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PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES #1X
THE TYPES ARE DIFFERENT IN MORALITY AND SELFISHNESS
I have already talked about how the types are worlds apart in what they consider valuable and important, so at this point to have an idea about the topic of morality is just a simple question of consequence: each type has one of its own because that’s precisely what the different frames of judgment and perception imply. Extraverts decide what’s good or bad using some tangible/objective standard and/or occurrence, while introverts follow an intangible/internal principle and/or impression. All of them can remain in a “middle zone” or become “extreme”, but both the middle and the extremes have very different meanings/effects depending on which type we are talking about. For example: an extreme extraverted+judging morality has virtually nothing in common with an extreme introverted+perceiving morality (the former being much closer to what’s usually understood by the word “extreme”).
So all types have a “moral compass”, but not all of them are actually moral (take the description of “immoral adventurer” for ENPs, for example). In this post I’m going to focus on the idea of selfishness, because it seems many people think it’s a very important trait to discuss and, being obviously related to morality, it represents a big problem: a lot of what seems “moral” in this planet is actually not moral at all.
What is selfishness? Is it always a “bad” thing? No. You need the right dose of selfishness because, at the very least, you need to survive. And surviving is not only staying alive, but being healthy both physically and psychologically. That’s not a question of morality, it’s just the truth. You start being selfish in a bad sense when you impose your-self to/against/above others in matters that go beyond that. What does this mean? Well, it looks like a question of will: things that involve other people can be done in various ways, but you want them your way. You are not even interested in finding out a good way for all, even if it ends up being even more beneficial to you. And when the issue consists on choosing someone (a “leader”, a “winner”, an “owner”, etc) being selfish is promoting yourself for that position. Mmm, yes, I’d say that’s a good summary. (Note that I’m focusing on just this idea here, I’m not saying that too much selfishness is the only thing that can lead to bad decisions/actions, of course).
Now, we live in a system that rewards selfishness. If you don’t want to fight other people for promotions and things like that you won’t “succeed”. You need to be selfish to earn [more] money, to get a contract, etc. You have to polish and refine your appearance, too, your manners, the image you exhibit, etc, because you are essentially selling yourself. And that brings the selfishness of self-design. (Apart from all the lying that might go along with that).
Also, the false value of money and property has its own “weight”, and affects how people think and talk about everything else. So, for example, if someone can put a lot of money or property in motion that person becomes attractive to many people because they want [that] money/things, not because [s]he is “good”. This is why some people think of selfishness as the opposite of “generosity” (which could be considered one of the main false virtues).
Selfish people tend to have/claim many things and/or people as their property or the object of their plans. They might say “I’m doing it for others”, but that doesn’t count, the selfishness is still there. And many times what’s usually sold to the public as a “great/generous person” is very often a rather selfish one. As Jung said, individuals who identify too deeply with their “causes” end up revealing egotistical tendencies even in their supposedly “humanitarian” actions.
Looking at what the MBTI codes imply, one of the most important conclusions is that, as Jung said: “the more completely a man’s life is moulded and shaped by the collective norm, the greater is his individual immorality”, so it’s the extraverted types that are more at risk of being led astray by this. Then, under the same conditions, Js are more susceptible to be selfish than Ps, because their identity lies in their own values (frame of judgment), and they don’t like to compromise. They often have visions and plans, they set goals for themselves [and others], and any kind of purpose is prone to become selfish in itself. And finally, another secondary element, again with all other things being equal, would be that Ts could be seen as more selfish than Fs, because they are less empathic.
So if you take that and think about the most “inspiring” or “ambitious” types, those who fight and “succeed”, those who most often promise and lead, you already have an approximate idea. Some of them, in a sense, put to use their selfishness, but you can’t say the aren’t selfish. If you do, the word loses its meaning. They are. That application can result in advancements and so on, of course, but also in lots of other people being trampled upon.
TYPING YOURSELF (1): KNOW THE CONTEXT
Everything that I write about typology can be helpful if you are trying to type yourself. Apart from the main subjects, there are many little things scattered across these texts that might work as clues in your investigation. But the whole idea of finding one’s type is in itself a very significant issue that needs consideration from a larger perspective. In the following posts I’m going to talk about that. Typing other people will probably be there as well, as a tangential theme, although in a sensible order of things that activity is not only much further down the road, but also essentially inadvisable.
Ok. The context. First of all, you need to know what “personality type” really means. Lots of people go with the first article or post they find, and they never question where did all those concepts come from, or what are they supposed to be used for.
The 16 personality types are, more properly, psychological, and they come from the work of psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung. In his book Psychological Types (1921) he wrote mainly about eight “pure” types of people, corresponding to the dominant “cognitive function” of their consciousness (Te1, Fe1, Se1, Ne1, Ti1, Fi1, Si1 or Ni1), but he mentioned that, in practice, there were actually two versions of each, depending on which additional function was differentiated enough to help the dominant one in its same attitude. That’s how you get those 8x2=16 types.
One of the main reasons for the research that Jung did on this theme was the glaring contrasts he noticed between the different understandings of psychology. He saw virtually endless arguments and conflicts going on, and sought a way to explain that. That’s why, when asked, he said that the primary use of typology was to help people understand themselves and each other.
So if you see a name other than Jung next to the types, that’s not the original source. This is not like a building, where anybody can look at the blueprint and just continue the work. No. This is not that easy, folks. This is more like a hazy and muddy archeological dig, in perpetual night. Jung discovered something there, something important, and he said “Hey, look”. So if you truly believe him, then you go and see what he wrote, and you try to find the excavation site, by yourself.
You don’t go to sophisticated online magazines full of fancy stock photos, offers and discounts. That doesn’t make sense. It’s like flying to England, buying a postcard of Stonehenge at the airport, and then going right back on board. Really bad archeology. You don’t go to people typing neckties, either, or the ones making fun of everything. It might seem tempting and interesting, but it’s actually just silly, and it usually hides a very poor understanding of the topic, apart from a clear disinterest in being helpful. That would be like pretending to learn about Stonehenge by bowling. You don’t go to the ones that have a favorite megalith, or the ones who claim all stones are equal, or the ones that say no stone is smaller. That’s just stupid people. And you don’t go to those who are so full of “advanced” knowledge that they can’t stop telling you how five other theories and pseudo-sciences correlate and mix with type. That’s like going down to the basement where some “archeologist” has a whole wall of interconnected pictures and stuff about Stonehenge and wormholes and spaceships, with detailed plans for building an inter-dimensional gate.
What you do is read Chapter X of Jung’s book, at least once. The earlier you do this, the better. The best would be reading it before (or without) taking tests or even trying to identify your type. This way you get an uncontaminated idea of the real scope and depth of the concepts, and you see what you are dealing with. You realize it’s a pretty serious thing, and definitely no laughing matter. If you read it [again] after going through modern descriptions of the types you notice a few remarkable things, provided that you are still willing to learn, of course, and not already “certain” of everything after looking at the postcards. One of the most shocking discoveries that waits for you there is that Jung describes the introverted rationals and irrationals just like others talk about IJ and IP types, respectively. This means that the “function stack” is wrong: ITJs are Ti1, IFJs are Fi1, ISPs are Si1 and INPs are Ni1.
I’ve read lots of other things, but I haven’t found any author that really seems to get Jung, especially in regard to the typology issue. They mostly circle around the ideas, they cherry-pick things for their own particular purposes, they mistranslate him, misread him, and put words in his texts that were never there. Above all, they don’t share his intention of providing a tool that may help other people. They might say they do, but they don’t. That’s the main problem, and one of the most important things to remember. Jung’s interest in being extremely careful and giving only indications for the person to find answers is strikingly absent from any other typology work.
The most famous of those authors are Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. They read Jung and, looking for an explicitly practical application of psychological type, they developed what’s known as the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator), first published in 1943. The acronym MBTI refers to the four-letter code that describes someone’s “personality”, not to the method used to identify that code. So the MBTI is not a test, although the focus of decades of work for Isabel was precisely that.
I don’t know how many versions of the test have been made throughout the years. I don’t know if there have been radical changes that would mean the same person gets a different type altogether. But my guess is that the test did change, somewhat drastically, somewhere along the road. I think the first tests were less accurate, and they have been improving. Also, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that, from a certain point onwards, there have always been several versions of it and several alternative typing techniques going around and being used at the same time. All this could be one possible explanation for the inconsistencies between the type profiles that different typologists have written.
The good versions of the test manage to discern between J and P types in the same way that Jung would differentiate rational from irrational types. Apparently, they do that by looking only at “the external world”. I don’t know how that came to be. I used to think it was Isabel who did it, but now I’m not so sure. You see, I think she wasn’t a P type. I think she knew she was Fi1, and insisted on her idea that having problems with tidiness and order at home was a sign of a “perceiving” nature, so she forced the indicator into reflecting that. But it was a mistake, because she was incorrectly attributing to “P” behaviors that could be easily explained by introversion alone: some people are so inwardly centered that they just don’t have the time or the energy to work at that level on their homes, offices, etc. Her insistence was possibly [one of] the main reason[s] for the invention and spread of the erroneous “function stack”. Myers was clearly an Idealist Adult with a cooperative attitude, that is: an INFJ. In fact, one of the [somehow surprising] peculiarities of that type is that they usually have a little chaos at home.
All right. So. This could imply that, at least during its first years, the official MBTI test was typing [some] IJs as IPs, and vice versa. I don’t know, but some things seem to indicate that (it’s essentially The Classic Mistype™). If that was actually the case, I don’t know for how long it went on unchecked. I don’t even know if [any version of] the current test still makes the same mistake, or what kind or percentage of other available typing techniques do. It might seem a good idea to investigate this, and to ask people which tests they take before identifying with one type or another, but that’s such a hugely complex, tortuous and long road that I just prefer ignoring that particular method, and trying others to support and doubt things.
What’s pretty evident is that the MBTI became very popular. Other people started studying and writing about the 16 types, and now everybody knows and talks about this. But the vast majority tend to fall [at least] in one of the non-helpful categories I mentioned before (besides the utterly distorted view that you find almost everywhere online, where people think they are making sense but they actually don’t understand anything). And virtually all the “serious” typologists out there only want to “put people in their places”, in the worst sense of the idea. That, or they just came up with (or “found”/“borrowed”) some “new model” or “instrument”, and they are all about promoting and marketing it, not about helping anyone. That’s what I was talking about earlier. Apart from all the misconceptions, you can’t even find an approach that’s truly useful.
Katharine and especially Isabel are also guilty of that (it seems the mother voiced her desire to stay away from the project). The MBTI wasn’t born as a tool to help individuals, it was designed as a system for organizing all sorts of teams, and making them more efficient. And that’s a really drastic change. For the sake of economic applicability, Myers had to consciously exclude certain kinds of people from her groundwork, for example. Also, if you read some of her texts, you find she had a strangely simplistic view of things that require a much more attentive procedure. She seems to have worked really hard on everything related to the practical usefulness of her test, but when she talks about typing she shows an overly immediate and categorical style, reaching conclusions by mere isolated actions and responses. I think Myers was a little too much on the side of classifying people, not on typing them.
In line with all that, type descriptions are very often so meticulously crafted that they work as mental conditioning: they seem to be reading your mind, every word feels accurate and positive, everything fits, and wow, they tell you how particularly “valuable” you are, they tell you about your “special powers”, and it’s amazing, so you can’t help but feel “useful”, and ready to “contribute”. This is the same tactic that makes things like astrology “work”. You can usually spot it because the effect is the same even when the person unknowingly reads a description that’s actually not about his/her type.
It’s obvious that, through the MBTI, the original concepts of Jung were adapted and altered in substantial ways, and in the end they lost their helpful characteristics because they were no longer about psychology. They were about employment and performance, workplaces and jobs, management and productivity. That’s how they are mainly used and understood today. Even when authors/publishers/marketers try to pass their ideas as “profound” or “insightful”. Even by people who are supposedly not interested in that, and even by those who protest against it, too. The language has been distorted, as always, and everybody falls into the trap. And it’s not only psychology that gets this “treatment”, but also virtually all [new] knowledge and concepts get twisted to feed the machine and the numbers, while masquerading as tools for “growth”, “development” and “fulfillment”. And it’s such a shame. And this jumps from one area to another, like an infection, and it reaches a point where it makes people look at families and friends also as some kind of factory or assembly line that has to “produce something”. And that’s definitely not helping people. That’s an absolute disgrace.
There’s a place where everything runs as Myers would have wanted. Everybody knows their type, and each type has a full range of available occupations. Every team works as smoothly and as efficiently as anyone could imagine. There’s no “waste of human potential”. Everybody is happy. Everything is perfect.
That place is described in a novel, published right in between Jung’s book and Myers’ indicator. Yes, right in the middle. Some call[ed] it prophetic. I call it a warning. You’ve probably heard its title before.
Brave New World.
TYPING YOURSELF (2): QUESTION WHY
Why do you want to know your type?
This is the most important question in the context of typology. It’s quite a few levels above the mostly tiring and many times meaningless “what is your type?”. The reason behind your desire for knowing which MBTI code applies to you (or others) is where you really should spend some time after learning how this whole typology thing came to be, and before getting into details. The rest of the subjects in this series of posts are numbered but not intended to be arranged in any particular order, only to be all kept in mind (the same with the list of points below).
Asking yourself why is not as simple as it sounds. Asking why is being open to the answer. Why do you really want to know your type? Think about your answer for a moment. Then keep reading.
✸ 1) Don’t do it just because your friends are all into it. I know some people look into MBTI only to “fit” and have something in common with other people. They aren’t that interested in theories or realities, they just want to chat about stuff. For them, it doesn’t matter if it’s inaccurate, as long as it keeps the conversation going. But that’s not as harmless as it seems: they are fooling themselves, and they might end up believing (or making others believe) they know something “with certainty”, when it’s actually all lies. And lies never help anyone.
Also, just because the people you know are into something, doesn’t mean that’s for you, and even if you get into it and identify your type, you don’t have to share it with anyone, or change your behavior in the slightest. Lots of people don’t seem to notice the adverse consequences of telling others their type. Think about it: with all the misinformation about typology, and the huge amount of things that are far from understood, what good does it do to publicly include yourself in a group whose “known” characteristics, at a certain point in time (or always), might be just complete falsehoods that anybody can invent? This actually happens with all human classifications (with more or less intensity), so the larger the number of groups you identify as a “member” of, the worse.
And of course, don’t do it to be part of the echo-chamber. Stay away from MBTI “communities” where it seems everybody knows a lot of “deep” things: they won’t help you. They look like “experts” because they use some strange words and acronyms, and they combine concepts and ideas and can talk for hours about anything, but that’s only appearances. In reality everyone is repeating the most absurd distortions of Jung’s psychological terms and ideas, using and abusing them in a way that’s completely disconnected from the truth of how our minds work. If you get involved, at first you’ll be confused. Then you might reach a point when you think you’re finally “getting it right”, so it might feel like progress, but if you keep learning you’ll find it’s all wrong. Some make it out of there, most likely with a feeling of wasted time. But for others, it becomes a “safe space” to freely indulge in their particular obsessive illusion. Yes, there’s a definite cult-like aspect in most of these circles, where it’s all smiles but no one can say anything against the established “truths” of the matter, just like in a religion, with its “sacred texts” (or, in this case, more like “stacks”). Also, behind the scenes, everybody is fighting and backstabbing each other, with hidden intentions that usually include trying to be the “most/best/superior ABCD” in town, or lecturing the rest on what a “real” WXYZ (or whatever) should be. (This is not exclusive to typology collectives, it happens with all kinds of groups).
✸ 2) Don’t do it to build your “identity” around it, or anybody else’s. Just like the “experts” of the previous point, a lot of people take their knowledge about types as some sort of pattern, ideal or exemplar for [their] behavior, [their] “individuality” and [their] “uniqueness”. See? that right there is a contradiction: if you have any kind of model you are not unique, you are a copy. And even more importantly: every [mental] image of what you are, or anybody else is, is a lie that can only hurt you and others. You don’t need any external or known reference of [supposed] value to “embody”, “perform” or “represent”. You don’t need to be predictable, static or set, about anything. That’s silently asphyxiating your mind. All those attachments, just like the rest of the points in this list, are ways of killing it.
✸ 3) Don’t do it just to put it alongside your “zodiac sign” or any other fictional “typology”. They are not the same thing at all. There’s a misinformed idea out there that a lot of people repeat, about MBTI not having been “scientifically proved”, or something like that. Well, if Myers made sure of something it was precisely that: to make her indicator statistically reliable. As it is now, the official MBTI (that is: the letters/dichotomies, not the “functions”) is “scientific” in the same way the Big Five is, for example. It’s not a “hard science”, but not superstition either. Some call it “soft-science”: statistics prove its usefulness in the way it consistently reflects personality traits, while astrology (and lots of other meaningless “typology systems”) is just superstition: statistics always prove it wrong.
✸ 4) Don’t do it for the characters in the shows/movies/books. A lot of times characters are not even meant to represent people. Just because they are played/voiced by actors, doesn’t mean they are intended as depictions of [hypothetical] human beings or their patterns of behavior. They might be mental concepts, states, symbols, figments, etc. Also, fictional characters are not real people, and only real people have real types. This means that, on top of the rampant faulty knowledge about typology that everybody seems to share as “accepted principles”, you have a subject of study that doesn’t even have a real type to be discovered in the first place. No wonder you find lots of different types assigned to the same character: typing fictional characters is literally an unattainable goal. People are way more complex, strange and intricate than any character anyone can imagine, because people are real, and fictional characters don’t exist.
✸ 5) Don’t do it for the humor and the jokes. Some people are in love with not having the slightest idea about something but posting as if, in a “humorous” or “joking” manner, trying to use that as a mask or an excuse for their lack of accuracy, understanding and caring, and their unwillingness to even try to learn. This might be, in part, due to the general illusion of having it all figured out already: since the types and their “functions” have been “explained” for a long time now, there’s no harm in making fun of it, right? Wrong. The types and, especially, the “functions”, are intergalactically far from “figured out”. The common understanding of all these things is a complete inconsistent mess, and joking about it only makes it worse for everybody. (More about this here).
✸ 6) Don’t do it for the aesthetics, please. Just don’t. Make your own aesthetic, and don’t even stop to think if it fits with anything in any typology.
✸ 7) Don’t do it so you can read other people’s descriptions about what you [presumably] are. Even if you set aside the fact that all the descriptions that use the eiei/ieie order are wrong, you still face other problems. One is that there are lots and lots of different portraits for the types, from different people, with different perspectives, different uses of language and words, and different intentions. The most “good-looking” of those descriptions share a common intention that’s not exactly about helping you. Also, lots of them are contradictory to the point of talking about opposite types, when they should be about the same kind of person. Descriptions are always rather superficial, but that doesn’t prevent them from confusing people if there isn’t a perfect match between what’s being described and the real type of the reader. Probably the best approach here is to simply forget about depictions that don’t feel right to you.
✸ 8) Don’t do it to have a label and then merely talk about yourself using that label, with those awful “As an ABCD…” sentences, as if you were a representative for all ABCDs. Because that’s what a lot of people do online. They get their [mis]type and then write about themselves saying “This might not be about all ABCDs but…” Then why do you feel the need to point out that you [supposedly] are an ABCD? Seeing as you’re actually declaring that you don’t know… Why do you assume the topic of your post has anything to do with being an ABCD? What is this absolutely insane global mania of talking only in terms of groups and categories of people? Can’t we just talk about ourselves without stamping everything with labels? Labels that are also amazingly likely to change in the future, because people find they were mistyped all along (of course), or they start “identifying” more with some other group, probably at random, or following some kind of hype or “fashion”.
✸ 9) Don’t do it to find “proof” of some “intrinsic worth” in yourself. We don’t need any system or typology to show us the value of life.
✸ 10) Don’t do it to “claim” anything about you, either. There are no prizes here, and no pride to be found in something you just can’t decide. It seems some people [mis]type themselves [consciously] as if they were in some kind of race to get the most “personality” points, or something like that. And that’s wrong on so many levels that it must come from an absolute ignorance of psychology and the reality behind the types. You can’t choose anything about your type. Your type has always been a reality, inseparable from you, and it always will be, so trying/wishing for it to be something in particular, or lying to yourself and others about it, is the worst thing that you can do.
✸ 11) Don’t do it to find a “suitable partner”. We have only a few general ideas about type compatibility, but in real life there are lots and lots of other things that determine how friendships and relationships start and develop, and they are not about the types of those involved. Typology may be useful after people have known each other for a while. But that’s another matter altogether.
✸ 12) Don’t do it to “plan your career”, or anything like that. That was one of Myers’ main goals, but it’s not as good as it sounds. I know lots of people like feeling related to [gone] celebrities, famous “soul mates”, etc. Some consider following the steps of those type-twins, but that’s a huge mistake. Not only because of what we already know: the huge amount of mistypes (the possibility of your own plus the virtually unavoidable mistypes of public figures), but also because your life is not comparable to any other. There is no mold, no blueprint, no map, and no road. This is only you.
✸ 13) Don’t do it to know your “strengths and weaknesses”, or to go from “unhealthy” to “healthy”. Those are some of the most maliciously manipulative expressions that people use to exploit others, making them feel “flawed” about something, and then selling them some “training” or “life advice” for “growth” and “development”. Basically the “psychological” version of “sin” and “atonement”.
All this “opposed states” talk implies, again, some kind of “model” or “goal” that everybody must admire and aspire to, and a “path” to achieve it. Sorry, but that’s pure deception. You can’t place any image of “perfection” out there for individual people, so you can’t do it for the types, either. If there is any definite rule, any system for measuring how “well developed” someone is, then that’s not development, but adjustment, adaptation or [self]domestication. That is: self-denial.
This doesn’t mean that your type is some sort of excuse for any kind of behavior. If you use it as a mental thumbs-up for your ideas, that is, of course, only you, trying to justify yourself. (Some people use other things, but that’s a topic for another post). The question here is: are you trying to learn something, or are you trying to confirm your own opinions/desires? Because you don’t have the duty to type anyone, not even yourself. If there is any duty about this at all, that would be to understand what people are actually doing, which is, 99% of the time, fooling and hurting themselves and others.
Typing yourself can be helpful because you are different from other people, and it’s useful to know that some shared concepts apply to you, but not all of them. You try to identify your type to know yourself better. That’s the only improvement, and probably the only and ultimate wisdom: know yourself.
In the context of the types this includes knowing more about everybody, so you can use the right words when describing yourself and others, because you know where you stand in the global spectrum of these common ideas and adjectives. You type yourself to understand that you are different from lots of other people, and similar to some others. You type yourself to know that certain “problems” are actually not problems, but the way things are and always will be, because the deepest workings of type stay with people for life. You can’t change or give new ways of perception or judgment to people, for example. An introverted sensor (ISP) is never going to see things only as they are, and you can’t expect an extraverted thinker (ETJ) to ever be satisfied with only theorizing in his mind.
You don’t try to type yourself out of boredom, peer pressure, or social inertia. You only do it if there’s something that doesn’t fit, or if nothing fits, and you think that this might help you. But you don’t do it only for yourself. This is a very important thing: you do it for everybody, because learning about types is learning about the whole world, and the amazingly diverse ways in which it is perceived and understood by different people who are, in fact, different worlds themselves. Typing is about bringing comprehension, about noticing the unfillable gaps and still managing to feel a larger connection. It doesn’t necessarily mean “acceptance” or “surrender”: it might imply that you need to do or to stop doing something. And there is no fixed/known “result” of typing. It doesn’t automatically follow that you “become a better person” in some definite way. In fact, there is no “becoming”, at all.
There is only what you are, and how well you see it.
Anonymous said: Different person here, but is the mbti something that is really worth my time and dedication to learn and understand?
It’s like with any other tool: it is worth it if you want it to be helpful instead of harmful. But maybe you don’t need it at all, and that’s something you really need to consider before getting into it. I talked about some aspects related to this here, because most people online have a rather superficial and/or entirely misguided approach to typology.
If you are looking for something to pass the time, to make jokes, to classify people and/or characters, to declare good and bad, to make everyone the same, to brag about, to justify yourself, to find a “partner” or build a “career”, to laugh at people, to stigmatize or to have some kind of weapon against them, etc, then it’s better to just leave it, and don’t even read or talk about it. But if you are genuinely interested in learning about the psychological differences between people, what’s actually in some but never in others, what might explain some of their disagreements and misunderstandings, why they seem to come from and live in different worlds, and you do it with an open mind and real undirected curiosity, then of course, you have your answer :)
The people who keep coming back to this topic do it for different reasons, but not all of those are good reasons. It shouldn’t be something you choose, it shouldn’t bring more conflict, and it shouldn’t [be used to] make anyone believe that they have to do something in order to achieve anything. All of this gets even worse if the accepted models are wrong, of course.
In the end, the best perspective and reason for learning about MBTI is to learn about yourself. In this case (and apart from the classic “the more you put into it”), you’ll probably get more out of it the more your type is clearly defined, that is: the more you find yourself closer to the dichotomy extremes. That’s the people that Jung studied and described, including the ones who make others feel bad when they shouldn’t, and those who feel bad about themselves, when they shouldn’t either.
So, yeah, this is all about knowing yourself. That’s what I write about, basically. And knowing yourself brings knowledge of other people, because they are different. That’s the whole point with MBTI.
“Is it worth it” is a question that implies some kind of option so, in that sense, I can’t say, because I didn’t choose it: I found it. And I guess the best indication of its value is that yes, there is something in it, or behind it, or something that you can understand better with it, something that’s important, and meaningful. Some people might get to that with other tools or no tools at all, but the real MBTI can be helpful.
Anonymous said: I’m an INTP, but I generally don’t like programming and most of the other activities generally associated with being an INTP. I’m more interested in literature and philosophy. I’ve taken the test multiple times and I always end up an INTP, and I relate to how the INTP is described. Idk what to think
Knowing your type is more about getting an answer to a previously recognized problem (so that you understand why it happens, how come others don’t get it, etc) than about using it as a factor in any kind of subsequent decision. Take a look at the last three long paragraphs in post #11, and then at points 2, 7, 12 and 13 (=last part) in post #12. Assuming you are correctly typed, your type is there to explain differences and defuse certain kinds of conflict (internal and external), not to dictate courses of action. That responsibility is always yours, and of course: you’re not obligated to take any course at all.
INTPs, like any other type, can be interested in lots of different things. The stereotypes are abundant in all aspects, including this one, and some of them only try to put people in conventional places. I think it’s absolutely and perfectly fitting for some INTPs (Ni-Ti-Fe-Se) to like/love literature and philosophy. Ni is essentially the most philosophical function, and Ti is the most conceptual, so you have a really good combination there for ideas and words. In fact, I think some of the classic Greek philosophers were INTPs.
What you and anyone thinking about occupations need to remember is that (as mentioned in post #08) interest, talent, availability and marketability are all separated spheres that don’t always intersect: you might be good at something you like, but that doesn’t mean that all the needed elements/tools will be around you, or that the activity will be profitable. Trying to mix distant spheres might end up distorting [some of] them, sometimes with undesirable results. And there are more spheres, of course, like the legal and moral aspects, and the reaction of other people towards you and your work: something might bring you lots of money but also lots of critics, enemies, etc.
So you have to figure things out: what’s more important for you? What are you willing to ignore? What are you unable to ignore? Maybe you just can’t help it, and you are always doing or thinking about something, so it’s as if the decision has never been up to you. But you have to study yourself all the same, because you might be justifying or lying to yourself in some way. You have to find out if you really need to do that thing, what’s the reason behind the impulse, what are the details, and what can you do instead. Find out, but don’t do it for anybody else (exactly, we got again to know yourself) (hopefully we never left). The better you discern the reason and the real scope, the better you can manage what you [don’t] do about it.
Anonymous said: hi! i read your post about the question “Why do you want to know your type?”, i thought of it and realized i wanna know it bc since i was young i felt like i didn’t have a personality, i was just influenced by others. sometimes i feel this emptiness like i’m no one at all. and somehow i got the idea that if i found my mbti i’ll actually have a personality, but it just got me much more confused about myself. i already mistyped as 11 types in 3 years. i’m too young to type me, but i can’t stop
Hi :)
If you start too young with this it can be more confusing than helpful, especially if the sources of information are incorrect (very likely), or just if you really want to know and check a bunch of them and discover that they don’t agree, of course. You can spend years reading and re-typing and never get to an accurate answer. It wouldn’t be all wasted if you ended up finding just one point of true reference, right? So you could at least know that basically everything before that was wrong.
Well, that’s part of what I’m trying to do here, of course.
Think about these things:
- You don’t need a label to be what you already are. Your type is not something to “put on”, a model to emulate, or a script to repeat. It’s not a “personality”, or a “style”, or a set of things that you like, or your job. You don’t choose it, and you can’t change it. Your type is just what you are, now and always. In that sense, you not only have it already, but you can’t lose it. So you can totally forget about typology, know with certainty that your type is there all the same (whichever it is), and do other things.
- Any time you [unknowingly] assume and declare that you are a type that you’re not, you are making the types a bit more meaningless for everybody. This could be something to remember if you want to improve the “stopping” part. That is: this thing is not only about you. It’s about everybody, and more serious than it seems. (Here we are seeing the misuse-of-language problem, which is not exclusive to this topic, of course).
- Since it’s about everybody, you need to be able to step back from yourself and incorporate a broad view of that. And it’s very difficult. Take a look at post #20a. That’s one of the obstacles: trying to understand something that’s really complicated before having a minimum amount of experiences, with yourself and with other people. Some might have some kind of innate talent there, but the way you describe your case it seems you need a few of those, right?
Another example: you can’t really understand the difference between E and I if you only know or focus on extraverted people, while thinking that you’re actually watching all 16 types up close. You might think you got it, but you could be reducing the whole typology to just 6-7 real types. I imagine the level of confusion can lead someone to see “ISFPs”, “INFJs”, “ISFJs” and “INFPs” in a group where everybody is actually ESF, for example.
So, the best idea would be just to wait. Focus on other things, and live them, don’t try to define everything or do only what you think is defined.
If you keep coming back, then read the rest of the typing series, try to build a landscape of the types, read more posts, go through the lists, the tables, the works, compare famous people from the typings page, see how they occupy different places of reference, and try to locate yourself there, but keep everything as a kind of personal homework, a work in progress that’s not ready to be shown yet. Keep it like that, let a year pass, and if you’re still interested, come back and check it all again.
TYPING YOURSELF (3): FORGET THE EIEI/IEIE ORDER
In case you don’t know yet, the famous e-i-e-i/i-e-i-e “function stacks” that everybody takes for granted (Socionics’ included) are wrong: they go against what Jung actually discovered and, whenever people try to prove them, the numbers just don’t fit.
A lot of people seem to think that the eiei/ieie order is synonymous with the “MBTI system” or the “official MBTI”. Well, it’s not. The official MBTI is the letters (or dichotomies), not the functions. The typology indicator has always been about identifying where someone stands in the four psychological dichotomies: extraversion/introversion (E/I), sensation/intuition (S/N), thinking/feeling (T/F), and judging/perceiving (J/P). The official tools and tests work with that, and the statistics match with that, too. If the stack seems “logical” or “useful”, and people seem to “relate” to it, that’s mostly because the letter combinations that go with each presumed “function” (NP for “Ne”, SP for “Se”, etc) are actually good at capturing certain traits, not because the functions have been figured out that way.
In this context, the idea of which functions are behind which letters is essentially ornamental. It started that way with Isabel Briggs Myers: her indicator didn’t measure the functions, it measured the dichotomies. The functions were only supposed to be there, somewhere. So, yes, a “function stack” was already in Myers’ work, and it was already wrong: she said that IP types had judging dominants, and IJ types had perceiving dominants. That doesn’t make sense, but it stayed that way. My guess is that Myers knew she was an introverted feeler (Fi1), but considered herself “a perceiver” because she wasn’t orderly enough around the house or something, so she designed the test to reflect that. During the first years of the MBTI [some] IPs were typed as IJs, and vice versa. Then, somewhere along the road, the test was fixed, but the stack remained the same. Other “serious typologists” made several variations of it, but the ones that got popular were equally mistaken.
These are some of the reasons why the eiei/ieie “function stacks” are wrong, and why using those “functions” is absolutely unreliable for typing:
✸ 1) If you read what Jung wrote about psychological types, and then compare that with modern type descriptions and correctly typed people, you find that IFJs are the true introverted feelers (= Fi1), ITJs are the true introverted thinkers (= Ti1), ISPs are the true introverted sensors (= Si1), and INPs are the true introverted intuitives (= Ni1). All the famous “stacks” distorted that, so the original concepts of the functions got distorted, too. I put some indications of this in point 1.1 of my first post.
✸ 2) As Jung said, our auxiliary function is always in the same attitude (E/I) as our dominant. It needs to be that way, that’s why he always talks about the attitude of consciousness (and the compensatory attitude of the unconscious), in singular, not plural. There’s also his typing of Nietzsche, which confirms this: in early chapters he says he’s Ni-dom, and then he mentions him at the beginning of the introverted thinker, which means he typed him as Ni-Ti-Fe-Se = INTP. Extraversion can’t be the auxiliary of introversion, or vice versa. That’s just not how the functions work. For example: you can’t help/serve/follow an internal concept (Ti) with an external object (Se) unless you first translate that Se into Si = internal object. The famous eiei/ieie order doesn’t reflect this, but instead makes a mess with the directions, so it doesn’t reflect how our mind works, either, and assumes we all have some kind of crazy consciousness that’s both introverted and extraverted. I recommend reading this post by reckful (=reddshoes). That was what finally made it all click for me. More about the attitude of the auxiliary and the tertiary in post #154.
✸ 3) All those things make the stacks’ concept of “dominant” entirely inconsistent: it marks the dominant for the extraverts, yes, but for the introverts that “dominant” is actually their auxiliary. Using those function stacks is like working with chemical formulas where the letter “C” stands for “Carbon” 50% of the time, and for “Helium” the other 50%.
✸ 4) What the stacks call “auxiliary” is actually a shadow function for the extraverts, and a different shadow function for the introverts. So, in the end, the stacks only indicate one thing “correctly”: the extraverted dominants. If we multiply and count the errors, the stacks get only 8 out of 32 conscious functions right (or 16 out of 64 total functions), that is: 25% of them. Myers did a very good job with the letters, though: she got 87.5% of them right (4/4 for the extraverts and ¾ for the introverts).
✸ 5) The official MBTI statistics never put the types with the same stack-functions together at one end of a given trait, and the opposite ones at the other end. For example: they never put ISFJs and ENTPs together (which supposedly share all their “functions”) at one end, and ISFPs and ENTJs (which supposedly share all their “functions”, too) at the other. They do put ISFJs and ISFPs together all the time, and they put ENTJs and ENTPs together all the time. This happens with all the J/P pairs.
✸ 6) The “function tests” don’t work, either. Even if their descriptions of the functions are based on traits that correlate with combinations of letters, people tend to get strange results that don’t fit with any known “stack”. For example: they usually get high percentages of both the introverted and the extraverted attitude of the same general “function” (high Ne and high Ni, high Te and high Ti, etc).
✸ 7) Back in 1989 McCrae & Costa said it was better to separate the MBTI from Jung’s functions, because the statistics are reliable only when it comes to the letters (dichotomies). They essentially said what has been explained in the previous points: the “function stacks” that everybody keeps repeating don’t match with Jung’s work.
✸ 8) People from the official MBTI itself have written against the use of the functions, for example in The Case Against Type Dynamics (“type dynamics” is an expression that refers to the eiei/ieie “stack”). They call them a “category mistake”, stating that the use of the functions “provides an incomplete account of type phenomena” and “does not account for the empirical facts”, among other reasons.
So, if you really want to type yourself correctly, you need to forget about the famous “functions”. There’s no use in something so arbitrary, confusing and inconsistent when you already have the tried and true. Whenever I talk about the real functions in detail the context is totally different: the content is not to be taken as anything more than attempts at describing some very difficult subjects, and not to be used for typing anyone, of course. Perhaps some day it might be helpful, somehow, but in the meantime, if you ask me about typing, I send you to this series. (Edit: now it’s 2 years later and I’ve been posting for a while about using the real cognitive functions for typing, too. Still, the right way to do it is always letters first).
Out there the eiei/ieie “functions” are always being promoted as something “advanced” and “cool”, but in reality they are just a magnifying source of misinformation and mistypes. In fact, some people take them as a tool to make typing unnecessarily complicated and “obscure”, twisting everything that could be understood as a simple concept and turning it into differential quantum mechanics. These people end up being among the most unhelpful and harmful to those they are supposedly trying to assist. Now you may ask: if the known functions are so wrong, how come there are so many blogs and things about them? Well, just think about it this way: how many books and blogs and channels and “professionals” and business are there about astrology, cartomancy and other forms of “prediction”? How many spam accounts, how many [online] scams, how many shining lotteries and casinos? Yes, that’s right. Are they going to dissappear any time soon? No way. Does that mean they are useful? Hahaha. Good point. But no, not for the “clients”.
Anonymous said: Hi, I’ve read through your post about the typing and functions, which were compelling. I had a question because, ordinarily I type as an INFP, which I have a strong FI over the other functions(I took the key2cognition test). But under your typing FI would be first for INFJ. Could you explain the difference between these two? And would it matter if I also am an enneagram 4w5
Those “function tests” are based on the nonexistent alternating stacks (e-i-e-i/i-e-i-e) so, at best, what they are supposedly trying to measure are traits or characteristics that go with the corresponding pairs of letters: FP for “Fi”, FJ for “Fe”, etc, not the real cognitive functions. I wouldn’t even trust they are doing the letter thing right, because many people get high scores in both “Te” (TJ) and “Ti” (TP), or in “Ne” (NP) and “Ni” (NJ), etc. (I think they are simply useless).
So any “Fi” that you might get there is not the real Fi. And the same with the rest of the functions. There’s no translation from what those tests say into the real cognitive functions of the types. And there’s no test for the real functions, either. In the series that I have here the typing method that I propose is based on the dichotomies (the letters). If you’re unsure about your J/P you can take a look at the differences between judging and perceiving in the #typing posts, the lists, the tables, etc.
The real introverted feeling (Fi) is the dominant function of INFJs and ISFJs. But in order to recognize it for what it is you need to forget what you might have heard elsewhere (except if it was in Jung’s book, of course), because that’s not Fi. Everybody is talking about things that are not cognitive functions using the names of those functions. They are all mistaken, and some of them won’t ever admit it even if they realize the error. So be careful if you go back there.
(Post #44 is a response to a previous ask about the enneagram).
TYPING YOURSELF (4): USE THE LETTERS
The 16 MBTI types are 4-letter codes that describe where a certain person stands on four psychological dimensions, called “dichotomies” because they have two distinct halves/extremes. Each half or extreme is represented by a different letter, so there are 4x2=8 possible letters. The first dichotomy is Extraversion (E) — Introversion (I), the second dichotomy is Sensation (S) — Intuition (N), the third dichotomy is Thinking (T) — Feeling (F), and the fourth dichotomy is Judging (J) — Perceiving (P).
The dichotomies are the useful ones when you try to type yourself (or someone else). They are the original foundation of the very concept of psychological type and the MBTI, and they have been proved to faithfully correlate with different psychological traits, both as single indicators and with all their different combinations. The letters carry lots of interesting and instructive details about people of different types, they reveal meaningful groups and relationships, etc. Psychometrically, they are on a par with other personality instruments, like the Big Five. The famous “eiei/ieie functions”, on the other hand, don’t match with the statistics, and they also offer much less information than the letters. The usual understanding of the functions makes the types more similar to each other, blurring the differences between them. Taking the functions as some kind of constituent elements is almost like reducing the 16 types to 4 “big types”: those who share the same stack-functions. Just look at the number of sources of information you have:
✸ Using the functions: X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 = 4 sources (or 8 if you add the “shadow functions”).
✸ Using the letters: A + B + C + D + AB + AC + AD + BC + BD + CD + ABC + ACD + ABD + BCD + ABCD = 15 sources.
You don’t need to take tests, and you don’t need to pay money to type yourself. No, sorry, what I meant is: don’t take tests, and never pay to know your type. Tests are essentially weird: sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, and you’re never really sure what they are trying to do, what [distorted] assumptions they are based on, etc. The best approach for typing is always to read carefully and understand different descriptions or lists of concepts related to the four dichotomies, taken as single letters or as diverse combinations of letters. And within that, the best method is to identify one letter at a time, using the MBTI facets (below), for example. You can try and determine two or three letters together, but that’s less reliable. Those combinations work much better as tools for checking the validity of the type you got before letter by letter.
THE FACETS
The official MBTI facets are one of the best tools for typing yourself. They are pairs of contrasting adjectives that indicate the poles or opposite ends of 20 psychological characteristics or traits (five for each dichotomy). They are clear and quite easy to understand, and also one of the best summaries of what this typology means in a practical sense. They are collectively global and wide, and individually simple and to the point.
To identify your type you need to think about each pair of words, and choose the adjective that describes you more accurately, always from the point of view of your consciousness, your natural tendency and confidence. You do this with the 20 pairs above, so you get 20 words in total. Your answers should be given with an adequate dose of honesty and patience (see the last two sections of this post). When you’ve finished, look within each dichotomy: your letter is the one with more chosen words on its side (that is: 3, 4 or 5 words). For example: if someone relates to Initiating (instead of Receiving), Expressive (instead of Contained), Gregarious (instead of Intimate), Active, Quiet, Abstract, Realistic, Practical, Theoretical, Original, Logical, Reasonable, Questioning, Critical, Tough, Casual, Open-Ended, Early-Starting, Scheduled and Emergent, that person is an ENTP (E/I: 4/1, S/N: 2/3, T/F: 5/0, J/P: 2/3). The facets are surprisingly nuanced: if you count all the possible variations, they represent 50.625 different versions of each MBTI type (if my calculations are correct :P). That’s 810.000 differently detailed types in total. (You can look online for more information about the facets, of course, for example here or here).
Using the list above is the most straighforward way, but there’s an even more reliable way, one without the explicitness of knowing the dichotomy that’s being analyzed. You need 20 rectangular pieces of paper. Write each pair of words on one side ([ Initiating Receiving ], [ Expressive Contained ], etc), and then write the same pair of words, but in reverse order, on the other side ([ Receiving Initiating ], [ Contained Expressive ], etc). You now have a deck of 20 horizontal “cards”, with no “front” or “back” side. Shuffle them, completely at random. Then start taking cards and placing them in front of you, one by one. For each card, think about the word that applies to you the most. When you have the answer, put that card in a “result” pile, with the side of your answer pointing to you. Do the same with all the cards. Then look at the list above and place your responses in 4 groups: one for each dichotomy. Inside each group, the letter of your type is the one with 3 or more cards on its side. (You can also use kingscrossing’s www.facetsquiz.com, which includes a longer version with the keywords from post #20).
In the ideal case there’s no need for more complexity than this. If you see what’s behind the words, if you really understand what these adjectives are trying to reflect, in a simple way, you don’t need anything more to know your MBTI type. So it’s not a question of intricacy, but depth. Understanding the reality behind the dichotomies and the facets implies having substantial knowledge or awareness of other people, the most diverse and different from you, the better, and then having the capacity to place them conceptually along psychological ranges or lines, always from a wide and timeless perspective (and with a clear and neutral view of where you stand in those domains). You need to have in mind all kinds of real human beings, not just your family, your friends, and the people you study/obsess over. In fact, being too close to someone can make you lose objectivity and fixate on particular details, blowing them out of proportion. You need to observe from a distance, picture and consider people from all ages, locations, circumstances, occupations, etc. And then you need to pick up their intrinsic [mental] characteristics, their everlasting ways of interpreting and valuing things and, using those traits, form a complete landscape. Because you are looking for what’s always there, not what comes and goes. You need a comprehensive grasp of the internal essence of people, one that goes beyond ages, locations, circumstances, occupations, etc.
Disclaimer
The facets are not infallible. Some descriptions can be misleading, and your answers might change depending on your psychological state, your experience and knowledge, etc. The S/N dichotomy can be difficult because some IS people (conscious Si) can be considered “imaginative”, for example. With T/F you can find IF people (conscious Fi) who are quite cold and critical, even if they are Feelers. And there are other possibilities of confusion. That’s why the best practice is to combine all the angles of analysis covered in the blog: dichotomies, letter combinations, true functions, temperaments, etc.
THE COMBINATIONS
After going letter by letter and getting your MBTI code (using the facets, for example), it’s a good idea to read descriptions related to letter combinations and see if it fits with different additional concepts and classifications. (You could do this in reverse, starting with combinations and then going through the facets, but that would be a bit contradictory). You can use the list below, for example. It includes 6 points that might be helpful. Except for the last one (which should actually be the last) they are not arranged or supposed to be read in any particular order. Choose one option in all the points you can, without trying to get a specific type, of course. It’s ok if some answers don’t seem to match, the idea would be to do them independently, forgetting about any other thing here, as if it was the first time you ever did something like that. Then look and see if the type from before coincides with these results. If it doesn’t, go back and reevaluate the letters, one by one.
✸ Read about the four Keirsey groups (but ignore anything about “famous people”, there are lots of confusing mistypes there), and then think which one applies to you, without paying too much attention to their names:
Guardian: SJ
Artisan: SP
Rational: NT
Idealist: NF
✸ Read this post and think which attitude applies to you:
Directive: TJ
Cooperative: FJ
Pragmatic: TP
Informative: FP
✸ Read the first part of this post and try to determine which intelligence applies to you:
Practical: ET
Social: EF
Critical: IT
Inner: IF
✸ Read the last section of this post and consider what “mythical age” will probably apply to your mind all your life:
Child: IP
Teen: EP
Adult: IJ
Elder: EJ
✸ Which interest do you think is the most natural and permanent in you?:
Objects/Presences: ES
Progress/Possibilities: EN
Known/Knowable: IS
Unknown/Unknowable: IN
✸ Read this post, and maybe take a look at the pictorial tables I made to see if the temperament correlations can be helpful:
Cholerics: ENTJ, ENFJ, ESTP, ESTJ.
Sanguines: ESFP, ESFJ, ENTP, ENFP.
Melancholics: ISTJ, ISTP, INFJ, INTJ.
Phlegmatics: INFP, INTP, ISFJ, ISFP.
➤ There are more keywords and lists in this post, and also in this one, if you need them. You can check these descriptions and take a look at the MBTI lists, too. And to complement all that with an analysis of the functions you can start with post #140.
At this point you should have enough information to be relatively sure about your type. Now I’m going to talk about two important things that you need to keep in mind during the process: honesty and patience. (As it happens with a lot of other things in these posts, what follows doesn’t apply exclusively to the context of typology).
HONESTY
There are three specific kinds of honesty that are required when you try to type yourself. They are not so much about how truthful you are reporting particular happenings, but more about a sincere disposition on your part that reaches the core and doesn’t try to convey any predetermined, fabricated or supposed image of yourself.
First of all, typing oneself is obviously not about the persona we try to portray, the person we want to “become”, the people we like or admire (as “icons”, “idols”, “inspiration” or “perfection”), or what we “believe” we are, either. We already know all those things are wrong reasons for typing ourselves. You need to differentiate between what you imagine yourself doing and what you actually end up doing, for example. Also, you shouldn’t try to force your result so that it ties in with any other system or typology. Don’t build ideals for anybody, there’s only suffering in that.
Another critical task is discerning clearly between your natural state or inclination and the behaviors you [have] learn[ed]/adopt[ed] by/when being around others, influenced by them, trying to be a “more rounded” person, etc. Your home/school/religious education, culture, social/professional environment, and also your personal history and self-knowledge, could have inculcated or made you acquire certain accessory habits or approaches, things that don’t reach the core but are still rather customary for you, most or some of the time, on particular occasions or matters. You probably understand them as some kind of compensatory mental mechanisms. When typing yourself you need to see through that. It’s the core that’s your type, not the dressing around it.
And also: some day you might find you were mistyped all along. If you made it public then, you need the honesty to make the correction public now, too. If you don’t like the sound of that possible situation, remember what I wrote in the first point of this post. Being honest doesn’t mean you have to tell others about your [supposed] type, or any other category of yours. Being honest is not lying.
PATIENCE
Typing is not a question of speed, but accuracy. And those two are not very good friends :P Different people need different doses of patience when they try to type themselves, depending on their current psychological/mental/emotional state, the method they use, and their own self-knowledge. Some find it pretty easy and straightforward, they get a result and it just fits, and then they proceed to other things. But for others it’s not that easy, and it takes a lot of time.
Part of being patient is understanding when it’s better to try things. If you are too young you know you’re probably going to change in the future, maybe several times, and maybe in drastic ways. Or you may not change, but come to understand the dichotomies better, and recognize that some of your letters were incorrect. So it might be a good thing to wait. Your type isn’t going anywhere. It will be there whenever you try to identify it. Also, typing yourself should be nothing but helpful to you, and never stressful in any way. That’s why you need to carefully consider why do you want to know your type in the first place.
For some people their first “serious” result seems somewhat right, but they get curious and learn more about typology, and that result starts to feel “off”. In some cases the ensuing search takes several years and a lot of thinking over, but it can also be very helpful, because it brings learning along the way, for example about real differences between people, causes of mistypes, etc.
The thing is: the sooner you identify with a type and start thinking and/or doing things based on that result, the higher the probability of [you and others] being hurt by it, because it might be false. Think about it: it’s better to never know it, if it’s not the real one.
Remember: there’s no hurry. Your type will wait for you, in you, forever. It won’t betray you, because it simply can’t. And you won’t be unfaithful either, as long as you don’t identify with the wrong one. So, please, be careful. Don’t betray yourself.
firefromheaven-deactivated20180 said: I have a problem in typing myself by your system–I find that I’d pick different traits off of your lists now as opposed to several years ago. In what state would the “right” traits manifest for typing?
This is essentially a question of knowing what is inborn and what is learned/adopted, and for some people it might be really difficult to differentiate between the two. The basic idea is what I wrote in the honesty+patience part. The younger we are, the more likely it is for us to copy or go against what we find in other people, either to conform or to rebel, to get by or just to see what happens, etc. So we need to think about that: which traits are a response to the atmosphere, values, customs and habits we have encountered, and which ones are always there, at the core, so that they would have appeared in one way or another, independently of what was around us.
Those response-traits might have been easy or not-that-easy to adopt. But just because it was easy doesn’t mean it’s our nature. Maybe we just didn’t care, or maybe we had a very good model to imitate. We could have been taking up some bits and pieces to compensate our innate dispositions. Maybe we didn’t even notice. There’s no clear-cut distinction there, but the official tests always talk about trying to focus on your “most comfortable” state when answering questions (in contrast to your “automatic” response, your “work” attitude, a temporary “intellectual” perspective that tends to mistype a lot of Ss as “Ns”, etc), so the same should be true if you are using the facets. They talk about ”an attitude in which one functions naturally, smoothly, and effortlessly, and in which one is not going ‘against one’s grain.’”
The usual understanding is that our “most comfortable” mode tends to manifest itself with age because we assume age brings self-knowledge: we supposedly leave conditioning and all sorts of masks behind, and start presenting ourselves more “honestly”. But that’s just a simplified or general case, and for some people that might not be true. We don’t necessarily get influence-proof with age and, even though we might come to realize where we actually stand, we can keep/adopt things because they are few/simple/easy enough, because they are helpful, etc. In that sense it would be useful to see ourselves from a distance, looking at our own trials and errors, and to notice where we always “fall” (even though we imagine ourselves doing otherwise), where we might find opposition but can’t even imagine a way of changing ourselves in that sense, etc.
I’m working on some posts for later, to expand on the facets method (which is not actually “my system”, I just found about them and I think they are the perfect way to start a dichotomy-based typing), because it’s a very interesting topic, of course.
Anonymous said: If our real functions are innate and the reason we mistype is because we can’t differentiate from taught behaviour how could you observe them within yourself? How do you recognise what’s your innate personality and what’s a supposedly subconscious learnt function
The previous question was about the official MBTI facets and the traits that go with them, not about the functions. The term “trait” is quite broad: it includes different ways of describing various tendencies and behaviors, and it tends to focus mostly on what we do. The facets try to identify some of those traits, and they are a very good tool if you want to start a dichotomy-based typing, for the reasons I explained in that post about the letters. With any dichotomy method people mistype if they are T but get an “F” in their result, for example, or if they are N but get an “S”, etc. These errors are caused by different things, not only by confusing innate and adopted traits. In fact, all traits are, in a sense, “adopted”, and the process with the facets is about knowing which letter goes with what we do most often, most naturally and comfortably, etc. It’s a work of interpretation, that’s why it’s useful to look at things from a distance, and not fixate too much on the words themselves.
So it’s not about the functions. You don’t learn functions, of course, you can only learn traits. There is no such thing as a “supposedly subconscious learnt function”. I guess what you mean is “how do you differentiate between innate and learned traits”, but that was already the topic of the last question. Read everything again, carefully. Try to understand what the dichotomies are about. And remember: the functions are not traits. That’s one of the misconceptions that people spread every time they give any credit to the flawed “function stack”.
Anonymous said: I have a simple question for you. Is the test reliable or not?
I don’t know which test do you mean exactly but, as I explained here, MBTI tests are not reliable for typing. The official one might be better than those you can find online, but I wouldn’t recommend it either. Apart from the fact that you should never pay for this kind of thing, a test seems to give an “authoritative”, quick and definite answer, while a good typing is precisely the opposite of that: non-exclusive, slow and uncertain. And this is only about dichotomy-based tests, of course. The so-called “function tests” are all completely useless because they are based on the nonexistent alternating stacks.
The best way to find out your type is to read about the letters and understand what it all means, that is: to type yourself.
SOME BASICS ABOUT THE FUNCTIONS
[Note: Sometimes I refer to the cognitive functions with other words, like “frames” or “modes”.]
The functions are real, but they are not what most people think.
1. WORK IS NOT A FUNCTION.
This is pretty obvious, but I’ve seen a few things out there that seem to indicate that some people think otherwise. All the types do lots of things that could be called “work”. The problem is that the common definition of that word depends on what the system/society considers “valuable”, and that’s another thing entirely. Homework for this point: read this post.
2. ATTENTION IS NOT A FUNCTION.
Some people say that some types get easily distracted, that they have a short attention span, etc. It’s funny because they don’t seem to agree on which ones exactly: the Ss or the Ns. Haha. Either way, that’s totally wrong. It’s pretty clear that anyone can be focused or absent-minded, it all depends on what you consider “the important thing”: Ss are probably more attentive to details, Ns tend to find it easier to follow abstract topics, etc. And you also have other circumstantial factors, for example: who are we with, what’s our relationship with them, what are they doing, etc. Homework for this point: imagine different types being oblivious to different things, and focused on others.
3. MEMORY IS NOT A FUNCTION.
You’ve probably heard that Si is about memory, and/or that SJs remember a lot of things. Well, that’s totally mistaken, and a sure sign of ignorance about the functions. Memory has nothing to do with any particular frame. It depends on the nature (proper/ghost) and the position of the functions (conscious/unconscious), not on one of them. The ghost functions are extremely volatile: you could say memory doesn’t work well with them at all. With the proper ones the more conscious a frame is, the better your memory about it (in general, because memory kind of goes its own way), especially in the sense of availability, clarity, specifity, etc. You remember the unconscious ones, too, but that’s precisely the thing: they might be forgotten memories. So any type can be forgetful or the opposite, but what they remember and forget is not in the same category of things. Homework for this point: imagine, for example, an ISTJ with very bad memory, and an ENFP that remembers a lot, and try to picture in what sense their memories are different.
4. EMOTION IS NOT A FUNCTION.
You’ve probably read somewhere that Fi and/or Fe are about emotions, that Fs are more emotional than Ts, etc. That’s one of the worst misconceptions about the types, and a sure sign of ignorance about typology. Emotions have nothing to do with particular functions. Jung said it himself: “Feeling according to this definition is not an emotion (which, as the word conveys, is involuntary). Feeling as I mean it is (like thinking) a rational (i.e. ordering) function.” I think Jung would say emotionality is related to the unconscious (and perhaps S>N), but if someone’s general behavior is described as “emotional” that’s very often an E>I reference. As you can see here, two of the facets of that dimension are “Expressive (E) - Contained (I)” and “Enthusiastic (E) - Quiet (I)”. That’s usually what people mean with “emotional”. So, part of the task here is to imagine a lot of versions of each type (happy, sad, angry, emotional, cold, etc), and understand it for what it is: a rather superficial thing.
5. IMAGINATION IS NOT A FUNCTION.
The MBTI facet “Realistic (S) - Imaginative (N)” is not so much about that capacity but the value we put on things vs ideas. For example: S types usually try to improve and repair things using [the] things [themselves], they work with the physical world, actually doing something, while N types tend to look beyond the immediate for solutions, and that’s why their proposals are usually considered more inventive, fanciful or whimsical than useful or practical. This doesn’t even mean that all Ss are realistic and all Ns are imaginative (for some of them this could be a facet that doesn’t match with their letter), it’s just the general case.
Imagination is, in Jung’s own words, “the reproductive, or creative, activity of the mind generally, though not a special faculty, since it may come into play in all the basic forms of psychic activity, whether thinking, feeling, sensation, or intuition”. So imagination manifests itself in different ways, we are conscious of its diverse forms in the same degree that we are conscious of our thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition (this includes the ghost functions, which can complicate things if they act as the stage of imagination), and the control and reliability of that imagination varies from one type/person to another. One way to understand this could be: T types are more or less imaginative about things that work, systems and concepts, Fs’ imagination gets them more or less infatuated with people, ideals and things, S types get more or less moved by sensory experiences, and Ns have a higher or lower ability to invent/infer connections.
6. WILLPOWER IS NOT A FUNCTION.
Both extraverts and introverts, both feelers and thinkers, both sensors and intuitives, and both judgers and perceivers can be “strong[er]” or “weak[er]” in this sense. They can be all more or less enduring and persevering (for or against, doing or not doing, etc), it’s just that the things they are determined about are very different. So, for example, the “weakest” IJs are probably much steadier than the “strongest” EPs when it comes to maintaining introverted judgments, and the “strongest” STs are probably much less resolute than the “weakest” NFs when it comes to the implications of values.
7. INTROVERSION IS NOT SUBJECTIVITY. EXTRAVERSION IS NOT OBJECTIVITY.
Some people seem to think that introversion means “personal opinions”, “made up things” or something like that. They think it means “arbitrary” or even “unreal”. Well, those people have no idea what they are talking about.
This is what Jung said about the introverted attitude: “I consider that point of view which inclines, with Weininger, to describe this attitude as philautic, or with other writers, as autoerotic, egocentric, subjective, or egoistic, to be both misleading in principle and definitely depreciatory. It corresponds with the normal bias of the extraverted attitude against the nature of the introvert.” And also: “The subjective factor is something that is just as much a fact as the extent of the sea and the radius of the earth. Thus far, also, the subjective factor claims the whole value of a world-determining power which can never, under any circumstances, be excluded from our calculations. It is the other world-law, and the man who is based upon it has a foundation just as secure, permanent, and valid, as the man who relies upon the object”.
Now let’s remember what he said about extraversion: “In the extraverted attitude the inferior functions always reveal a highly subjective determination with pronounced egocentricity and personal bias”. That is: the unconscious of extraverted people brings subjectivity into their work, making it actually not that objective. The things they work with are objective (observable, tangible), but there is no human[-derived] work that doesn’t go through a subject at some point (usually at both the start and end points), because that’s what we are: subjects.
“Only a sick mind could forget that cognition must have a subject”. There is no reality without a subject, the subject is reality. You can’t analyze anything from any supposed “perfectly objective external standpoint”, because the analysis is always made by a subject. And if you start talking about machines and how “neutral” they are you are being twice as subjective: the machine is made by subjects, and the output of the machine is also interpreted by subjects. You can’t escape the subject. You just can’t. In fact, the subject is everything. And the most “neutral” and “objective” you can get will always be from some internal standpoint. You just have to accept that. There’s nobody out there. This is only you.
Both “objectivity” and “subjectivity” (or truth and lies) include extraverted and introverted “components” or “points”. Just as the frames imply each other in pairs (Te-Fi, Ti-Fe, Se-Ni, Si-Ne), so the workings of the mind, and everything we do, contain both extraverted and introverted “elements”, and there is no way to separate them. The ultimate principles behind the frames can be understood as “independent” (that’s what we try to do every time we talk about Te, or about Se, etc), but in reality they are always, at the very least, paired with their corresponding opposites. So, the very existence of the extraverted factor implies the introverted one, and vice versa. You can’t have one without the other. So the truth and the lies must all be distinguished and found in that “dual” reality. You can’t look [or pretend/fool yourself thinking that you look] only to one “side”, in search of the truth. You are always on both sides at the same time.
8. THE REAL FUNCTIONS ARE NOT THE ONES FROM THE “EIEI/IEIE STACK” (OR SOCIONICS).
I have already explained this in earlier posts. In order to begin with a solid foundation for a true understanding of the functions, the first thing you need to do is forget everything you might have heard or learned about the “eiei/ieie function stack”, Socionics, or any other model that says the dominant and the auxiliary have different directions, or that assigns a perceiving dominant to J types and/or a judging dominant to P types, because that’s simply wrong. From now on, every time you see someone talking about “Ne”, “Fi”, “extraverted sensing”, “introverted thinking” or whatever, you need to know where that person got that term from: if it was from the “eiei/ieie” function stack, Socionics, etc, it’s not reliable.
9. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT TOOLS.
You’ve probably read a lot of expressions like “Te-user”, “Ni-user”, “using Ti”, “use your Ne”, etc. Well, all that comes from people who don’t really [want to] get what the functions actually are. The functions are not objects for you to employ. They are not even apart from you. They are not “selectable” or “applicable”, like tools are. You can’t catch a person in the precise moment [s]he’s “using Fi”, or whatever. The functions are always working. They are not different “alternatives” for you to choose from, and you definitely don’t “use” them.
Sometimes behind this misleading comparison lies the idea of developing some kind of “skill” with the functions, the idea of “using them better”, but only if you follow someone’s “advice”, of course. Here we have again a way of taking advantage of your supposed “weaknesses”, and sell you some kind of “training”. Not helpful at all.
10. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT PREFERENCES.
The letters of someone’s MBTI are not preferences. The functions are not preferences. The order of the functions is not a preference. The word preference implies choice, and you can’t choose anything about your type. Anything. Your type is not determined by the things you “find more interesting”. This whole distorted understanding is, together with the function stack disaster, among the worst of Myers’ deeds: saying and spreading the idea that you can choose what you are.
No, Liz, sorry. Again. Your type, and everything that constitutes it, is not being decided every time you take a moment and put your hand on your chin, considering your “options”. “Hmmm… What psychological dimension can I use here? Do I go with feeling or with thinking…? Do I introvert them now, or maybe later?“ Hahaha. No. Stop it. That’s completely wrong. And you know it, Liz. I think you know it but you are, let’s say… a bit stubborn, and you want to make people feel bad for what they are, hoping that your approach will make them “behave”. That’s why you lie to them saying that they choose what they are. They don’t, Liz. They don’t.
The only choice you have here is what you do with the knowledge of this reality, the reality of everyone having a definite type, forever: do you actually care? Do you try to identify which type you are? Why? What are you going to do after that? Do you want to know other people’s types? Why? Do you want to admire the flowers, or do you want to cut them and put them in pots?
11. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT PIECES.
The idea of pieces implies the concepts of isolated parts and building, but the mind is not a construction set. You can’t build anything with the functions, because you can’t separate or rearrange them. That would be like changing your type consciously, and that’s fantasy-land. Or should I say science-fiction-land, because what’s usually behind this misconception is the absurd (and harmful) “futuristic” view that looks at human beings as if we were some kind of machine. Sorry, but that’s just pathetic.
All those who just can’t stop making comparisons and “analogies” about how our perceptions, thoughts and feelings are just a question of “processing information” are completely untrustworthy and useless as sources of real insight about the mind, because they just can’t see it like it is.
The brain is not a computer, no matter how many times you hear that. And it’s both amazingly ignorant and incredibly insulting to advertise and promote our self-understanding from such a limited and short-sighted perspective. There’s no “hardware” or “software” because you can’t separate body and mind. We are not pieces of equipment. We are not data processors. We are not mere carriers and transmitters of ones and zeros, we are not [re]programmable, and we are not machines. You can’t replicate us.
12. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT INGREDIENTS.
A lot of people seem to “understand” the “functions” as if they were drugs or some kind of ingredients or chemical elements in our blood: they use expressions like “high Fe”, “low Ti”, “strong Te”, “weak Ne”, etc. Well, that’s all nonsense, and a sure sign that those people don’t know what they are talking about. The frames are not “high” or “low”. They are not different quantities, they don’t “pile up” and they don’t “add up”.
The concept of ingredient implies the idea of some kind of recipe. And a “model”, of course. Again. Just like in the previous points, there’s always in the background of these descriptions the implication that we can do something to change the composition, like getting a Fe-injection in the morning, or some Ti-pills with every meal. “Man, I was really low on Te yesterday, but I just thought about bulldozers for a minute and a half, and my Te was high again”. Now guess who is the merciful soul that’s going to tell sell you how to change those levels…
Anyway. This misinterpretation is too linear and crude. On top of other things, it’s unaware of the conscious-unconscious division and of the way each auxiliary is conditioned by each dominant, so it doesn’t refer to the real functions. It’s more like a superficial analysis of a person’s internal dialogue, or its composition, with the assumption that you need to take into account a predetermined set of concepts or ideas in order to make the “optimal decision”, or something like that.
13. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT HAPPENINGS.
Some people go looking for the functions as if they were paparazzi: “How can I recognize Ne?”, and “Quick! Take a picture of that Ti!”. Haha. Yes, that’s a bit silly. The functions don’t “happen”. The functions are not like a laugh, a cough, a cold or a sneeze. They are not ocurrences. This is a very extraverted point of view, that only seems to notice what’s tangible/measurable, and then makes lots of external → internal assumptions. Well, the functions are not out there, sorry.
In fact, the “functions” are not functions, at all. They are internal frames. Reality is the function. *record scratch* Whoa. What? Yes. I repeat: *clears throat* *microphone feedback*
14. REALITY IS THE FUNCTION. THE “FUNCTIONS” ARE THE COORDINATE AXES.
Reality (both internal and external) is, in the mathematical analogy, the true “function”, and what’s called “the functions” is actually the psychological coordinate axes that receive and interpret that big and complex and messy and strange and moving function (that’s why I call them frames). You have 2 main axes/frames: one of perception and one of judgment. Half of each axis is conscious, and the other half is unconscious. They get what’s there, anywhere, and arrange or extract some kind of information/sense from it. For you.
The way Jung described the functions was with the phrase “X tells you this about things”, “Y tells you that about the same things”, etc. So both you and the things are already there, and the functions go in between, and they give you some kind of information about the world. So, in reality, if you think about it, all the functions are perceiving functions: they bring/show you something.
The functions are the senses of your mind.
THE TYPES AND THE COURT CARDS
I like the tarot for the wonderful way in which it makes you think and wonder about the meaning of its symbols, not for anything related to “divination” or “prediction” (which is a complete scam, of course). And also, obviously, for the beautiful pictures you can find in some decks :)
This pictorial table shows the 16 types arranged by temperament. Those who share the main component are all together, in groups of four: top left = the 4 phlegmatics, top right = the 4 melancholics, bottom left = the 4 sanguines, bottom right = the 4 cholerics. There’s one representative from each Keirsey group in all of those: a Guardian, an Artisan, an Idealist and a Rational. These names are not a matter of exclusivity, because we all have something of guardian, something of idealist, etc. But the groups themselves are interesting.
The pictures are the 16 court cards from The Enchanted Tarot by Amy Zerner (this is my only tarot deck, I love the art). They are correlated following the column “Myth” from this table: IPs are the Children = Pages/Princesses, EPs are the Teens = Knights, IJs are the Adults = Queens, and EJs are the Elders = Kings. The suits and their related elements go like this:
ST = Pentacles: Earth, Diamonds, Autumn, Matter, Technique (Task+Practice).
SF = Cups: Water, Hearts, Summer, Emotion, Religion (People+Practice).
NT = Swords: Air, Spades, Winter, Thought, Science (Task+Progress).
NF = Wands: Fire, Clubs, Spring, Spirit, Spirituality (People+Progress).
I found this correlation online, and I think it’s spot on (you can read more about this at the end of my first post). The pictures match perfectly, and they even come with little details like the fact that ISTP, as the only non-phlegmatic Child, is the only non-reading Princess, and ESFJ, as the only non-choleric Elder, is the only unarmed King.
Below the MBTI codes I’ve included a few things:
✸ First of all, the actual functions of each type. The other “function stack” (with its mistaken i-e-i-e / e-i-e-i order, and the nonsense of having perceiving dominants for IJs and judging ones for IPs) is wrong. It has always been wrong, and it has only been making everything worse for everybody (especially for the introverts, as if they were not mistreated enough). It goes against what Jung actually discovered, and also against the official MBTI statistics, so it’s about time we start using the right one.
✸ Then there’s 3 names for each type. The first is the Berens/Nardi name (probably one of the best you can find out there), the second is a combination of each type’s disposition with its Keirsey group, and the third is something I made mixing several sources. I think it can be helpful, because the idea is to give a broad sense of the roles, qualities and tendencies of the types, and this one seems to complement the others really well.
✸ And then at the bottom there’s an item made up by each type’s most remarkable mode of perception (making this line slightly more significant for Ps) and something they appreciate a lot, very often as the[ir] most valuable treasure. The words are meant to convey a specific but also wide range of interpretations so, for example, “unknown” could sometimes be “unknowable”, “known” includes the idea of “knowable” in different senses, “possible” might be “impossible”, and “tangible” refers to anything physical, so it can also be about things that, although being real, humans alone cannot perceive.
THE BASIC ASPECTS OF THE FUNCTIONS
In the previous post I explained some of the most common misconceptions about the functions, and I said that a better way of defining them is with the idea that they are the senses of our minds. That’s why I call them “frames” (or “modes”, or even “[coordinate] axes”) sometimes, because they work as receivers/interpreters of reality, just like vision, hearing, smell, etc.
These are the acronyms and names of the eight “cognitive functions” that Jung discovered and described in his book Psychological Types:
Te = Extraverted Thinking
Fe = Extraverted Feeling
Se = Extraverted Sensation
Ne = Extraverted Intuition
Ti = Introverted Thinking
Fi = Introverted Feeling
Si = Introverted Sensation
Ni = Introverted Intuition
More properly, they are four pairs of contrasting opposites that always go together, like magnetic poles:
Te-Fi: Te implies Fi, and vice versa.
Fe-Ti: Fe implies Ti, and vice versa.
Se-Ni: Se implies Ni, and vice versa.
Ne-Si: Ne implies Si, and vice versa.
The idea is that there’s some form of all the functions in the mind, but those forms are extremely dissimilar from one another and, depending on your psychological type, a few of them are way more significant than the rest.
To better understand what we mean and what we should distinguish when we talk about the functions/frames, I’m going to try and explain the basics of eight important aspects related to them that can help us with that. These aspects are: location (where they are), essence (what they do), arrangement (how they are ordered), interrelation (how they interact), variation (how they change), differentiation (how they are conscious), constellation (how they are unique), and manifestation (how they are expressed).
The first 5 are constant aspects, and the last 3 are variable aspects. The existence of the variable elements is a constant aspect in itself (variation). All the constant aspects, except the personal side of arrangement, are “universal”, that is: they apply equally to everybody. Arrangement is only universal in a “conceptual” sense. If it was actually universal there wouldn’t be types at all.
1. LOCATION
This is a term that refers to the functions as a whole and tries to describe the “region”, “place” or “depth” at which they would be found if we entered a general representation of the mind and started searching for them. You can schematize what “the mind” is in lots of different ways, of course, but the more detail you want, the higher the probability of getting it all wrong. So I prefer something simple. Something like this:
Most people have completely wrong ideas about what the functions are, and it all starts here. For many of them the functions are essentially a way of cataloguing their inner dialogue or state. They believe the functions appear and disappear while they are [actively] thinking or doing different things. From that mistaken perspective, the functions would be different/alternate thoughts, of all sorts and kinds, that some people see as “controllable”, like a series of options or tools that can be switched on and off depending on what you’re trying to do, while for others it’s the functions that “take control” or even fight for it, as if everybody had a case of multiple personality. “If you want to do this use your Se”, “You need to focus on your Ti for that”, or “My Ne said this, but then my Si said no way”, etc.
That’s the famous “develop skills” mindset, again, and also some kind of fearful obsession with what’s simply our capacity for remembering and imagining, because that’s basically what those “intrusive ideas” are: [a mix of] memory and imagination, or what’s commonly called “thinking”, when we’re not referring to the function of the same name.
Well, as you see up there, that’s not where the frames really are. Things like memory, imagination, and the rest of the broad properties and elements that go in the blue circle can be affected by the functions, but that’s on the other side of what we end up thinking. The functions don’t “speak” or use words. If there’s language inside your head, or some intentional activity, or even some definite emotion, then you are already a long way from the frames: you are in the green circle, the circle of manifestations (point 5.3).
Still, that’s where most people think the functions are. They locate something in a very superficial layer inside their minds, one that is too easy to notice, too explicit, and they call it a “function”, when in reality what’s being identified is more like an expression, an elaborate composite of several things, coming from different depths, and taking the form of an [observable] ocurrence or trait. “Observable” is there because some “typologists” only seem to notice what’s outside the mind, that is: the right half of the green circle, which, in turn, might get reduced even more, to that tiny and deceiving orange area, if they are analyzing someone besides themselves.
In any case, they are not talking about the functions. The functions are essentially at the same level as the instincts we all share: there’s some kind of biological structure that acts as their foundation, with instinct being [more] directly “wired” to the body and the functions going to what we call “the mind”. If you really understand this you realize that they don’t simply “appear”, and also that, just like an instinct, a function is not something that you can “train” or “become better at” in the same way that you learn to drive, or a new language, for example.
Not all the functions are equal in this instinctual sense: the extraverted ones (starting with Se, the most “vital” frame) are more “bodily” than the introverted. This is shown in the graph by the vertical axis, which stands for the introversion/extraversion dichotomy. With this distinction we are already talking about the second aspect of the functions.
2. ESSENCE
Just as you can’t get a function without its complementary, you can’t examine them apart from a certain position (in a particular arrangement), and you can’t get them outside a definite human being, either. These are some of the reasons why it’s so difficult to explain what the frames are: they are always coupled and mixed with other elements, never truly isolated. So, how do we do it? The essence of psychological things is usually so general and vague that putting it in words is bound to be both insufficient and misleading in some degree. That’s why we can only arrive at an abstract concept, and hope that others get what’s behind the words.
Having said that, when you actually get to the core, the essence of the frames is very simple. But the problem is: people don’t like simple. They might say the do, but they don’t. They like “complex” and “complicated”. They like having many “options”, “possibilities”, “sides”, and “corners”. They don’t like simple because they don’t like true. And true is simple, no matter how many times you hear otherwise. That’s why when something seems “too simple” they back away, lest it turn out to be true. And they don’t like true, because they don’t like things they can’t dispute or distort or turn around and “reinterpret”. They don’t like true because true doesn’t work as a narrative to bend, or a product or program to sell. They don’t like true because true doesn’t need them, nor does it go away.
This is part of the reason why a lot of people don’t like the dichotomies and make the erroneous stack-functions so popular: the letters are scaringly true for them, while the things they misinterpret as “functions” seem to cover a wide range of [mental] “processes” and “efforts” that can be observed, measured, “perfected”, and talked about endlessly.
As you already know, a lot of people think the functions are basically “skills”, or different kinds of “mental tasks”. “You need [to develop/use] [a healthy/strong] X function to do this”, “You need [to develop/use] [a healthy/strong] Y function to do that”, etc. This is all absolutely wrong, and also harmful, because it doesn’t help people discover and know themselves better. Quite the contrary: it makes them easier to exploit, because they fall into the “hey, you have superpowers: how useful you could be” trap, and they start domesticating themselves.
Something that makes this possible is that what passes as “functions” out there tends to include ideas of some kind of “resource” and/or “result”. That is: they are basically pointing to a process in time, to work. And people love that. They love the idea of training and “improving” and, essentially, having something to do. In a sense, they don’t want answers. They just want some li[n]e to follow. And if you give them something less tangible or stretchable they don’t feel it’s useful, and they don’t pay attention. Well, ok. I guess if you’re reading this, you’re interested in finding something more.
So, to sum up: aside from Jung’s, the commonly shared definitions of the functions are, at the very least, wrong, and some are so utterly mistaken that it actually helps explaining the huge amount of incongruities, misconceptions and problems in typology.
If we want something meaningful we need to go back to the original source, we need to grasp what’s being said, we need to be careful, and we need to remember what we already know about location, instincts, senses, etc: the functions are not what you “do”, but what you are; you don’t “use” them, you have them; they are not “what” you think, but how you think; and the concept of “time” is not necessarily implicit in them. This is what the functions do:
- Sensation tells you that something is there. Sensation is the sense of the mind that perceives and interprets presence and its properties.
- Thinking tells you what it is. Thinking is the sense of the mind that perceives and interprets difference and its properties.
- Feeling tells you if it’s acceptable or not. Feeling is the sense of the mind that perceives and interprets concordance and its properties.
- Intuition tells you where/how it can/might move/change, how it is connected to other things, etc. Intuition is the sense of the mind that perceives and interprets absence and its properties.
That’s it. Four essences, all ending in -nce. You’re welcome :)
There are more words that can be used to describe the functions, of course. It doesn’t mean they are wrong, but yes, they tend to be. To me, all the other concepts I’ve found and thought over get to a point where they just don’t work. In the end I think these 4 are the best, because everything else follows and fits quite nicely. They include, among the first obvious things, the idea of complementary opposites: the two perceiving and the two judging frames are mutually exclusive, just like when you look at a row of columns, for example: you can either see the columns (S) or the space between them (N), but not both at the same time (ok, yes, you can, but no, you don’t).
Now, it would be great to just leave it at that, but this is the internet, right? There’s never enough. This is like a bottomless pit: we keep writing and replying and saying. “But what do you mean ‘concordance’?” Yes, I know, I know. We just can’t help it. The thing is: the moment we start adding items, or trying to explain the points in detail, we’re almost surely going off track, assuming and mixing things up, and talking about variable aspects, not about the essence.
Anyway, here are some words that we could place next to the others: Sensation identifies and considers qualities and states of being, matter, energy, etc. Thinking identifies and considers specialty, contrast, particularity and limits. Feeling identifies and considers similarity, agreement, commonality and consonance. And Intuition identifies and considers connections, predispositions and ramifications.
See? It’s very likely that some of those are already outside the corresponding essence from before. The more you say, the less sense it makes :P How do we fix it? We can’t. We just keep going :D
From these four “pure” functions the first and most important distinction is the one that generates the 8 basic functions: having each one in the extraverted and introverted attitude. All the introverted functions have what Jung called the “historical factor”: they refer to universally-old contents, reflecting “the universally valid laws of life”. The extraverted ones, on the other hand, are about “accommodation” to the present [more or less general] situation, to our surroundings, etc. So the E/I division is not a question of “collective/individual”, “communalized/personalized”, or “objective/subjective”, but external/internal, tangible/intangible, present/universal, apparent/transcendent, etc. It’s more like the classic “worldly-spiritual” opposition:
- A function with an “e” (and an extraverted person) is more “instinctual”, “earthly”, “fast/automatic” (shorter course), “responsive”, “adjusted/related” to the circumstances, etc. (These are Se, Ne, Te and Fe).
- A function with an “i” (and an introverted person) is more “cerebral”, “detached”, “slow/delayed” (longer course), “removed”, “unadjusted/unrelated” to the circumstances, etc. (These are Ni, Si, Fi and Ti).
3. ARRANGEMENT
This is the internal order or position of the various frames inside a particular person. It is a constant aspect in the sense that there is a universal “conceptual” arrangement for everybody, and also because a given person can only have one. It doesn’t mean the order is already there from the very beginning: some personality studies seem to indicate that only half of it is inborn (but it might be all of it, I don’t know about this). Anyway, what’s constant is the final arrangement of the functions in each individual, their final order or “placement”, which doesn’t “disassemble” or “go back” to any previous stage. Every position in the universal arrangement has its own characteristics, but that’s a very difficult topic, better left for later.
I’ve already explained the basic rules for this in my first post. By default we usually talk about a “general” or “intermediate” state in which there are two conscious functions: X1 and X2, and two unconscious ones: X3 and X4 (see “differentiation” in point 5.1). The rules of compensation apply as usual: X4 is always the opposite of X1, and X3 is always the opposite of X2. Arrangement is what we [supposedly] mean when we write the acronyms of the functions in the format X1-X2-X3-X4, which stands for conscious dominant - conscious auxiliary - unconscious auxiliary - unconscious dominant. Each possible combination produces one of the 16 psychological types:
Te-Se-Ni-Fi = ESTJ
Te-Ne-Si-Fi = ENTJ
Fe-Se-Ni-Ti = ESFJ
Fe-Ne-Si-Ti = ENFJ
Se-Te-Fi-Ni = ESTP
Se-Fe-Ti-Ni = ESFP
Ne-Te-Fi-Si = ENTP
Ne-Fe-Ti-Si = ENFP
Ti-Si-Ne-Fe = ISTJ
Ti-Ni-Se-Fe = INTJ
Fi-Si-Ne-Te = ISFJ
Fi-Ni-Se-Te = INFJ
Si-Ti-Fe-Ne = ISTP
Si-Fi-Te-Ne = ISFP
Ni-Ti-Fe-Se = INTP
Ni-Fi-Te-Se = INFP
The remaining 4 functions of each type (those that don’t appear in its arrangement) are the ghost frames, or what other people call “shadow” functions. You could say they are there as well, but in very strange forms (just like ghosts). We can use the same format to talk about them: G1-G2-G3-G4, mirroring the non-ghostly arrangement, but we need a letter to identify their class, so the ghost frames of ESTJs could be gTi-gSi-gNe-gFe, for example, or g(Ti-Si-Ne-Fe).
4. INTERRELATION
This is a term to indicate the permanent links between the frames, how they are connected and how they interact with each other. This is surprisingly significant because there’s not one symmetrical relationship between them: all their interconnections are asymmetrical, so any two frames are always in different “levels”, and they never look “eye to eye”, as it were. The most obvious example is that X1 is always more important than X2: X2 only works in ways that support X1. And the same happens between X4 and X3, but unconsciously (so it’s not actually “the same”).
Interrelation is also, like the positions of point 3, a very complex matter that probably needs its own posts, but to give you an idea, think about this for now: you can’t translate a difference (T) into a concordance (F), or a presence (S) into an absence (N), right? It’s impossible, by definition (you can symbolize them, but that’s different). What you can try, however, is transferring an internal presence (Si) to an external one (Se): this would be something like painting, for example. Or you can take an external difference (Te) and make it appear as an internal one (Ti). In all these cases one function is always “normal”, and the other is a ghost. And depending on their positions, these transferences take very different forms and characteristics.
Well, to me, this is one of the most interesting and crucial aspects of this whole typological issue: the links and transmissions between the normal frames and their corresponding ghosts. In fact, I spend a lot of time thinking about that, and have lots of notes trying to make some sense of it :P I think this transference is extremely meaningful and can explain many things about the types.
5. VARIATION
Variation is the constant aspect that includes the variable aspects. Everything is changing, all the time, and the functions, taken individually and setting aside their constant aspects, are subjected to changes of their own, too. These characteristics are part of the reason behind the different versions of the same type, for example. I have included three aspects here, but in reality only the first two are something proper to the functions: the third one talks about something in which lots of other things in our minds are involved.
These aspects are different for each function in each person, that is: they don’t apply uniformly across all of them. Some functions will be more differentiated than others, and each one of them constellates and manifests in its own way[s]. In fact, manifestation is such a complex subject that it makes it really hard to even consider that it only applies to one function: it probably includes elements from all of them.
5.1. DIFFERENTIATION
This is the process of becoming conscious. A frame is more differentiated than before if it’s clearer, less blurry, less mixed with other things and with itself, etc. If the function was a photograph, differentiation would be its resolution. (The arrangement of the functions is their order from most to least differentiated).
The difference between conscious and unconscious is usually explained as being about higher/lower levels of control, motivation, and clarity. But there’s a better or supplementary way to understand it: consciousness moves easier and sees better when it looks at X1 and X2, and worse when it’s about X3 and X4, because our first two functions are more differentiated than the others. So the point of [free] will is not exactly in the functions themselves: we are a bit outside of them, even if that’s difficult to notice (we tend to find it quite hard to distinguish ourselves from our X1). From this perspective consciousness changes and “sees more clearly” what the function/s say/s, instead of (or in addition to) their contents becoming more distinct by themselves. In the photograph analogy, this would be our eyes getting better at seeing.
In theory there’s always differentiation going on. At any given moment each function is at a different stage of clarity (according to the person’s arrangement), but they move in one direction only: more and more differentiated. I think this process (along with constellation) is why some people say that “your type changes”: it’s not exactly that, but more like a “discovery” of what your true one is.
The basic model usually assumes that we are talking about someone with X1 and X2 conscious and differentiated, and X3 and X4 unconscious and undifferentiated, but that’s only a generalization, of course. Some have X3 somewhat conscious and clear (although this is more about recognizing G3 for what it is: not-X3), some younger people are still in a stage with only a differentiated X1, etc.
5.2. CONSTELLATION
Constellation, or crystallization, is another process, and it goes alongside differentiation. This is where the frames, and our individual minds, most resemble the idea of the “unique snowflake”: they acquire a particular fixed structure, a certain special way of doing what they do, slightly different from everyone else with the same type (which means from everyone else in the world), and this ends up having noticeable effects on their manifestations. Each function undergoes its own process of constellation, which depends on several factors, from genetics to education and experiences.
This seems to be mainly about those elements in the blue circle of the graph: memory, temperament, convictions, etc. That’s where you can find many reasons for the differences in MBTI facets between people of the same type.
5.3. MANIFESTATION
This is not a process. Manifestation, or expression, is how the functions “reveal” themselves, and it depends on countless things, starting with the actual arrangement of the frames and the two previous variable aspects. It’s a term that includes everything that can be caused or affected by a function. And the functions are the senses of the mind, so we are talking about virtually every thing. And the problem is trying to identify the connections. How do you decide which expressions are worthy of attention? How do you determine which function is behind which expressions? How do you know it’s only one? It could be two, three, or all of them, in diverse degrees. How do you do it? Yes, this is another astronomically complex topic. And this is where everybody makes lots of nonsensical, insulting, dangerous and harmful assumptions, too.
Some people think they have it all figured out here. They are the function stack experts, and the Socionists. But I can tell you what they are actually doing, and it’s not typing. It’s not recognizing the relevant manifestations, and it’s not matching them with the correct functions. That’s for sure.
One of the most widespread misunderstandings of the essence of the functions is actually about some of their manifestations. It’s the one derived from the mistaken stack which, ultimately (and just like Socionics), doesn’t even know how to differentiate between the two most important things in typology: extraversion and introversion.
What most people call “Te” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of T1 (which can be Te1 or Ti1): “rules”, “order”, “goals”, etc. All of those are essentially TJ traits = directive attitude. Not real Te.
What most people call “Ti” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of T2 (which can be Te2 or Ti2): “a personal way of doing things”, “problem solving”, etc. But all of that is basically the same as TP traits = pragmatic attitude. Not real Ti.
What most people call “Fe” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of F1 (which can be Fe1 or Fi1): “connection”, “harmony”, “community”, etc. All of that is essentially about FJ traits = cooperative attitude. Not real Fe.
What most people call “Fi” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of F2 (which can be Fe2 or Fi2): “self-expression”, “authenticity”, etc. All of those are basically things related to FP traits = informative attitude. Not real Fi.
What most people call “Se” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of S1 (which can be Se1 or Si1): “spontaneity”, “impulsiveness”, “hands-on activity”, etc. All of that is the same as SP traits = Keirsey’s Artisans. Not real Se.
What most people call “Si” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of S2 (which can be Se2 or Si2): “familiarity”, “security”, “tradition”, etc. But those are things about SJ traits = Keirsey’s Guardians. Not real Si.
What most people call “Ne” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of N1 (which can be Ne1 or Ni1): “open-minded”, “creativity”, “divergence”, etc. All of those are related to NP traits = the Rebels. Not real Ne.
What most people call “Ni” is, at best, a mixture of some possible manifestations of N2 (which can be Ne2 or Ni2): “planning”, “future”, “convergence”, etc. But all of that is essentially about NJ traits = the Guides. Not real Ni.
Maybe what’s “divergent” is the perceiving dominant function of all four NPs.
Maybe what’s “convergent” is the judging dominant function of all four NJs.
I don’t know. Maybe. *rolls eyes*
Anonymous said: What do you believe the functions are, such as Te or Fe or whatever?
At the beginning, for most people, many interesting topics might be a question of belief, but you need to get to some kind of insight if you really want to talk about them (instead of just “playing around”). So this is not about belief. Beliefs are essentially a form of imagination, something you assume/wish [and act upon], without knowing if it’s actually true/possible, and that’s always better kept at zero. And although we tend to use that verb, it’s not a question of “knowing”, either. Anyone can “know” what the functions are, by reading Jung’s book, for example. But that’s not actually understanding them, right? Because knowledge is just memory.
You see, there’s something else apart from knowledge and belief. You can call it perception, or awareness. That’s the one that, when you see a fire, says something like: “if you get too close, that’s going to hurt”. It works right from the start, you are not imagining the fire, you are not imagining your reaction, and you don’t need to get burned, ever. What it tells you is just a fact. And that’s what you need for all these psychological (and philosophical) topics. If you “believe” in them you are probably fooling yourself most of the time, and if you only “know” them you are just acting upon what you have read/heard, which could be equally mistaken.
So this is about being aware of yourself, of your own mind, recognizing [not-]there what Jung described in his book, and then trying to put it in words. That’s what it’s needed, and that’s the foundation for almost everything that I write about MBTI. I might use the word “know” (instead of “perceive”, for example), but that’s because I use it with a meaning that’s usually closer to “clearly see and may try to explain” than to “remember and can repeat”.
Anyway, that was quite a detour, right? :P Ok. There are many things that I still don’t know about the functions, but my description of what they are is written here and here. The first post is mostly about false concepts attached to them, because noticing what they are not is just as (or even more) useful than trying to explain what they are. The functions are, at their very essence, the senses of the mind. In the second post you can see that their definitions must remain vague (instead of specific) because that’s how they are and how they work, and if you start giving details you risk mixing concepts and talking about different things.
You can combine the words in that second post to make some approximate short definitions of Te, Fe, etc. (Remember this, too, of course). For example: what is Te? Te is the ability of the mind to perceive tangible difference. What is Fe? Fe is the sense of the mind that perceives external concordance. Etc. You need to be somehow content with that, and let your thoughts and ideas interact and flow from those brief sentences, without trying to set anything in stone, because if you try to expand them or give examples then you’re probably going to [unknowingly] put the function in some specific position, and interpret it as more/less or entirely outside of what it really is.
That’s why attempting to explain too much with the functions alone is not a good idea. They have lots of variable aspects, they change, crystallize, mix and manifest in different ways, so you need to be very careful because, for example, not everyone with Te is going to relate to all the things where Te is involved.
Anonymous said: Hi. INTP here. How does conscious Ni and conscious Ti work together? If I understand it correctly would it mean I would usually find inner differences to determine the inner unknown? And is the inner unknown limited to what you are as a person and not the external world (like projects or reports) since that would be Ne? And does the NP trait (N1 or Ne in the MBTI) and my auxiliary TP trait (T2 or Ti on the MBTI) work together simultaneously or is there a level of consciousness to it as well?
Hi :) No, if you use those terms, Ni1+Ti2 would mean that the inner differences that you attend to are determined by your perception of the inner unknown. Remember: X2 depends on X1, not the other way around (post #24 and post #25). I’m writing some details about this relationship for later. It’s just very difficult, and it takes time :P
Ni is a kind/frame of perception, it’s not a result in itself and it’s not about you alone, but about the whole introverted side of things. See, introversion is not “subjectivity” or “limited to the individual”. I explained this in several posts (for example post #15.7). Introversion is actually more collective and universal than extraversion: it is a whole intangible world that doesn’t depend on physical locations or things. Being an introvert means that your decisions are based more on that world than on the tangible world of objects. It doesn’t mean that you can’t apply yourself to external projects and so on, but that they won’t be the main determinant in your resolutions.
You have to be very careful when talking at the same time about letters/traits and consciousness/functions: those are two different levels. NP, TP, etc, are combinations of letters that can be assigned to people who show various particular traits, not just one. Traits are visible things, patterns of behavior, etc, and they are in a more superficial level than the functions (see the graph in post #17: traits are observed in the green circle and, at best, they can be traced back to the blue one).
There’s no “dominant/auxiliary” at the traits level. That’s one of the reasons why people who don’t know what the real functions are tend to say things like “high Ne” (NP) or “high Ti” (TP): they get to a point where they can’t distinguish between the two NTPs (and the two STJs, etc). If you consider that NP includes, for example, traits related to acting in some kind of “rebellious” way, and that TP traits in general are about being pragmatic, I think it’s easy to see that they don’t have any kind of implicit hierarchy, and that they are not incompatible in any sense. They just combine with each other. So yes, you could say they work simultaneously. Apart from that, you can consciously analyze traits, imitate them like an actor would, etc. But that’s a different thing.
Anonymous said: 1/x Can you relate to the theory you’re writing about on your blog? I’ve been thinking about it for some time now, trying to ignore the “official” theory just for the sake of trying your theory and… yours just doesn’t seem to be true. I’m an ENFP so accoring to your theory Ne is my first function and Fe my second. The Ne thing’s the same so the Fe thing was the question - I do act “Fe-ishly” sometimes but since I like Socionics as well I’d explain this as the 6th function being strong.
2/x My Fi however is stronger. There’s no doubt to that as I have to sort my feeling out internally before I mention them to anyone, it takes half a year sometimes to share a single emotion/personal thought I’ve been struggling with. Fi feels more natural to me and it’s generally easier to communicate with people who have Fi - unless the string Fe user I’m talking to is extremely open-minded and willing to listen and accept my different point of view.
3/x By the theory you’re describing my third function should be Ti. I do happen to score high in Ti on any online function tests which always surprises me and I assume I’m answering some stuff in a way that are understood as Ti but are actually one of my other functions. The fact that I don’t like to generalize and that I like to get into the details to explain stuff and to better understand them are connected to my Ne…
4/x as I wanna see all the possible options in order to get the closest to the truth I can. I also can get hairsplitting sometimes - this could seem Ti on an online test but I think it’s more likely it’s my undeveloped-and-not-necessarily-used-in-the-best-way Si. Another thing I’d like to add is the fact that when I was developing my second function (Fi) I was questioning my introversion more.
5/x My friend who’s and ESFP is currently developing his Fi and he seems so conflicted with his values and way more often does he just sit alone and mull over stuff literally in the middle of his friends. What I’m trying to say is that (and that’s no theory, it’s just what I’ve noticed so take it however you want) when you’re in the middle of developing a new function it could appear stronger than it actually is.
6/x The developed functions, especially the first one can be harder to determine as it seems so obvious to people they don’t particularly notice it. It’s just there. Always. It’s normal. It’s harder to notice things we’re used to. The point of why I dived into this is that accoridng to your theory the function introverts have switch. INTJ has Ti Ni Se Fe for example.
7/x - if that INTJ was just developing their second function, they could feel like their thinking function is stronger than it actually is. Ni would seem weaker because it were so obvious and not the function the INTJ would be most focused on at the time being. As for Ti/Te difference that appears here we can go back to Socionics theory or the possibilty of mixing the two accidentally.
8/8 - If I understood correctly you got quite into the research about this - I didn’t (just because I find it easier to learn stuff differently but that’s a different topic) - therefore I can’t tell you if what you’re saying is true or not, if we really are following the initial theory wrongly - we may be. But if we did misinterpret the whole thing, I think we (accidentally?) made it a better and a more valid theory.
There are two different topics here: the reality of the functions, and your [friend’s] type. It’s better to take them separately.
1
What I’m writing here is not “my theory”, it’s what Jung discovered and described, explained and expanded with some of what we now know about the types. Anyone can come to the same conclusion if they read carefully what Jung wrote, grasp what’s being said, think it over, and then compare it with correctly typed people and how the types are described nowadays. In a sense, the whole point of Jung’s book was that consciousness is one-sided, not extraverted and introverted at the same time. In fact, when you finally understand it, you realize it was always meant to be like that, and it can’t be any other way. You realize it’s actually self-evident. And you realize those e-i-e-i / i-e-i-e mishmashes don’t make any sense at all, of course. So you think “Well, this isn’t even a theory, it’s just how the functions go”.
This is the first and most important step. This is the thing that people need to do. They need to read everything [again]: what Jung wrote, my own posts (especially post #01, post #11, post #13, post #15 and post #17), the things linked in them (especially this and this), etc; they need to read slowly, several times, and they need to get to that point of insight. If you don’t get to it you won’t understand what follows, you will keep comparing models as if they were “possible options” or “different theories”, and you will never understand what the real functions are.
That’s actually it. I don’t know how else to put it. You just need to realize it for yourself. I can write a lot of things (and I’m doing exactly that with all these posts, of course), but the key is in you and, in the end, I can only tell you that you have it there.
Myers and others tried to put Jung’s typology to practical use. But that’s quite a leap from using it as a tool to help people with their inner workings. It’s basically changing everything, because they started looking at people from the outside. They were interested in external behavior, communication, group dynamics, etc. And if you think about it, that has very little to do with the particular psychology of individuals at a deep level, which is where the functions are. Myers was looking for a way that made it possible to classify people with standardized tests and get an idea of how they could be “useful”. What she found was that you could measure the dichotomies, somehow. There was something there, because the numbers fit. (The socionists didn’t even get to that, they straight off invented some pretty ridiculous definitions of the functions and, logically, got a totally messy typology as a result, which nobody should pay any attention to).
Ok. But then Myers said “If you get ABCD type your functions are W-X-Y-Z”. And that was another big leap, where she clearly misunderstood Jung’s words, and made a huge mistake. I’m not saying she didn’t do a great job on the “technical” aspects of the letters, it’s great that we have the MBTI codes, but she almost invalidated all her efforts when she assigned the wrong functions to the types, especially the introverted ones. She made the indicator economically useful, but psychologically shallow and, at the very least, incorrect. The tests measured traits (E traits, I traits, T traits, F traits, etc), but people [inadvertently and] incorrectly thought that FP traits were a direct and exclusive manifestation of “Fi”, FJ traits were pure “Fe”, SP traits were “Se”, etc. This way the original concepts of Jung got extremely distorted, and they no longer referred to the real functions. They were about some half-connected but ultimately very different things (that’s explained here in point 5.3): “Fe” was actually about Fe1 and Fi1, “Fi” was actually about Fe2 and Fi2, etc.
So the main problem with relating to this after being immersed in the famous stacks and/or Socionics is that the widespread concepts that people have about the functions are wrong, and they are wrong in a lot of different and also subtle aspects. Above all, they are way more superficial than the reality of psychological type and, in many cases, they refer to general things that almost anyone can recognize in themselves.
The change that’s needed here is not about a simple switch of [the positions of] the functions. There’s that, but there’s also a profound reevaluation of what the functions really are because, for example, in reality ENFPs are Ne-Fe-Ti-Si, but for most people ENFPs don’t seem to have “Fe” because they don’t have FJ traits, they have FP traits. The thing is: what you thought was “Fi” is actually FP traits, and you need to realize that people can have FP traits and Fe at the same time. Some “former Fis” are actually Fes. The same thing happens with the rest of the letter combinations and functions.
Some may say they improved something, but that’s only because the dichotomies are good at capturing traits and some people seem to get enough out of talking about those kinds of superficial things, not because the functions have been figured out by tests and so on. As they are aiming at the wrong arrangements, what the “function tests” try to measure are also traits related to those combinations of letters, not the actual functions. So, for example, they are probably calling “Ti” to what’s exclusively traits of TP types, not real Ti. The current models are not only invalid, but harmful.
2
I don’t know if you are actually an ENFP, and/or your friend is ESFP, so I can’t think/write from that assumption. It’s a really big assumption, talking from the “certainty” of someone’s type. It’s actually much better to keep all typings slightly out of focus, and doubt them. There are lots of ways people get mistyped, some spend years that way, and some probably never know their true type. We can talk about that if you like, of course. It could be a good thing. In fact, some of the things you mention might be considered signs of a mistype. For example: Ne1 is not about seeing all the options to get to the truth. That’s just a general way of thinking, like some other activities you point out. Ne1 is about looking for and seeing external possibilities, and then try them, talk about them, promote them, etc, essentially as a way of living. Also, you might be an introvert, and the fact that you don’t easily share your thoughts could be caused by that alone, not by the nonexistent “Fi” of ENFPs.
Type is not about the different “strengths” or “weights” of the functions, because they are not skills, ingredients or chemical components. The correct way of thinking about them is more in terms of [self-]clarity, control/easiness, and their relationships. The auxiliary function is not identified by occurrences, but by its relation to the dominant one. So this is not a question of mistaking a different position for a function we are currently “developing” (I think that’s what you’re trying to say). No, this is plainly the fact that nobody is talking about the real functions. They are talking about other things and calling them “functions”, because all their famous “function stacks” are incorrect.
THE MBTI IS PSYCHOMETRICALLY ON A PAR WITH THE BIG FIVE (and it could be even better if it used the real functions of the types)
The real MBTI (the dichotomies/letters) is not a pseudoscience, and it’s not merely something “for fun”, either. Some examples of actual pseudosciences could be astrology and the enneagram, and the people who mix them with the MBTI are one third of the reason why others have this idea of the types being “not scientific”. That’s a problem of association and contamination. Another third of the reason is the mistaken “eiei/ieie” order that the MBTI supposedly carries with it, because it has been wrong since Myers developed the indicator, so whenever it appears in analyses the MBTI seems to lose credibility.
The statistics have proved time and time again that the dichotomies correctly identify several psychological dimensions. Back in 1989 the Big Five folks themselves said that the MBTI measured more or less the same things as their model, but in a different way, writing: “correlational analyses showed that the four MBTI indices did measure aspects of four of the five major dimensions of normal personality.” Then there is also a 2003 study by Bess/Harvey/Swartz that concludes: “In terms of these traditional psychometric criteria, the MBTI performed quite well, being clearly on a par with results obtained using more well-accepted personality tests.” If you want to read more about both these studies and the reliability of the MBTI (including the rest of the non-reasons for its discredit) you can go here (and you can follow reckful’s contributions here, where he writes as “reddshoes”).
Now, apart from the positive review, McCrae & Costa said something very important about the MBTI: they said it was better to separate it from Jung’s concepts. “The correlates of individual scales were consistent with their item content, but would probably not have been predicted from Jungian theory. […] The MBTI does not seem to be a promising instrument for measuring Jung’s types, those who embrace Jung’s theory should probably avoid the MBTI. […] Conversely, those who have found the MBTI to be a useful instrument for assessing and describing individual differences should seriously consider abandoning Jungian theory and some of the associated language. […] If the MBTI is used, evidence to date suggests that it may be better to abandon its Jungian framework and reinterpret the MBTI in terms of the five-factor model.”
Of course, they say their instrument (the “five-factor model”) is better, but they don’t say “don’t use the MBTI” or “the MBTI isn’t valid” (that would contradict their own favorable conclusions), they just point out that it doesn’t match with Jung’s functions, and that it could be a good idea to make it more like the Big Five instead (which is what has been probably going on behind the scenes all these years, as the tests have been perfected and so on).
This ties in quite nicely with what I’m writing about here and, in fact, it could even be considered proof. They didn’t (and probably still don’t) know this, but the functions that go with each type are incorrect. If we use the correct functions the MBTI statistics improve a lot in their connection with Jung’s concepts because, for example, in reality all J/P pairs share the same functions, and this explains why they tend to appear together when it comes to the different traits associated with the letters. It would be interesting to get some idea of the effect of this change in those numbers and percentages, but I think it’s obvious that it would make the MBTI even more reliable.