I WROTE THIS final chapter long after the rest of this book was written and laid aside. The intervening years have shown me, more and more vividly, how great a contribution the understanding of type can make to people’s lives. Whether people first hear about the two kinds of perception and two kinds of judgment as children, high school students, parents, or grandparents, the richer development of their own type can be a rewarding adventure for the rest of their lives.
Ten years ago I was less confident, Had this book been published then, it would have ended with the previous chapter and might have given the impression that type development runs on a time table and must be achieved by a particular age or not at all. I do not think now that that is true. Good type development can be achieved at any age by anyone who cares to understand his or her own gifts and the appropriate use of those gifts.
Whatever stage people have reached, a clear understanding of the basics of type development will help them to go on from there. As has been said throughout this book, almost everything people do with their minds is an act of perception or an act of judgment. Succeeding at anything takes both perception and judgment and in that order. Before people can rightly decide how to handle a situation they must find out what the problem is and what the alternatives are. Finding out is an exercise of perception, and deciding is an exercise of judgment. To be sure of using perception before judgment, people must understand the difference between the two and be able to tell which one they are using at a given moment. The latter skill can be acquired by practice in small matters. For example, when people wake in the night to the sound of rain and think, “Why, it’s raining hard,” that is perception. If they then think, “I’d better check if it’s raining in!” that is judgment.
Of the two very different kinds of perception, sensing is the direct perception of realities through sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Sensing is needed for pursuing or even casually observing hard facts; it is equally essential to enjoying the moment of a sunrise, the crash of surf on a beach, the exhilaration of speed, and the smooth working of one’s body. Intuition is the indirect perception of things beyond the reach of the senses, such as meanings, relationships, and possibilities. It translates words into meaning and meaning into words whenever people read, write, talk, or listen; people use intuition when they invite the unknown into their conscious minds or wait expectantly for a possibility, a solution, or an inspiration. Intuition works best for seeing how situations might be handled. A thought that starts “I wonder if” is probably intuition. The declaration “I see!” is a flash of intuition, and the thought “Aha!” indicates that intuition has brought to mind something enlightening and delightful.
If people prefer sensing, they use it more and become expert at noticing and remembering all the observable facts. Because of their evergrowing fund of experience and knowledge of reality, sensing types tend to become realistic, practical, observant, fun-loving, and good at working with a great number of facts.
People who prefer intuition tend to become skilled at seeing possibilities. They learn that a possibility will come to them if they confidently seek it. Valuing imagination and inspirations, intuitive types become good at new ideas, projects, and problem-solving.
One kind of judgment, thinking, is logical and intentionally impersonal; it does not include all ingenious mental activity, much of which, in fact, is the product of intuition. Thinking analyzes in terms of cause and effect, and it distinguishes between true and false. The other kind of judgment, feeling, is intentionally personal and is based on personal values. It distinguishes between valued and not valued and between more valued and less valued, and it guards whatever the feeling type values most. Although feeling judgment is personal, it is not necessarily egocentric, and at its best, it takes into account the feelings of others as far as they are known or can be inferred. Feeling should not be confused with emotions; in fact, Jung calls it a rational process.
Thinking types become most skillful in handling that which behaves logically (like machinery) with no unpredictable human reactions. Thinkers themselves tend to become logical, objective, and consistent; they are inclined to make decisions by analyzing and weighing the facts, including the unpleasant ones.
Feeling types, who develop skill in dealing with people, tend to be sympathetic, appreciative, and tactful; in making decisions, they are likely to give great weight to the relevant personal values, including those of other people.
The four processes—sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling—are gifts that all people are born with. The processes are at each person’s disposal to develop and use in dealing with the present and shaping the future.
It is up to each person to recognize his or her true preferences—between sensing and intuition, between thinking and feeling, and so on. According to type theory, the preferences are inborn, but just as parents frequently try to make a left-handed child right-handed, they may try to convert a sensing child to intuition, or a thinking child to feeling, to conform to the parent’s inborn preference. Unless stoutly resisted, such pressure can be a serious hindrance to the development of a person’s rightful gifts.
The kind of perception and kind of judgment people naturally prefer determine the direction in which they can develop most fully and effectively and with most personal satisfaction. When people use their two best-liked processes in a purposeful effort to do something well, their skill with those processes increases. People may be tempted to try to do everything with these two alone, regardless of their appropriateness to the purpose.
The recognition that one process is more appropriate than another in a given situation is an important milestone in type development. Without that recognition, people have no conscious reason to care, or even notice, which process they are using. When people realize that sensing works better than intuition for gathering facts, but intuition is better for seeing possibilities, or that thinking is better suited to organizing work, but feeling is better in human relations, they have the key to more effective use of all their gifts, each in its own field.
Full development of type involves getting to be expertly skilled with the dominant process, which actually bosses the other three processes and sets the major goals in life. Type development also depends on skilled use of the auxiliary process, which is vital for balance, because it supplies judgment if the dominant is perceptive or perception if the dominant is judging. Finally, full type development requires learning to use the two less-favored and less-developed processes appropriately.
The less-developed processes are always a problem. In managing them, it is useful to think of sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling as four people living under one roof. The dominant process is head of the household, and the auxiliary is second in command. These two supplement each other, and neither encroaches on the other’s domain; but in most situations, the two less-developed processes have a different view, based on the opposite kind of perception, and a different plan of action, coming from the opposite kind of judgment.
Dealing with the dissenters by denying them any hearing at all does not get rid of the problem, but merely imprisons processes of the mind, like slaves in a dungeon; if they are suppressed to that extent, they eventually break out and come up to consciousness in violent revolt. Because they were necessarily neglected while the preferred processes were developed, they are immature and cannot be expected to offer deep wisdom.
A person can, however, profitably accept them as younger members of the family, who are entitled to speak up in family councils before decisions are made. If they are given assignments that use their respective gifts and if their help is appreciated and their contributions seriously considered, they will, like children, grow steadily wiser, and the quality of their contributions will steadily improve.
The accuracy of a decision—a judgment—can be no better than the accuracy of the information on which it rests. There is a time to perceive and a time to judge, and they occur in that order. In fact, the most sound decisions are based on both sensing and intuition.
Each kind of perception has its proper, indispensable uses. The greatest utility of sensing in practical matters lies in its awareness of the actual, existing situation and its grasp of the relevant facts. Respect for facts is the aspect of sensing most important for intuitives as well as sensing types to cultivate. Although naturally tending to be more interested in the possibilities than in the realities, intuitives can make a serious mistake by carrying their tendency to the point of overlooking the facts and the limitations the facts impose. Failure to accept and deal with the realities of a situation can make the intuitive’s possibilities impossible.
Either perceptive process can be self-defeating if it becomes absolute, cutting off all help it needs from its opposite. Intuitives can bar help from sensing by assuming that there are no facts to be known on the point in question, or that they already know all the facts, or that the facts they don’t know are not important.
Similarly, if sensing types assume that what they have already seen is all there is to see, they completely close off their intuition so it cannot contribute to their conscious thoughts. People who habitually make this assumption dislike the sudden and unexpected because their security rests on knowing from experience what to do. When something outside their experience threatens to happen, they can only give up and let it happen or else fight it blindly. Neither way of meeting the threat is productive, and both are stressful. It is far better to invite intuition to help solve the problem.
An essential skill to acquire is the ability to direct judgment where it is needed. Some people dislike the very idea of “judging,” because they think it is authoritarian, restrictive, and arbitrary. This concept of judgment—a thing people use on each other—misses the main point. Judgment should be used on one’s own concerns, for the better management of one’s gifts, responsibilities, and life.
Some uses of judgment involve the individual only, such as the shaping of personal standards of conduct or the choosing of objectives. The latter covers a wide range, because the great satisfactions vary so much from type to type. An INTP once wrote, “For my type a search for truth is the most important thing. I have even surprised myself at the extent to which I will sacrifice personal comfort and happiness to arrive at understanding.” For ISTJs, the major satisfaction might be the trust and respect of their community for their long records of unfailing public service and integrity. For INFPs, intent on possibilities for people, the major satisfaction might be in communicating an understanding that can help other people. For EFJ types, probably the major satisfaction lies in fellowship and personal relationships.
Most decisions, however, involve a present situation that needs either logic (thinking) or tact (feeling). People naturally tend to base decisions on the preferred kind of judgment, without considering its suitability. This is a mistake. If the merits of each kind of judgment are understood, thinkers can use feeling to gain cooperation, and feeling types can use thinking to take a careful look at the consequences.
If thinking is the more-trusted, it will resist being shut off, even temporarily, to give feeling the right of way. The resistance can be overcome if it is clear that feeling is contributing only in the service of thinking. The thinker’s logic is based on facts, and feelings are facts. Because other people’s feelings cause unexpected complications, thinkers need to count their own feelings among important causes and other people’s feelings among important effects. Whenever other people are involved, a thinker’s logic will be more accurate and successful if it gets help from feeling.
Similarly, if feeling is the more-trusted kind of judgment, it will resist challenges to its values from thinking, but a temporary shut-off can be tolerated on the understanding that thinking is being consulted only in the service of feeling. Cherished feeling values can be better served if thinking is given a chance to anticipate possible unfortunate consequences of an intended act.
In a group activity that includes a variety of types, it is easy to see what each process contributes to the joint undertaking. For example, sensing types are likely to have precise information about the situation and to remember facts that others may have forgotten or overlooked, whereas intuitives are full of ways to circumvent any difficulties and often propose new procedures. Thinking types tend to be skeptical on principle and quick to challenge unfounded assumptions, to foresee what may go wrong, to point out flaws and inconsistencies in the plan, and to bring people back to the point when they stray. Feeling types are concerned with harmony; when sharp differences of opinion arise, they seek a compromise that preserves for each type (including their own) the features of most value to that type.
If the group is composed of very different types, agreement will be harder to reach than if the group was homogeneous, but the decision will be far more broadly based and thoroughly considered, and thus in less danger of turning out badly for an unforeseen reason.
The ability to use perception and judgment appropriately is a skill that can be acquired by practice, and life supplies much to practice on. When confronted by a problem to solve, a decision to make, or a situation to deal with, try exercising one process at a time, consciously and purposefully, each in its own field, without interference from other processes, and in the following order:
Sensing to face the facts, to be realistic, to find exactly what the situation is and what is being done about it. Sensing can help you avoid wishful thinking or sentiment that may obscure the realities. To activate your sensing process, consider how the situation would look to a wise, impartial bystander.
Intuition to discover all the possibilities—all the ways in which you might change the situation, your approach, or other people’s attitudes. Try to put aside your natural assumption that you have been doing the obviously right thing.
Thinking to impersonally analyze cause and effect, including all the consequences of the alternative solutions, pleasant and unpleasant, those that weigh for and those that weigh against your preferred solution. Consider the full costs involved and examine misgivings you may have suppressed because of loyalty to someone, liking for something, or reluctance to change your stand.
Feeling to weigh how deeply you care about the things that will be gained or lost by each of the alternatives. In making a fresh appraisal, try not to let the temporary outweigh the permanent, however agreeable or disagreeable the immediate prospect may be. Consider as well other people’s feelings, reasonable and unreasonable, about the various outcomes, and include your feelings and theirs among the facts to be considering in deciding which solution will work best.
The final decision will have sounder basis than usual, because of your consideration of facts, possibilities, consequences, and human values.
Some steps in this exercise are easier than others. The ones that use your best processes are fun. The others can be difficult at first, because they call for the strengths of types very different from yours, and those are strengths in which you have had relatively little practice. When the problem is important, you may wish to consult someone to whom those strengths come naturally, because he or she may have a strikingly different view of the situation and can help you to understand and use the neglected opposite side of yourself.
Learning to use your less-liked processes when they are needed is worth all the effort it takes. They not only contribute to a better solution of the present problem, but also prepare you to handle subsequent problems with more skill.
Knowing which kinds of perception and judgment people prefer can help them choose a career. Of course, people want interesting and enjoyable work, so they want a career that calls for their best kinds of perception and judgment, but does not require much use of the opposite processes.
A good way to begin the search for a career is to look at the occupations that appeal most to people whose best-liked perception and judgment are the same as yours (see Chapter 14). Do not discount other fields; if you are attracted to a field that is unpopular with your type, you may prove to be valuable there as a supplier of complementary abilities and as a champion of changes that need to be made. Keep in mind, however, that if most of the people in that occupation are opposite to you in both perceptive and judging processes, they are unlikely to lend you much support; you will need to understand their types and carefully communicate when you need their cooperation.
Having found a field of interest where you can use your best skills, consider whether you prefer to work in the outer world of people and things or in the inner world of concepts and ideas. Although you live in both worlds, certainly you are more at home in one of the worlds and there you can do your best work.
If you are an extravert, find out whether the work you are considering has enough action or interaction with people to keep you interested. If you are an introvert, consider whether the work will give you enough chance to concentrate on what you are doing.
Your preference between judging and perception determines the last letter of your type. J people rely mainly on judging for dealing with people and situations. Wanting to regulate and control life, they live in a planned and orderly way. P people, tending to rely on a perceptive process, live in a flexible, spontaneous way, and want to understand life and adapt to it.
If you are a judging type, find out if the work you are considering is reasonably predictable and organized or has to be played by ear from hour to hour. If you are a perceptive type, find out roughly how many decisions you will be expected to make in a day.
Two people who prefer the same kinds of perception and judgment have the best chance of understanding each other and feeling understood. They look at things in much the same way and come to similar conclusions. They find the same things interesting and consider the same things important. Two people, alike in their kind of perception or their kind of judgment but not both, have the makings of a good working relationship. Their shared preference gives them common ground and their dissimilar preference gives them, as a team, a wider range of expertness than either has alone.
When co-workers differ on both perception and judgment, they have a problem. Working together will teach them something valuable if they respect each other, but it can be disastrous if they do not. As a team, they have at their disposal skill in both kinds of perception and both kinds of judgment. They need to understand each other well enough to see the merit of the other’s skills and to use them.
If a husband and wife differ in this way, they may have an excellent marriage, but only if each appreciates and takes delight in the other’s strengths. Because marriage is probably the most human of all human relationships, it has a whole chapter of its own (see Chapter 11).
Any relationship will suffer if oppositeness on a preference is treated as an inferiority. The parent-child relationship suffers severely if parents try to make their children into copies of themselves. Children have difficulty in dealing with a parent’s wish that they were something that they definitely are not. Children who are feeling types may try to falsify their type and young thinking types may resist with hostility, but neither reaction can repair the damage to their faith in themselves. After taking the Type Indicator, many adults with such a childhood behind them have said, “What a relief to be told that it’s all right to be the kind of person I am!”
People with opposite preferences grow up side by side with practically no idea of how to communicate effectively with each other. Thinkers communicate in a thinking fashion and feeling types in a feeling fashion; this works when they communicate with their own type. However, when they need agreement or cooperation from their opposites, it does not work well.
Thinkers are by nature impersonal and critical of anything they consider wrong. They arrive by logic at definite opinions about what should be done differently, and they do not pay much attention to feelings, their own or other people’s. When they disagree with feeling types, thinkers may state their disagreement so forcefully and bluntly that the feeling types feel attacked; this makes agreement or cooperation impossible.
Communication with feeling types should make use of their feeling. They prize harmony, and if given a chance, they would rather agree than not. When thinkers need to criticize a proposal or disagree with what has been done, they should start by mentioning the points on which they do agree. When assured that the thinkers are in the same camp with them, the feeling types are ready to make concessions to preserve the harmony and stay in the same camp. Then the points of disagreement can be discussed rather than fought over, and the thinkers’ logic and the feeling types’ understanding of people can both be brought to bear on the problem.
Communication with a thinker should be as logical and orderly as the feeling type can make it. Feeling types should be careful not to ignore facts and reasons that thinkers have already given. Although feeling types speak from a strong belief in the value of what they advocate, they must respect the thinkers’ estimate of the costs of the consequences.
If you are a feeling type, remember that thinkers rely on reasoning from cause to effect but usually do not know how other people feel about things until they are told. Therefore, let them know, briefly and cheerfully, how you feel about things so that they can include your feelings among the causes from which they can expect effects.
Communication between sensing and intuitive types often breaks down before it gets started. If you are the intuitive, you need to observe the following rules: First, say explicitly, at the start, what you are talking about. (Otherwise, you are requiring your sensing listeners to hold what you say in mind until they can figure out what you are referring to, which they seldom think is worth doing.) Second, finish your sentences; you know what the rest of the sentence is, but your listeners do not. Third, give notice when changing the subject. And last, don’t switch back and forth between subjects. Your listeners cannot see the parentheses. Finish one point and move explicitly to the next.
If you are the sensing type, the intuitive’s words may seem to ignore or even contradict facts you know to be true, but don’t ignore what was said or dismiss it as foolish. It may contain an idea that could be useful, and your facts should be useful to the author of the idea. The constructive course is to state your facts as a contribution to the subject, not as a refutation of the idea. Progress in almost any direction needs contributions from both sides, facts from the sensing type and unfamiliar ideas from the intuitive.
The most successful compromises preserve the advantages that each type considers most important. People often make an all-out effort for a scheme as a whole, when what they truly care about is a particular merit that could be incorporated into another plan. Sensing types want the solution to be workable, thinkers want it systematic, feeling types want it humanly agreeable, and intuitives want a door left open for growth and improvement. These are all reasonable desires. Given understanding and good will, they should be achievable.
When people differ, a knowledge of type lessens friction and eases strain. In addition, it reveals the value of differences. No one has to be good at everything. By developing individual strengths, guarding against known weaknesses, and appreciating the strengths of the other types, life will be more amusing, more interesting, and more of a daily adventure than it could possibly be if everyone were alike.
I have looked at the world from the standpoint of type for more than fifty years and have found the experience constantly rewarding. An understanding of type can be rewarding for society, too. It is not too much to hope that wider and deeper understanding of the gifts of diversity may eventually reduce the misuse and nonuse of those gifts. It should lessen the waste of potential, the loss of opportunity, and the number of dropouts and delinquents. It may even help with the prevention of mental illness.
Whatever the circumstances of your life, whatever your personal ties, work, and responsibilities, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire.
For as we have many members in one body,
and all members have not the same office:
So we, being many, are one body…
and every one members one of another.
Having then gifts differing…
whether prophecy, let us prophesy…
Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering:
or he that teacheth, on teaching;
Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation….
Rom.
12: 4–8