THE EFFECT OF each of the four preferences—between introversion and extraversion, between sensing and intuiting, between thinking and feeling, and between judging and perceiving—have been discussed in the preceding chapters. In combination, the four preferences determine type, but the traits that result from each preference do not combine to influence an individual’s personality by simple addition of characteristics; instead, the traits result from the interaction of the preferences.
The effect of the interaction of the preferred processes is made apparent when the extraverted form of a particular process—thinking, feeling, sensing, or intuition—is compared with the introverted form of the same process. The four figures that make up the balance of this chapter, Figures 28–31, present contrasting pairs of sentences describing the extraverted and introverted forms of thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuition. The comparisons presented in the figures, which were drawn by Katharine C. Briggs during her initial study of Psychological Types, include the effects of extraversion and introversion on the kinds of information a particular process uses or suppresses; the strengths, the weaknesses, and the goals of the four processes discussed; how each of the processes expresses itself; and so on.
Introverted Thinking | |
Is fed from objective data—facts and borrowed ideas. |
Is fed from subjective and unconscious roots—archetypes. |
Depends upon the facts of experience and regards the abstract idea as unsubstantial and of negligible importance. |
Depends upon the abstract idea as the decisive factor, and values facts chiefly as illustrative proofs of the idea. |
Relies on facts outside of the thinker, which are more decisive than the thinking itself, for soundness and value. |
Relies on the thinker’s powers of observation and appreciation and use of the inner wealth of inherited experience for soundness and value. |
Has as its goal the solution of practical problems, discovery and classification of facts, criticism and modification of generally accepted ideas, planning of programs, and developing of formulas. |
Has as its goal formulating questions, creating theories, opening up prospects, yielding insight, and finally, seeing how external facts fit into the framework of the idea or theory it has created. |
Dwells upon the details of the concrete case, including irrelevancies. |
Seizes upon the similarities of the concrete case, dismissing irrelevancies. |
Has a tendency to multiply facts until their meaning is smothered and thinking paralyzed. |
Has a tendency to neglect facts or to coerce them into agreement with the idea, selecting only those that support the idea. |
Consists of a succession of concrete representations that are set in motion not so much by an inner thought activity as by the changing stream of sense perceptions. |
Consists of an inner thought activity, tied loosely if at all to the stream of sense impressions, which are dimmed by the vividness of the stream of inner impressions. |
Figure 28 Comparison of Extraverted and Introverted Thinking
Introverted Feeling | |
Is determined chiefly by the objective factor and serves to make the individual feel correctly, that is, conventionally, under all circumstances. | Is determined chiefly by the subjective factor and serves as a guide to the emotional acceptance or rejection of various aspects of life. |
Adapts the individual to the objective situation. | Adapts the objective situation to the individual by the simple process of excluding or ignoring the unacceptable. |
Depends wholly upon the ideals, conventions, and customs of the environment, and is extensive rather than deep. | Depends upon abstract feeling—ideals such as love, patriotism, religion, and loyalty, and is deep and passionate rather than extensive. |
Finds soundness and value outside of the individual in the collective ideals of the community, which are usually accepted without question. | Finds soundness and value inside one’s self from one’s own inner wealth and powers of appreciation and abstraction. |
Has as its goal the formation and maintenance of easy and harmonious emotional relationships with other people. | Has as its goal the fostering and protection of an intense inner emotional life, and, so far as possible, the outer fulfillment and realization of the inner ideal. |
Expresses itself easily and so shares itself with others, creating and arousing similar feeling and establishing warm sympathy and understanding. | May be too overpowering to be expressed at all, creating a false appearance of coldness to the point of indifference, and may be completely misunderstood. |
Has a tendency to suppress the personal standpoint entirely, and presents the danger of becoming a feeling personality, giving the effect of insincerity and pose. | Has a tendency to find no objective fulfillment or realization—or outlet—for expression, and presents the danger of living upon sentiment, illusion, and self-pity. |
Figure 29 Comparison of Extraverted and Introverted Feeling
Introverted Sensing | |
Suppresses as far as possible the subjective element of the sense impression. | Suppresses as far as possible the objective element of the sense impression. |
Values the object sensed rather than the subjective impression, of which the individual may hardly be aware. | Values the subjective impression released by the object rather than the object itself, of which the individual may hardly be aware. |
Sees things photographically, the impression being one of concrete reality and nothing more. The “primrose by a river’s brim” is simply a primrose. | Sees things highly colored by the subjective factor, the impression being merely suggested by the object and coming out of the unconscious in the form of some meaning or significance. |
Leads to concrete enjoyment, seizing very fully the momentary and manifest existence of things, and that only. | Leads to ideas, through the activation of archetypes, seizing the background of the physical world rather than its surface. |
Develops attention that is riveted by the strongest stimulus, which invariably becomes the center of interest, so that life seems wholly under the influence of accidental outer happenings. | Develops attention that is very selective, guided wholly by the inner constellation of interests, so that it is impossible to predict what outer stimulus will catch and hold attention. |
Develops a pleasure-loving outer self, very rich in undigested experience and unclassified knowledge of uninterpreted facts. | Develops an extremely eccentric and individual inner self, which sees things other people do not see, and may appear very irrational. |
Must be balanced by introverting judgment, or it makes a shallow, wholly empirical personality, with many superstitions and no morality except collective conventions and taboos. | Must be balanced by extraverting judgment, or it makes a silent, inaccessible personality, wholly uncommunicative, with no conversation except conventional banalities about the weather and other collective interests. |
Figure 30 Comparison of Extraverted and Introverted Sensing
Introverted Intuition | |
Uses the inner understanding in the interests of the objective situation. |
Uses the objective situation in the interests of the inner understanding. |
Regards the immediate situation as a prison from which escape is urgently necessary and aims to escape by means of some sweeping change in the objective situation. | Regards the immediate situation as a prison from which escape is urgently necessary and aims to escape through some sweeping change in the subjective understanding of the objective situation. |
Is wholly directed upon outer objects, searching for emerging possibilities, and will sacrifice all else for such possibilities when found. | Receives its impetus from outer objects but is never arrested by external possibilities, being occupied rather by searching out new angles for viewing and understanding life. |
May be artistic, scientific, mechanical, inventive, industrial, commercial, social, political, or adventurous. | May be creative in any field: artistic, literary, scientific, inventive, philosophical, or religious. |
Finds self-expression natural and easy. | Finds self-expression difficult. |
Finds its greatest value in the promotion and initiation of new enterprises. | Finds its greatest value lies in the interpretation of life and the promotion of understanding. |
Requires the development of balancing judgment not only for the criticism and evaluation of the intuitive enthusiasms but also to hold it to the completion of its various activities. | Requires the development of balancing judgment not only for the criticism and evaluation of intuitive understanding but to enable it to impart its visions to others and bring them to practical usefulness in the world. |
Both are characterized by habitual expectancy; both have quick understanding.
Figure 31 Comparison of Extraverted and Introverted Intuition