KevinLoveFan
Mom & Thundaliers fan in SW MO
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2018
- Messages
- 3,361
- Reaction score
- 5,986
- Points
- 113
I've mentioned this system/"theory" a few times over the years here on RCF, especially in relation to basketball. Danny Ainge has been a big supporter of Niednagel and Brain Types through the years, and the system got its biggest media attention in the 1990s and 2000s when Ainge was using it for the Suns and Celtics, respectively. Niednagel's health began to decline in the 2010s, and it seems interest in the system has waned. (Niednagel once thought it would take the world by storm.)
For those unfamiliar, Jon Niednagel is a guy who has coached, and evaluated talent, in various sports for a number of decades. In the late 20th century, he observed that people who moved similarly, or who had similar motor skills, also seemed to often have similar mental skills, and sometimes similar "personalities." He tied this into the 16 types "personality" system popularized by Myers-Briggs. Rather than administer personality tests to athletes, however, Niednagel said he could type them simply by watching them move, since he'd observed that people who move similarly tended to have these same personalities or types anyway. And rather than give a subjective personality test, where someone can identify as the wrong type, he found it more objective to simply type them by movement.
He eventually decided that calling it "personality" types was misleading and too subjective, so he called it "Brain Types," and tried connect it to the realm of neuroscience. (There's another researcher, Dario Nardi, who also believes the 16 types in Myers-Briggs have a neuroscientific basis, but he hasn't observed similarity in movement among people of the same type, and has no connection to Niednagel.)
I actually got big into this system for a number of years, and attempted to learn every nuance about it. I wasn't as good as Niednagel said he was at observing people, however, so I couldn't apply his methodology as well -- I could type people who seemed obvious or stereotypical for their respective types, but subtler individuals threw me for a loop.
Besides that, a lot of people think he and Ainge are nutty anyway, so people found my interest in it bizarre. Niednagel spent a long time making lots of money observing athletes for a number of pro sports teams, though, so I wasn't the only one who bought into it, at least to an extent. He also tried to extend it into other fields beyond sports, but with less media attention in those realms.
One of the biggest questions about the system, IMO, and a claim that he started to state in the 2010s, is that "ENTP" is the most common of the 16 types, comprising as much as 50% or more of the population. Since Niednagel doesn't like how subjective the term "personality" is, and since ENTPs allegedly come in a variety of personalities anyway (hence why so many would supposedly type themselves wrong on a Myers-Briggs test), it's interesting that one type would seemingly be the most common. But that also makes his system less meaningful if true. Many people already think that categorizing all human beings into just 16 types is too limiting already, but if one type is way more common than every other type out there, that gives the system even less insight into describing people's differing brain behaviors.
So finally, in the last couple of years or so, I've grown a bit disenchanted with Brain Types in explaining as much about human behavior as I once thought it might. I still find myself occasionally trying to type people based on its methodology, but I'm looking at people more as individuals now, and especially considering more crucial and important factors in a person's life, like their worldview, religion, politics, etc., upon which type seems to have minimal influence. Few people identify themselves primarily by their Myers-Briggs or "Brain Type." They usually identify themselves by a faith, a political view, an ideology, a race, a gender, etc. I don't see many people out there marching or dying for their Myers-Briggs, Brain, Enneagram etc. type, that's for sure.
For those unfamiliar, Jon Niednagel is a guy who has coached, and evaluated talent, in various sports for a number of decades. In the late 20th century, he observed that people who moved similarly, or who had similar motor skills, also seemed to often have similar mental skills, and sometimes similar "personalities." He tied this into the 16 types "personality" system popularized by Myers-Briggs. Rather than administer personality tests to athletes, however, Niednagel said he could type them simply by watching them move, since he'd observed that people who move similarly tended to have these same personalities or types anyway. And rather than give a subjective personality test, where someone can identify as the wrong type, he found it more objective to simply type them by movement.
He eventually decided that calling it "personality" types was misleading and too subjective, so he called it "Brain Types," and tried connect it to the realm of neuroscience. (There's another researcher, Dario Nardi, who also believes the 16 types in Myers-Briggs have a neuroscientific basis, but he hasn't observed similarity in movement among people of the same type, and has no connection to Niednagel.)
I actually got big into this system for a number of years, and attempted to learn every nuance about it. I wasn't as good as Niednagel said he was at observing people, however, so I couldn't apply his methodology as well -- I could type people who seemed obvious or stereotypical for their respective types, but subtler individuals threw me for a loop.
Besides that, a lot of people think he and Ainge are nutty anyway, so people found my interest in it bizarre. Niednagel spent a long time making lots of money observing athletes for a number of pro sports teams, though, so I wasn't the only one who bought into it, at least to an extent. He also tried to extend it into other fields beyond sports, but with less media attention in those realms.
One of the biggest questions about the system, IMO, and a claim that he started to state in the 2010s, is that "ENTP" is the most common of the 16 types, comprising as much as 50% or more of the population. Since Niednagel doesn't like how subjective the term "personality" is, and since ENTPs allegedly come in a variety of personalities anyway (hence why so many would supposedly type themselves wrong on a Myers-Briggs test), it's interesting that one type would seemingly be the most common. But that also makes his system less meaningful if true. Many people already think that categorizing all human beings into just 16 types is too limiting already, but if one type is way more common than every other type out there, that gives the system even less insight into describing people's differing brain behaviors.
So finally, in the last couple of years or so, I've grown a bit disenchanted with Brain Types in explaining as much about human behavior as I once thought it might. I still find myself occasionally trying to type people based on its methodology, but I'm looking at people more as individuals now, and especially considering more crucial and important factors in a person's life, like their worldview, religion, politics, etc., upon which type seems to have minimal influence. Few people identify themselves primarily by their Myers-Briggs or "Brain Type." They usually identify themselves by a faith, a political view, an ideology, a race, a gender, etc. I don't see many people out there marching or dying for their Myers-Briggs, Brain, Enneagram etc. type, that's for sure.
