EVERY TYPE HAS its good and bad examples, its happy and unhappy people, its successes and failures, saints and sinners, heroes and criminals. Different types are likely to go wrong from different angles. When an introvert smashes a moral principle, it may well be knowingly and in bitterness. The intuitive extraverts, in the grip of a project, and the judging extraverts, with their set purposes, may consider that the end justifies the means. (The end may sometimes be unselfish, as with the woman—undoubtedly a feeling type—who stole from her employer to give lavishly to the needy.) The types most prone to drift into wrongdoing, from a thoughtless yielding to circumstances or bad companions, are the extraverted sensing types. In extreme cases, they may have neither enough introversion or intuitive insight to warn them of the underlying principle involved nor the judgment with which to criticize their impulses.
As described in Chapter 9, general patterns of behavior can be attributed to each of the sixteen types, but the strengths of each type materialize only when the type development is adequate. Otherwise, people are likely to have the characteristic weaknesses of their type, but not much else.
In normal type development, a child regularly uses the preferred process at the expense of its opposite and becomes increasingly skillful in its use. More and more able to control the favorite process, the child acquires the traits that belong to it. Thus, the child’s type is determined by the process that is used, trusted, and developed most.
Although the favorite process can be useful by itself, alone it will not be healthy, safe for society, or ultimately satisfying to the individual, because it lacks balance.
The dominant process needs to be supplemented by a second process, the auxiliary, which can deal helpfully with the areas that the dominant process necessarily neglects. The auxiliary process must supply the needed perception if the dominant process is a judging one, or vice versa, and must contribute the needed extraversion if the dominant process is primarily introverted, or vice versa.
Good type development, therefore, demands two conditions: first, adequate but by no means equal development of a judging process and a perceptive process, one of which predominates; and, second, adequate but by no means equal facility in using both the extraverted and introverted attitudes, with one predominating.
When both conditions are met, the person’s type development is well balanced. In type theory, balance does not refer to equality of two processes or of two attitudes; instead, it means superior skill in one, supplemented by a helpful but not competitive skill in the other.
The need for such supplementing is obvious. Perception without judgment is spineless; judgment with no perception is blind. Introversion lacking any extraversion is impractical; extraversion with no introversion is superficial.
Less obvious is the principle that for every person one skill must be subordinate to the other and that significant skill in any direction will not be developed until a choice between opposites is made.
Expert perception and judgment result from specialization, from using one of a pair of opposites rather than the other. One of the opposites must be “tuned out” in order to have a chance to develop either of them.
Trying to develop skill in sensing and intuition at the same time is like listening to two radio stations on the same wave length. People cannot hear an intuition if their senses are dinning in their ears, and when listening for an intuition, people cannot get information from their senses. Neither kind of perception is clear enough to be interesting or worth sustained attention.
Similarly, if people cannot concentrate either on thinking or on feeling, their decisions will be made and unmade by a shifting dispute between two kinds of judgment, neither of which is expert enough to settle matters permanently.
The four processes are used almost at random by very young children, until they begin to differentiate. Some children begin differentiating much later than others, and in the least-developed adults, the processes remain childish, so that nothing can be maturely perceived or maturely judged. Even in effective adults, the two least-used processes remain relatively childish, and the effectiveness lies mainly in the two processes which have grown skilled from being preferred and exercised.
The two skilled processes can develop side by side because they are not antagonistic. One is always a perceptive process and the other a judging process, so they do not contradict each other. Although one can assist the other, there should be no doubt about which comes first.
The supremacy of one process, unchallenged by the others, is essential to the stability of the individual. Each process has its own set of aims, and for successful adaptation, as Jung pointed out, the aims must be “constantly clear and unambiguous” (1923, p. 514). One process needs to govern which way a person moves; it should always be the same process, so that today’s move will not be regretted and reversed tomorrow.
Therefore, of the two skilled processes, one must be the “General,” and the other must be the “General’s Aide,” attending to lesser but necessary matters which the General leaves undone (see pp. 12–14). If the General has a judging nature, the Aide must supply perception as a basis for judgment, but the Aide of a perceptive General needs to provide decisions to implement the General’s vision. The Aide to an extrovert must do most of the reflecting, whereas an introvert’s Aide will have to take action.
In the extravert, other people meet and do business with the General. Staying in the background, the Aide shows little on which others can evaluate his competence. In the introvert, the General works inside the tent, while the Aide takes care of business with others.15 If the Aide is skillful and competent, the General need not be called on. If the Aide is awkward, help from the General may be needed.
In addition to a clear choice of which two processes will be developed and which of the two will dominate, good type development requires adequate use of the chosen processes. The auxiliary naturally tends to be neglected. Extraverts, in using their dominant process in the outer world, may not know that they need the auxiliary.
Judging extraverts with insufficient perception may never discover their lack. Making decisions without adequate information, they will make mistakes but will be unable to “perceive” their responsibility for their misfortune. Because these E—Js cannot distinguish between good and bad decisions, they may feel as competent to decide other people’s affairs as their own and thereby make many of their mistakes at other people’s expense.
They are unable to see the individuality of persons and situations; they fall back upon assumptions—prejudices, conventions, stereotyped attitudes, and common misconceptions. Living in a world of clichés, they derive a sense of security by using one cliché or another to dispose of practically anything. Within such limits, their exercise of judgment may be prompt, consistent, and resolute, but it will be no better than their assumptions. Anything that refutes their assumptions and demands an unfamiliar effort at perception will shake their security.
Perceptive extraverts who do not develop judgment have the opposite deficits, which often get them into extraordinary difficulty. They do not know what is best to do, so they do not take any action. Or they know what they should do, but cannot make themselves want to do it, and, therefore, they do not do it. Or they want to do something and know they should not, but cannot stop themselves. Often they do not even bother to ask themselves whether they should or should not take a particular course of action. Frequently they are likable, charming people, but because they have no judgment, they do not deal firmly with their difficulties, and they shy away from difficulties. They tend to consider work a difficulty.
Because the auxiliary process is what introverts use in dealing with the world, they are more likely than extraverts to develop an adequate auxiliary. If they do not, the results are painfully conspicuous and awkward; all their contacts with their environment will be clumsy and ineffective. If they manage only an inadequate development, they will still be at a disadvantage when dealing with the average extravert in the world of action—though they will have a compensating advantage in the world of ideas. Some introverts develop an auxiliary process without learning how to extravert it. In this fashion, they get balance in their inner lives, but no satisfactory extraversion.
When the essentials of good type development are achieved, the advantage is great. Observation has convinced the authors that type development is a variable with a wide range and profound influence on effectiveness, success, happiness, and mental health.
The extent to which type is developed affects not only the value of the inborn type but also the value of the inborn intelligence. Within limits, type development can substitute for intelligence, because average intelligence, fully utilized through fine type development, will give results far above expectation. However, a serious deficit of type development, especially a deficit of judgment, constitutes a disability for which no amount of intelligence can compensate. In the absence of judgment, there is no assurance that the intelligence will be brought to bear upon the necessary things at the necessary times.
Especially for introverts, a modest improvement in balance, brought about by taking the contributions of the auxiliary process more seriously, may pay large dividends in satisfaction.
Type development is aided by clear choice between the opposites and purposeful use of the chosen processes. The first step for people examining their choices and use of the chosen processes is to see for themselves the difference between each pair of opposites and to discover which processes and attitudes serve their deepest needs and interests and thus are fundamentally right for them.
The next step is to see the difference between the appropriate and inappropriate use of each process. An appropriate use of sensing is for seeing and facing the facts, and intuition is appropriately used for seeing a possibility and bringing it to pass. Thinking is the process best suited for analyzing the probable consequences of a proposed action and deciding accordingly, and feeling is best for considering what matters most to oneself and others.
Each process can be used inappropriately, too. Examples of inappropriate use include indulging sensing by running away from a problem to a trivial amusement, giving in to intuition by dreaming up impossibilities that would provide an effortless solution, indulging feeling judgment by rehearsing how right and blameless one has been all along, and yielding to thinking judgment by criticizing anyone who has an opposite view of a problem. Such behavior would put the four processes to use but without accomplishing anything.
In practicing the use of all four processes, people frequently find that only one of the four is easy to exercise. For example, some people feel comfortable only with sensing, or only with intuition, and uncomfortable with both kinds of judgment. This is most likely to happen in the case of an extreme perceptive extravert and would suggest too little development of judgment.
The first step toward more satisfactory type development for extreme perceptive extraverts is to realize that they are used to operating almost exclusively in the perceptive attitude, with practically no use of a judging process. Consequently, they are extremely responsive to outer circumstance, which may be a new situation, person, or idea. Thus influenced from without, rather than governed by definitive standard or purpose from within, the extreme perceptive extraverts lack continuity and direction. They are blown about like a sailboat whose master has forgotten to drop the centerboard.
The centerboard is judgment, that is, a disciplined power of choice in accord with permanent standards. If thinking is the judging process, the standards will be impersonal principles. If judgments are based on feeling, the standards will be very personal values. Either way, well-developed standards enable their possessors to act in a pattern consistent with long-term desires.
Therefore, if you are an extreme EP, you need to recognize and establish your standards, apply them to your choices before acting, and act accordingly.
How your standards are established depends on your TF preference. If you prefer thinking, you are generally aware of the law of cause and effect, even though you have not been applying that principle to your own affairs. With effort, you can probably make a good guess at why particular things in your life have not gone as well as you wanted, and you can probably see what you should have done differently. You can even predict to a useful degree the consequences of your actions.
If you prefer feeling, you need to make a conscious examination of your feeling values. The standards of feeling judgment are personal values, which are arranged in the order of their importance. In considering an action, weigh the values that will be served against the values that will suffer. By taking the course that serves the values that matter most to you in the long run, you will insure that the decision will continue to content you.
Of course, no one can prescribe another’s hierarchy of values. In choosing a job, does comfort or freedom matter more to you? Would you rather have security or an unfolding possibility with no guarantee attached? Does it seem to you more important that people should be well fed, well clothed, well taught, healed, amused, or stimulated—and into which of these endeavors would you prefer to pour your energies? If it is a question of your dealings with people, would you rather be liked for your charm or trusted for your sincerity? If it is a question of the use of the next ten minutes, is it more rewarding to start something new or finish something old? Every problem raises its own questions, and the questions most relevant to your problems can be answered only by you.