• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Intensity

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
So Other Psychology Topics or MBTI....? Ahhmmm... dunno. Whatever.

So, intensity. Being intense. Having intense, ah... stuff.

I have wondered if intensity of, say, feeling is not perhaps sensibly measured in terms of the absence of mitigation. Or, in more normal language, feeling is the more intense for not having other judgments stood in its way.

Perhaps there is some effect from attention too. If one is skilled or at least practiced at attending to and discriminating among feeling whatsits, tones or something, then there's a legitimacy added to feeling some feelings. So one is more aware of feeling them.


I suppose the thinking correlate is rigor. Not as sexy as intensity, but one can talk about being "hard", I guess. Rigorous, straight up.... hard.
 

Heart&Brain

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
217
MBTI Type
ENFP
Hard can be sexy! :cheese:

But please, go easy on the NF's sometimes. We've got feelings too.
 

Salomé

meh
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10,527
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
So, intensity. Being intense. Having intense, ah... stuff.

I have wondered if intensity of, say, feeling is not perhaps sensibly measured in terms of the absence of mitigation. Or, in more normal language, feeling is the more intense for not having other judgments stood in its way.
Are you talking about intensity of expression or of impression?
Because I think inhibition is implicated in the former. And lots of things act as inhibitors, including other functions, yes.
 

Lady_X

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 27, 2008
Messages
18,235
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
784
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
kalach...i hope you get some sort of odd thrill knowing your posts require more than one read.

and! i still have to ask for clarification....so just what are you saying? feelings are more intense when you're a perceiver? or the opposite because through the attention of judgment they become more intense?

or...did i miss it entirely?
 

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
So Other Psychology Topics or MBTI....? Ahhmmm... dunno. Whatever.

So, intensity. Being intense. Having intense, ah... stuff.

I have wondered if intensity of, say, feeling is not perhaps sensibly measured in terms of the absence of mitigation. Or, in more normal language, feeling is the more intense for not having other judgments stood in its way.

Perhaps there is some effect from attention too. If one is skilled or at least practiced at attending to and discriminating among feeling whatsits, tones or something, then there's a legitimacy added to feeling some feelings. So one is more aware of feeling them.

Let's take an INFP. They would be very attuned to the nuances of their own feelings. Their function order is Fi > Ne > Si > Te. Since their auxiliary and tertiary are both perceiving functions, those would be the only things that could reasonably balance the Fi judging function. So if Ne isn't strongly developed, would that lead them to be more intense? I don't know if that's it. What makes someone type A type personality? I wonder if this has more to do with Enneagram than MBTI.

edit: Stuff like this comes to mind as having something to do with it Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes
 

KDude

New member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
8,243
kalach...i hope you get some sort of odd thrill knowing your posts require more than one read.

and! i still have to ask for clarification....so just what are you saying? feelings are more intense when you're a perceiver? or the opposite because through the attention of judgment they become more intense?

or...did i miss it entirely?

If that's the case, I think that I experience Fi in a "rigorous" manner at times. I thought it was interesting to read this descripton of Fi in ITJs. I'm not like this exactly, but I kind of relate. Fi isn't always bubbly or creative (or intense) but a means of defense, independence -and in FPs, a means of controlling or protecting outside circumstances. There's a rigourous nature to it in all types (generally more positive or universalistic in dom or aux though).

As a Tertiary Function, Fi typically leads ITJs to retreat into solitary actions that have no constructive worldly effect but are aimed at providing a justification for calling themselves good people. Another example is obsession with the purity of one's soul. For example, being a vegetarian while working at Taco Bell--not out of any great love for animals (the person might hardly know anything about what cows are like), but to be able to say, "Well, at least I never ate any animals." Or engaging in pointless acts of honor, like maintaining super-self-control or "doing one's duty" or going down with the ship. Nothing is gained by going down with the ship; it's a hyper-introverted act aimed at providing a rationalization for one's goodness without regard to real-world consequences. Nearly all of these tertiary-Fi acts involve refraining from action viewed as unethical rather than taking positive action that would accomplish something. They're a retreat from the world--or rather, a rationalization for disregarding worldly matters.
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
I have just wondered from time to time where "intensity" got its currency. And I observed seeming things like, for example, feeling loses its intensity if you make a choice or have something appear to you that alters your judgment of the legitimacy of that feeling, and some competing feeling judgment arises.

Also, say, if one spends most of their conscious time attending to thinking rather than feeling about something (and if one does other stuff to stabilise oneself along the way), then feeling... mellows out? Doesn't have the immediate purchase on one that it might? One has alternatives for focus and "intensity" of feeling goes by the wayside?

There's potentially a follow up conclusion too. If one spends time saying, Lor', I feel SOOOO intensely! then one might say in reply that, well, you have other resources too and could use them as well, or if intensity is where it's at for you, then so be it.

And maybe one could add in something like, intensity is your measure and that's a good thing.


An ENFP guy I know used to complain about intensity of feeling--or at least, he used to react badly to being publicly outed as "sensitive"--and it seemed to me that sensitivity isn't actually a liability. It's a skill that one can hone over time allowing one to become an expert in what is right and wrong.


/random
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
Are you talking about intensity of expression or of impression?
Because I think inhibition is implicated in the former. And lots of things act as inhibitors, including other functions, yes.

Naively talking of intensity of affect.

It would seem too I'm assuming a distinction between affect and judgment. Which I just now started wondering about as an assumption: if feeling is a judgment function, is that judgment more sophisticated than the (original) affect, and is that judgment performed somewhat purely or is it, ah, guided by thinking?

Presumably we can say feeling judgment is some kind of generalised product of feeling affect. As such it is automatically influenced by other functions?


Goodness, I keep on wondering where people store their judgments. Or how a judgment gets to be a judgment. Or even what a judgment is.

explode%20emoticon.gif
 

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Naively talking of intensity of affect.

It would seem too I'm assuming a distinction between affect and judgment. Which I just now started wondering about as an assumption: if feeling is a judgment function, is that judgment more sophisticated than the (original) affect, and is that judgment performed somewhat purely or is it, ah, guided by thinking?

Presumably we can say feeling judgment is some kind of generalised product of feeling affect. As such it is automatically influenced by other functions?


Goodness, I keep on wondering where people store their judgments. Or how a judgment gets to be a judgment. Or even what a judgment is.

explode%20emoticon.gif

I have just wondered from time to time where "intensity" got its currency. And I observed seeming things like, for example, feeling loses its intensity if you make a choice or have something appear to you that alters your judgment of the legitimacy of that feeling, and some competing feeling judgment arises.

Also, say, if one spends most of their conscious time attending to thinking rather than feeling about something (and if one does other stuff to stabilise oneself along the way), then feeling... mellows out? Doesn't have the immediate purchase on one that it might? One has alternatives for focus and "intensity" of feeling goes by the wayside?

A judgment is just a decision.

In the past, people have called me "intense" (not obnoxiously so but intense nonetheless). Why? I'm a person who has strong emotions underneath the calm exterior and try to liberate them outwards in productive ways. The strong emotions definitely have to do with it. They provide your energy, your drive, your passion. I'm a focused person. That adds to it. They say, I "mean business." Maybe that's just Te. I've speculated all of this has something to do with being an introverted intuitive. Maybe Enneagram 8 with Sx instinctual varient is related? Not sure. One can certainly be passionate about their thoughts, vision, or how they see things. It need not be "feeling".
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
A judgment is just a decision.

Yeah, but decisions vary in kind, it would seem. Which seems to relate to this:

One can certainly be passionate about their thoughts, vision, or how they see things. It need not be "feeling".

Poki wrote something about this long, long ago, how IXTJ will act to restrict what counts as available objective judgment according to feeling and will maintain the claim of objectivity, apparently being blind to the influence of feeling. Which makes sense if thinking is the more dominant perspective and feeling is relatively unconscious. Thinking being more conscious is relatively more flexible while feeling being less conscious tends more to the provision of points of fixity.

So I wonder what more conscious, more flexibly accessible feeling is like. And I wonder where the synthesis of feeling judgment takes place. (And if I say "synthesis" I wonder whether or not I'm speaking only really of introverted feeling.)

I had an idea recently that public INTJ feeling has a more black and white quality not because it is more black and white but just because only the starker, more intense "decisions" make it to the surface. Or perhaps just because it gets filtered through thinking.

Or... or... something. Dunno.




Plus possibly poking a little fun at the feelers. If they can laugh at our rigor... etc.
 

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Poki wrote something about this long, long ago, how IXTJ will act to restrict what counts as available objective judgment according to feeling and will maintain the claim of objectivity, apparently being blind to the influence of feeling. Which makes sense if thinking is the more dominant perspective and feeling is relatively unconscious. Thinking being more conscious is relatively more flexible while feeling being less conscious tends more to the provision of points of fixity.

So I wonder what more conscious, more flexibly accessible feeling is like. And I wonder where the synthesis of feeling judgment takes place. (And if I say "synthesis" I wonder whether or not I'm speaking only really of introverted feeling.)

I had an idea recently that public INTJ feeling has a more black and white quality not because it is more black and white but just because only the starker, more intense "decisions" make it to the surface. Or perhaps just because it gets filtered through thinking.

Need to know what you mean by "feeling". Dom Si or Ni subjective perception will have a huge impact on the outlook of an IxTJ, who is making those "objective" judgements. The dominant Si and Ni are like feeling in a a way. Fi is tertiary. Are you saying that tertiary is what gives the intensity? I'm just not sure i'm buying it yet.

Really, emotions seem like a different set of variables that can be meshed through somebody's type.

Does anybody really make objective judgements? I actually don't think it is very common.
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
If I knew what I was talking about when I said "feeling", I'd probably already know the answers to these questions.

I recognise "feeling" as affect and as judgment. Sometimes I'll get a strong, immediate reaction to something and I'll recognise it as feeling. Negative feeling is usually easier to recognise, but being content or pleased is also recognisable. This I count as affective feeling. Feeling judgment, it seems to me, is more mysterious. I know I mix, um, something in with perception when considering what to do. Part of it is significance drawn from prior events, and normally I'd call that (one part of) Ni, but it fairly obviously isn't pure. "Significance" will be a connected thing, a web of meanings, and that'll be the Ni stuff, but some of those meanings will be, I assume, emo significance.

I am unclear, however, how such significance is generated. I would normally say it includes objective elements drawn from thinking, but while it's true that thinking will have been involved, one needs also to consider that the thinking process is more conscious than the feeling process so I'll naturally tag more or less everything as "thinking", or at least subject to and properly judged by thinking.

Actually, since I'm using "objective" to mean "accords with or conforms to the outside world", having particularly ones own introverted feelings be adequately thought about is problematic. They're not (directly) in the outside world to be thought about. Possibly ones own Fe/Ti combo has a similar constructive difficulty: the feelings are in some sense "out there" while the thinking is supposed to address inner material.

(So, as a tangent: Morgan, it was interesting you used "expression" and "impression" as the two choices, although it may not be telling of anything in particular, but "impression" suggests feelings come from "out there"... maybe?)

Anyway... adequate feeling judgment...from whence does it arrive?
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
I feel a lot of love right now. ITJs are beautiful.. I won't laugh.

Everyone's beautiful, man.

Well see, it's interesting because of duality. A TJ will insist on arriving at conclusions that order the world, and will often speak like that, certainly the ITJs will. And this seems, through the magic of duality, to speak to, or create a requirement on, an FP sense of right and wrong, that something be concluded. And should an FP ever find it reasonable to actually make some statement of morality, the TJ will hear it as a worldly organizational principle.

Or something like that.

So, it would seem, either Fi is meant to both feel and conclude or Te is imposing some constraint on the lovely feely feelers who should just be allowed to feel. So as a cognitive function, Fi is something more than affect. BUT WHAT, GODDAMIT! And how?

The poking fun part at the feelers has to do with the oft used adjective "intensity" and a suggestion that feeling feelings intensely is only half the story. The rest of the story is how the hell F is a judgment function.

And I suppose another question is, which part of F is more important, the feeling or the feeling judgment?



*Wanders off the check out PerC link*
 

Gerbah

New member
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
433
MBTI Type
ISTJ
Enneagram
5w4
Well see, it's interesting because of duality. A TJ will insist on arriving at conclusions that order the world, and will often speak like that, certainly the ITJs will. And this seems, through the magic of duality, to speak to, or create a requirement on, an FP sense of right and wrong, that something be concluded. And should an FP ever find it reasonable to actually make some statement of morality, the TJ will hear it as a worldly organizational principle.

Or something like that.

So, it would seem, either Fi is meant to both feel and conclude or Te is imposing some constraint on the lovely feely feelers who should just be allowed to feel. So as a cognitive function, Fi is something more than affect. BUT WHAT, GODDAMIT! And how?

The poking fun part at the feelers has to do with the oft used adjective "intensity" and a suggestion that feeling feelings intensely is only half the story. The rest of the story is how the hell F is a judgment function.

And I suppose another question is, which part of F is more important, the feeling or the feeling judgment?



*Wanders off the check out PerC link*

I wouldn't say either is more important? The intensity of affect (the "feeling") leads the Fi user to discriminate what in the external world they relate to and value personally and individually (the consquent "feeling judgment"). And I suppose when Fi is dominant, the person doesn't feel much of a need to relate these judgments that govern their internal world to the external world (Te). Or at least, they could go for a long time like that, although I think at some point, whether extravert or introvert, every person has to reconcile the external and internal at some point in their lives. I think in the case of Fi, this is where the Te constraint would come in. Individual values are one thing, but at some point, there is a level of absolutes that also exists. The individual isn't the centre of the universe. There's nothing wrong with intensity, but excess and imbalance are something else.
 

Little Linguist

Striving for balance
Joined
Jun 23, 2008
Messages
6,880
MBTI Type
xNFP
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I always get people saying, "Wow you are so intense!" WTF does that mean? :shock:
 

cascadeco

New member
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,083
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I have just wondered from time to time where "intensity" got its currency. And I observed seeming things like, for example, feeling loses its intensity if you make a choice or have something appear to you that alters your judgment of the legitimacy of that feeling, and some competing feeling judgment arises.

Also, say, if one spends most of their conscious time attending to thinking rather than feeling about something (and if one does other stuff to stabilise oneself along the way), then feeling... mellows out? Doesn't have the immediate purchase on one that it might? One has alternatives for focus and "intensity" of feeling goes by the wayside?

I posted this recently in another thread - I believe it is directly related to this topic - at least with regards to choosing to alter perceptions or pay attention to other elements of your psychae than what immediately triggers a particular emotional response.

http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...cs/33570-choosing-not-feel-3.html#post1301366

Kalach said:
I had an idea recently that public INTJ feeling has a more black and white quality not because it is more black and white but just because only the starker, more intense "decisions" make it to the surface. Or perhaps just because it gets filtered through thinking.

I think similar could be said for all IxxJ's (or all aux judgers?) - the external presentation is the 'final' decision, after mulling over things internally, thus all IxxJ's might seem pretty black and white when it comes to ideas/expressions they are sharing.

--------

Regarding intensity, yes, there's definitely intensity of emotional feeling/depth - the raw emotions.

I think there's also an intensity tied more to... an attachment to a particular idea. A bias towards something - some perception, some construct, some belief. That bias and attachment towards one particular thing, rather than another thing, could lead to a different sort of intensity. More...tied to your core sense of self/ ego, rather than tied purely to raw emotion.
 

Poki

New member
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
Messages
10,436
MBTI Type
STP
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I have just wondered from time to time where "intensity" got its currency. And I observed seeming things like, for example, feeling loses its intensity if you make a choice or have something appear to you that alters your judgment of the legitimacy of that feeling, and some competing feeling judgment arises.

"Cant you just let me be happy!!!"
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
Regarding intensity, yes, there's definitely intensity of emotional feeling/depth - the raw emotions.

Measurable intensity? This is the problem I'm having, knowing which intensifier to use for intensity: very intense, intensely intense, mildly intense, so minimally intense we might as well call it mild?

Consumed by awareness of?

As opposed to, say, "inspired by some other construction and not paying particular attention"?

If it's a matter of conscious focus, then there's some sense in which... something, dunno. Something like, we're all the same underneath, just focused in different ways, and though focus is crucially important for understanding who the person is, there's still a bunch of other parts to them that are normal enough.

Or not, I dunno. It's a bit weird trying to make all people comparable in this way. Other people are more capable at this facet or that. Thus....

Dunno. Either eugenics or the occasional spurt of personal growth.

I think there's also an intensity tied more to... an attachment to a particular idea. A bias towards something - some perception, some construct, some belief. That bias and attachment towards one particular thing, rather than another thing, could lead to a different sort of intensity. More...tied to your core sense of self/ ego, rather than tied purely to raw emotion.

Is that the same idea as relative maturity of lower level functions? As in, stuff happens down below the flexible, well-adjusted top level functions and that stuff becomes fixed points in our cognition that we don't often question?

I wonder if there's a way to say that that makes tertiary functioning (and lower) less reprehensible. Less knee-jerky and shadowy somehow.



Ooo, heavens, I wonder if I'm not looking for legitimate rights to intensity. Having relatively immature emotional awareness suggests one might envy intensity but couldn't really, truthfully pull it off. Nuts.
 
Top