Quote:
Originally Posted by GZA
Even if people didn't read the original post and follow it, there was still a good discussion, no? Your original post isn't the most clear post with the most obvious question to answer, either... it mentions children's functions, what percieving and judging really mean, and the relationship between dominant and judging functions, so it should be no surpise that different people discussed different things. I think it was a great post for that reason, really... it has us thinking about several interrelated things.
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That was the problem as well as the beauty of it.
I know I tried to comply in my first response. Right now, I've reread the OP a number of times and still don't see anything "deeper" hidden with it, so if Hap could clarify, then that would help guide the responses. Otherwise he can expect it to continue to depart from his internal intentions.
People use all the functions. Because they are developing as kids, they tend to prefer one and focus on it beyond others; it's unnuanced (as are all the functions at that stage).
This is (imo) a bio wiring thing; they have a particular way they enjoy approaching the world, which can be attached to one of the functions as described in MBTI.
For example (and these are still guesses on my part, but they make sense), kids with Ti will feel the least amount of anxiety staying detached, sitting back, observing, trying to "figure out the world" so that they can understand what is happening. If they try to engage the world first without having put things together, then their anxiety increases, which negatively impacts their desire to act and take risks.
Other functions might also be tied up in anxiety-avoidance and "risk management," but the function in question ultimately determines external behavior. Children with Ti would still feel anxiety if forced to act on their judgments and take personal risks, they do NOT feel anxiety (and in fact even feel pleasure) in understanding how the world works, so they have no need to externalize their ideas... there is both positive and negative reinforce in keeping the judgments INSIDE, that's what they prefer.
COmpare to ENTP, which uses Ne+Ti. Here, they still have the need to perceive possibilities and understand how they fit together, but they actually get a rush from testing things in the external world. They don't have the anxiety at taking risks that INTPs generally do; they remain fully engaged externally and experience more fear over boredom and not being able to "try things out."
We can extrapolate this to all the function use. There is combination of anxiety and pleasure (negative and positive stimulation) that is at work in each child, that helps determine how they perceiving and then act in (or apart from) the world.
Parental influence and environment cannot really change the wiring that much, it either rewards the behavior or punishes it. When innate behavior is unduly punished, it damages the child because they now must act in ways that constantly create internal anxiety and throw the kids out of whack.
So all the functions exist. (And yes, the categories are probably somewhat an arbitrary distinction, they might not be as separated in reality or separated quite the same way as MBTI makes them out to be.) SOme functions when used caused anxiety or offer positive stimulation, others offer less. So the child avoids functions that cause anxiety and decrease pleasure and chases functions that bring enjoyment and pleasure and reduce anxiety.