Guy has theory for why feelers are actually meaner than thinkers. Do you agree?

[Forever]

No.

 

[prplchknz]

your logic seems faulty at best.

it's not faulty both thinkers and feelers can be mean mostly because of different reasons.

 

[Poki]

Well said. My question then is why we tend to see feelers as being "nicer" if it doesn't line up with the facts.

why is it we see people who are nicer as feelers?

 

[cascadeco]

Well said. My question then is why we tend to see feelers as being "nicer" if it doesn't line up with the facts.

I don't think we do, irl. Irl, most people know that feelers can be complete bullies and gossips (ie the ExFx irl might be a total meanie whereas the ISTJ or INTP might be the loyal respectful nice person) -- and we know that F does not equal 'nice'.


Here on the forum? Maaybeee... but probably only because body language and context is mostly lacking -- so feelers will generally present and cushion their words more than thinkers, and it can be hard for some feelers to read the bare T message as lacking aggression, since all other context is lacking (whereas irl they'd be less likely to read it that way)

Anyway I hear what you're saying, but I think most people don't actually think this at all -- ie we all know Feeling does not = nice.

 

[Forever_Jung]

It's sort of like if a blind person bumps into you, and then you knock him to the ground in retaliation.

Since you don't have a concept of blindness, you assume the only reason someone would bang into you is malice.

ETA:

Jung and von Franz used to say that undifferentiated feeling in thinkers didn't make them feel less, but the thinker might not have command of their feelings. Sometimes the feelings simply don't register with them consciously!

While an extraverted feeler has a tremendous plasticity of emotion, able to always access the best feeling for the situation, some thinkers struggle to summon the appropriate feeling at the appropriate time. They might be very sad that someone died, but put them in front of a grieving widow at a funeral, and they might not have access too their sorrow at that moment, and thus strike a rather hollow tone. You will walk away thinking they are a very cold fellow in deed! Meanwhile you appreciate the Fe dom who cried and consoled you, but the loss may not be even hitting him as hard as it did the "cold fellow". That's why people think they are "nicer".

That being said, when thinkers do have access to and express their feelings/affections, it often has a more childlike, sincere quality, because it's more roughly hewn and natural. They don't have much ego control over their feeling function, and so it often comes out in spite of themselves. I think this lack of control is also why we thinkers often play the emotional game so conservatively. It's like people who can't dance very well, just try to tap their toes and snap their fingers. They know they aren't breakdancers!

I'm not saying feelers are "meaner" or "fake", I'm just saying they usually have a strong command of emotional expressions and now how to use it to improve their environment. It's very well-adapted to external circumstances.

Just for the record, it sort of works the same way about thinker "intelligence". Feelers can't always access their impersonal reasoning abilities because their default feeling considerations eclipses it.

 

[OrangeAppled]

It's sort of like if a blind person bumps into you, and then you knock him to the ground in retaliation.

Since you don't have a concept of blindness, you assume the only reason someone would bang into you is malice.

ETA:

Jung and von Franz used to say that undifferentiated feeling in thinkers didn't make them feel less, but the thinker might not have command of their feelings. Sometimes the feelings simply don't register with them consciously!

While an extraverted feeler has a tremendous plasticity of emotion, able to always access the best feeling for the situation, some thinkers struggle to summon the appropriate feeling at the appropriate time. They might be very sad that someone died, but put them in front of a grieving widow at a funeral, and they might not have access too their sorrow at that moment, and thus strike a rather hollow tone. You will walk away thinking they are a very cold fellow in deed! Meanwhile you appreciate the Fe dom who cried and consoled you, but the loss may not be even hitting him as hard as it did the "cold fellow". That's why people think they are "nicer".

That being said, when thinkers do have access to and express their feelings/affections, it often has a more childlike, sincere quality, because it's more roughly hewn and natural. They don't have much ego control over their feeling function, and so it often comes out in spite of themselves. I think this lack of control is also why we thinkers often play the emotional game so conservatively. It's like people who can't dance very well, just try to tap their toes and snap their fingers. They know they aren't breakdancers!

I'm not saying feelers are "meaner" or "fake", I'm just saying they usually have a strong command of emotional expressions and now how to use it to improve their environment. It's very well-adapted to external circumstances.

Just for the record, it sort of works the same way about thinker "intelligence". Feelers can't always access their impersonal reasoning abilities because their default feeling considerations eclipses it.

I think this is a great contrast with Thinking and Extroverted Feeling.
Introverted Feeling can throw a wrench into things because it might do something similar as far as not expressing the appropriate expression for the moment, and perhaps expressing nothing at all, and thus appearing rather cool and detached for it.

It is not that the person feels nothing (although sometimes in the moment they may not feel an emotional response; they may not be affected by the "object", resisting its intended emotional impact and just gathering impressions with Pe to process it as a whole later), but rather that the person turns it inward to experience it in the context of their inner world, to examine its deeper implications for the whole of a human experience (not just in relation to a moment). Expression of it is often about a form that suits the feeling, not the situation. This is probably why Jung says that from the outside, some Fi types can appear to not have Feeling at all.

Jung says the Fe type expresses the appropriate emotion and then basically gets over it, whereas the Fi type internalizes it, and without expressing it, it grows deeper so that they will create a "whole world of misery". This doesn't mean their inner world is one of misery (because it could be a "whole world of joy", if the emotion is happy), rather that they experience the emotion as part of something greater than that experience. Emotion at a funeral is not about sadness over the loss of one person. The Fi type experiences the emotion as a truth about death for the human experience. In order to feel the full weight of that, the emotion is given its own life inside the person; its explored for it's basic meaning, not just what it means for the moment.

This is how we build ideals. We have a feeling of what value things have in general, and we look for stuff in reality that has a similar feeling to the positive values we've determined. Resistance to the object is resistance to whatever direct feeling-meaning it emits in the moment as opposed to the "larger" feeling we identify for it.

Instead of looking childlike and simple when expressed, Fi emotions can seem totally bizarre & overly complicated to people. Instead of the inexperienced dancer who shuffles feet on the sidelines, it is more like someone who, on the rare occasion they dance, follows no known steps and may have little awareness or care of how they appear to others. Of course, sometimes people respond really positively to this and simply call it "creativity" or they recognize the depth and see something expressed they've felt but had no way of expressing themselves.

---

As far as "nice people"... I am reminded of this Morrissey lyric:
"Don't talk to me about people who are 'nice'. I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who are 'nice'."

 

[brown bear]

It's sort of like if a blind person bumps into you, and then you knock him to the ground in retaliation.

Since you don't have a concept of blindness, you assume the only reason someone would bang into you is malice.

So you're saying that feelers have no concept of what it's like to accidentally hurt someone because they're used to intentionally hurting people, so they treat anyone who hurts them (accidentally or not) as though they were intentionally trying to hurt them? Wow, I don't usually like putting labels on people or their actions, but I must say, that is quite ugly. The fact that you're trying to justify it is even worse.

 

[brown bear]

I think this is a great contrast with Thinking and Extroverted Feeling.
Introverted Feeling can throw a wrench into things because it might do something similar as far as not expressing the appropriate expression for the moment, and perhaps expressing nothing at all, and thus appearing rather cool and detached for it.

It is not that the person feels nothing (although sometimes in the moment they may not feel an emotional response; they may not be affected by the "object", resisting its intended emotional impact and just gathering impressions with Pe to process it as a whole later), but rather that the person turns it inward to experience it in the context of their inner world, to examine its deeper implications for the whole of a human experience (not just in relation to a moment). Expression of it is often about a form that suits the feeling, not the situation. This is probably why Jung says that from the outside, some Fi types can appear to not have Feeling at all.

Jung says the Fe type expresses the appropriate emotion and then basically gets over it, whereas the Fi type internalizes it, and without expressing it, it grows deeper so that they will create a "whole world of misery". This doesn't mean their inner world is one of misery (because it could be a "whole world of joy", if the emotion is happy), rather that they experience the emotion as part of something greater than that experience. Emotion at a funeral is not about sadness over the loss of one person. The Fi type experiences the emotion as a truth about death for the human experience. In order to feel the full weight of that, the emotion is given its own life inside the person; its explored for it's basic meaning, not just what it means for the moment.

This is how we build ideals. We have a feeling of what value things have in general, and we look for stuff in reality that has a similar feeling to the positive values we've determined. Resistance to the object is resistance to whatever direct feeling-meaning it emits in the moment as opposed to the "larger" feeling we identify for it.

Instead of looking childlike and simple when expressed, Fi emotions can seem totally bizarre & overly complicated to people. Instead of the inexperienced dancer who shuffles feet on the sidelines, it is more like someone who, on the rare occasion they dance, follows no known steps and may have little awareness or care of how they appear to others. Of course, sometimes people respond really positively to this and simply call it "creativity" or they recognize the depth and see something expressed they've felt but had no way of expressing themselves.

---

As far as "nice people"... I am reminded of this Morrissey lyric:
"Don't talk to me about people who are 'nice'. I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who are 'nice'."

I don't understand what you mean by "feelings in the moment". Can you explain what you mean in further detail?

 

[Yama]

At the end of the day, I don't really care if thinkers or feelers are in general "meaner." I'm not mean and my friends (almost exclusively thinkers) aren't mean and I'm not intending on being friends with anyone who's mean or being mean to anyone. I still don't really see what the merit or benefit of this information is. It's kind of useless if it doesn't actually do anything.

 

[brown bear]

At the end of the day, I don't really care if thinkers or feelers are in general "meaner." I'm not mean and my friends (almost exclusively thinkers) aren't mean and I'm not intending on being friends with anyone who's mean or being mean to anyone. I still don't really see what the merit or benefit of this information is. It's kind of useless if it doesn't actually do anything.

It helps us get closer to the truth by exposing biases in mbti literature. It helps us to understand things more objectively. If you don't value truth and understanding then I suppose it is kind of useless.

 

[Yama]

It helps us get closer to the truth by exposing biases in mbti literature. It helps us to understand things more objectively. If you don't value truth and understanding then I suppose it is kind of useless.

The last sentence was unnecessary.

What I mean is, what is "exposing the truth" (assuming for a moment here that it actually is true, because much like MBTI itself it's really only a theory or speculation) going to do exactly? Is any sort of action going to be taken? Are we going to have feeler interventions where we sit the feelers down and train them how to be nice or something? What is it supposed to achieve? If it doesn't have any sort of concrete application then sure, you could say I don't personally value it in that instance.

 

[brown bear]

The last sentence was unnecessary.

What I mean is, what is "exposing the truth" (assuming for a moment here that it actually is true, because much like MBTI itself it's really only a theory or speculation) going to do exactly? Is any sort of action going to be taken? Are we going to have feeler interventions where we sit the feelers down and train them how to be nice or something? What is it supposed to achieve? If it doesn't have any sort of concrete application then sure, you could say I don't personally value it in that instance.

Like I said, it brings us closer to the truth which would make us more likely to make changes to accommodate the truth. If it turns out that feelers are in fact meaner and we make this a well known fact than yes, I think people would be more likely to sit down and have talks with them about their behavior. Acknowledging and publicizing the truth is necessary to facilitate change. Without addressing uncomfortable truths there is no way to work towards changing them.

 

[Yama]

FWIW, I think typology is pretty much useless. However, despite its uselessness I still find aspects of it to be interesting (and I say "aspects" because I do not find every area of typology interesting. For example, despite the idea that it can be used "practically" for career selection, I don't buy too much into that and thus don't care for that aspect of typology or find it interesting). Seeing as claims or ideas such as "x dichotomy is nicer/meaner than y dichotomy" do not either interest me nor have enough evidence for me to buy into it, on top of having no realistic practical application, I just don't see the point. Not everyone has to subscribe to my viewpoint, of course. But I really think that it's much too heavily influenced by the individual person and their history and circumstances than it is by a type dichotomy. To me, it does not matter if feelers are "nicer" or "meaner" than thinkers in general because it really is only in general, and on the personal/individual level I'm going to run into a mixture of both nice and mean thinkers and feelers, which makes this knowledge kind of useless to me.

 

[brown bear]

FWIW, I think typology is pretty much useless. However, despite its uselessness I still find aspects of it to be interesting (and I say "aspects" because I do not find every area of typology interesting. For example, despite the idea that it can be used "practically" for career selection, I don't buy too much into that and thus don't care for that aspect of typology or find it interesting). Seeing as claims or ideas such as "x dichotomy is nicer/meaner than y dichotomy" do not either interest me nor have enough evidence for me to buy into it, on top of having no realistic practical application, I just don't see the point. Not everyone has to subscribe to my viewpoint, of course. But I really think that it's much too heavily influenced by the individual person and their history and circumstances than it is by a type dichotomy. To me, it does not matter if feelers are "nicer" or "meaner" than thinkers in general because it really is only in general, and on the personal/individual level I'm going to run into a mixture of both nice and mean thinkers and feelers, which makes this knowledge kind of useless to me.

I agree with you on some of what you said, especially the point you make about it being more the individual person and their circumstances influencing things than it is their supposed "personality type". But to me, the letters you get on the test are also influenced by life experience/personal history/circumstances and vice versa.

I think it would be a mistake to assume that the letters received on this test don't in any way influence one's likelihood to choose certain options in a given situation, to resort to certain means to achieve certain goals etc. Take for instance INTJs over representation in fields like science and mathematics or IxFPs in the arts. In this way, I don't think it would be out of the question to assume that certain types would be more or less prone to engaging in certain behaviors deemed "mean" by most people's/society as a whole's standards. Not saying it necessarily would directly link to your MBTI type, but there's certainly potential. Of course, when you start using this information to massively over-judge and stereotype people, it defeats the purpose of having learned/acquired it and is ultimately a tool being used for bad. But if however you can manage to use it as merely a starting point and not a tool to make yourself feel more powerful, it can be a good thing. It keeps you aware of which people are which way and why.

Of course, I recommend every person thoroughly researches the MBTI before using it as a means to provide insight into people's actions, because there is a danger of thinking you understand a person based on their "type" when really you don't you don't. The key here is to exercise caution in the application of your knowledge and to remain open-minded/stoic in your approach.

 

[brown bear]

The last sentence was unnecessary.

What I mean is, what is "exposing the truth" (assuming for a moment here that it actually is true, because much like MBTI itself it's really only a theory or speculation) going to do exactly? Is any sort of action going to be taken? Are we going to have feeler interventions where we sit the feelers down and train them how to be nice or something? What is it supposed to achieve? If it doesn't have any sort of concrete application then sure, you could say I don't personally value it in that instance.

I don't see how the last sentence was unnecessary. All I said was that it would be useless if you didn't value truth and understanding. I don't see how that isn't necessary in illustrating my point.

 

[Yama]

I don't see how the last sentence was unnecessary. All I said was that it would be useless if you didn't value truth and understanding. I don't see how that isn't necessary in illustrating my point.

Because I interpret it as slightly demeaning. Not caring about this particular topic doesn't mean that I do not value truth or understanding. Apologies if that's not what you meant by it

 

[brown bear]

Because I interpret it as slightly demeaning. Not caring about this particular topic doesn't mean that I do not value truth or understanding. Apologies if that's not what you meant by it

I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention

 

[Yama]

I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention

Then we are all good. No need to apologize since I over-interpreted it.

 

[Forever_Jung]

So you're saying that feelers have no concept of what it's like to accidentally hurt someone because they're used to intentionally hurting people, so they treat anyone who hurts them (accidentally or not) as though they were intentionally trying to hurt them? Wow, I don't usually like putting labels on people or their actions, but I must say, that is quite ugly. The fact that you're trying to justify it is even worse.

Eh, it's not a perfect analogy, so don't take it too far.

I would say that most of the time, feelers care so much about other people's feelings that they strenuously try to avoid causing hurt (and not merely avoiding hurt, but also healing hurt). That being said, I think that when feelers are mean, they are often intentionally mean and are often very good at being mean because they know where all your weak spots are (sure, they make emotional gaffes like anyone else, ENFP's especially can put their foots in their mouths). Just think of the sort of passive-aggressive social bullying thing in high schools, where people are shunned, gossiped about, etc. While I am sure thinkers aren't above such tactics, it strikes me as more of an immature extraverted feelerish thing. My best friend in high school was an INTP, and he was often blunt or indifferent to people in a way that upset them, but he wasn't really aware of other people enough to engineer more elaborate forms of social misery. He would bump into you at full speed, but he didn't know any feeler judo moves to flip you on your ass.

I am not saying thinkers are complete innocents either, I am sure they try to hurt people too. I just mean of all the social bumblers, I would imagine many of them are thinkers. And if you're someone who instinctively understands how not to bump into people (like an ENFJ for example), it must be hard to believe someone accidentally bumped into you so many times.

I think this is a great contrast with Thinking and Extroverted Feeling.
Introverted Feeling can throw a wrench into things because it might do something similar as far as not expressing the appropriate expression for the moment, and perhaps expressing nothing at all, and thus appearing rather cool and detached for it.

It is not that the person feels nothing (although sometimes in the moment they may not feel an emotional response; they may not be affected by the "object", resisting its intended emotional impact and just gathering impressions with Pe to process it as a whole later), but rather that the person turns it inward to experience it in the context of their inner world, to examine its deeper implications for the whole of a human experience (not just in relation to a moment). Expression of it is often about a form that suits the feeling, not the situation. This is probably why Jung says that from the outside, some Fi types can appear to not have Feeling at all.

Jung says the Fe type expresses the appropriate emotion and then basically gets over it, whereas the Fi type internalizes it, and without expressing it, it grows deeper so that they will create a "whole world of misery". This doesn't mean their inner world is one of misery (because it could be a "whole world of joy", if the emotion is happy), rather that they experience the emotion as part of something greater than that experience. Emotion at a funeral is not about sadness over the loss of one person. The Fi type experiences the emotion as a truth about death for the human experience. In order to feel the full weight of that, the emotion is given its own life inside the person; its explored for it's basic meaning, not just what it means for the moment.

This is how we build ideals. We have a feeling of what value things have in general, and we look for stuff in reality that has a similar feeling to the positive values we've determined. Resistance to the object is resistance to whatever direct feeling-meaning it emits in the moment as opposed to the "larger" feeling we identify for it.

Instead of looking childlike and simple when expressed, Fi emotions can seem totally bizarre & overly complicated to people. Instead of the inexperienced dancer who shuffles feet on the sidelines, it is more like someone who, on the rare occasion they dance, follows no known steps and may have little awareness or care of how they appear to others. Of course, sometimes people respond really positively to this and simply call it "creativity" or they recognize the depth and see something expressed they've felt but had no way of expressing themselves.

---

As far as "nice people"... I am reminded of this Morrissey lyric:
"Don't talk to me about people who are 'nice'. I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who are 'nice'."

Yeah, I started describing feelers, and pretty soon I realized I was only describing extraverted feeling. I also mostly considered introverted thinkers when I was talking about thinkers. I am sort of speaking from my own functional stack (ENTP).

So thanks for describing the introverted feeling POV here, I only dimly understand Fi, especially in terms of its external manifestations. And even then it's more like I either spot an absence of something in a person or a spontaneous presence of something (and I mean that with no offence). I have virtually no access to the function myself!

 

[Virtual ghost]

I think that this is pretty simple in the bottom line.


Thinkers are more emotinally insensitive since they are more out of touch with their feelings. However because of that they are also much less capable of doing horrible things purely for the sake of it or egotistical needs, since they don't have so many dark emotional need to satisfy. As you move towards the thinking side of spectrum you will encounter more and more emotionally "flat" people.