Yes and Yes, mostly. At times I go either way with both of those questions depending on the situation. I read the description of the ENFP and it does fit me. Although the ESFJ fits me too. I think because I'm on the border either one works for me. And my husband says, "So you just a flip a couple of letters and suddenly you have a whole new personality? Cool...lol"Originally Posted by Chas'88
I always get INFJ, but does getting scores/numbers close to 50 mean that I could shift the other way? I could easily be ESTP?
Your Type is
INFJ
Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging Strength of the preferences % 56 50 50 56
Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer
My guess is that the higher the number, the stronger you are in that area. So would call you a middle of the road. INFJ.
Gotcha.
...............
Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer
Which means you, Pizal and Chas are the same type.Chas, since I only scored 1% for both my "S" and "J", I've decided I'm going to switch personality types. I'm kind of tired being and ESFJ, "the caregiver". It's rather boring. So from now on I'm going to be a ENFP, same as you.
Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer
Well, I was thinking that you were a Feeling type, and was even thinking of holding you up as an example. You are often more concerned with maintaining harmony than telling the truth if it upsets that harmony. Brian thinks I am a Feeling type because he (at least sometimes) disagrees with my logic, and so my logic is therefore irrational (I am speaking bluntly there!). But I am obviously an example of one who prefers to tell the truth as I see it bluntly, rather than be more concerned with whether my saying what I think might increase disharmony (as for example when I say Republicans are wrong on policy and should be voted out, or that opposing efforts to reduce climate change is irresponsible). That is a key difference between Feeling and Thinking types, according to Myers and Briggs. Brian as a Thinking type is if anything more blunt than me.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 05-14-2012 at 04:09 PM.
No, I think 50% is a strong score; 1% is not (as with my percentage between T and F). So 100% is the strongest strength, 50% is half way between very strong and neutral.
I have no problem with you using me as an example. And you are right, I am very uncomfortable with conflict. This does not mean that I don't have strong values or opinions on certain things. It's just that I understand those are my personal values in which I chose to live by. I also understand that not everyone sees things exactly the same as I do and what is right for me or my life may not be right for them. So in order to avoid conflict, I tend to take the attitude of live and let live. Besides I've always found in the life that you catch more flies with honey.
The Feeling Function
Introduction
“Feeling expresses something of more or less constant worth to us.”
- J. H. van der Hoop
It may be possible to summarise the Feeling function with the singular word 'value.'
All the Thinking and Feeling Functions are Functions of Reason; that is to say, they are concerned with deriving a conclusion from a premise. The important question, then, is the premise, for here we may begin to see the difference of personality. A conclusion is the process of how somebody reaches the end. The premise, in my view, is more interesting, because it allows us to see where they start from.
As the Feeling Type is rational, we can analyse their premise. While the Thinking Type would predicate his conclusion on a preference towards fact, whether in the subject or the object, the Feeling Type would aim towards seeing value, again in the subject of the object. So where the Thinking Type asks “what is the mechanism of its operation?” the Feeling Type asks “what is the value of its operation?”
We know that there are two types of Feeling identified in Jungian psychology; that is to say, the Introverted attitude (Fi) and the Extraverted attitude (Fe), both of which will be described in more detail later. It is important for us to understand, however, what Feeling actually is before we go on in further depth to discuss it.
Again we return to logic. Perhaps it is the experiences of the author when he learned MBTI, but it is of critical importance that we do not identify Thinking with 'logic' and Feeling with 'emotion.' In fact we can be very careful to distinguish emotion from value, for emotion is a physiological response that everyone has and that can be divorced from value on the basis that value can be analysed without physiology (Van der Hoop, 1939); statements can be made in pure cold blood, when the same statement made emotionally may make a man run hot and flush.
According to Jung, Feeling is either “orientated by objective data and agrees with objective values” (Fe) or orientated by the subject, and “develop into the depth. (Fi)” (1921) Although all humans have problems with labelling and categorisation, especially in the intellectual world, and it may assist us greatly to know that in the original German, the Jungian term for Feeling was more accurately written as Evaluation and was only turned into Feeling upon its translation into English. This explains why the Function is so badly understood; perhaps because people have wholly confused it with Emotion, or genuine Feeling when it is indeed quite a bit more than that.
Feeling is how we determine and apply our values to the world or how we evaluate situations and circumstances. In the Extraverted attitude, these values are those things that we can pick up from merely existing in the world and adapting ourselves to living in the dimension of the object; essentially, at the very most minimum level, following social conventions of politeness (or rudeness, perhaps), making visitors feel accommodated in your home, and so on and so forth. These are values, because they are not facts. It might be a fact for me to notice that Suzy is very generous with her biscuits; but mere appreciation of this fact gives no insight as to its normative value. I may derive any number of things from it; I could even make a rational guess at her intention, but fact alone can give no value; this is where Feeling becomes rational. The placement of positive normative value on certain social actions creates social pressure for them to be repeated. For instance, there will now be social pressure for Danny to give me loads of biscuits too, when I visit his house. This is the case for both types; “in all feeling there is an effort to find the right mode of behaviour.” (Van der Hoop, 1939.)
The Introverted Feeling Type too concerns itself with value, but it is of a subjective value, the value that has been created in the mind and that the mind has given ultimate, timeless value. For the Introverted Feeling Type, there is an ideal, a value, that has been existent long before he was born and that shall be there long after the winds have scattered his ashes. Extraverted Feeling concerns itself with the feeling-value of the object – that is to say, it looks wholly externally for its values. While it is of course well versed in concepts such as freedom, equality, compassion and so on and so forth, the chief difference between the Extraverted Feeling Type and the Introverted Feeling Type is that the Extravert makes his judgments primarily with others in mind; whereas the Introverted Feeling Type chiefly with, not himself, but his own ideal, in mind.
It is not to say that Thinking is concerned never with values or Feeling is concerned never with facts; only the way in which the Thinker or the Feeler will approach conclusions (i.e. judgments.) They may reach the same judgments, but the way in which they reach them will differ.
Now we understand that Feeling is concerned primarily with values, the determination and application of values, we can analyse the two attitudes of Feeling.
Extraverted Feeling
“Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.” - Seneca
“Such feelings are governed by the standard of the objective determinants. As such they are genuine, and represent the total visible feeling-function.” – Carl Jung
As usual, the Extravert of the Type is much easier to understand than the Introvert of the Type. This is because his focus is outwards, towards the object ahead of him rather than the subject inside of him. Although we have previously briefly touched upon value over feeling, Van der Hoop does state that “all the actions, thoughts and observations of people of this type are, however, governed by the effort to establish relationships of feeling with other people.” (1939). These should not be considered in the way that “Fe wants to make friends” but more intrinsic to the psyche than that; “a contrary opinion would disturb the general feeling situation,” Jung states after describing a scenario (1921). Perhaps unlike any other type, Extraverted Feeling is uniquely aware already of the existence of other psychological types, and it wants to accommodate their preferences; all of them.
This can give rise to criticism of shallowness, but nothing can be further from the truth. A “feeling-judgment such as this is in no way a simulation or a lie” writes Jung (Ibid), “it is merely an act of accommodation.” Shallowness would be the acceptance that everyone is right; whereas what the Extravert of the Type believes is just that everyone has their own opinion. He can almost sense it; of other's values and feelings, he is uniquely aware and uniquely sympathetic, perhaps unlike the Introvert of the Type. I agree with Jung that it is indeed valuable that “the whole positive and wide-spread support of social, philanthropic, and such like cultural enterprises... owe their existence to it.” It is not so much of an emotion, which again I stress is physiological, that drives the Extravert to his position; for as Thomson accurately and legitimately describes, “Family, friend and co-worker aren't states of emotion. They're categories of human alliance.” (1998.)
Stripped of terms such as sympathy and empathy and closeness and warmth of feeling, the Extravert of the Type, when laid bare, can be viewed as fully rational; the robot without the skin. For it is the case that his psyche is in fact deeply analytical, a quality that Thomson puts down to being part of the left side of the brain. In analysis and understanding of social relation, the Extravert of the Type is supreme master, and it is not unreasonable when Jung labels them as more likely to be women.
Even when the function is conscious, the operation of the function is unconscious. Consider love; “Nowhere is this more clearly revealed than in the so-called 'love-choice'; the 'suitable' man is loved,” (Jung, 1921) and although we may think that this is shallow, Jung himself was “fully convinced that the love-feeling of this type of woman completely corresponds with her choice. It is genuine, and not merely intelligently manufactured.” Ponder this for one moment. What is here described is a rational and intelligent disposition for opting towards what is suitable in a man; wealth or height or age or what have you. If the decision is conscious it is rational. If it is unconscious it is genetically preferable. To call it shallow is decidedly unintelligent.
If we still do not understand how the type operates, one last exploration can be made. Suppose you were trying to get eight different people to agree on one course of action. It would do no good to assert a fact, posit a theory, or worship a value so long as there was at least one person who disagreed with you. It is here that Extraverted Feeling is at its most active, because it takes its values from the object; because it is, in Jung's words, 'wholly subordinated to the influence of the object,' it can not be seen to be favouring any particular party, unless of course they view that they are so distinct from the object that there is discrimination; for alienated minorities, maybe.
In these points, the Type is remarkably similar to the Extraverted Thinking Type, although it is concerned with value and normative judgment and not fact. Where the Extraverted Thinker makes an allocation based on who is the most skilled, or who will do the job the best, the Extraverted Feeling Type makes the decision with a unique sense of the emotional balance of the place and considers who is likely to have their values wounded before he makes the decision.
Introverted Feeling
"There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again." - Lord John Roxton (Arthur Conan Doyle)
“So long as the ego feels itself housed, as it were, beneath the heights of the unconscious subject, and feeling reveals something higher and mightier than the ego, the type is normal.” – Carl Jung
It is my firm opinion that Introverted Feeling is by far the most difficult function to discuss. It can be discussed easily in terms of representations or ideas, or recognition of individuals of this type, but to deconstruct it and categorise it is an altogether more difficult proposal, “although the peculiar character of this kind of feeling simply stands out as soon as one becomes aware of it at all.” (Jung, 1921) Introverted Feeling Types have a habit of being the most noteable types on the internet; they are amongst the most distinctive.
The Introverted Feeling Type is a very common type on the internet; they (as well as Introverted Thinking Types, to be balanced) seem to thrive on internet typology communities, although sometimes, at least in the author's opinion, Jung was right when he pointed out “It... usually becomes noticeable in negative manifestations.” Extraverted Feeling Types, on the other hand, lack such a characteristic (and admittedly unfair) reputation, and this is testament to the radical difference between the two psychological types.
While Extraverted Feeling looks around itself for inspiration to form values, Introverted Feeling looks wholly to the subject; that is to say, that which is within us that we can not observe outside us. Those things that are unique – at least that we believe to be unique – to ourselves and which formulate in us a strong feeling of value, and of passion for value, are tied up with Introverted Feeling. “Primordial images are, of course, just as much idea as feeling. Thus, basic ideas such as God, freedom, immortality are just as much feeling-values as they are significant as ideas.” (Jung, 1921.) It is these 'primordial' themes that run through Introverted Feeling and give it both strength and direction.
For what is the aim of Feeling? It is to give harmony between value and existence. As Introverted Feeling is subject-oriented, it must necessarily act only in harmony with those things that appear in the subject. That is to say that those images that run through the head of an Introverted Feeling Type are not to be found in the Objective world. They are not to be seen enacted, or to be picked up or weighed. They are not social standards or community loyalties, although to some confusion, they may eventually manifest in that way. They are in fact a subordination to the higher authority of value; that which “as it were, [is housed] beneath the heights of the unconscious subject,” (Jung, 1921) and reveals to the subject “something higher and mightier than the ego.” A higher purpose or a cause that can be readily abstracted from reality and to which the ego can be subsumed is the clarion call of the Introverted Feeling Type. Whereas the Extravert of the Type will lay down his life for his friends, the Introvert of the Type would give up their life for the principles that the ego has so readily accepted as infinite and timeless.
It would be, I think, a little presumptive and perhaps aggrandising to suggest, however, that the Introverted Feeling Type seeks only a cause. The more suitable word is ideal. Naturally, causes and ideals are related. A cause implies, however, a political or even moral or ethical assignment to the psychological type, which is in fact not a necessary assumption, since we deal here with values. For instance, the decision to “keep one's body pure”; that is to abstain from alcohol or smoking, for instance, is not a political or moral objective but in fact a personal value that the ego has accepted as superior to mere earthly desires. Indeed, “everything not consonant with that harmony”, to the Introverted Feeling Type, is regarded with a “negative point of view, as opposed to what is ideal and good.” (Van der Hoop, 1939.) The ideal is sacred, holy.
All Introverted Types have preference of intensity over extremity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Introverted Feeling Type who's “feelings are intensive rather than extensive” and contain a certain “passionate depth” (Jung, 1921). While the Extraverted Feeling Type spreads his Feelings far and wide, the Introvert of the Type concentrates them, building up scaffolding for his ideal. To this extent he can appear cold and reserved, but in any case his Feeling is a column that stretches down the ego and builds upon itself further. This deepness of Feeling is as in the Introverted Thinking Type, who's complexity of thought is the Thinker equivalent.
Conclusion
We have seen how both Feeling Types observe not emotion or feeling per se, but value and ideal. The two types are as different as any of the same Type but alternate attitude; that is to say that while they consider roughly the same thing, they take different patterns in its implementation, so that even the main thrust of the two types is different. Remember the beginning of the article where we discussed premise; the difference between the types is their approach from the premise, even if the conclusion can actually be strikingly similar – this is because they converge on one fundamental point that brings together all the Feeling types: the appreciation of the worth of something
Bibliography
Jung, Carl “Psychological Types” (1921), York University, Toronto, Ontario
Thomson, Lenore “Personality Type” (1998), Shambhala Publications
Van der Hoop, J. H.“Conscious Orientation” (1939), Edinburgh Press
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
The Thinking Function
Introduction
"Thinking in its simplest form tells you what a thing is. It gives a name to the thing. It adds concept."
- Carl Jung
It may be possible to sum up the totality of the Thinking function with the question: What?
By this we mean that the Function's method of operation is to question: What? What is X? What is the mechanism by X operates? What can be achieved by the use of X? Insofar as we can use single-word summaries to any degree of accuracy in Analytical Psychology (even Thinking and Feeling are labels that are attached to much more complicated processes, for the purposes of conversation), this word may have some use.
More popular, however, would be the word: logic, which apparently, and according to most people, sums up the Thinking function. We should be wary of the use of this word. Firstly, logic is of a propositional nature. All logic is concerned with propositions; 1+1 is a proposition. However, the examination of a mechanism of any form is not a proposition, but must surely bring up the image of the Thinking Function. Let it suffice to say that Thinking concerns propositions but is not summarised by propositions alone.
Before we progress, one more thing ought to be said on the word “logic.” In addition to the reasons above, it is also incorrect to label Thinking as the sole function of logic because the Feeling function also uses logic in a fundamental capacity. Logic can be strongly equated to reasoning. Human beings are by nature creatures of reason – and I mean this purely in the meaning of the word reason, that is humans use some form of reasoning structure to derive conclusions from premises. It is the task of Analytical Pyschology to understand the type of structures, conclusions and premises that different psychological types of humans employ in their day to day activities.
We know that there are two types of Thinking identified in Jungian psychology; that is to say, the Introverted attitude (Ti) and the Extraverted attitude (Te), both of which will be described in more detail later. It is important for us to understand, however, what Thinking actually is before we go on in further depth to discuss it.
According to Jung, Thinking is either “orientated by the object and objective data” (Te) or “It formulates questions and creates theories; it opens up prospects and yields insight...(Ti)” (1921) and we yet, neither Jung nor any other classical author of Analytical Psychology refers to “logic” in their discussions of Thinking. So let us use this brief descriptions to perhaps extrapolate and expand upon what has already been demonstrated of what Thinking is.
Thinking, in my interpretation at least, is the preference towards the understanding or application of facts. In the extraverted attitude, these facts are those that are objectively manageable and externally available; in other words, things we can grasp and touch and list and compile. In the introverted attitude, these facts are subjectively manageable and internally questionable; in other words, things that we can personally understand and fit into a personal system of order. At this very basic level, though, the contrast is not yet important. What is important is that we understand that Thinking is about facts.
It's sister, Feeling, perhaps does not concern itself so much with what the facts are, as opposed to how to deal with them according to some system of non-factual value. We are not here so concerned with Feeling that we must discuss it very much; future articles may deal with that. The contrast is a useful one to understand, however. It is a fact, for instance, that milk now costs me 45 pence to the pint. We can suggest via some form of Thinking, primarily – that is, the preference of Facts; how it is that milk is so pricy, how to reduce the price of milk, how much milk cost thirty years ago, so on and so forth. It is by some system of Feeling, primarily, that is, the preference of Values, who it is in society that is most affected by milk prices, do I really need this milk, how important is this milk to me?
It is not to say that Thinking is concerned never with values or Feeling is concerned never with facts; only the way in which the Thinker or the Feeler will approach conclusions (i.e. judgments.) They may reach the same judgments, but the way in which they reach them will differ.
Now we understand that Thinking is concerned primarily with facts, the use of facts and the interpretation of facts, we can analyse the two attitudes of Thinking.
Extraverted Thinking
The Extraverted Thinker is in many ways easier to understand, as our typical connection with the word Thinking is one of objectivity. That is what defines the Extraverted Thinker. He “is guided by the structures and laws of thought, as these have been taught to him by his educators.” (Van der Hoop, 1939) The facts that the Extraverted Thinker can easily manage and organise are so readily observable to anyone who wants to observe them that it makes Extraverted Thinking the easiest of the two functions to understand. To the Extraverted Thinker, something is not true unless there are objective facts there to justify it. “Facts are only thinkable for him as parts of an organised reality...” and the Extraverted Thinker's knowledge “finds its main support in facts and authorities.” (Ibid)
From a more abstract perspective, Extraverted Thinking views also principles as a part of objective reality. Facts are derived from principles, after all – it is the theory of gravity on which we know it to be a fact that if I pour milk, it will fall to the centre of the earth – and so principles are held in high esteem simply because they are all-governing and can be re-applied in another scenario. It doesn't necessarily matter about the individual objects – they are “less important than the principle [itself]...” and furthermore the capacity for the “standard, or principle, [to be] be pried apart from its context and applied to a new set of objects” (Thomson, 1998) is greatly important to the Extraverted Thinker. In a practical scenario, they need to know that these facts run subordinate to over-reaching principles so that they may critically order their world to make use of the external facts as best they can. In this regard, Extraverted Thinking is given a utilitarian perspective – the management of objective facts and the principles that underly them.
To imagine an Extraverted Thinker, “we must picture a man whose constant aim is to bring his total life-activities into relation with intellectual conclusions, which in the last resort are always oriented by objective data, whether objective facts or generally valid ideas.” (Jung, 1921) This defining statement of Extraverted Thinking by the framer of Analytical Psychology is perhaps one of the most useful. The Extraverted Thinker always must be oriented by objective data, and by of the “intellectual” form, Jung means that these must represent systems. If the system of an Extraverted Thinker is challenged, they will bitterly defend it – for these system represent everything that is objective and perhaps even a large proportion of the “life activity” of that Thinker. “Just as the extraverted thinking type subordinates himself to his formula, so, for its own good, must his entourage also obey it, since the man who refuses to obey is wrong -- he is resisting the world-law, and is, therefore, unreasonable, immoral, and without a conscience.” (Ibid)
Extraverted Thinkers defend their systems so strongly because they believe them to be the only way to measure facts; and they are, as Thinkers, so heavily focused on facts. Their view of the world from an extraverted perspective allows them great access to the things around them, in which they revel, and thus it can be seen how they are so attached to the objective. They are by default no less stubborn that any other type, but their stubborness is more easily encountered, for the discussion of extraverted facts is far more commonplace than those of more abstract, subjective concepts.
And it is their preference for systems of derived principles that make them renowned as administrators and managers; it is the stereotype of Extraverted Thinking itself, for people of this type to be able to set, follow and execute goals. As Jung puts it; "If tolerance for the sick, the suffering, or the deranged should chance to be an ingredient in the formula, special provisions will be devised for humane societies, hospitals, prisons, colonies, etc., or at least extensive plans for such projects." This is due to the way in which the Extraverted Thinker views systems and principles; if some system is absolutely true - if it can have no alternative, if it is the butter that he spreads upon his bread, he will, as an Extravert, follow every measure pursuant to its demands.
It is of course terrible form to base our conclusions of Extraverted Thinkers on these sentences alone. Van der Hoop notes that their knowledge “usually embraces a wide field, and they are rarely unwilling to add to it.” He does however conclude that “there must be no interference with the system or with the principles to which they subscribe, and which for them possess absolute validity.” (1939) This is a good place for us to end our discussion of Extraverted Thinkers and bring about a summary: Extraverted Thinking is dominated chiefly by a desire to observe external principles and facts and guide their life activity by that external observation.
Introverted Thinking
By its subjective nature Introverted Thinking is granted a degree of mysticism. With that comes the difficulty of understanding any function attitude that comes from the subjective realm, given that differences between Introverts must necessarily be more widely evident than those of an Extraverted attitude. “Like his extraverted parallel, he is decisively influenced by ideas...” writes Jung (1921) but “these, however, have their origin, not in the objective data but in the subjective foundation.”
The principles that Extraverted Thinking observes must be objectively observable. They must be grounded in what is present and what principles have been derived. While Introverted Thinking may take stock of these things, it is by no means chiefly oriented by them. On the contrary it looks solely inwards for direction. For Introverted Thinkers, things must make sense – they must fit together, for them. It doesn't matter if other people have found a system to use in this regard, or whether they have derived some external concept of the principle – for it if it does not fit within the patterns established by the Introverted Thinker, it will be difficult for them to comprehend – and as such, not necessarily invalid, but unusable, and while the Extraverted Thinker may delve into the abstract to fully establish his principles, the Introverted Thinker is at home in the abstract; indeed, “abstraction of that part of conscious experience which is revealed as constant and subject to general rules is regarded … as something of vital signifance.” (Van der Hoop, 1939). Ideas of a subjective nature are the wallpaper of the Introverted Thinker's home.
Because Introverted Thinkers must understands the facts subjectively – that is, they must have a personal understanding of how things are, they are invariably precise in their definitions. They “manifest an obstinate, somewhat pedantic decisiveness” (ibid) and their thoughts ususally are “loaded and complicated by all sorts of accessories, qualifications, saving clauses, doubts, etc” (Jung, 1921) in a way that is not observable in the Extraverted Thinker. The reasoning lies behind that nature of Introverted Thinking; because these types of Thinkers must fit things into a personal sphere, they have to know that something is right. Additionally, their thinking is wholesome and holistic; they understand things at once, taking in an entire scene and examining the necessary parts. According to Thomson, “we get a mental image of the logical relationships in an entire system” as opposed to extraverts who view things in a linear manner. For an Introverted Thinker, everything comes in at once, and it is up for us to pick out those things that are really useful to us.
It is in this way that Introverted Thinkers look for ways for things to work for them. Their way of examining and understanding facts does not immediately lend them to administration like their Extraverted cousins, but to some extent allows them to administrate their own lives. They balance by probabilities and try to shift the world in a way that makes their thoughts more conveniently applicable to their lives. What starts off as a thought in the head of an Introverted Thinker can be developed into a theory, and if it takes place at the head, as the King of his thoughts, it will be the way in which we tries to define his life. He will fit his timetable around it and perhaps may even become angered at the way in which objective truth clashes with the way he wants things to work. For it his theory which he has devised, and the rest of the world be damned – and this is how we can see Introverted Thinkers to be stubborn.
Their thoughts are their and theirs alone, and they are so unconcerned with objective fact in this regard that they may become quickly irritated if they are contradicted by objective data; it is here that they will be able to so precisely and pedantically put across their theory that they can allow it to fit to any of the objective evidence, but this is little more than a defence against overbearing Extraverts, or “only as a compliment to the Extraverted style” as Jung puts it. This can most especially be seen by Dominant Introverted Thinkers who's Extraverted Judgment function is inferior and repressed. Jung's criticism of Introverted Thinking; that these Thinkers may have a tendency to “break out with venomous and personal retorts against every criticism, however just” is best expressed by the dominants of this type of Thinking.
Van der Hoop provides the statement that I have chosen for the summary of this type of Thinking. Introverted Thinkers “try to arrange the opinions which they take over from others in a system of their own. In doing so, they will take up a more critical attitude in regard to the thought material which he is taught... and his aim is to follow the guidance of his own opinions and convictions.” The preference for facts is undeniable; yet it is the valuation of these facts by a subjective factor that truly defines the Introverted Thinker. Everywhere their subjective view of the world influences their understanding of facts, and while Extraverts may view them as ungrounded, they have undoubtedly provided science, philosophy and psychology with a wealth of knowledge from the subjective realm that it may otherwise have never found.
Conclusion
We have seen how both Thinking types observe not logic or reason, but fact and idea. They take them and do with them what their personality prefers, be it placing them in a system of principles that governs their lives and the lives of others, or running them through their head and taking them apart to understand them. Although they may sometime seem similar; they may be ordered, they may be cold and logical, they may be intellectual – this is because they converge on one fundamental point that brings together all the Thinking types: the appreciation of object or fact.
Please read Kyoji's clarifications in the next post.
Bibliography
Jung, Carl “Psychological Types” (1921) York University, Toronto, Ontario
Thomson, Lenore “Personality Type” (1998), Shambhala Publications
Van der Hoop, J. H.“Conscious Orientation” (1939), Edinburgh Press
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
The problem with associating feeling function with values, is that there are no such questions on the MBTI test that associate feelings with values or that elicit someone's values as being associated with F. It would have to be an idea predating it, and not tested for. Values are indeed "rational;" they are archetypes. Like the good, true and beautiful, or like ethics. They really belong to the N function, which perceives them, or maybe the thinking function, that conceptualizes them into useable words and ideas. Values arrive when you put things on a scale to see if they measure up to the standard. What Feeling refers to is knowing that something feels right, before any specific concept is associated with it such as a "value." What the MBTI tests for as a "Feeling" preference is tenderness, gentleness, empathy, sensitivity, desire for harmony, our heart's desires; that sort of thing. It is not "emotion," but it is not "values" either. The opposite Thinking function is tough-mindedness, truth and fact regardless of feelings. But MBTI commentators like the one Odin quoted go on referring to Feeling as if it has to do with "values," when it really has nothing to do with values at all.
I don't think it's fair to say that people who are "feeling" don't think or use logic. I know a lot of very intelligent people who are quite rational with a strong a "f" in their myers briggs personality type. I'd say they tend to look more at the big picture than just solely relying on facts on figures.
I disagree with the bolded part. It is a "fact" that people have feelings (even Ti types). This gets incorporated into the framework discussed in the intraverted thinking section eventually. Being an asshole does not make one a thinker. I thought it did a good job of describing the mental gymnastics of an intraverted thinker.
The meaning of the original German word JUNG HIMSELF USED is equivalent to English "Evaluation". It was misleadingly translated as "feeling", which has caused people to confuse Jungian Feeling with both emotions and Jungian Intuition. N has noting to do with values.
S = Sense Impression
T = Concept
F = Value
N = Hunches, Possibilities
S = *Sees orange*
T = "This is an orange"
F = "I think oranges taste good"
N = "I suspect this orange got here by..."
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Yes, that is true. MBTI shows preferences in temperament, not abilities or willingness to use them.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Us INTPs can be nice!I disagree with the bolded part. It is a "fact" that people have feelings (even Ti types).
Disagreeing with Odin, I note that MBTI is not necessarily what Jung intended, and even if so it does not mean Jung was right on everything. N on MBTI has a heavy emphasis on seeing the big picture and general ideas; and a preference for designing over making. It is also seeing possibilities. But "values" are general ideas, and nothing else but that. If we feel something is valuable, we have not yet made it into a concept or general idea of a value. We are experiencing its worth, but values mean that something has been compared to a standard. That is intuition or thinking.
There is a lot I disagree with typical interpretations of MBTI. For example, Myers and Briggs when they added J and P arbitrarily decided these energy modes can only be extraverted. Then they use J and P on this basis to determine dominant functions and the whole hierarchy of extraverted and introverted functions from dominant to auxiliary and recessive. Kiersey uses it to create a disproportional way of grouping the types. It's all based on a false assumption. Being ordered J vs. open-ended P has nothing to do with whether you are out in the world of other people or by yourself. J and P is a very basic polarity and stands on its own by itself.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 05-14-2012 at 11:53 PM.
And this is exactly why I use Jung over MBTI or Keirsey. The latter 2, despite using Jung's terminology, only describe the Jungian Persona + introversion/extraversion. They are basically the Big 5 system minus the Neuroticism axis. Jung's system was a PSYCHOLOGICAL typology, a typology of the psyche, not a personality psychology, a typology of the persona.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Yes, INTP's are generally nice people, eschewing conflict where possible. I can be dogmatic when it comes to factual information. I don't understand the arbitrary importance people place on what I see as "no big deal". It has gotten me some pretty nasty reactions in the past so I have woven those reactions into my data store. The reaons for doing so are very easy to interpret from a Ti perspective. If I don't want to deal with someone's offense or disgust I avoid the topic. For example, most people will have a negative reaction to the statement "Oh, I don't know, human flesh probably wouldn't taste too much different than any other depending on how it was prepared." It is impossible to later explain that you weren't really considering it, just pondering the data. This is how we get stereotyped as "robots" and "weird".
Question: Which of the "T" types here doesn't completely understand why Mitt Romney, a likely INTJ, comes across they way he does? I don't agree with most of his politics, but I do understand why he isn't resonating with people. He can't. If he is elected, it would be interesting to watch an INTJ in the office. We have had feelers in the White House for a long time. (For the record, I do not want to see him elected).
You see Obama as a feeler? He is pure T -- "No Drama Bama"! (At least, that's how I see it)
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
I have toyed with the idea that he is ENTP, but he is a bit charismatic for that. His speeches are lofty sermons. He had a "beer summit" with a guy he insulted. He is approachable. For ENTP I look at Bill Maher or Joe Scarborough with their sneering contempt for those that disagree. I am interested in what others have to say. I admit that I am still learning.
I agree Wonk
Probably ENTJ; we saw what a great general he was when he went after Osama. Probably the J and P scale is close.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 05-15-2012 at 02:34 PM.
Jung was a tremendous psychologist and theorist, a great mind. His great ideas include synchronicity, the collective unconscious, the anima and animus, and his work with dreams that elevated it out of the dingy Freudian realms. He studied occult and esoteric philosophy and it influenced his work.
But I don't see much difference between his psychological types (another of his great ideas) and how they are used in MBTI. MBTI is all based on Jung's ideas. Myers and Briggs took the description of the types and faithfully developed the test to elucidate them. There is no question of persona vs. psyche in regards to MBTI vs. Jung that I can see. Maybe you can tell me what you see Odin a bit more.
(and he was certainly INTP by the time he came up with his Types-- as purely an N activity as you can get-- as the commentator Odin quoted pointed out)
What I see are misinterpretations, coming from both Jung and Myers-Briggs and all the commentators and psychologists who use them. It doesn't matter whether these misinterpretations are from Jung himself or from Myers-Briggs and their practitioners. If they are from Jung, that does not make them more psychological; they are still wrong (such as the idea that feelings are about values).
First, there is a tendency to treat the functions like they were chemical or mathematical formulas, and use them that way in a system. But they are not like that. They are like colors or tones; parts of a whole like members of a symphony orchestra, not separate parts of a machine. Fe and Ti and so forth are not elements of a system. The functions are just different shades of the same thing: the soul or conscious being of the individual (which itself is part of the larger collective soul). All the hierarchies of dominant and auxiliary and recessive functions are invalid, therefore. Introverted people don't act from a dominant function hidden in an introverted way, then turn to an auxiliary function to project into the world extraverted. That is a nice model, but I think it's just a fun fantasy. If someone is introverted, they are usually introverted in all their functions, and extraverted less often in all their functions. Which functions are dominant and which recessive are indicated by the scores on the test. Making human psychology into an elaborate system with separate parts like a machine is invalid, however fun and popular it may be.
But that doesn't change the essential correctness of the description of the functions (NSTF) and energy modes (EIJP) themselves, and the MBTI reflects them perfectly well in my opinion. If you want to know what the functions represent in themselves, just take a look at the MBTI test questions. There is a dominant/submissive relationship between T and F, and between N and S, I grant that, but coupling that with extraverted and introverted as separate parts is where I think the system goes off track.
I already mentioned that the systemizers do the same sort of thing with J and P as if it could determine dominant function, rather than just indicate an energy mode or lifestyle in itself. Then from Jung they take the also-mistaken idea that N and S are "irrational" perceiving functions and T and F are "rational" judging functions. I don't buy that either. All the functions are ways to receive and process information. We make decisions using our J mode, on the basis of info supplied by all 4 functions, or any one of them. There is no basis to say two of them are perceiving functions and two are judging functions, especially when the actual questions on MBTI for J and P have nothing to do with those functions, but are about whether you are ordered and scheduled or open-ended and exploratory. Any of the functions can operate in either way, so there's no basis for calling them one or the other. Again, they use this idea to develop the hierarchy of dominant and recessive functions like pieces of a machine; I say it is bogus.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 05-15-2012 at 02:37 PM.
I can see that I am outnumbered so far. Recalculating ...
I see Obama as an ENFJ. The only possible NT I can see is ENTP. If he is ENTP, he is very, very good at controlling Ne. He has none of the bombast of an ENTJ. I do not see him as an introvert at all ...
Jungian functions and MBTI types are part of a whole. There is generation, upbringing, diet, culture, experiences, education, hormones, etc. There are 16 personality types that show up in billions of variations. I do believe that MBTI type is part of a system. I see generations and 4T information the same way. In MBTI you have 4 direct functions in a heirarchy. In theory, someone could have two extraverted perceiving functions as dominant functions, but that would probably not be a very well-functioning individual. I have a theory that some mental illness is based on the premise that cognitive functions are out of order. A TiFiNiSi person would be essentially comatose. An NeSeFeTe person would have very few friends. So, there are some necessary rules. I don't know that we have to be limited to those in MBTI, but that system seems to be withstanding the test of time so far ...
Introverts aren't necessarily shy -- Ronald Reagan was an Introvert. They do need to be alone to recharge their batteries. Obama's periods of solitude and what I gather from his book "Dreams of My Father" indicate to me an Introvert.
However, since I don't know Obama and I'm not an MBTI expert, I could be way off base.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
