most common of the sixteen types, whereas some other types presumed as common in Myers-Briggs, such as the ISTJ/BEIL, are actually only about 3% of the populace according to their estimates.