Jung’s theory of the cognitive functions is the foundation upon which the entire MBTI is built. Without this basic understanding, the MBTI is nothing more than a hazy, unscientific, and often inaccurate collection of personality traits. Considering the fact that our personality changes drastically depending on how healthy we are – that is, how many of the functions we’ve integrated – the MBTI as it’s generally practiced isn’t really much better than astrology.
Knowing a person’s functions, and what roles they play in their psyche, helps you to truly understand them: you know their strengths and their weaknesses; you know what makes them anxious, and what makes them feel good; and you know why they can't seem to get their act together in certain areas, or why they flip out over what seems to you to be trivial matters. Knowing these things gives us compassion and understanding for each other… and ourselves. We can understand and have compassion for our own weaknesses and fears, and take responsibility for our own ugliness when we have to, without censure or contempt but with clear eyed tenderness. And this kindness to ourselves allows us to be kind to others in turn.
A good way to think of the functions is as organs of the psyche. Just as we have different organs that perform various necessary tasks in the body, we also have different psychological organs that carry out various necessary mental and emotional tasks. These four psychological organs are sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking.
The Perceiving Functions
These two root functions are the ways in which we take in information about the world around us; through our intuition and through our physical senses. The sensation function allows to navigate physical reality. It’s focus is on what we can perceive with our five senses. The intuition function is about everything but what we can perceive with our senses; where did this come from? Where is it going? What do I want to do with it? Jung called these the irrational functions because they simply are, we aren’t making any judgments. We use the other two functions to do that.
The Judging Functions
These are the ways in which we make sense of the impressions we take in through our perceiving functions; how we feel about the thing, or what we think about it. Thinking tells us what the thing is; is it true or not? Does it make sense? What, if any, use does it have? Thinking is how we connect with the world constructively, to create order. Feeling tells us whether we like a thing or not, if it’s good or bad. Feeling is where we get our morals from, as well as how we connect with others emotionally. These root functions help us evaluate the information we take in with our intuition and sensation. Jung called these the rational functions because these are the psychological organs we use to make decisions.
Attitudes
This is simply whether a function is introverted or extroverted, splitting each root function into two branch functions. A function's attitude doesn’t necessarily have to do with how sociable one is; you can be introverted and love to socialize with others, like the INFJ or ISFJ. Or you can be extroverted and not particularly care about people’s feelings, like the ESTJ or ENTJ. Extroversion and introversion simply have to do with whether or not the function is directed outwards, towards objects and the world… or inwards, towards our inner selves.
Extroverted functions are the easiest to see because they’re extroverted in people; even introverts have to extrovert sometimes, which is when we usually pull out our secondary parent function, which is always the opposite attitude as our main function. Let’s take ISTJs; the ISTJ heroine is Si. As this is introverted they don’t use that particular function to interact with others and the world, instead they use their second strongest function, Te. This is why ISTJs can sometimes seem like really subdued ESTJs. The same goes for all the introverted types.
The general-attitude types, as I have pointed out more than once, are differentiated by their particular attitude to the object. The introvert's attitude to the object is an abstracting one; at bottom, he is always facing the problem of how libido can be withdrawn from the object, as though an attempted ascendancy on the part of the object had to be continually frustrated. The extravert, on the contrary, maintains a positive relation to the object. To such an extent does he affirm its importance that his subjective attitude is continually being orientated by, and related to the object. And found, the object can never have sufficient value; for him, therefore, its importance must always be paramount.- Jung, Psychological Types
So, now we've covered the basics. Let’s see how each branch function expresses itself.
Introverted Sensation (Si)
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| Faraam Knight (Dark Souls) |
[Image from BigBadToyStore]
- Lastrevio
One thing I noticed about Si in my ISFJ fiancé is how long it takes for it to process information. As an INTP – with Ne as my second strongest function – I tend to react almost even before seeing something. I almost instantly know what it is (I’m sure ENTPs, with dominant Ne, are even faster and more accurate.) My fiancé, on the other hand, takes a good 3 or 4 seconds to react. My theory is that the thing he’s looking at has to become a memory for him in order for him to understand it; it literally has to move from present to past. I’ve heard Si described as being like clay that takes impressions from all our experiences and holds onto them forever in the form of a statue (I think this was CS Joseph but I can’t find it now.)
In describing herself, [Emma Jung] said that the introverted sensation type was like a highly sensitized photographic plate. When somebody comes in the room, such a type notices the way the person comes in, the hair, the expression on the face, the clothes, and the way the person walks. All this makes a very precise impression on the introverted sensation type; every detail is absorbed. The impression comes from the object to the subject. It is as though a stone fell into deep water: the impression falls deeper and deeper and sinks in. Outwardly... you do not know what is going on within [the IS]. He looks like a piece of wood with no reaction at all - unless he reacts with one of the auxiliary functions, thinking or feeling. But inwardly the impression is being absorbed.- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
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| Joe (Megalobox) |
“I can move my body, therefore I exist”
- Lastrevio
If Si is memory and the past, then Se is the absolute present. Types that have dominant Se are very present focused. Personality Hacker describes Se as a “tennis hop;” you know how tennis players, or boxers, are always bopping around, even when they aren’t actively doing something? This hop allows these athletes to instantly react to anything that comes at them, and this is exactly what Se doms do with everything in their lives at every moment all the time. If Si wants reliable information, Se wants to verify information in real time through their interactions with the world. Se is always ready for what the world has to throw at them. This can lead to those with strong Se to being adrenaline junkies as it's deeply satisfying to these types when something exciting happens that they can react to powerfully and with skill.
Where Si loves having great experiences, Se loves giving others great experiences. Individuals with dominant Se – ESTP and ESFP – will have an impeccable but relaxed relationship with physical reality. Se doms make the world both comfortable and pleasing to the senses for the rest of us.
The extraverted sensation type is… someone whose gift… is to sense and relate in a concrete and practical way to outer objects. Such people observe everything, smell everything, and on entering a room know almost at once how many people are present. Afterward, they always know whether Mrs. So-and-So was there and what dress she had on.- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
The ES type has the best photographic apparatus... This is why this type is found among the good mountaineers, engineers and business people, all of whom have a wide and accurate awareness of outer reality in all its differentiations.
Introverted Intuition (Ni)
“I am secure and at peace therefore I exist”
- Lastrevio
If Si is about the past, and Se the present, then Ni is about the future… specifically, one’s own future. Ni is concerned with one’s goals, desires, plans for the future. Types with dominant Ni are the INTJs and the INFJs. Personality Hacker calls this function Perspectives. The intuitive functions differ from the sensation functions in that they’re concerned with what ifs and future possibilities, the connections between things, everything that isn’t present in our physical reality. Intuition is about pattern recognition; it takes two dots and extrapolates an entire scene from them. Intuition takes speculative leaps into the unknown.
Like Si, Ni is turned inward, in a ruminatory fashion. Ni attends to the impressions made on it by its experiences (Se). It's is deeply connected to it's opposite; unless you know what is, you can't figure out what you want for your future.
Ni attends to all the thoughts and feelings that form in its inner mind. Where Se loves and is deeply satisfied by physical interaction, Ni loves and is deeply satisfied with insight. And unlike Ne, which is aware of the collective future, Ni is concerned with one’s own future. It’s the sniper rifle to Ne’s shotgun; Ne might be aware of the possibilities for the entire planet, but only for the near future. Ni is laser focused on the individual’s future, which means it can project much further into that future.
The introverted intuitive has the same capacity as the extraverted intuitive for smelling out the future… But his intuition is turned within, and therefore he is primarily the type of the religious prophet, of the seer. On a primitive level, he is the shaman who knows what the gods and the ghosts and the ancestral spirits are planning... In psychological language... he knows about the slow processes which go on in the collective unconscious, the archetypal changes, and he communicates them to society. The prophets of the Old Testament, for instance, were people who, while the children of Israel were happily asleep – as the masses always are – from time to time told them what Yahweh’s real intentions were, what he was doing now, and what he wanted his people to do. The people generally did not enjoy hearing these messages.- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
Extroverted Intuition (Ne)
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| Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn) |
[Image from MSPowerUser]
- Lastrevio
While both Ni and Ne are concerned with connections and possibilities Ne is about these things for everybody, not just themselves. As such, they tend to not see as far into the future as Ni... in fact, Ne is almost as present focused as Se, but as regards the connections between things and not the things themselves. Ne is about latency, that which is present but not yet visible; all that exists as potential. It knows what is just about to be born. It's like being a really good card player, knowing the hands that others probably have based on what's already made it's appearance due to Si, it's connected opposite. If you know what was (Si) you know what can be (Ne). Ne doms are ENTP and ENFP.
Extroverted Intuition can be likened to having an excellent sense of smell. ENTPs and ENFPs are often able to sniff out possibilities well before anyone else can, and their ability to make these kinds of predictions is uncanny. They love to find the next new big, exciting, fun thing, start it up, and then leave it to others to finish while they kite off to discover the next amazing thing.
Ne loves to explore the world – hence the Personality Hacker's nickname, Exploration – testing what happens when it tries new things, just to see what will happen. Ne's attitude is always “Let's try it and see!” Someone with high Ne is the probably worst person to put near a big red button because they will really want to push it to see what will happen. But this is how Ne is able to discover all the patterns in nature that allows it to predict the future so well.
Intuition is a function by which we conceive possibilities. A sensation type would call this object a bell, but a child would imagine all sorts of things you could do with it. It could be a church tower, this book could be a village, etc. In everything there is a possibility of a development… Intuition needs to look at things from afar or vaguely in order to function, so as to get a certain hunch from the unconscious, to half shut the eyes and not look at facts too closely. If one looks at things too precisely, the focus is on facts, and then the hunch cannot come through. That is the way intuitives tend to be unpunctual and vague… One finds them wherever there is something new brewing, even in the more spiritual realms. They will always be in the advance movement. It is generally the creative artist who creates the future. A civilization which has no creative people is doomed. So the person who is really in touch with the future, with the germs of the future, is the creative personality. Now the extraverted intuitive, because he is capable of sniffing the wind and knowing what the weather will be tomorrow, will see that this perhaps completely unknown painter or writer is the man of tomorrow, and therefore he will be fascinated. His intuition can recognize the value of such a creative person.”- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
Introverted Feeling (Fi)
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| Harriet Tubman mural (Michael Rosato) |
[Image from CNN]
- Lastrevio
We now come to the first of our four judging functions; these are the functions we use to make decisions. The feeling function is all about what I like or not, what is good or bad. It uses feeling to make decisions. Fi turns this inwards; what do I feel is good or bad? Fi doesn’t care what you think, it needs to find for itself what is moral or not. Personality Hacker calls this function Authenticity, and it’s highest concern is being as true to oneself as possible. The types with Fi hero are ISFP and INFP.
Fi excels at being aware of all the different voices inside of us, pulling us in different directions, and deciding which one is right. In fact, those with strong Fi - Fi in the hero/one or parent roles - find it nearly impossible to go against their convictions, once they figure out what they are. This takes time and attention; Fi often doesn’t know what it actually wants until it’s already in the middle of doing something. But, being attuned to the inner voices of support – or protest – allows those with strong Fi to always eventually know which option is the right one for them.
Fi is the wellspring of our personal morals; society can tell us what the ethical thing is, what it collectively agrees is correct, but Fi demands that we do the hard work of figuring these things out for ourselves. It’s the German hiding Jews from the Nazis, or the activist leaving water and food for migrants in the harsh desert.
Jung says in Psychological Types that the saying “still waters run deep” applies to this type. They have a highly differentiated scale of values, but they do not express them outwardly; they are affected by them within. One often finds the introverted feeling type in the background where important and valuable events are taking place, as if their introverted feeling had told them “that is the real thing.” With a kind of silent loyalty, and without any explanation, they turn up in places where important and valuable inner facts, archetypal constellations, are to be found. They also generally exert a positive secret influence on their surroundings by setting standards. The others observe them, and though they say nothing, for they are too introverted to express themselves much, they set certain standards. Introverted feeling types, for instance, very often form the ethical back bone of a group: without irritating the others by preaching moral or ethical precepts, they themselves have such correct standards of ethical values that they secretly emanate a positive influence on those around them. One has to behave correctly because they have the right kind of value standard, which always suggestively forces one to be decent if they are present. Their differentiated introverted feeling sees what is inwardly the really important factor.- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
[Image from The Advertising Archives]
“I am loved, therefore I exist”
- Lastrevio
Where Fi is about morals, or what I feel is right, Fe is about ethics, or what we collectively as a society agree is right. Personality Hacker calls this function Harmony, and it’s main concern is with maintaining emotional harmony amongst the group. In the same way that extroverted sensors are aware of the physical reality around them, extroverted feelers are acutely aware of the feelings of people around them. Types with Fe heroes are the ESFJs and ENFJs.
Where Fi seeks to be true to itself, Fe desires harmony, unanimity, affinity, and togetherness. Can you see how the two attitudes of the same function clash with each other? Fi wants to be its own thing, Fe wants everyone to be one. This kind of conflict obviously can lead dissension, and an inability to understand the other. An example are two relatives of mine, a mother (an ESFJ) and her adult daughter (an ISFP). They often disagree over things and struggle to understand each other; the ISFP gets frustrated by her mother’s tendency to caretake for people who she considers unworthy – people who are abusive, or self-destructive – while her ESFJ mother is dismayed by what she sees as her daughter’s lack of compassion and loyalty (side note; ISFPs are extremely loyal, but only to those they feel deserve it.) Their fights are invariably over differences in perspective resulting from their opposite heroine functions.
Fe’s constant concern is that everyone is happy and their needs are being met. When average to unhealthy it can lead to covert contracts ("I did this thing for you that you didn't ask for so now you have to do X."), but in developed individuals, Fe gives compassion, empathy, and a devotion to all living creatures.
The extroverted feeling type… makes friends very easily, will have very few illusions about people, but will be capable of evaluating their positive and negative sides appropriately. These are well-adjusted, very reasonable people who roll along amiably through society, can get what they want quite easily, and can somehow arrange it that everybody is willing to give them what they want. They lubricate their surroundings so marvelously that life goes along very easily. You find them frequently among women, and they generally have a very happy family life with a lot of friends. Only if they are in someway neurotically dissociated do they become a bit theatrical and a little mechanical and calculating. If one goes to lunch and party with an extroverted feeling type she (or he) is capable of saying little things like “What a nice day it is today, I am so glad to see you again, I haven’t seen you for a long time!” And they really mean it! With that the car is lubricated, and the party goes. One feels happy and warmed up. They spread a kind of atmosphere of acceptance, and it is agreeable: “We appreciate each other, so we are going to have a good day together.” They make those in their surroundings feel wonderful, and in the midst of that they swim along happily and create a pleasant social atmosphere. Only if they overdo it, or their extroverted feeling is already worn out and they therefore should start to think, do you notice that this becomes a bit of a habit, that it becomes a phrase which they say mechanically. For instance, I once noticed an extroverted feeling type, on a dreadful day when there was a horrible fog outside, saying mechanically: “Isn’t it a wonderful day!” I thought, “Oh dear, your main function is rattling!”- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
Introverted Thinking (Ti)
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| "Aristotle" (Jusepe de Ribera) |
[Image from Hand Made Piece]
- Lastrevio
Where Fi is concerned with what I feel, Ti is concerned with what I think. And similar to Fi, Ti doesn’t care what you think. It doesn’t care what your credentials are, or how many people agree with you. It understands that truth isn’t a popularity contest. A thing is either true or it isn’t, regardless of who that truth comes from, or how popular it is. Ti doms are INTPs and ISTPs.
Ti is all about logic; it uses deductive reasoning (“All marsupials are mammals > wombats are marsupials > therefore, wombats are mammals”) and abductive reasoning (deciding what the most likely explanation for a mystery then testing the hypothesis; i.e. when I get home I find the dog along with a bunch of torn paper > I hypothesize that the dog tore the paper > I check the video > turns out my niece tore the paper.)
As it’s a thinking function Ti is concerned with impersonal criteria. It uses reason to decide whether or not a thing is true based on an internal judgment, not the external judgment of the collective. Ti works hard to – and is generally successful at – removing what it sees as bias from data (personal feelings, the feelings or thoughts of others, etc.) It scans the data for inconsistencies and incongruities, looking for that which is consistent and congruent to build its mental edifice with, like a magpie. Personality Hacker calls this function Accuracy, and that is its goal.
Like Te, it wants to create order. Unlike Te though, it seeks to do so internally. If Fi goes spelunking in the depths of their heart, Ti creates mental models of stunning complexity. Ti loves the beautiful idea, it loves symmetry and order. Einstein, probably an INTP, once said God doesn’t play dice with the universe, and his famous equation, E=mc2, is an exemplar of the veracity and elegance Ti strives for.
The main activity of this type is not so much trying to establish order in outer objects; it is more concerned with ideas. Someone would say that one should not start with facts, but first clarify one’s ideas, would belong to the introverted thinking type. His wish to bring order into life starts off with the idea that if one is muddle-headed from the start, one will never get anywhere. It is first necessary to know what ideas to follow and where they come from; one must clean up muddle-headedness by digging into the background of one’s thoughts. All philosophy is concerned with the logical processes of the human mind, with the building up of ideas. This is the realm where introverted thinking is mostly at work. In science these are the people who are perpetually trying to prevent their colleagues from getting lost in experiments and who, from time to time, try to get back to basic concepts and ask what we are really doing mentally. In physics, there is generally one professor for practical physics and another for theoretical physics: one lectures on the Wilson Chamber and the building up of experiments, the other on mathematical principles and the theory of science. In all the various sciences there are always those who try to clean out the basic theories of their scientific realm... The introverted thinking type always goes back to the subjective idea, namely, to what the subject is doing in the whole matter.- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
Extroverted Thinking (Te)
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| Olivier Mira Armstrong (Fullmetal Alchemist) |
[Image from Mini Tokyo]
“The world is in order, therefore I exist”
- Lastrevio
Te just wants to know what works. As it’s a thinking function Te doesn’t care what you or anyone else feel; like Ti, it really only cares about impersonal criteria in its judgments. Personality Hacker calls this function Efficiency, because Te wants to take their reason and apply it to the real world in the best, most efficient way possible (contrasting with Ti, which generally doesn’t care about the practical implications of their theorizing, just that it’s accurate, true, and elegant.) The two types with dominant Te are ESTJ and ENTJ.
Where Ti is about logic – deductive and abductive reasoning – Te is all about statistics, or inductive reasoning. Let’s say there’s a cliff that 100 people have jumped off, and each one of those people died. Inductive reasoning says: 100% of people who jumped from this cliff died > therefore, if you jump off the cliff you will die. It doesn’t look at the physics, the force, the velocity, trying to predict based on theories if you will die, it just looks at the numbers.
Te is all about metrics; it wants to measure progress. It cares about results, and measurements tell Te how close to their goals they are. Measurements also allow you to try something, test it, then make adjustments and repeat, improving with each cycle. The saying “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” is very Te as it’s all about managing things.
This type is to be found among organizers, people in high office and government positions, in business, in law and among scientists. They can compile useful encyclopedias. They dig up all the dust in old libraries and do away with the inhibiting factors in science which are caused by clumsiness or laziness or a lack of clarity in language. The extroverted thinking type establishes order by taking a definite stand and saying, “If we say so and so, we mean so-and-so.” They put clarifying order into the outer situation. At a business meeting, such a man will say that one should get at the basic facts and then see how to proceed. A lawyer who has to listen to all the chaotic reports of contending parties is able, with his superior thinking function, to see which are the real conflicts and which the pseudo-contentions, and then to arrange a solution satisfactory to all parties. The emphasis will always be on the object, not the idea. Such a lawyer will not fight for the idea of democracy, or domestic peace; his whole mind will be absorbed with and swallowed up by the outer objective situation.- Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung's Typology
So these are overviews of the 8 psychological functions, the basis of Jungian typology. The charts below distill the main points of each of the 8 branch functions, starting with the perceiving functions:
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| Perceiving Functions |
And here are the judging functions:
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| Judging Functions |
Once you know your type understanding the branch functions, combined with John Beebe's 8 function model, will give you a very good idea of your strengths, weaknesses, and what you need to do to grow. Future posts will do that very thing, exploring how each type expresses the various functions.
Posts
The Function Roles
The Houses
The Core Complexes
The Sodalities
How to type
Working with the MBTI
My MBTI storySee also
Antonia Dodge, “Why Personality Hacker Uses Nicknames For The 8 Jungian Cognitive Functions” (Personality Hacker)
Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Typology
Marie-Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy
C.G. Jung, Psychological Types
Lastrevio, “The 8 cognitive roles in-depth explanation”
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