The Lenore Thomson Exegesis Wiki
The Definition Problem leads some of us to wonder: what sorts of real-world observations lead to drawing the distinctions of type theory and framing its propositions? For example, if we didn't already "know" that someone who tests ESTP has dominant Extraverted Sensing and secondary Introverted Thinking, what sorts of observations would lead us to figure that out?
When you first meet an extravert, he seems to be a very clear-cut, definite person who knows who he is and what he's doing. The more you get to know an extravert, the more diffuse he seems to become, until you start wondering if there is any person inside there at all.
When you first meet an introvert, he seems to have no personality at all. He barely seems to exist. The more you get to know an introvert, the more definite he seems to become. You start seeing a very clear-cut, unmistakable person who knows who he is and what he's doing. And then you see him in a group situation, and he seems to dissolve into nothing again.
The relation between question and advice that Lenore reports in the writings of Advice Columnists.
A conversation between two NPs has a distinct pattern: you could call it Holistic Spiraling. When NJs talk together or an NP talks with an NJ, the spiraling seldom takes off even though there's still lots of reframing of ideas.
The peculiar disconnect that nearly always happens between INTJs and INTPs. From the INTJ's standpoint: "He seems awfully attached to his model, as if it's the only possible one. There are so many possibilities he hasn't ruled out. His argumentation is simply unfair: he is choosing observations to stack the deck to favor his interpretation over all others. He seems oblivious to the complexity of the subject. He does not seem to know what he's doing." From the INTP's standpoint: "I'm trying to point things out and draw distinctions in order to define a vocabulary that carves out some aspect of the subject matter. That would be forward progress. But he refuses to look. He keeps translating everything I say into some moronic vocabulary that he's already familiar with, where what I'm saying is a trivial goof. He seems completely stuck in his box."
Type Clash in general: the specific ways in which people's assumptions about the unwritten rules of conversation or cooperation fail when they encounter people with different assumptions. Lenore's concepts might explain Type Clash in terms of different ways of finding the same things meaningful or meaningless.
The staleness of the Analytic Philosophy world, presumably a magnet for INTJs who don't want to deal with anything tangible or of real consequence. The SFP-like fashion-following of much of academia (well, much of the humanities), where demonstrating that you are intellectually "hip" to all the latest fads and a craving for originality blots out the search for and teaching of timeless insights. Inferior Extraverted Sensation?
The peculiar difficulty that INJs often have in giving examples for their ideas. Asking for an example often strikes them as missing the point. Is this because of the way Introverted Intuitions "aren't really ideas"?
ISTPs often take the same wry, distant, "commenting" attitude that Lenore ascribes to INJs, even to the point of being "seen as oracles and prophets". Tertiary Introverted Intuition could be the basis of the attitude of "commenting from the outside" seen in The Onion.
Imagine that we have a zoo full of people, with several critters from each of the 16 MBTI types. Assume that we have them correctly sorted according to their MBTI types, but that we have no prior knowledge of MBTI theory or Jung's Psychological Types. We don't have the four-letter codes to even suggest the existence of things like "Dominant Function," or that we should clump eight of the types as "Ts," and thus assume that there exists a "Tness"--we have nothing but our observations and interactions with the types to guide us.
Of course this thought experiment is a psychological impossibility--we do have prior knowledge of PT theory, and it's impossible to know what exactly we would infer if we didn't. But that is what I am at least striving for when I try to work without certain PT assumptions and see if they end up really being necessary.
So, let's go back into the PT zoo...
Like I said, I'm just talking to the people and observing them interact; i.e., I don't have access to PET scans of their brains while they compute multiplication tables etc. The idea that each type is distinguished by a certain way of consciously seeing itself in relation to the rest of the world seems like a very natural first place to start. As Jerry pointed out to Scot (or at least as I understood him), even if the types amount to neural algorithms that can be explained by EP, the conclusions we draw should still check out at the level of human consciousness and identity. On the otherhand, perhaps because of my own type, I choose human consciousness as the place from which to start exploring the types, and while the conclusions I draw shouldn't contradict anything that a neurosurgeon might discover, that level of exploration doesn't interest me much.
So, that's all I mean when I say that "a type is a pattern of identity construction." For example, I observe that everyone in the ENFJ cage sees themself as living in a world of visible human relationships whose existence is maintained in easily recognizable ways--a self-image they have in common with the folks in the ESFJ cage. The ENFJs also have a need to see themselves as having a direct part in the formation of relationships that others would not have thought possible, or to be the catalyst in other peoples' development of their talents. This they share to some extent with those weird headpatting people in the next cage over.
That was a very condensed description, but I consider it a "defintion" of ENFJ in the senst that *every* ENFJ maintains such an identity, and no one not in the ENFJ cage (if the imager of people behind bars is starting to bother you as it is me, get rid of the zoo metaphor :) also maintains this identity. I am not claiming that there does not exist a neurological way of distinguishing the type from each other--those would just be equivalent definitions, in the same what that measure can be defined in terms of set-functions or linear functionals. In fact, there most certainly *is* going to turn out to be differences between peoples' brains along PT lines.
This is about where I am with type theory, namely, that each type has a distinct way in which its self-image is built. This viewpoint, yes, was inspired by Lenore's book.
I don't yet, however, see any necessity for the concept of a "function." Not simply that I don't know how to define it, but I just don't see any natural motivation for the concept. This, I think, is the real "genus problem" that Ben posts about from time to time. Just because there is a deep similarity between ESFJs and ENFJs, for example, why should I think there is some cognitive process that both of these types are engaging in most of the time--one that I-FJs are inclined to use as well to a lesser extent, and which I-TPs have some special access to that TJs don't, etc.
Or what would ever make me think that I--Js and E--Ps have in common that they are both constantly "taking in information," as Myers would have it. Yes, IN-Js tend to resist building their homes within any particular conceptual framework, and you might be able find analogous ways in which IS-Js are non-commital in their attitude. And yes, certainly E--Ps are untiring in their quest for stimulating experiences and ideas. But to call I--Js and E--Ps both perceivers, as if one is just doing what the other is doing, only in-side-out, seems like a real stretch.
Jerry has expressed many times on this list his observation that Ni and Ne share only some very superficial similarities, and if it weren't for the big letter N at the beginning of each, it might not ever occurr to him to think of them as two versions of the same thing. The same might be true of Ti and Te. The reason no one has said the same thing about F and S might just be that these functions don't get as much airtime on this list.
Anyway, you can see what I'm doing here. I'll fastforward to the inferior function issue.
Unless some very strong suggestions can be found that something like what we think of as "functions" form the building blocks of type, then what do we mean by "inferior function"? Naomi Quenk seems to answer this question with her idea that each type becomes a charicature of its opposite (the notion of a type having an "opposite" would be a very difficult thing to define in my hypothetical PT zoo situation, without the Jungian superstructure already in place) when under severe stress. In otherwords, INFJs start behaving like very childish ESTPs when they are in the "grip." I know lots of people for whom this idea rings true, and a lot for whom it does not (including myself). I do see how the parts of myself that I disown can come back to sabotage my conscious efforts when I become too entrenched in my "Ni," but I don't see that the sabotage is particularly ESTP-like.
However you define an inferior function, the idea should be translatable into statements about relationships between actual types, or so it would seem. I.e., anything you can say about an INFJ's inferior function should be about a relationship between INFJs and ESTPs, be it one of caricaturization, or, as in the gearshift model, one in which INFJs have a special ability to use the ESTP's favorite cognitive processes, even though they are not preferred. If you can't say something like, "INFJs, like ESTPs, tend to do blah blah, only with a certain blah blah slant to it," then the idea of INFJs using inferior Se just seems like "abstract nonsense" to me.
--Robbie
Hello. I particularly like your ideas. But I'd also like to answer your question.
I'm wondering what you define as "serious stress" or "the grip." It's possible that you, like other people, have tried to forget serious points of stress.
It's also possible that you've repeatedly fallen prey to the Tertiary Temptation, or Tertiary Defense. You could be using your tertiary Ti, since it's the same orientation as your dominant, under stress. Maybe you use Se on impulse when you get nervous, and are too busy noticing the way someone's body language or something else in the environment to notice that you're using Se.
Without any provided details of what you do do when you're in "the grip," I can't answer much, but I can provide possibilities.
Possibility: You are distrustful of the inferior function's usefulness. To an Ni dominant, it's probably extremely freaky to get into the situation with Se when you're used to Ni's objectivity and detachment. (See Inferior Function.) So you use tertiary Ti, and logically test how objective you really are.
Possibility: After trying to forget stress, you succeed without recognizing that you've used Se to get out of the situation.
Possibility: When you focus in on your environment in a last-ditch effort, Se is so effective that the situation is resolved before you have time to recognize how much you're paying attention to what's around you. (Intuitives may actually take quite a while to notice their own behavior when focused on the situation.)
Possibility: You think I'm being arrogant and argumentative, and not seeing the other side. That's not my point. My point is to get you to see THIS side in logical correctness as well. That's because I happen to be an INTP, and you happen to be an INFJ, as you've stated.
My advice: Take MBTI for what you think it's worth. I think it's accurate in many ways, while people with a certain personality will definitely adapt to the things that have passed in their lives, and each person's things past are different, as they are individuals, and their behavior is subject to these. They have different associations with things, different culture, and mixtures of any personality traits described here and beyond. But it's definitely explained to me why people work the way they do, and this is important to me. It's explained how I work, which I (and everyone else who tried to understand me) was pretty sure generally couldn't be done. This theory explains how and why and where people think, and has allowed me access to things that typically don't occur to Thinkers. Obviously, I can't say that of all Ts, especially not Te Ts, who have Fi as well. But suddenly, people have become almost predictable through this system. But that's me, and this entire paragraph has demonstrated my dominant Ti to the max.
If you want a "real-life" example:
An INFJ is in an argument. He's proposed a new community service that would clean up, say, a forest littered with all kinds of food. Another person pointed out that the area has had problems with wild boars, and anyway, that forest is completely grown over with poison ivy. The INFJ suggests that they wear long pants to protect against the poison ivy, and suggests the probability of a boar attack, realistically. He says he'll go along himself and reinforces the how-good-for-the-community aspect. The other person argues that talking about the probability of a boar attack and suggesting that it's unrealistic isn't going to reduce the danger. The INFJ, here, resorts to the tertiary and inferior functions. He says that if there were boars around, why is the forest still littered with food in the first place? And haven't the boars disappeared for a year and stopped attacking people, anyway? The INFJ also notices how the person is gripping his elbows hard, lifting his chin, and changing his stance. "Look," the INFJ says. "It's clear that even you are seeing the silliness of your point. Let's do it."
Thus, the INFJ wins the argument. Terrible example, but you get the idea.
An ESTP, if around, would step in immediately--possibly even before the INFJ felt threatened--and without feeling like he's on edge using Se and Ti, quickly would make a joke about using a chainsaw bayonet to fend off the boars, but then point out the food litter, the boar attacks' diminished frequency, and the other person's defensive body language.
THE POINT
The difference you're seeing between yourself and the ESTPs is that the ESTPs will use the functions more easily, and will use them when they're not under stress, because your tertiary and inferior are their dominant and secondary. The stress that causes you to resort to Ti and Se also affects how you use them, which is very visible. You have never been an ESTP (just a guess), so you don't know how Se/Ti works without stress (as much).