[NF] Introverted Feeling vs. Extraverted Feeling

[Lady_X]

Interesting. Doesn't a perception still need to precede a judgment though? I've been thinking recently, is there a chance that we differ more in the tertiary function than anything? ie. I combine Ne and Fi, Ne and Te. You combine Ne and Fi, Si and Fi.

How is Fi different as a dominant Fi?

good question...i'd like to understand that better too.

 

[SciVo]

Interesting. Doesn't a perception still need to precede a judgment though? I've been thinking recently, is there a chance that we differ more in the tertiary function than anything? ie. I combine Ne and Fi, Ne and Te. You combine Ne and Fi, Si and Fi.

How is Fi different as a dominant Fi?

Yeah, I quickly deleted that post since I realized that it wasn't quite right. Just my luck you saw it first. Make that: Contemplation continuing!

 

[BlueScreen]

Hehe, sorry...

I'll add that I think Ne and Si is a really powerful combo. You get an intuitive understanding of whatever you are looking at, but can also follow detailed information and judge carefully from the fine details. ie. big picture, fine detail combo.

 

[Orangey]

I don’t agree. To say someone ‘represses’ their emotion insinuates there’s some effort involved in holding the emotion back, as if on part of the super-ego or whatnot. I know from personal experience that it isn’t ‘repressed’ so much as it simply lingers inside a little bit longer. It needs more processing.

EDIT: In the fable 'the tortoise & the hare', is the turtle being 'repressed'? No. It's just slower to get to the finish line.

Calmly explaining your problem to a person while feeling like a raging ball of firey emotion on the inside IS controlling the emotion, even though you are still experiencing feelings on the inside. The emotion compels you to yell and scream and rage, yet there is something that you are doing to repress the yelling and screaming and raging. A part of the emotion is being placed under the house arrest of your judgment.

 

[Oaky]

Interesting. Doesn't a perception still need to precede a judgment though? I've been thinking recently, is there a chance that we differ more in the tertiary function than anything? ie. I combine Ne and Fi, Ne and Te. You combine Ne and Fi, Si and Fi.

How is Fi different as a dominant Fi?

good question...i'd like to understand that better too.

Sorry to bore both of you but here's an explanation...

As a Dominant Function, Fi leads IFPs to live a life based on empathy and harmony between self and others--and/or to see life as a never-ending conflict between souls that are intrinsically different and opposed. ISFPs typically seek out a space in which they can be completely and spontaneously themselves, following their artistic impulses without regard to social expectation or definition of any sort. Some do their best to live life as a soap opera: creating and living out intense drama wherever they go. INFPs typically seek to understand the world in terms of drama, emotion, and people seeking their own unique callings (perhaps Garrison Keillor is a good example of that). Some, like John Gray, attempt to help others understand each other through empathy with each other's differences, and thereby find peace and synergy.
Developed Fi naturally leads people to favor mercy or forgiveness for people who have done heinous acts--anything from theft to murder to genocide--acts that, under the ordinary laws that make a society manageable (see Extraverted Thinking), would usually merit their imprisonment or execution. From a developed Fi perspective, the criminal is still a living soul, still unique and precious despite whatever he may have done. If we walked in his moccasins for a while, maybe we could see it his way. Without condoning his crimes, maybe we could see how we ourselves could have done the same things under similar circumstances. This use of empathy as one's ultimate anchor of orientation leads to a resolute non-judgementalness. First empathize--find something in your own heart that lets you see how someone could feel and act the way he did--and then you will probably find that you no longer feel hatred or a desire for retribution.



As a Secondary Function, Fi typically leads EFPs to tune into the unmet needs and callings of others--as an avenue to making a sale, as a way to intuit what would entertain people, as a channel to political gain by demonstrating that you understand people's pain (e.g. Bill Clinton), as a way to chart a course through life based on a calling felt to be unique to them. Sometimes it leads them to sense a higher calling to answer to, a sense that their actions have cosmic meaning by virtue of how they aid or hinder life.



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.



As an Inferior Function, Fi typically leads ETJs to acts of self-destructive hedonism, creation of opera-like drama in their lives and the lives of those around them, obsession with "integrity" (like going down with the ship), instant and irresponsible abandonment of anything they don't like (the opposite of going down with the ship), and bizarre solitary acts of atonement for the harms they've done to others. Sometimes inferior-Fi leads ETJs to preach and even practice a sort of hyper-selfishness, e.g. Ayn Rand and the Landmark Forum. "I'm doing fine, so why should I give a damn about you?" (Very different from highly developed Fi, which leads you to see all people as connected and the highest joy of life as the experience of that connection.)

 

[wolfy]

Calmly explaining your problem to a person while feeling like a raging ball of firey emotion on the inside IS controlling the emotion, even though you are still experiencing feelings on the inside. The emotion compels you to yell and scream and rage, yet there is something that you are doing to repress the yelling and screaming and raging. A part of the emotion is being placed under the house arrest of your judgment.

It seems to me that is controlling your actions not your emotions.

 

[Orangey]

It seems to me that is controlling your actions not your emotions.

But isn't the physiological response part and parcel of an emotion?

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Calmly explaining your problem to a person while feeling like a raging ball of firey emotion on the inside IS controlling the emotion, even though you are still experiencing feelings on the inside. The emotion compels you to yell and scream and rage, yet there is something that you are doing to repress the yelling and screaming and raging. A part of the emotion is being placed under the house arrest of your judgment.

I can only speak for myself, but often the emotion isn't compelling me yell and scream and rage. Seriously. It's more like a sense of 'what's all this now?', and I need time to figure out what I'm feeling.

Now when other people try to rush the process and ride me about expressing emotions before I'm ready- that's different- then I do feel compelled to yell and scream and rage. But in those situations I usually just go ahead and yell and scream and rage. I yell "Don't rush me." Then I get back to figuring out what I needed to figure out.

But again- I don't think this is specifically related to Fe/Fi.

 

[wolfy]

But isn't the physiological response part and parcel of an emotion?

That's an interesting point, I think there is a gap between having an emotion, the physiological response and then to expressing it. The gap is between the physiological response and you expressing it.

If someone annoyed me and I got angry if I was repressing my emotions I'd block the rage moving through my body. If I was fully expressing it then I'd fight. If I just let the response move through my body it would dissipate.

 

[SciVo]

But isn't the physiological response part and parcel of an emotion?

It goes both ways -- which is why I don't see controlling my emotional displays as inauthentic. (My motto: Whatever you think and do changes you.) The mind/body connection works both ways, with your brain releasing hormones that affect every cell at a metabolic level, and with your posture and facial expressions affecting how you feel.

I can only speak for myself, but often the emotion isn't compelling me yell and scream and rage. Seriously. It's more like a sense of 'what's all this now?', and I need time to figure out what I'm feeling.

Now when other people try to rush the process and ride me about expressing emotions before I'm ready- that's different- then I do feel compelled to yell and scream and rage. But in those situations I usually just go ahead and yell and scream and rage. I yell "Don't rush me." Then I get back to figuring out what I needed to figure out.

But again- I don't think this is specifically related to Fe/Fi.

Yeah, I get more of a Ni sense from that. I use my tertiary Ni pretty extensively (in teamwork with my secondary Ne) and I experience it as a very subconscious function; one that takes an unpredictable amount of time to produce anything (but it could be brilliant), like fishing a deep, dark sea.

If a feeling is a message from your subconscious about your perception of how your circumstances are affecting your needs, and using Ni for your primary perception is like fishing in a nebula, then you can't know how you feel until the star-fish are frying on the pan.

 

[fill]

Anyways, I don't believe there are any hard and fast rules on the functions that people use. People use all the functions differently at different times.

Then stop telling people what functions they are and aren't using. You don't know. Maybe if we all took a cognitive functions test, we could start discussing who's using what, but you're looking at the default templates of all the types and acting as if everyone uses these functions in the same order.

I'm INFJ with secondary Ti. Not everyone's the same.

 

[Grungemouse]

Fi users do what they feel is right.

Fe users do what they think is right for the group.

All of this "Fe cries on the outside, Fi cries on the inside" is bull.

This. I've witnessed Fe-users who suppress their feelings in favour of maintaining harmony, and I've witnessed Fi-users reap drama out of disdainful self-righteousness.

 

[fill]

This. I've witnessed Fe-users who suppress their feelings in favour of maintaining harmony, and I've witnessed Fi-users reap drama out of disdainful self-righteousness.

EXACTLY. Thank you.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

hmmm. good thread but i agree with marmalade. where are the nts when you need them? haha. because they can be more objective about what Fi and Fe mean, whereas i get all mixed up sometimes because i am so intimate with them.

i'm coming to realize i have a lot of Fi. for me it's: my principles. my value system. my internal sense of right and wrong. how i feel about things. i usually try to keep these to myself because i know they are my own beliefs, but sometimes, when pressed, they come surging forth even when it's in conflict with my Fe.

Fe for me is: considering others' feelings. knowing that you return a phone call. taking a dish over when you visit someone. asking someone, "how are you doing?" helping out a friend in need even when you are busy. understanding societal norms, but not necessarily adopting them. and finally, teaching/helping others use their Fe as well.

 

[Grungemouse]

This is how I saw it, but I'm probably wrong:

Fi: Producing your own values system, finding your own interpretation of what is morally right or wrong.

Fe: Following a universal values system; what is considered morally right or wrong.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

This is how I saw it, but I'm probably wrong:

Fi: Producing your own values system, finding your own interpretation of what is morally right or wrong.

Fe: Following a universal values system; what is considered morally right or wrong.

yeah. but. on the Fe i would qualify it to say instead of 'following' to understanding and knowing how to use the universal values system. most of the infj i see on here, and know irl, don't necessarily conform, per se. but we are knowledgable about universal values and exploit that in relating with others.

my take, anyway.

 

[Grungemouse]

You're probably right. My Fe isn't well sharpened, in my youth.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

You're probably right. My Fe isn't well sharpened, in my youth.

do intps have Fe?

 

[Lauren Ashley]

i'm coming to realize i have a lot of Fi. for me it's: my principles. my value system. my internal sense of right and wrong. how i feel about things. i usually try to keep these to myself because i know they are my own beliefs, but sometimes, when pressed, they come surging forth even when it's in conflict with my Fe.

It's been hypothesized that Ni-Fe can produce an Fi-like effect. At this point, with hearing how others see Fe in their lives and how they utilise it, I'm not entirely sure how much Fe I actually have. I do find myself agreeing with the sentiments of INFPs on this forum and others', but not so much other supposed Fi users' opinions.

 

[Kalach]

I wonder if what you guys are calling Fi in NFJs isn't the products of Ti working on Fe materials.

If you were to characterise this Fi of yours, would it be like having an internal sense of the essential quality of "feeling", fine distinctions between feelings, having categories and sub categories of feeling, and ultimately knowing which ones are good and which ones are bad?

Telling the difference between this and Fi is very probably only available by being aware of what the feelings, in general, are about. Not what the conclusions are about, but what the feelings themselves are about.



Totally just guessing.