So it's really the shadow functions that are the biggest issue. I agree that they are rather poorly explained by the prominent authors and that nobody really seems to have a cohesive theory on them.
So an INTJ could use Si very rarely or rather often depending on how much he needs to, but I find it intuitively improbable that Si would ever come close to Ni's level of use if the person actually is INTJ. Ni and Si conflict with each other on how to interpret meaning. A person whose use of Ni and Si is that close would experience a lot of cognitive dissonance and have difficulty attaching any real meaning to anything.
Lenore writes that Si leads us to relate all new information to something we already know, to find its relationship to the self on an internal map of past experience and information. Si wants to find stable meanings and interpretations for things.
But Ni contradicts this prerogative by encouraging us to question the process of perception itself and consider as many different possible meanings and interpretations as we can. A person with balanced or nearly balanced use of both functions seems highly improbable, as he would be constantly conflicted about which voice to pay attention to: "Do I look for a stable meaning, or do I look at all possible meanings and try avoid attachment to any particular one?"
I see that you feel Ni and Si are mutually exclusive functions. But I don't really think it would need to be difficult at all, if the person had some organic proclivity for using both. I could see that perhaps when engaged more with objects or the world, Si might be preferred; and when engaged in an abstract way, Ni might be preferred. I don't think it would be conscious at all, nor difficult.
Do you feel the same about different attitudes of the same preference? Ni and Ne, for example? Or is that a more comfortable notion for you because it's the same preference? I see people all the time on here who have reported this, admittedly from those crappy functions tests. I use Ni and Ne. I take in patterns (Ne) here on type c. I notice who does what, whose posted where, who's coming, who's going, certain threads where certain people are, who's said what to whom, who's intimated things, who's flirting, etc. All very easily. I can tell I don't do it like an Ne dom does it, nor an Ne aux; but my point is that it doesn't hurt or cause me any confliction. I simply use it because I need to, Ni doesn't work for that stuff. And I've also learned I do it pretty well. Which would belie a simple shadow spot for my Ne.
I'm sorry. I just don't like the term shadow. Because it's defined as being used under duress, or scantily. And that's just not how I know for our non primary, non aux functions to be used, much of the time. I guess until I come up with a better term, shadow it will be.
Each set of attitudes contradicts its other form in a similar way: Te vs. Fe, Ne vs. Se and Ti vs. Fi. This is where the whole idea that only stressful circumstances bring out the repressed form of each type of cognitive task comes in. If an INTJ's natural response is to interpret all possible meanings and avoid committing to one, he would need to feel very insecure or scared about something in order to break out of this tendency and interpret just one stable meaning--using Si requires him to ignore the most valued part of his cognition, which is quite difficult.
I would respond as I did above. Theoretically, using current function theory as a guide, I could see drawing that conclusion. I just really don't see it in practice, honestly. Perhaps if the utilization concept was changed to "if and when it's needed" instead of "in stressful circumstances" it would be a better fit, and jive more with reality.
Where am I getting this? I've just made mental note of people's cognitive function tests on here, which I know suck, but it's all we really have; and I've noticed that people tend to be very good at both attitudes of the same preference. Perhaps that is test bias. Who knows. I don't think it's necessarily a test foible, because I've seen it occur in people irl, haven't you? But I also have the
Functions of Type book by the Hartzlers, and I've explored it in depth, testing and retesting, and contemplating people I know. It's got good descriptions of the functions, but the tests are barely comprehensive, with many only having 8 questions.
As for an INTJ with N parents, why would this necessitate stronger Ne use? You said the strong S use would convert to the dominant attitude, as in Se to Si, so...why wouldn't Ne convert to Ni?
I am sketchy on this myself. Does a person inherit a preference or a function? I would guess a preference, then that preference would meld to the attitude it needed to acquire to fall into the overall personality make-up. So, if a person had N parents, I would guess that person to have better usage of Ni and Ne, simply because he has more N and less S. If a person inherits N/S, then I would guess they'd both convert to the dominant attitude and share tasks as I stated in the first paragraph. I realize this is far-fetched. It is just my nature to reach, but it also just makes a lot of sense to me, as if it were true. (i don't know if that is a good thing, or bad thing).
If his parents conditioned him heavily to work on Ne-related skills a lot, then he could probably end up with better Ne than most INTJs, but it's unlikely that it would ever compete with his Ni ability as this would actually change his type entirely.
Well, I use Ne as I've stated, as do maaannny others, I'm sure; and I doubt it's as apocolyptic as you think.
As far as I can tell, use of the shadow functions is basically a learned skill that depends on how many situations in a person's life have forced him to use them. Sometimes you meet people that have honed them to exceptional levels, but this is fairly uncommon in my experience because most people are just really afraid of leaving the comfort zones of the preferred attitudes, at least until much later in life.
I know this is true for me with Te. School, college, more school, homeschooling, mothering, etc., have forced me to become very good with Te. I'm not 'supposed' to be inherently good at Te, according to function theory.
However, interestingly (for myself), I distinctely remember when I began using Ne and it was in my childhood/teenage years. I've considered that this meant, to fit it into neat function theory, that I'm infp, and that it was the normal development time for my Ne. But I'm no infp. I remember even telling someone about how I loved to look for patterns in things, and see what was missing in patterns in things, and how asymmetry drove me crazy. Eric B told me before this might have been a manifestation of developing Ti. But it sounds an awful lot like Ne to me. I see children I know who do this too. I don't think it's as rare as we think.
It seems more likely to me that the shadows of the tert/inferior would be accessed more easily than the shadows of the dom/aux. Lenore argues that the shadows of the dom/aux (the "crow's nest functions") are the first ones we turn to the dom/aux have failed to solve a situation, but I don't really see this happening much in practice and thus can't really agree with it. I think most people are really attached to using their dom/aux in those particular ways and will probably work on the shadows of their tert/inf as learned skills that are so different from the preferred methods of cognition that they don't come across as threatening to the dom/aux.
For instance, one possible interpretation is that our INTJ in question might actively focus on developing conscious use of Ti (shadow of tert) or Ne (shadow of inf) instead of Si (shadow of dom) or Fe (shadow of aux), since these are "further away from" and thus less threatening to his preferred Ni/Te way of doing things.
Why do you think that it's better to be less threatening to the dom/aux? I would intuit that it would be better to be closer to his preferred way of doing something. You know what I'm going to say. I'm going to say that it would depend on what he inherently more of, N/N or N/S. If it's the N/N, it would be the former, N/S, the latter, although I don't really like the concept of 'shadow' as you know.
My specific example is that my INTJ does the latter. He's better at Si and Fe, than Ti and Ne (i think Ne anyway). But I've seen your proposition work too. It's just all a crapshoot.
I still doubt that he'd tend toward using any of the shadows in higher proportion than his four primary functions, though, unless he spent a lot of time and effort actively improving these skills for some particular reason dictated by his circumstances. One of the popular theories holds that the functions go like this:
1) dominant
2) auxiliary
3) tertiary
4) inferior
5) shadow inferior
6) shadow tertiary
7) shadow auxiliary
8) shadow dominant
This model seems most probable to me, but again I wouldn't assume anything past the dominant is set in stone. I think this model describes more people that I've met than any other, but it doesn't cover everyone because the order of shadows can change around a lot depending on personal experiences. They may even become stronger than the tert/inf if practiced enough, but it's hard to tell. It also seems like it'd be uncommon as this would require him to neglect one of the four types of cognitive tasks...why would he place a lot of emphasis on learning a secondary method of introverted perception, for instance, before he has a strong method of introverted judgment at all? You can see why this is likely to produce personality imbalances.
Unfortunately, though, I don't think any one single consistent theory will explain shadow functions because they vary dramatically from person to person.
It would be nice to have some decent tests though, so people can know more what functions they use well, which ones need work, and to correlate it all in to archetypes, possibly refining them.
I really have no idea what the biological components of any of this are. I don't think it's been well researched.
Yeah, hard to know. I've gotten to where I like to find out a person's parents' types because I find the inheritence factor fascinating and just really fun. Like you have all these preferences between two people and it really does pan out that kids get a mix of the parents, as well as grandparents, etc., weaker the farther you go back.
), has anyone looked into effects of genetics on personality type? After all, our personality stems from our genes, which comes from our parents, just like our physical characteristics stem from our genes and DNA> That's what I was trying to get at before when I used the phrase 'all or nothing.' If we have inherited a nearly equal amount of N and S, yet N shows dominance, S is still very much there, it's just masked. Yet because we don't really see it easily, we can assume we are much more N than we really are. Kind of like a brown eyed person can still carry a gene for green eyes. Yet with personality, I'm not sure that the recessive side would be obscured in the person. Would it manifest in prominent ways, or lie dormant in that person, only to be passed along in that person's DNA? I'm guessing it manifests somehow, but I don't know to what degree that would be so. And I'm interested in knowing what's behind the scenes, so to speak; getting more specifically down to what makes us us.
