Taking the MBTI with HFA

---

Back in the early 2000s I was working in America for Cable & Wireless. One of my colleagues was Craig, a Duke University professor of psychiatry; his wife, Dee Ann, was also trained in psychotherapy. I remember talking to her at one of our works dinners about the Myers-Briggs classification scheme and when it didn't work. She replied that it tended to give erratic results with people who exhibited abnormal mental conditions, such as schizophrenia and Asperger's syndrome.

And I left it there.

Today I'm wondering what happens if a person with High-Functioning Autism (formerly Asperger's syndrome) takes the Myers-Briggs Inventory. How does their MBTI come out?

ChatGPT tells me...

---

How HFA People Score on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator rests on population averages of neurotypical psychology. It was never built to describe autistic cognition. When people with high-functioning autism (HFA) take the MBTI, the results often wobble or misclassify. The same is true of the Five Factor Model, though in a different way.

Take the S/N dimension. Some autistic people live in concrete domains: bus timetables, mechanical systems, the fine grain of sensory detail. They look like S. Others immerse themselves in mathematics, philosophy, speculative worlds. They look like N. Both are common.

The test assumes the two poles are exclusive; autism ignores that rule. A developer who can design high-performance real-time transaction systems may come out as a classic N for abstract thinking. Yet ask him about politics or engage in small talk and he seems incurious, even obtuse - answers that tilt back toward S.

Extraversion is another fault line. HFA people can be talkative, sometimes performatively gregarious, yet maintain no close friends. The MBTI interprets their verbal energy as E, while their lived experience is solitary. A literal answer to “Do you enjoy going to parties?” might be “Yes, I like the food and the noise,” even if the same person leaves early, interacts with no one, and has no social bonds. The test confuses stimulus-seeking with sociability.

On the T/F scale, many answer as T. They rely on explicit reasoning, exploiting rules and consistency. That does not mean they lack affect, only that their affect is not measured in the MBTI’s idiom. Similarly, the J/P axis is confounded: autism’s need for sameness, its preference for routine, shows up as J. But this is neurology, not “personality preference”.

If you shift to the Big Five, the pattern persists. “Openness” can score high if interests are abstract, or low if they are repetitive and concrete. “Conscientiousness” may appear strong on orderliness but weak on adaptive planning. “Agreeableness” is pulled down by low empathy-related items, though fairness and honesty are often high. “Neuroticism” is inflated by anxiety, a frequent comorbidity. Instability is the rule.

The real problem is structural. These instruments assume traits cluster as they do in the neurotypical bell curve. Autism reshuffles the deck. Literal answering, context-bound interpretations, and construct mismatch ensure that the outputs are noisy. What looks like inconsistency is the wrong measurement framework.

Better alternatives exist. The Empathising–Systemising Quotient, the RAADS-R, and sensory processing profiles capture dimensions orthogonal to MBTI and FFM. They measure the axes on which autistic cognition varies.

So when an HFA person emerges from the MBTI as ENTJ one month and ISFP the next, it is not a crisis of self-knowledge. It is the instrument failing to fit the mind it tries to describe.

---

The Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP)

Amazon link

Here is a useful (free) technical overview of BAP.

I was struck by this remark (just before the 'Discussion' section):

"Finally, within the autism parent group the co-occurrence of specific BAP factors was examined within families, across mothers and fathers. Spearman correlation coefficients detected several significant associations between BAP features within families (see Fig. 5). Namely, correlations suggest that fathers positive for the “Language” factor were more commonly married to mothers positive for “Rigid” and “Social” factors, and those fathers who were positive on the “Social” factor were more often married to mothers positive on the “Language” factor."

So what is the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP)? This article gives an overview:

"Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning a person can be a little autistic or very autistic, and individuals can have varying symptoms. The term broad autism phenotype describes an even wider range of individuals who exhibit problems with personality, language, and social-behavioral characteristics at a level that is considered to be higher than average but lower than is diagnosable with autism. Individuals who meet the criteria of the broad autism phenotype are identified through a test called the "Social Responsiveness Scale."

It is theorized that parents who are a part of the broad autism phenotype are more likely than other parents to have multiple children with autism. Some studies seem to support this theory.

How the Broad Autism Phenotype Is Diagnosed

Several different people have developed questionnaires to evaluate individuals for "BAP." People using the questionnaire are asked to rank themselves on a scale of 1-5 on such statements as:

• I like being around other people
• I find it hard to get my words out smoothly
• I am comfortable with unexpected changes in plans
• I would rather talk to people to get information than to socialize

Answers to these questions are compared to a norm and, at least in theory, provide a quick answer to the question "am I just a touch autistic?"

In fact the tests described in the book shown top-of-page, The Broad Autism Phenotype (Advances in Special Education Book 29) describes in detail a number of well-attested instruments which are considerably more sophisticated than these simple questions.

I'm still engrossed in it - and seeing patterns in my own life.

---

Update: I finished the book and I'm underwhelmed. Lots of impressionistic tests described with confusing, ambiguous results. Plainly we have no sound, compelling paradigm to conceptualise the autism spectrum, or to distinguish extreme cases of autistic dysfunction from high-performing Asperger's.

Absent a strong input from GWAS - years out - the psychologists in this book are just blundering around in the dark.

The dream of 'designer babies'

Some things in the media are so mind-numbingly stupid that I feel frozen into dumbness: 'Where would I start?'

Where is the politician or pundit who simply states - in exasperation:

"Why wouldn't we want designer babies? Is random better? And when you choose your partner with care, aren't you trying - in  part - to optimise your children? Listen people, we already do designer babies! And that's good and indeed evolutionarily obvious."

OK, I never heard that. Ever.

But we will soon be able to make more informed choices about the genomes of our offspring. Three obstacles:

1. We need to understand the phenotypical effects of alleles (existing or even new)
2. We need certainty about the effects of genetic engineering - no mistakes
3. We need to make it easy and convenient to access and then implant the modified cell.

So, once fixed, my question is: what do we want to do?

---

Issues

Firstly, there seems to be a biological recognition of kin-similarity. Babies swapped unknowingly at birth who grow up with unrelated 'parents' do seem to feel that something is wrong. I don't think we understand causally-genomically what is going on here and changing too many alleles, increasing the genomic distance between parents and child, may start to impact the relationship.

Secondly, you can't optimise everything. It may be true - as Steve Hsu has insisted - that high IQ tends to correlate with general health and superior performance in most areas. And if it's a question of minimising genetic load you can see why.

But beyond a certain point, high IQ seems to require that more of the brain is devoted to the processing of abstractions leaving less for other things. This is probably part of the underlying etiology for different personality types.

There seem to be few highly-intellectual axe-wielding warriors.

Thirdly, there is a feeling that although some parents might want their children to be great athletes or painters or musicians or novelists or priests or therapists or .. parents, there is something special about IQ.

Without intelligence we are sunk, none of the rest is going to work as our civilization will collapse. And that has been true up to now: all that smart fraction stuff - that you need a lot of folks with IQ 105+ just to run a complex society. And that the real innovation comes from those world-class people with IQs in excess of 160.

But .. I have not the slightest doubt that by the time we are able to routinely engineer the genomes of our offspring, we will have AI systems which are conceptually-competent way beyond the smartest humans that we can envisage.

We know what really smart people do: they internalise and extend a vast set of abstractions and manipulate them in interesting and complex ways to engage with problems. The lower foothills of this space are already colonised by deep-learning systems: their future seems pretty scalable.

It's not at all clear that the destiny or destination of the human race is or should be unbounded smartness, once we correct the errors of mutational load.

---

I've just finished reading "The Strangest Man: The hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius" by Graham Farmelo.

Amazon link

Dirac was plainly one of the smartest people who have ever lived. He is also generally assessed as autistic (Asperger's syndrome). In Farmelo's account, although not chronically unhappy, he hardly seems to have led a fulfilled life. His total, obsessive focus on developing theory seems to have led to a final disillusionment with the state of physics when he died (1984) - and with his own life's work.

I suspect that the first epoch of empowered genomic engineering will not be a mad rush for ever higher IQ, with the target of the ubiquitous production of von Neumann equivalents. Instead, I suspect we will edit out the obvious errors and reinforce the talents already latent in the specific underlying genome.

Let a thousand flowers bloom.

---

I suspect the second epoch of genomic engineering will be entirely different.

Autism & IQ, Deep Learning, Quantum Computing

Three papers (PDF) for you today.

---

1. Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence - Bernard J. Crespi

Alterations of function in the autistic brain

Crespi's paper attempts to synthesise what is know phenotypically about mental pathologies such as autism with the genetics of intelligence. His thesis is:

"... alleles for autism overlap broadly with alleles for high intelligence, which appears paradoxical given that autism is characterized, overall, by below-average IQ.

This paradox can be resolved under the hypothesis that autism etiology commonly involves enhanced, but imbalanced, components of intelligence. This hypothesis is supported by convergent evidence showing that autism and high IQ share a diverse set of convergent correlates, including large brain size, fast brain growth, increased sensory and visual-spatial abilities, enhanced synaptic functions, increased attentional focus, high socioeconomic status,more deliberative decision-making, professional and occupational interests in engineering and physical sciences, and high levels of positive assortative mating."

and

".. autism represents most broadly a disorder of high intelligence (and low imagination), and schizophrenia a disorder of high imagination (and low intelligence) .. ."

I think his argument works best at the Asperger-end of the spectrum, where brain architecture imbalances have not yet led to major social dysfunction.

---

2. Deep Learning: A Critical Appraisal by Gary Marcus

Gary Marcus says "I present ten concerns for deep learning, and suggest that deep learning must be supplemented by other techniques if we are to reach artificial general intelligence."

He begins by observing starkly that "Deep learning, as it is primarily used, is essentially a statistical technique for classifying patterns, based on sample data, using neural networks with multiple layers."

Deep learning typically "knows" no more than can be inferred from regularities in the offered datasets (images, sounds, texts). With such limited data it's generally going to be impossible to infer background theories such as folk physics and folk psychology, let alone the physical and social properties of objects, people and behaviours which condition our everyday lives.

He then examines in detail just how consequentially-brittle deep learning systems are at generalising correctly outside of their training sets. This does not augur well for applications in open domains (such as self-driving cars, Internet censorship and the construction of competent social companions such as chatbots).

I completely agree with this paper, together with its conclusions that some serious new thinking is desperately required.

[Via "The Wild Week in AI"].

---

3. "Quantum Computing in the NISQ era and beyond" by John Preskill

From the abstract.

"Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) technology will be available in the near
future. Quantum computers with 50-100 qubits may be able to perform tasks which
surpass the capabilities of today’s classical digital computers, but noise in quantum
gates will limit the size of quantum circuits that can be executed reliably."

This is a useful review of the field of quantum computing, aimed at (technically-minded) venture capitalists. It's accessible and describes what quantum computing is, the various ways it can be implemented and what a quantum computer can - and cannot - do.

Almost the ideal introduction.

[Via Scott Aaronson].

Chris Packham: coming out as an Aspie

Chris Packham

The BBC recently showed Chris Packham's hour-long documentary where he discusses his Asperger's syndrome (iPlayer till 27th October).

Strictly speaking you don't have Asperger's, you are Asperger's. This makes treatment problematic - are you signing up to erase, or profoundly modify, your personality?

Packham wasn't a fan, particularly as this seemed to be the dominant objective of the American 'therapies' he was taken to see.

His partner, Charlotte, who was on camera seemed to be a Myers-Briggs NT, maybe INTJ. She came across as cool, composed and eminently cerebral: a meeting of minds.

There's another kind of partner an 'Asperger's sufferer' can have: here's Paul Dirac's wife:

"Given his lack of interest in his fellow humans, most colleagues assumed Dirac was shut off sexually, or perhaps gay and repressed. So they got a bit of a shock when, in 1934, he met a chatty Hungarian divorcee called Manci Balazs and three years later married her.

Manci was his opposite: where Dirac hardly spoke, she never stopped; he found empathy difficult, she had friends coming out of her ears; he was very literal-minded, she was subjective and passionate.

Needless to say, it was she who was forced to woo him, but somehow it worked. As a friend once put it: 'He gave her status and she gave him a life.' They were married for 50 years and had two children.

A year after their marriage, he wrote Manci a lovely letter saying: 'You have made me human. I shall be able to live happily with you even if I have no more success in my work.'

---

I was surprised to hear Packham pronounce his condition 'Asperjers'; surely he, more than anyone, would know that Hans Asperger was Austrian, and as a consequence the 'g' is hard.

---

Asperger's (and Autism in general) is highly heritable, although Packham's documentary - more impressionistic and personal - made no mention of it. This means that most population variation along the autism spectrum, from normal (non-autistic) to extreme, is a consequence of individual genomic variation, rather than differential input from the environment.

So although your parents made you autistic, it was through their genes, not their parenting.

---

Autism and IQ

From Time:

"When Asperger’s was first described in 1944 by Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, he referred to children with the syndrome as “little professors” because of their prodigious vocabularies and precocious expertise, and because they tended to lecture others endlessly without being aware of their own tediousness. Poor social skills and obsessive interests characterize the condition.

Yet, despite the obvious similarities, very little research has been done on the connection between autism and extreme talent. One previous study, published in 2007, did find that close relatives of prodigies — like close relatives of people with autism — tended to score higher on autistic traits, particularly in problems with social skills, difficulty switching attention and intense attention to detail. Other than that, however, the issue hasn’t been studied systematically, beyond the observation that autism is often seen in savants, or people with exceptional abilities who have other simultaneous impairments. ..."

"... the intense world theory of autism, which posits how the disorder may arise. The theory holds that certain patterns of brain circuitry cause autistic symptoms, including excessive connectivity in local brain regions, which can heighten attention and perception, and diminished wiring between distant regions, which can lead to a sort of system overload. In both animal and human studies, this type of brain wiring has been associated with enhanced memory and also with amplified fear and sensory overstimulation. The former is usually a good thing; the latter may cause disability.

The intense world theory propounds that all autism carries the potential for exceptional talent and social deficits. The social problems, the theory suggests, may ensue from the autistic person’s dysfunctional attempts — social withdrawal and repetitive behaviors, for instance — to deal with his heightened senses and memory.

It’s possible, then, that the wiring in prodigies’ brains resembles that of an autistic person’s, with tight local connections, except without the reduction in long-distance links. Or, their brains may function just like those with autism, but their high intelligence allows them to develop socially acceptable ways of coping with the sensory overload."

I was struck by a TV programme some years ago about the Maths Olympiad. This is usually won by East Asians; Ashkenazim are also well-represented in winning teams. The British team was composed of pleasant, well-adjusted and extremely smart Ashkenazim .. and Anglo-Saxons who all seemed to be Aspies.

In the Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending paper it was suggested that the Ashkenazim had undergone extreme selection for high IQ over the last millennium due to the social niche of finance into which they were forced for so many centuries by the Christian proscription of usury. This, they argued, had also increased the frequency of specific mutations which increased brain efficiency at the cost of new debilitating genetic diseases (in the homozygous cases).

I suspect Asperger's may be somewhat similar, although with a more diffuse and sprawling etiology. As the causation is polygenic (+ CNV?) we are still some way from a definitive account.

Gay; Asperger's syndrome; football

Here's a thesis. Being gay and being an "Aspie"  are both under the control of a large number of alleles of small effect.

In the 'gay'  case, less means a sympathetic, empathic personality; in the Aspie case,  less means a focused, dispassionate and logical intellect.

In both cases the full deck decreases reproductive success while a partial hand can enhance it.

Perhaps Asperger's syndrome is the gentile equivalent of Tay-Sachs disease and similar neurological collateral damage found in Ashkenazi Jews under selection for systemic, analytical intelligence in the mediaeval middle classes.

World Cup: England loses to Uruguay. The English looked hard-working, stolid and flat-footed ; the South Americans  (of Mediterranean lineage)  were dynamic and explosive. What do you think, agrarian farmers  vs  pastoralists?

Once you get your eye in, genes are everywhere!

Ten theses on systems and agency

1. The brain has different cognitive subsystems addressing systems thinking and agency.

2. Systems thinking - systemics - is mathematical, impersonal and logical.

3. Agency thinking personalises, attributing motivation and intention.

4. Systemics uses the conversational tools of reason, evidence, theories, deduction and consequences.

5. Agency uses the conversational tools of systemics, but applies them in the context of intentional agents and often subordinates them to emotionally-driven arguments (which can be logically-incorrect but surprisingly effective).

6. Systemics is suitable for dealing with the natural world (maths, physics, chemistry) and inanimate aspects of the human world (architecture, finance, the military, the law).

7. Agency addresses the natural world through ideology (religion) .. and the human world through persuasion and condemnation (politics).

8. Masculine thinking tends to the systemic, with Asperger's being a boundary case. This leads to increasing degrees of social incompetence -  society is agency.

9. Males who incline more to agency-thinking (actors, writers, politicians) often exasperate the more systemic by their illogic in the services of emotionally-affiliative positions. (Matt Ridley of The Times is an occasional offender).

10. All of this is separated from empathy, which is an affective, not cognitive function. Plenty of high-systemic individuals are enormously pained by discord, cruelty or pain. Sociopaths are something entirely different.
---
I was thinking about this while reflecting on some of Neal Stephenson's jokes in Anathem, jokes on the more intellectual of his characters (avouts) who show a woeful lack of insight into the human condition despite their impressive grasp of mathematics; these are also jokes at the expense of his likely readership.

I put my own hands up here.

Personality Disorders and Psychological Type (MBTI)

Many of us are 'on the spectrum' for some kind of 'personality disorder'; if you know your Myers-Briggs personality type (test here) you may recognise some pathological traits in yourself.

As an INTP I recognise a personal connection both with Schizoid personality disorder and the Asperger's syndrome spectrum (though I wouldn't say I'm clinical).

The following text is reprinted from here: a list of the symptoms of the ten most common personality disorders can be found here.

"Each type's dark side is occasionally manifested in personality disorders. Personality disorders, of which there are ten main types, consist of a series of symptoms which make it difficult to get along smoothly with others and adapt to society. Behaviours of those with such disorders are frequently irritating to people around them. When you learn about the 16 MBTI types it should make sense that some types are more prone to certain personality disorders than other types. Keep in mind that these are hypotheses and not based on any actual data.

Those who are paranoid generally believe that everyone is trying to harm them. This notion causes hostility, emotional detachment, and distrust of others. Such aversive behaviors are likely to be found in Introverted Thinkers. IxTx types are the most detached and wary; taken to the extreme, paranoia takes hold of their minds. [ISTJ, ISTP, INTJ, INTP].

Schizoid personality disorder is somewhat similar to the previous one. It entails a lack of willingness to engage in social interaction and emotional expression. Again, sounds like a fitting disorder for an IxTx. They appear indifferent to the outside world. But not only are they indifferent, they are unable to pick up on social cues. ISTxs, who are more observant than their iNtuitive counterparts, are often able to read nonverbal behavior. That leaves the schizoids with INTx. Schizoids resembles those with Asperger's syndrome, which contains mainly INTxs. [INTJ, INTP].

Next we'll talk about schizotypical people. There's only one type in particular that this personality disorder would affect. First of all, they have quite odd behavior, dress, beliefs, and perceptions. Combined with indifference to others, discomfort in close relationships, and stunted emotional expression, we're already at INTx. J or P? Well, schizotypical people often succumb to magical thinking, and they believe that symbolic messages are hidden just for them. This pattern of thought reflects Introverted iNtuition. [INTJ].

Antisocial personality disorder is the tendency to disregard safety, behave violently, break the law, and violate others' rights. Antisocial people have a general disregard for others, and they tend to lie and steal. This is clear xSTP behavior.  [ESTP, ISTP].

People who have borderline personality disorder are fundamentally different from what we have discussed so far. Instead of withdrawing sharply, they are often overly expressive. They fear being alone (E), have unstable moods and volatile relationships (F), and tend to be risky and impulsive (SP). This would suggest ESFP, but borderline people also exhibit suicidal behavior, an INFP trait. I suppose we can overlook this discrepancy, however, since those who are flawed in such a way may naturally consider suicide. [ESFP].

Histrionic personality disorder is like the one above. People with this disorder are excessively emotional and sensitive to what others say (F), constantly seeking attention (E), and concerned with their physical appearance (S). It follows that a histrionic person is more often than not an ESFx. [ESFJ, ESFP].

Narcissistic personality disorder is a condition in which one believes that they are superior to everyone else. They fantasize and exaggerate their abilities and self-worth (N), expect constant praise from others (E), and are insensitive to others' emotions (T). In reality, you'll probably find that the most arrogant people out there are ENTxs. [ENTJ, ENTP].

Those with avoidant personality disorder are much the opposite of the previous one. Their extreme shyness, timidity, and sensitivity combined with their social isolation and feelings of inadequacy indicates some variation of IxFx.   [ISFJ, ISFP, INFJ, INFP].

Next is dependent personality disorder, which, like schizotypical and borderline, mostly affects a single type. People with this condition behave submissively towards others, show a desire to be taken care of, tolerate abusive treatment, and feel the need to start a new relationship when one has ended. This closely resembles the negative part of the ISFJ profile.  [ISFJ].

Lastly, we'll take a look at obsessive compulsive personality disorder. These individuals are overly concerned with rules and orderliness, strive for perfectionism, are highly inflexible, and have a strong desire to be in control of situations. This description just screams xSTJ.  [ESTJ, ISTJ].

Types that may have a personality disorder:
INTJ (3), INTP (2), ISTP (2), ISTJ (2), ESFP (2), ISFJ (2), ESTP (1), ESFJ (1), ESTJ (1), ENTJ (1), ENTP (1), ISFP (1), INFJ (1), INFP (1)

Types not associated with a disorder: ENFJ, ENFP

As you can see, INTJ comes on top as being the type most likely to suffer from a personality disorder. And for some reason, neither of the Extraverted Idealists are particularly prone to any of the ten.

This, of course, raises some questions worth contemplating - what is it about the INTJ's thinking that makes them this way? What is so special about the ENFxs that they get to avoid these conditions?"