The title pretty much says it all.
Seems that everyone has this idea that the introverted and extroverted version of each function are SOOOO different.
But really, most of the time you can't even tell the difference. It's easy to label an instance of cognition N, S, T, or F (because they're totally clearly defined and don't overlap). There's no room for grey area. But with Ti vs. Te, for example, how the hell can you tell the difference if you just observe one instance?
What I mean is this. Say someone says "2 + 2 = 4" and someone else responds "oh, that's true." Well, that's clearly an instance of the responder using Thinking. How would you know whether that person is using their internal standard to come to that conclusion or the external standard? You literally cannot possibly know.
One way to distinguish is to observe the Thinking user over time and watch whether they make more conclusions relevant to the current situation or to themselves. But the only way to see that is for them to make a conclusion that CLEARLY favors relevance in one direction. And honestly, most instances of Thinking aren't clearly in one direction like that.
I really want people to think of the functions as just N, S, T, and F. Introversion and extroversion of those functions are only important to discuss when they're descriptively useful of a behavior. I'd say most of the time, at least when discussing a relatively short scope of behavior, they're not that relevant.
I see people get way too wrapped up in these differences...the problem is that distinguishing between I/E is soooo much more susceptible to confirmation bias. I hear stuff like -- "Oh, he actually was being Fi to care about other people in that situation because it's relevant to his psychological state" or "oh, that was Te because he acted out his truth conclusion or said it out loud" or whatever. It's just nonsense. Unfalsifiable hypotheses.
The cool thing about MBTI is that you can use it a bunch of different ways. But it's up to the users of the system to figure out how deep to go in each situation. And it seems like many of y'all forget that MBTI is only as "true" as it's descriptive validity. It's not as character-defining as the common belief on this site seems to imply.
/rant
Seems that everyone has this idea that the introverted and extroverted version of each function are SOOOO different.
But really, most of the time you can't even tell the difference. It's easy to label an instance of cognition N, S, T, or F (because they're totally clearly defined and don't overlap). There's no room for grey area. But with Ti vs. Te, for example, how the hell can you tell the difference if you just observe one instance?
What I mean is this. Say someone says "2 + 2 = 4" and someone else responds "oh, that's true." Well, that's clearly an instance of the responder using Thinking. How would you know whether that person is using their internal standard to come to that conclusion or the external standard? You literally cannot possibly know.
One way to distinguish is to observe the Thinking user over time and watch whether they make more conclusions relevant to the current situation or to themselves. But the only way to see that is for them to make a conclusion that CLEARLY favors relevance in one direction. And honestly, most instances of Thinking aren't clearly in one direction like that.
I really want people to think of the functions as just N, S, T, and F. Introversion and extroversion of those functions are only important to discuss when they're descriptively useful of a behavior. I'd say most of the time, at least when discussing a relatively short scope of behavior, they're not that relevant.
I see people get way too wrapped up in these differences...the problem is that distinguishing between I/E is soooo much more susceptible to confirmation bias. I hear stuff like -- "Oh, he actually was being Fi to care about other people in that situation because it's relevant to his psychological state" or "oh, that was Te because he acted out his truth conclusion or said it out loud" or whatever. It's just nonsense. Unfalsifiable hypotheses.
The cool thing about MBTI is that you can use it a bunch of different ways. But it's up to the users of the system to figure out how deep to go in each situation. And it seems like many of y'all forget that MBTI is only as "true" as it's descriptive validity. It's not as character-defining as the common belief on this site seems to imply.
/rant