Si vs Ni

[RDF]

Wonderful piece, FL ... Very thorough. I am going to have to reread it a few times to let it soak in.

Thanks, Jennifer. And I appreciate your helpful suggestion below:

My only minor quibble through the first part was that the example of a court case seemed to assume a consistent progression from data collection (perceiving function) to court judgment (judging functions), which is not true for all MBTI personalities... but then you went and explained the four basic scenarios at the end, where sometimes the collection of evidence is the focus rather than the judgment of the court... so that seems covered now.

Good catch. I was focused on setting up the analogy and didn't consider that the illustration might be interpreted as a rule or a definition of how the progression always works. I'll insert a qualifier in text at that point to the effect that I'm describing an "ideal" or "hypothetical" progression, and that the progression usually isn't that neat in real life.

Interestingly, "a consistent progression from data collection (perceiving function) to court judgment (judging functions)" is pretty much the ideal or the "gold standard" to which one should aspire.

PersonalityPage.com takes each personality type in isolation and provides instructions on how to strengthen the Auxiliary and achieve better balance in life. And in each case the instructions boil down to pretty much the same thing: "Learn how to temporarily suspend your judging function and allow your perceiving function to do its work first."

Thus, the personality types with a Dominant perceiving function (Dominant Ne/Se--ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENTP; and Dominant Ni/Si--ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ) commit the error of hijacking their weak courtroom and using it to restrict the flow of input into the police station. PersonalityPage.com says they need to stop using the courtroom in that manner; they need to put the courtroom aside temporarily and then apply it in full force only after the police station has done its work.

And the personality types with a Dominant judging function (Dominant Fi/Ti--ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP; and Dominant Fe/Te--ESTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, ENTJ) have such strong courtrooms that they simply forget to use their police station or they hijack the police station and use it to repel the outside world altogether. PersonalityPage.com says they need to learn how to suspend the action of the courtroom entirely at the first stage and put the police station to work in the proper manner as the correct first step.

So in a way the correct order of progression from police station to courtroom is very much at the center of what constitutes balance or imbalance in the functions. It seems that the courtroom function is the more "active" of the two functions in terms of setting limits and moving things along. So mastering proper use of the courtroom function (and putting it in its proper place in the progression) appears to be at the center of any corrective procedures (as I interpret the material at PersonalityPage.com, anyway).

But that's a tangent. Any question of identifying and correcting imbalances comes later in the game. Concerning the beginning of my earlier post, I agree with your point: I need to qualify my early description so that it doesn't imply a consistent progression from police station to courtroom in the typical, everyday use of those functions.

 

[RDF]

Very nicely grouped! I like the way you differentiated between dominant and auxillary functions. It's easy to see why (ESTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, ENTJ) usually tend to relate to each other very well.

Thanks for the feedback, hotmale.

I can't really take credit for grouping them that way. Grouping the personality types by dominant functions is pretty much the standard way to do things when viewing MBTI through the prism of functional analysis. I was mainly just trying to come up with a quick, handy way of illustrating how functional analysis works.

I agree that functional analysis provides a different angle (and potentially a shortcut) for determining personality type. I have read that many experts tend to look for dominant functions when typing people, as a shortcut for narrowing people down to one or two possible personality types quickly. I do it myself sometimes. Some dominant functions (like dominant Fe) really jump out at me when exhibited by other people, and I can use those particular dominant functions as a quick way to get a "bearing" on someone's type.

It would also be interesting to come up with a theory in which when people are conflicted about being a particular personality type to determine it in this sort of grouping- as opposed to the am I a J or a P type bilateral question.

That's an interesting idea when applied to self-typing. I have no idea how effective a functional analysis approach would be for an individual trying to resolve a question about a single letter in their own personality type.

Since I'm used to using functional analysis myself, I'm used to thinking in terms of grouping functions in terms of their dominants. But it's interesting to think of how to frame such a question or test for someone not used to the functional analysis framework.

For example, if someone is not sure of they're a INFP or INFJ, it might be interesting to ask them: "Who do you identify with more: A hypothetical group that has an 'essence' common to ISTJ+ISFJ+INFJ+INTJ, or a hypothetical group that has an 'essence' common to ISTP+ISFP+INFP+INTP?"

Again, interesting question.

 

[cafe]

So the way I work is like Nero Wolfe with a public interest attorney doing Archie Goodwin's job.

I'm lucky my brain hasn't exploded yet.

Or maybe it has . . .

 

[TaylorS]

I've said before that if it were someone's birthday, a Fe person would find the perfect, personalized present that the person would definitely want and bake a cake with their favorite icing. It's the Si that would actually remember the birthday, though.

My mom is an ISFJ and that fits her to a tee. She is a very good Christmas shopper because she always seems to "just know" what everything wants by experience.