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Could someone explain the functions (dominant, auxilary...) to me?

Udog

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How bout something that actually answers the question? All you've done is change the question from "How does Udog know?" to "How does Joe Butt know?"

Joe Butt pulled that from MBTI theory.

Why are you asking?

Edit - How do I know that? I know that because the theory states it. Right now, isn't that what we are talking about?
 

cascadeco

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Joe Butt pulled that from MBTI theory.

Why are you asking?

I can't speak for Jeffster, but my personal thought is that a lot of people take the theory, and cognitive function order, as a given, without questioning it. Now granted, this is a forum devoted to the theory, so I doubt it's the place to actively raise eyebrows at the theory itself. But based on people I've known in real life, and observation, I've never truly been convinced myself on the validity of all of it - specifically the iron-clad function orders. Then I try to remind myself that mbti is a pretty system, and as such it needs a structured cognitive function order to complete the framework.

It's possible though I misunderstand the theory or am mis-applying it in some way.
 

Athenian200

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Haha, brilliant - except in my actual life, I'm the boss (female) and my secretary is a male. just sayin'. :wink:

I love seeing situations where stereotypes are reversed. :)

I just didn't want to reverse them in my example, because I was worried it would look contrived. And might even confuse an ESFP (no offense).
 

Athenian200

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Then I try to remind myself that mbti is a pretty system, and as such it needs a structured cognitive function order to complete the framework.

:yes: That really is why you don't want to mess with the order. If you don't have a structured order, you kind of mess with the foundations of the system and don't really have a lot that's usable.

So if you really want to throw away functional order, you pretty much have to dismantle the whole theory and put it back together as something new, maybe using a few of the old pieces.
 

cascadeco

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:yes: That really is why you don't want to mess with the order. If you don't have a structured order, you kind of mess with the foundations of the system and don't really have a lot that's usable.

So if you really want to throw away functional order, you pretty much have to dismantle the whole theory and put it back together as something new, maybe using a few of the old pieces.

Yes, tis unfortunate. As I've often wanted to dismantle the entire cognitive function theory. I'm ok with keeping the 16 types as nice little generalizations and 'trends', if you will, but I often want to scrap the cognitive function crap. haha. :laugh: Anything beyond the first two ceases to be very relevant. There's too much variation when you throw in nurture and other psych. factors.

But Karen - Athenian and Udog explained the function theory well. I'm just being curmudgeonly. ;-)
 

Udog

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I can't speak for Jeffster, but my personal thought is that a lot of people take the theory, and cognitive function order, as a given, without questioning it.

:yes:

There's the intellectual foundation of the theory, and there's the application of the theory. It is important to differentiate between the two.

My intention was to provide a decent base of knowledge as to how the theory tries to categorize the ESFP. That's the intellectual foundation - the theory.

She's free to disagree in how it applies to her though. In fact, in order to use MBTI in the best possible way, I highly encourage she does just that. Likely some things I wrote will resonate, while others... not so much.

The process of figuring out how the theory fails to describe you is at least as important as understanding how it succeeds.
 

simulatedworld

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I can't speak for Jeffster, but my personal thought is that a lot of people take the theory, and cognitive function order, as a given, without questioning it. Now granted, this is a forum devoted to the theory, so I doubt it's the place to actively raise eyebrows at the theory itself. But based on people I've known in real life, and observation, I've never truly been convinced myself on the validity of all of it - specifically the iron-clad function orders. Then I try to remind myself that mbti is a pretty system, and as such it needs a structured cognitive function order to complete the framework.

It's possible though I misunderstand the theory or am mis-applying it in some way.

Ironclad functional order is dumb.

The functions themselves don't have much use beyond self-examination. It's nigh impossible to tell what's actually going on in someone else's subconscious mental processes.

The real use of MBTI is in its labels and system of categorization of externalized behaviors. When you consider it as a system of four independent variables of behavioral preferences, without attempting to compare their strengths relative to each other, it works well enough to provide an added degree of understanding/predictability.

This is the way the system was introduced to me in a book called Type Talk, and it's the way I still use it today. The authors mention the functions, but only in passing and kind of as a supplement, a bit of a "here this might be interesting to think about" afterthought.

So basically, screw functions. Read about what they do so that you can identify the processes in yourself, but when considering the types of others, ask four questions:

1) E vs. I?
2) N vs. S?
3) F vs. T?
4) P vs. J?

There are ample resources on the internet for what each of those means...but remember that these are independent variables, meaning that if you're an ISTJ, you prefer I over E, S over N, T over F and J over P, but that which preference is stronger than the others is entirely dependent upon the person. Insisting that all ISTJs are best in Si, then 2nd best in Te, etc. is just silly and makes no intuitive sense.

I totally get where Jeffster is coming from. If we're to expect any real use out of MBTI beyond a cute parlor game, we have to consider it purely as an arbitrary categorization system of externalized behaviors.
 

Quinlan

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But the preferences were based on the functions. They're the same thing, MBTI tries (and fails) to ascribe behaviour to the functions. If you remove functions you're only ever dealing with surface behaviours and you'll never understand someone else if you're only dealing with surface behaviours.
 

simulatedworld

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^ That's exactly my point, friend.

I don't care if the preferences were based on functions; I look at the available information and I see one interpretation which is useful and one which is not.

MBTI can't reasonably do anything beyond categorize surface behaviors. For my purposes in terms of real uses for the system, it doesn't really matter how Jung or Myers and Briggs intended it or conceptualized it. When I joined this message board I figured anyone trying to use it would understand that, but there are still lots of people running around trying to figure out this functional dogma crap.

If you really want to understand others on a deeper level, the only way to do that is through prolonged personal interaction and gradual development of mutual understanding.

If you expect that to come from a four-letter pop psychology system where 6 billion people can be placed into 16 groups, you're most certainly barking up the wrong tree.
 

Sentura

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^ That's exactly my point, friend.

I don't care if the preferences were based on functions; I look at the available information and I see one interpretation which is useful and one which is not.

MBTI can't reasonably do anything beyond categorize surface behaviors. For my purposes in terms of real uses for the system, it doesn't really matter how Jung or Myers and Briggs intended it or conceptualized it. When I joined this message board I figured anyone trying to use it would understand that, but there are still lots of people running around trying out this functional dogma crap.

If you really want to understand others on a deeper level, the only way to do that is through prolonged personal interaction and gradual development of mutual understanding.

If you expect that to come from a four-letter pop psychology system where 6 billion people can be placed into 16 groups, you're most certainly barking up the wrong tree.

this is exactly how i would describe what i know about MBTI if i didn't have trouble formulating some of my thoughts.
 

cascadeco

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simulatedworld said:
The functions themselves don't have much use beyond self-examination. It's nigh impossible to tell what's actually going on in someone else's subconscious mental processes.

So basically, screw functions. Read about what they do so that you can identify the processes in yourself, but when considering the types of others, ask four questions:

1) E vs. I?
2) N vs. S?
3) F vs. T?
4) P vs. J?

^ That's exactly my point, friend.

I don't care if the preferences were based on functions; I look at the available information and I see one interpretation which is useful and one which is not.

MBTI can't reasonably do anything beyond categorize surface behaviors. For my purposes in terms of real uses for the system, it doesn't really matter how Jung or Myers and Briggs intended it or conceptualized it. When I joined this message board I figured anyone trying to use it would understand that, but there are still lots of people running around trying to figure out this functional dogma crap.

If you really want to understand others on a deeper level, the only way to do that is through prolonged personal interaction and gradual development of mutual understanding.

If you expect that to come from a four-letter pop psychology system where 6 billion people can be placed into 16 groups, you're most certainly barking up the wrong tree.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with your posts. Every single time I've attempted to throw cognitive functions onto what I already know of another persons' personality type, or tried to use cog. functions to type someone, it just gets royally messed up. Never lines up as it 'should', or there are so many complexities that I can never figure out which functions are actually being used -- as you pointed out earlier, it's because most of the time we're using more than one function to back a decision/action up, and ALL functions are at everybody's disposal. And...obviously people are complex with many motivations behind what they do and WHY they do what they do. Dichotomy is best approach in the end, in my opinion...as far as classification goes. Since it's a general system of trends/preferences to begin with...not a science.
 

Quinlan

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^ That's exactly my point, friend.

I don't care if the preferences were based on functions; I look at the available information and I see one interpretation which is useful and one which is not.

MBTI can't reasonably do anything beyond categorize surface behaviors. For my purposes in terms of real uses for the system, it doesn't really matter how Jung or Myers and Briggs intended it or conceptualized it. When I joined this message board I figured anyone trying to use it would understand that, but there are still lots of people running around trying to figure out this functional dogma crap.

If you really want to understand others on a deeper level, the only way to do that is through prolonged personal interaction and gradual development of mutual understanding.

If you expect that to come from a four-letter pop psychology system where 6 billion people can be placed into 16 groups, you're most certainly barking up the wrong tree.

I would be the last person to argue for the usefulness of MBTI but what I'm saying is I can't see how you can have one without the other, if you're going to use mbti you might as well include the functions then you're at least trying to dig a bit deeper to the real person, whereas MBTI without functions is completely arbitrary and you're probably much better served by things like the "Big 5".
 

Athenian200

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If you really want to understand others on a deeper level, the only way to do that is through prolonged personal interaction and gradual development of mutual understanding.

Aww... but that takes FOREVER, and requires a tremendous personal investment. :(

I was looking for something faster and more precise than the typical, messy way.
 

simulatedworld

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I would be the last person to argue for the usefulness of MBTI but what I'm saying is I can't see how you can have one without the other, if you're going to use mbti you might as well include the functions then you're at least trying to dig a bit deeper to the real person, whereas MBTI without functions is completely arbitrary and you're probably much better served by things like the "Big 5".

It just takes a little restructuring of the way Myers and Briggs put it together. (And a little throwing out Jung.)

It's not really that hard; the reasoning for changing it should be obvious.

Why is it necessary to follow their system to the letter in order to get any use out of it? If their system has obvious flaws, and I want to use it for something, it only makes sense that I should determine the ways in which it could be made more plausible/effective and then apply them to form my own interpretation.

"But that violates the purity of the authors' intent!" is not really a serious concern.

The Big 5 can do something similar, yes, but it's just another label for the same concepts. I've invested enough in researching competing theories to find that they're all effectively the same thing.

And like I said--if you want to dig deeper into a specific person, MBTI is the wrong tool. Don't use a machete when you need the precision of a pocket knife.
 

Quinlan

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I suppose you're right, i'm just not particularly interested in categorising surface behaviours, so if it was me I'd throw them both in the bin. :D
 

simulatedworld

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Well, you're an ISFP, aren't you?

Right now you're displaying the S behavior of showing disinterest in a system which provides only long term averages and cannot be applied consistently to any one single situation, and you find that it has no practical value.

And in a way, you're right. If the question is, "Can it reliably help me further my in-depth understanding of any real, specific people?", then no--it can't.

But if you get off on connecting the dots between things more often than on examining the precise details of single particular things, MBTI is a lot of fun and somewhat useful in behavioral theory...when considered correctly.

All of these "Ss prefer physical things" and "Ns are space cadets" and so on are just symptoms of the root cause of N vs. S, and this is why N/S is truly the most fundamental axis. It's the lens through which the basis of one's most preferred approach to everything is filtered. Those random personal preference details don't define it--in reality it's just a difference in scope.

There's a long line of chalk boards floating somewhere in the ether, ok? The Sensor is standing immediately in front of one chalk board and able to read and examine everything it says with total clarity (as well as lots of other things, but you get the idea.)

The iNtuitive is standing 100 feet away, and observing the relationships between the chalk boards themselves. We can't see particular chalk boards as clearly as you, but if we can conceptualize all of them in terms of a unifying theory to explain the relationships between them, we understand things much better.

Usually, that is. Ns take S approaches to things and vice versa all the time, so it won't tell you how anyone's going to act at any particular moment. If that doesn't strike you as useful, then fair enough--honestly, I understand.
 

Jeffster

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It's an accepted tenet of Jungian personality theory.

Jung explains all of this in his book "Psychological Types." If you read it, he explains exactly how he knows it, and it makes sense to me. It's a very long, complicated read, though.

:doh: Am I really speaking Swahili here? I asked Udog how HE knows this. If you make a declarative statement, you gotta have something to back it up. If it's just "accepted" then you might as well be the Flat Earth Society. The Earth is flat just because we say it is.
 
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