• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Tertiary Temptation - your experience?

sleepless

New member
Joined
Jul 30, 2008
Messages
81
MBTI Type
INFJ
Tertiary Temptation is how we tend to fall back on the Tertiary function during stress (or whenever), thus losing the connection with our Dominant, which IMO isn't a very good idea. The Tertiary then often behaves in childish ways, as it has a very limited perspective, not at all like the Dominant's holistic view. It seems to me that the Tertiary should only work as a servant to the Dominant/Auxiliary, as a tool, not as something that inferes with the Dominant with its own childish agendas.

People of all types - how does this work for you? If you have any idea? What happens for example when an INP falls back on Si? I have thought about how my own Ti interferes and makes me lose perspective. Some observations on what it does:

- It is how I get caught up in analyzing for its own sake
- It is how I get stuck in an argument about who is "right" and "wrong"
- It tries to understand my Ni vision, and incapable of doing so rejects it as being "illogical" or "not making sense"
- It is how I judge other people


So, what has mean little Tertiary done to you? What is it doing right now? Share the pain.
 

Jack Flak

Permabanned
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
9,098
MBTI Type
type
My function order is Ti-Ne-Ti-Si, so I have something to fall back on. No worries.
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
My tertiary is Fe. It tempts me to use guilt trips and emotional manipulation to make people do what I want and it rejects Ne's assessment of its aims as not fitting in with the bigger picture and Ti's assessment of them being unethical. It says "but this is how you FEEL!" and snaps at anything that tries to tell me I shouldn't act on that feeling, saying it's trying to invalidate me. It plays on my old fears and frustrations of people (my family especially) laughing at me when I cried, and accuses people/things of being mean and bullying me if they say I'm wrong.

BUT I've been working hard on it and between my last two professional individual function tests (about a year apart) it leapt up from a score of 23/100 to 65. Might have gone up further now, I don't know, that last test was about 8 months ago. And I've been using it more positively, in general. I've been learning to recognize when it's tempting me to spoilt kid behaviour and to consciously veto it.
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
yeah Fe and entp is really a bad combination and it creates a lot of problems.

I have come to use it creatively on weekends :D

andynakeddrivethru5.JPG
 

Delphyne

New member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
144
MBTI Type
INFP
With my tertiary Si I get stuck on details and insist that these details are important. It also hinders me to see situations in a new light and jump into an experience without preconceptions. Si lets me hold on to old beliefs.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,192
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I tend to pull back from external engagement, disappear, and try to keep all the practical issues of my life stable so as not to capsize anything.

It's also tempting to not take in new information based on engagement with the world but just to base all my thinking (and continued speculations) on what I already think things to be... not wanting to challenge my assumptions, not wanting to uproot my world.

(Si, I think, is a function that seeks tangible/palpable stability. Traditionally, you will see it play out that way as a primary function as well.)
 

edcoaching

New member
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
752
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
7
That would be Te or Ti for me, depending on which theorist you're following. I can get almost inappropriately objective, especially compared with my normal style. For example, i was in charge of a leadership meeting. One ENTP cornered me, convinced she'd been slighted, left out of committees she'd desired.

I was stressed to the max, listened to here without one iota of emotional reaction and was able to objectively say that since in the course of 3 months, with multiple reminders, she hadn't informed me of her committee picks, it was her fault, not mine. I couldn't have cared less whether she resigned on the spot, which actually would have put us in a bind. I've done similar things with my own kids whereas when not stressed i'm overly empathetic.

Se is much more dangerous territory for me...but also a source of complete relaxation since it turns off Introverted Intuition and gives me a rest.
 

redacted

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
4,223
Thinking of the tertiary function as something to fall back on during stress seems to miss the picture completely.

All people use all four functions ALL THE TIME. Maybe even multiple times per second (certainly perceiving functions are used multiple times a second.)

An Ni user who only falls back on Ti during stress is going to have ridiculously inconsistent visions. They're gonna make basically no sense at all. Thinking AND Feeling (and sensing) must be used at all times to check Intuition. Intuition itself comes up with lots of ideas, yeah, but they need to be pruned so that you're left with visions that are consistent with values and logic (and sensory data).

I personally use Ti to refine my visions much more than I use Fe, although both are used all the time.

I don't know where the use under stress idea came from, but I just think it's completely wrong.
 

sleepless

New member
Joined
Jul 30, 2008
Messages
81
MBTI Type
INFJ
All people use all four functions ALL THE TIME. Maybe even multiple times per second (certainly perceiving functions are used multiple times a second.)
I don't know about this. Is this how you experience it, or is it just an idea? I definitely don't experience it like this, rather I think I can identify all the functions being used at a time, if I'm so inclined. If all are always being used, then that must be in very very subtle ways that we cannot observe ourselves, and that would make it useless to talk about functions. Still most people (in this thread for example) seem to understand themselves as being ruled by not more than one or two functions at the same time.

An Ni user who only falls back on Ti during stress is going to have ridiculously inconsistent visions. They're gonna make basically no sense at all. Thinking AND Feeling (and sensing) must be used at all times to check Intuition. Intuition itself comes up with lots of ideas, yeah, but they need to be pruned so that you're left with visions that are consistent with values and logic (and sensory data).
Could you give an example? My visions are very consistent, whether my Ti tries to make "sense" of them or not. Suppose that I *know* that in the future I will do this and this, because that is what my Ni sees. Then Ti can interfere all it wants to, try to analyze it, derive it from some underlying logics, but it won't be able to, as Ni doesn't play in the field of words and logic. I see what I see, and I only rely on Ti as a way of promoting my visions or ideas in front of others, using clear reasoning to make my point.
 

Thursday

Earth Exalted
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Messages
3,960
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
8w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
under stress, i recall reading, was the 4th function and in indignation-not support

the tertiary is when there is a lack of info
its like an ace up the sleeve
 

ZiL

New member
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
511
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
567?
Tertiary Fe...manifested negatively

Hmm, If I get stuck into a situation that for some reason I suddenly don't want to be in (if I feel trapped or whatever), I'll start sucking up really badly in a desperate effort to escape. Like when I quit my first job I made up some crap about doing a big school project and "I'm so sorry" and, etc, etc. I just become way too nice, even if the person I'm talking to doesn't logically deserve it.

I can also get paranoid about others intentions when I'm in an anxious mood. What did that look mean? Could that thing I said the other day be taken the wrong way? I'll imagine all sorts of negative responses others might have had to something I may have done or said and convince myself that this or that person might be mad at me next time I see them. Even though they aren't.
 

edcoaching

New member
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
752
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
7
There's actually quite a lot of research on the third/fourth function and stress. While nothing holds true for everyone, there are some patterns.

One, as Averex points out, the 4th function can trip us up. We don't use it well--overusing it brings on stress AND we can "erupt" and become a caricature of good use of the function when we're overstressed. So I as an Introverted INtuitive get stressed by paying attention to details AND if I'm overstressed can get obsessed with the details of reality--over or under eating, watching TV, exercising, etc. BUT using the 4th function also shuts down the dominant. Gives it a rest. For me that's playing piano (I'm not very good so all my attention goes to notes and hands and my INtuition grinds to a halt) or cooking or a good run.

Third function...consciously using it leads to balanced Perception or Judgment which often breaks through stress. If we aren't consciously using it it can slip in immaturely. People have more or less skill with it, depending on age, training, effort, will, etc.

Yes, we can all use all of the functions, but most of us don't do them all very well. Some people can't even use their first two very well. They act like adolescents--can't make up their minds or rush to conclusions. Using all the functions well is a lifelong journey toward wholeness and not everyone gets there.
 

edcoaching

New member
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
752
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
7
Tertiary Fe...manifested negatively

Hmm, If I get stuck into a situation that for some reason I suddenly don't want to be in (if I feel trapped or whatever), I'll start sucking up really badly in a desperate effort to escape. Like when I quit my first job I made up some crap about doing a big school project and "I'm so sorry" and, etc, etc. I just become way too nice, even if the person I'm talking to doesn't logically deserve it.

I can also get paranoid about others intentions when I'm in an anxious mood. What did that look mean? Could that thing I said the other day be taken the wrong way? I'll imagine all sorts of negative responses others might have had to something I may have done or said and convince myself that this or that person might be mad at me next time I see them. Even though they aren't.

Kind of the reverse of my problem with Te. Thanks for the insight--kinda even explains part of the behavior of that ENTP I mentioned earlier...:)
 

heart

heart on fire
Joined
May 19, 2007
Messages
8,456
I've gone nuts at Christmas with the whole "create or recapture childhood experiences" thing through scents or sights.

Sweets, especially ice cream.

Getting lost in the scented candle shop.
 

arcticangel02

To the top of the world
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
892
MBTI Type
eNFP
Tertiary Te. When stressed, I usually get sort of bossy and push my opinions onto other people - everyone should be doing things my way, and I'm really bad at seeing other people's viewpoints. I also have a tendency to overuse a smug 'I told you so', when I end up getting my way. Usually at those points I'm not so pleasant to be around.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,988
Tertiary Si:
I actually make use of it quite often, and to good effect.

However, somtimes I get very rigid about things being a certain way (Ti+Si), and no seeing how other says can be (Ne locked out).

At other times, I can go on autopilot, simply applying memorized techiniques over-and-over again to deal with situatioms, and though feeling stifled and uncreative, will continue to stay in my rut. --actually, this is a lot more comon.

Since both Si and Ti are introvrerted functions, I essentially issolate myself. My Si is extremely strong (as are my Ni and Fi).

The compined Ti+Ni+Si+Fi can be a trap where I feel partially fulfilled but not quite the same as I would be using Ti+Ne.
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
5,903
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
7w8
With my tertiary Se (which in MBTI is one-on-one with the hidden agenda of socionics, but exclusively for extraverted types) I tend to simply engage in an excessive way in various physical pleasures such as excessive exercising, excessive partying and drinking, etc as a form of reality-escapism. This is also stadard E-7w8 behavior.
Fortunately it doesn't happen frequently.
 

mlittrell

New member
Joined
Sep 3, 2008
Messages
1,387
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
9w1
Tertiary Temptation is how we tend to fall back on the Tertiary function during stress (or whenever), thus losing the connection with our Dominant, which IMO isn't a very good idea. The Tertiary then often behaves in childish ways, as it has a very limited perspective, not at all like the Dominant's holistic view. It seems to me that the Tertiary should only work as a servant to the Dominant/Auxiliary, as a tool, not as something that inferes with the Dominant with its own childish agendas.

People of all types - how does this work for you? If you have any idea? What happens for example when an INP falls back on Si? I have thought about how my own Ti interferes and makes me lose perspective. Some observations on what it does:

- It is how I get caught up in analyzing for its own sake
- It is how I get stuck in an argument about who is "right" and "wrong"
- It tries to understand my Ni vision, and incapable of doing so rejects it as being "illogical" or "not making sense"
- It is how I judge other people


So, what has mean little Tertiary done to you? What is it doing right now? Share the pain.


we never lose connection with our dominant. your tertiary, if used, filters through your auxilary, and then through your dominant.

and my tertiary has done me wonders. in some ways, my shadow has also.
 

sleepless

New member
Joined
Jul 30, 2008
Messages
81
MBTI Type
INFJ
we never lose connection with our dominant. your tertiary, if used, filters through your auxilary, and then through your dominant.

This is exactly how I think it should be - Dominant --> Auxiliary --> Tertiary - but is is obvious that our Dominant isn't there all of the time, at least not for the average half-stable person.

(And I don't mean that it's always bad, neither the Tertiary or some shadow function.)


No INTJs so far. I was a bit curious to what they would say about their Fi, considering how utterly amoral some of them seem to be...
 

mlittrell

New member
Joined
Sep 3, 2008
Messages
1,387
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
9w1
This is exactly how I think it should be - Dominant --> Auxiliary --> Tertiary - but is is obvious that our Dominant isn't there all of the time, at least not for the average half-stable person.

In what way? Example? You might be right. Personally I see the functions like a filter, or funnel. No matter what you do, each decision MUST filter through all the functions, but some make more of a difference then others.
 
Top