[MENTION=7842]Z Buck McFate[/MENTION] Where I'm coming from, with that question, wrt how that would help accomplish things, is: if you have to make interpersonal decisions, then you need to operate under certain assumptions. In general, in life, if you're going to do ANYTHING, you have to operate under certain assumptions. Those assumptions include other people's thoughts, feelings, and reactions. So, when the INFJs I referenced in my earlier post seem to find comfort in deconstructing that, it seems confusing and counterproductive from my (Te-dominant) perspective. Frankly, I don't know how it's even possible to interact with people without making assumptions about them.
Edit: Not sure why I didn't actually reply to the details of your post, but now I'm going to.
Can you give a specific hypothetical example of what you mean by "what is inside someone else's head" (or, whatever it is we do that you're trying to describe- as specific an example as possible)? Additionally it would be helpful to show exactly how that reluctance would make it harder to accomplish anything?
I'm having a hard time understanding how unwillingness to make an assumption about what's going through someone else's head could make it harder to accomplish anything, or how it could possibly be detrimental. Assumptions- about others' intentions, meanings, etc- cause
so much trouble and chaos (which inevitably creates more work- when it's work/effort that COULD have been easily prevented by being a little more careful, it's frustrating to deal with*) that I'm having trouble understanding how anyone could think it's ultimately
more productive to go with the assumption.
*It's possible I'm actually answering the question here, in this parenthetical phrase- that it's about proactive damage control. But I still think it would be helpful to see a specific hypothetical example, to clarify.
Okay, that makes sense. And now that I think about it -- and I have no idea why this is -- INFJs seem to have a lot more trouble with expressing themselves clearly, than ExTJs do. So it would make sense that in order to avoid those common misunderstandings, INFJs would try to avoid the assumption that people understand them without them being absolutely clear. Hence the stereotype of INFJs being extremely long-winded (which isn't always true), to compensate for that.
From an ExTJ perspective, the utility of making those assumptions is that everything happens quicker and more efficiently. You don't have to take an obscene amount of time to hash out potentially unnecessary things. What if you go on and on for half an hour about something that it turns out you were totally in agreement about all along? (Not to mention, from an Si perspective, precedent-based assumptions are generally how I do things, to the point that I can't imagine how I'd do anything without them.)
Because of the fact that it's difficult to misunderstand me, I typically don't need to worry about that. So when I was asking this question, all I could think of was a much more chaotic, unpredictable, and extremely frustrating system than the one I currently have.
I knew my biases were at play, but now I know exactly which ones! Yay
eta: Something tells me that- when you say "accomplish anything"- you're referring to tasks that simply don't show up on our radar as being an inherent priority for us. Much in the way that proactive damage control aimed at the interpersonal space inbetween people isn't going to show up as an inherent priority for ExTJs. It can be very frustrating to feel an inherent priority that flies completely under others' radar- but it's also frustrating to deal with someone else having an inherent priority that doesn't make any sense to us.
In part, I am -- e.g. the bit about time and efficiency above -- but I'm referring to feelings-y things too. Like, if someone looks happy, you can assume that they are. If they say they're happy, with a happy facial expression, and the context for that doesn't suggest that they're trying to fake it, then you can assume they're happy. You don't have to re-hash all of that. I guess for me as an ExTJ, feelings-based assumptions are a way to minimize stress and worry, since if I stop making assumptions about how other people are feeling, then I start to get paranoid that everyone is unhappy. That's probably inferior Fi at play.