Functions of the Psyche and Age

Type does not change with age in the sense that it remains approximately unchanged relative to the coordinates of its age group. However, the functional age norms themselves (overall, among all people) do change with age. That is, a group of representatives of different types drifts as a whole. Because the functions themselves are demanded differently at different ages. In children up to 6-8 years old, the need for intuition and ethics is increased. When life experience is limited, when sensory experience has not been accumulated (there is no accumulated library of perceptual stereotypes), an associative style of perception is advantageous, allowing already existing experience to be extended to unfamiliar objects, and thereby to learn.

In addition, the development of the child in its stages, as is known, partly repeats the stages of development of the species as a whole, including in the psyche. The more rational part of the functions, more connected with the neocortex (and sensorics in this sense is more rational than intuition, and logic is more rational than ethics), is formed in its final form later — when the formation of the neocortex is completed (and this process is completed in most people only by the age of 17-19). It is not without reason that some psychotypes are called infantile — these are the psychotypes in which children’s brain schemes are more preserved. We once already discussed the IEE type and its unique, among all sociotypes, sucking reflex, which mainly only in some representatives of this type remains rudimentarily preserved from infancy.

And, finally, the age-dependent hormonal background also plays a large role. In particular, testosterone (stimulating both logic and Se), as is known, is lower in children than in adults.

Let everyone remember their childhood, especially before the age of 7-8, when everyone had vivid colored dreams every night, when during the day the flowers in the meadow seemed bright and especially large, when it seemed that there was so much light, color, butterflies, and smells around, when frightening fantasies were born every evening, and during the day you pestered the adults with the words “Why?.. And why is this?” And let everyone remember that approximate year and age, that first “gray” summer, when all of this suddenly disappeared somewhere… (yes, the development of the child’s psyche occurs as if in spurts, jumps, with several “crisis” age points)…

The type determined by questionnaires changes with age more rarely and less than its real behavioral manifestations — simply because a person usually compares himself, by properties that distinguish him from the average level, with his own age group (and even sex group).

Genes set not only the biochemical structure of the individual organism, but also the program of its development. Among other things, the organism has internal clocks that activate different genes in different periods of life (and even at different times of day). That is, the factory for producing peptides that directly control processes in the organism works according to a schedule. Thus, individual gene segments may remain silent for almost an entire life, and then suddenly, at the age of 50, launch the expression of their genes (that is, activate them for the work of reproducing peptides from their DNA template). How this is arranged and how these clocks work is a separate question, currently being intensively studied in genetics, but still far from complete clarity. It is clear that these clocks, which activate the expression of different DNA segments according to a schedule (including in different years of life), are themselves somehow encoded in the genes.

A counter-question may arise: what, then, about abstract thinking? Understanding high abstractions is the combination of logic with Ne (with its vague associative breadth, allowing very heterogeneous phenomena to be united into one group). But in that case — if Ne is maximal in childhood (as an instrument for comprehending the world and accumulating experience under conditions of great uncertainty, when the child, with his small life experience, is forced in various new situations to act not according to an established template, but according to broad associative analogy), then why does abstract thinking develop only in mature age?

The answer, in our view, is as follows. Since logic is finally formed later than the other functions (this is so), abstract thinking also develops late. In addition, it is also connected with intelligence and life experience.

In sum, with age impulsivity decreases (behavioral control grows, rational traits strengthen), intuition decreases and sensorics grows somewhat (the “solidity,” the narrowness of the tuning of the filtering mechanisms that cut off information at the entrance into consciousness, increases), and together with sensorics (especially Si), logic also grows (Ti strengthens, Fe decreases somewhat). Statics also grows overall (mainly due to the growth of Ti and Fi and the weakening of Fe), while dynamics weakens.
At the biochemical level, the age-related decline of Ne and Fe is apparently connected with the age-related decrease in the activity of the brain’s dopamine mechanisms. Possibly for the same reason (increased activity of the dopaminergic system of the brain in youth), schizophrenia also usually manifests only in youth, while with age even already existing schizothymic personality traits weaken in most people.