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[Jungian Cognitive Functions] FPs: yes, we CAN tell the difference between someone being natural vs fake

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garbage

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Your Fi is amazing.
No, man, it's my SiTe. You see, since I have Si, Si compares the cues to those that I've come across before and [...]

Just because it's on your resume doesn't mean it's true! :D
I don't know about you, but I blindly trust what applicants put on their resumes without interviewing them.
 

Jaguar

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No, man, it's my SiTe. You see, since I have Si, Si compares the cues to those that I've come across before and [...]

It could be a double-dipped, triple-loop Fi formation of tertiary psychotic aggravation. That's unhellthy.
 
G

garbage

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It could be a double-dipped, triple-loop Fi formation of tertiary psychotic aggravation. That's unhellthy.
This statement makes theoretical, logical sense from the perspective of Jungian cognitive functions and is therefore correct.
 
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ReflecTcelfeR

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Wild idea here: Perceptive people are perceptive. Motivation to try and be perceptive is important to JCF.
 

Stanton Moore

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Why do some people become therapists? Because they can 'see into people'.
why can they do this? From past experience. As a child they had to 'take care' of the emotions of a parent (codependency). This necessitates developing the ability to take another's emotional temperature with great precision.
I have a friend who is highly competent at almost everything. He has a cool-headed demeanor, and rarely gets rattled. I am usually fairly open and friendly with people. Occasionally I am withdrawn. When I do this, his behavior changes just slightly. He becomes more interested in making sure I'm happy, that he hasn't offended me. He does this because his mother was an alcoholic. I notice that he does this because my father had PTSD, and knowing when he was about to rage meant I could escape. We were both in codependent relationships.
So IMO, this has everything to do with learned behavior from childhood.
 

MacGuffin

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I think Fi users are very skilled at empathy. They are able to place themselves in someone else's shoes and see out of their eyes. This makes them very good at reading others.

The problems arises when the Fi-user forgets their skill at empathy is merely a projection. They may be good at it, but not infallible, and prone to bias as well as simply not having all the relevant facts at hand. This leads to bad readings of others and the object of the reading will often feel insulted at the insistence of the Fi-user that they are right about someone.
 

Thalassa

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Yeah Fi a lot of the time is projection, but weirdly enough I think I do the thing where I'm absolutely TERRIBLE with typing men I just met, because of my dom Fi (this is another reason I'm convinced of ISFP over ESFP or ENFP) is that I PROJECT Fe ON TO MEN.

I need a T-shirt that says "I See Fe People" instead of "I See Dead People."

Generally the men usually *do* have Fe, but not necessarily as high as I project it as being. I even thought a self-typed ENTJ was an ENFJ when I met him, and I typed a *now obvious* xxTP as an ENFJ when I first met him. I think instead of seeing Fe what I'm seeing is learned polite behavior, or maybe even some kind of socially gentleman-ly "warmth" toward females or something.

But yeah someone told me that people do this, like they're attracted to the opposite attitude of their dom function (Like Fi would do this with Fe, Ti with Te, etc.) and can even project it on to certain members of the opposite sex...and typically in a more idealized manner than the inferior function, in which the inferior function can actually be a more negative thing, or very extreme love/hate kind of thing, I suppose.

Sometimes I'm dead-on with people, but I would agree that Fi draws upon "my own experience" to feel compassion for others. I think for an SFP this means the more life experience I have, the more empathy I can cultivate.

I think I'm pretty good at picking the right people to be loyal to, as well, to respond more to the actual topic of the thread.
 

Thalassa

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NFJs can do this too, but they do it in a different way. with FPs, it's a kind of BS detector; NFJs take on the other person's emotions and use Ni to extract the essence from that

I would agree with this statement. Fe types really do "take on other people's feelings." My ESFJ friend says she does that. And I'm like "oh jesus thank god I don't have to deal with that."
 

Elfboy

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I would agree with this statement. Fe types really do "take on other people's feelings." My ESFJ friend says she does that. And I'm like "oh jesus thank god I don't have to deal with that."

my thoughts exactly, it sounds like quite a burden
 
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ReflecTcelfeR

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Seems like I need to get wilder.... Why is Fi or any function exclusive to perceptive ability?
 

Elfboy

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Seems like I need to get wilder.... Why is Fi or any function exclusive to perceptive ability?

who said anything about being exclusive? I'm merely saying it can
 
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ReflecTcelfeR

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who said anything about being exclusive? I'm merely saying it can

Well combined with my first post. I'm saying that it isn't what is sensing the mistrust. It's only contorting the sensation.
 

OrangeAppled

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you did a MUCH better job explaining a couple of points I was about to come back and address

Thanks.

There seems to be an idea that "Fi reads people" (as if it's a tool...). I don't think this is quite how it works.

An xxFP has perceptions via Pe - Se types often note tangible indicators (ie. body language) & Ne types work with those intangible "vibes".
What Fi does is make the judgment call based on an understanding of how people work. This is an understanding that has been refined in the mind via exploration of the self (which is used as a sort of prototype for understanding people), & in the case of NFPs, via invisible patterns observed in people over time. I admit that "figuring people out" is a little game I play with myself, and practice tends to improve such "skills" (oh yes, I am psychoanalyzing you!).

Most Feeling types will tell you they feel they understand people well or have an interest in doing so, but to me, F-dom with aux iNtuition (INFPs & ENFJs) are more preoccupied with refining their understanding to be used on a larger scale. With F-dom, the primary focus of their mind is what things mean & what is their significance in in terms of people, and then iNtuition aids in seeing what is not immediately apparent on the surface. From an INFP perspective, you form general concepts to work off of, and then you can make some pretty dead on inferences about how people are & why they are that way. This can occasionally result in being dead wrong when projection is involved (and projection is more often an issue of Pe for xxFPs than Fi, IMO), but that doesn't mean it's a total crapshoot. You're seeking to make sense of people in emotional terms (which is not logical, but it has a sort of consistency to it still), so it's not just trusting a gut feeling (which may be more true of P-dom).

What I notice with xSFPs is a heavier reliance on first-hand experience. Projection occurs when their experience is limited & they use this limited knowledge to draw a conclusion & don't consider other possibilities (whereas a Ne type may invent possibilities that don't exist). However, they also work with more concrete, factual information, which has obvious advantages. I see that with SFs, period. My ISFJ mom can recall physical things about people that lead her to the same conclusion I get, but I can't connect it to anything solid. I just "know", and I make sense of this knowing using my general understanding of how people work.

Oh, and I think I should add that xxFPs are probably more preoccupied with noting and annoyed when they suspect that someone is being "fake", just due to the nature of their own mindset.
 

Tiltyred

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I don't see any huge value in being able to detect when someone is being fake. Being able to figure out why they're being fake, now, that's useful.
 

chickpea

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i do think i'm good at reading people, and telling when people are being sincere, but i don't think it's because i was born with some magical psychic fi-powers. it's because, like what orangeappled said, i've always been interested in what's going on in people's heads so i've always been practicing, trying to figure it out. and sometimes i end up being very wrong, but a lot of the time i do get feelings and know how someone's feeling or predict certain actions before they happen.
 

Thalassa

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I don't see any huge value in being able to detect when someone is being fake. Being able to figure out why they're being fake, now, that's useful.

Being able to figure out people are fake can actually be a very valuable life-preservation skill. People can be con-artists and false friends and it's good to be watchful for these kinds of people.

Those people can ruin your freakin' life.
 

Tiltyred

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Being able to figure out people are fake can actually be a very valuable life-preservation skill. People can be con-artists and false friends and it's good to be watchful for these kinds of people.

Those people can ruin your freakin' life.

Oh, no question. ASIDE from those people, though, just in normal everyday interactions with people who are not con artists, sometimes well-intentioned people can come off as fake if they're nervous or insecure. I was trying to say that just because you might detect some fakery doesn't mean the person's up to no good.
 

uumlau

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There seems to be an idea that "Fi reads people" (as if it's a tool...). I don't think this is quite how it works.

No, it really goes after the "tone" of people. The ability to sense "fake" is really the ability to sense when something doesn't match up. It doesn't mean something is wrong, but it does mean that something isn't quite right.

An xxFP has perceptions via Pe - Se types often note tangible indicators (ie. body language) & Ne types work with those intangible "vibes".
What Fi does is make the judgment call based on an understanding of how people work. This is an understanding that has been refined in the mind via exploration of the self (which is used as a sort of prototype for understanding people), & in the case of NFPs, via invisible patterns observed in people over time. I admit that "figuring people out" is a little game I play with myself, and practice tends to improve such "skills" (oh yes, I am psychoanalyzing you!).

Yes, this does seem to be a trait of the FP types - an overall desire to evaluate what a person is really like. On the xNFP side, I note that ENFPs are particularly good at making snap observations along these lines, while INFPs tend to withhold a "final" judgement.

Most Feeling types will tell you they feel they understand people well or have an interest in doing so, but to me, F-dom with aux iNtuition (INFPs & ENFJs) are more preoccupied with refining their understanding to be used on a larger scale. With F-dom, the primary focus of their mind is what things mean & what is their significance in in terms of people, and then iNtuition aids in seeing what is not immediately apparent on the surface. From an INFP perspective, you form general concepts to work off of, and then you can make some pretty dead on inferences about how people are & why they are that way. This can occasionally result in being dead wrong when projection is involved (and projection is more often an issue of Pe for xxFPs than Fi, IMO), but that doesn't mean it's a total crapshoot. You're seeking to make sense of people in emotional terms (which is not logical, but it has a sort of consistency to it still), so it's not just trusting a gut feeling (which may be more true of P-dom).

What I notice with xSFPs is a heavier reliance on first-hand experience. Projection occurs when their experience is limited & they use this limited knowledge to draw a conclusion & don't consider other possibilities (whereas a Ne type may invent possibilities that don't exist). However, they also work with more concrete, factual information, which has obvious advantages. I see that with SFs, period. My ISFJ mom can recall physical things about people that lead her to the same conclusion I get, but I can't connect it to anything solid. I just "know", and I make sense of this knowing using my general understanding of how people work.

Oh, and I think I should add that xxFPs are probably more preoccupied with noting and annoyed when they suspect that someone is being "fake", just due to the nature of their own mindset.

Good synopsis.

There is an interesting aspect of Nardi's research, where there's a missing piece of the symmetry in terms of the "Intuitive listening" section of the brain. All of the FPs use this section a lot. That's the main consistency. A corollary consistency is that the Ti doms don't use it much at all. In between, it's a bit of a jumble. ENFJs, ENTPs, ISFJs, ENTJs and INTJs, all use it, though not as intently as the FPs.

Strangely, INFJs are missing from that list. This might just be an artifact of the limited sample size, but it's possible that it isn't a priority. Instead, it appears that INFJs rely on literal details (exact words used) and a strong social context to evaluate people. Combined with their Ni, it amounts to being a very similar thing, but it's remarkable to see how the evaluation might be different.

On a side note, I recall that there was a "Sense Motive" skill in D&D 3rd edition, which is kind of analogous to what Elfboy is claiming in the OP. One thing that I kind of wanted to add to that system (I no longer play), was a "Deduction" skill that was more Intelligence-based, which would work sort of like Sense Motive, except it would be about spotting inconsistencies in a more thinking-style, than feeling style. I bring this up because it is entirely possible to have a thinking-based bs-detector, except it isn't detecting duplicity so much as it is likely detecting incompetence or ignorance.
 

Laurie

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No, it really goes after the "tone" of people. The ability to sense "fake" is really the ability to sense when something doesn't match up. It doesn't mean something is wrong, but it does mean that something isn't quite right.

Yes. I realize I can be wrong about what it is so I just wait to see what else comes along later although I will be wary of the person. It's happened that someone I get a vibe about later posts that they have mental illness. So it's not like I think they are fake or evil or bad. Just something isn't adding up correctly.

It's also easy to ignore it if you need something from the person (friendship, romance)

There is someone on here I door slammed because I got sick of trying to figure out why they were fake and just gave up on them until they grew up a bit. They knew exactly why it happened.
 
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