Q. What does “Falsifying Type” really mean and are people who are Falsifying Type just faking it?

A. That’s an interesting question. The term itself is attributed to Carl Jung, whose ground-breaking work formed the basis for the MBTI (Myer’s Briggs Temperament Inventory) and in part for the BTSA (Benziger Thinking Styles Assessment).

Jung’s position was that people who are Falsifying Type are individuals who have developed the majority of their skills in brain areas outside their innate giftedness or brain lead. Those developed skills can appear as “faking it” to individuals who possess innate giftedness in the specific skills under discussion.

Imagine that a dog finally learns to make sounds that resemble a cat's meow. The dog may be rewarded for this effort but a real cat will recognize that the sounds are not a genuine meow. That's sort of the way it is with the four cerebral languages. We tend to use our own brain language effortlessly and energy-efficiently. We can develop skills in brain-function languages other than our own but individuals who utilize each language innately often can recognize when this is not a “native language” for us.

Should we still try to develop some level of skill in other brain-function languages? Should we make an effort to become cerebrally multilingual? I think so! Whenever I travel to countries where English is not the primary language, the citizens usually go out of their way to help me feel quite validated when I attempt to speak something of their language, albeit not very fluently…

When we intentionally use a brain-function language outside our innate giftedness it’s a good idea to avoid pretending that it is our own “native brain-function language.” We just do our best with it, knowing that it will require higher levels of energy expenditures, and hoping that our efforts to communicate will be recognized by other brains.