This is the second installment in my series of articles about personality type. Understanding People Part 2: The Four Functions. I hope it makes a somewhat complicated subject simple to understand. If you haven’t read it already read it you might want to go back and read How to understand people part 1: It’s all about simple choices.
<click here to go to Part 1In summary, I call the colored square in the diagram to the left, The Map of Activity. It is divided top and bottom by the first choice of FOCUS between PEOPLE and THINGS. The second choice is called approach and divides the Map of Activity left and right between CONCRETE and ABSTRACT
- FEELING chooses CONCRETE PEOPLE
- INTUITION chooses ABSTRACT PEOPLE
- SENSING chooses CONCRETE THINGS
- THINKING chooses ABSTRACT THINGS.
This article begins where part one ended. In it you will learn the preferences that set the FUNCTIONS apart and help them work together. You will come to understand yourself by the words and phrases that reveal your simple choices.
The first thing to know about the 4 FUNCTIONS is that each has a preference, a choice, of INPUT, TIME, NUMBERS, and NEED. Again let me remind you that everyone can choose to deal with input, time, numbers, and need in each of these four ways. However, because of our preferred choices we do one more often and therefore with more accuracy than the other three. Moreover there is a descending level of awareness from one to the next choice. There will be more about this in later installments.
Now we will look at the choices for INPUT
SENSING function gathers data through the immediate CONTANCT senses of Touch and Taste. Dominate sensing people may give notice of their preference when they say things like. “It was smooth sailing.” Or “It left a bitter taste in my mouth.”
The FEELING function gathers data with AUDITORY input using Tone and Pitch. Dominate FEELING people might say “That sounds good to me.” Or “He grates on my nerves.”
The Function of INTUITION gets its information REMOTELY through Smell and the “6thsense”. Dominate INTUITIVE people might say “That smells fishy to me.” Or “I just have a hunch this is the right way to go.”
The THINKING function gathers data VISUALLY by noticing Paterns and Edges. The dominate THINKING person may say “I can’t see my way clear…” or “Let me get this into better focus.” You may notice that the arrows in the diagram point to both the inner triangles and the outer triangles on the Map of Activity. This means that some of these inputs are INTROVERTED and some are EXTROVERTED. There will be further explanation of these concepts in later lessons.
Next we consider each FUNCTIONS choice for TIME
Dominant SENSING people are in the “here and now” For them the time is the PRESENT. Now is what matters. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never be here.
The FEELING function is nostalgic for the PAST. People with dominate FEELING FUNCTION long for the “good old days.”
INTUITION is for dreams of the FUTURE. The person with dominant INTUITION is the person with a vision for the FUTURE. The FUTURE is coming and when it gets here INTUITION will already have left for what is yet to come.
People with dominate THINKING love HISTORY. They like to look at the process and see how we got from there to here so that we might know how to get from here to there.
Now we look at the choices that each FUNCTION has for NUMBERS
Those with dominate SENSING prefer (choose) to deal with ONE thing at a time. They like to work step by step. No giant leaps thank you very much. They are the ones whole follow instructions step by step.
The FEELING FUNCTION can handle TWO things at a time. Remember that FEELING prefers to FOCUS on CONCRETE PEOPLE. So when it comes to numbers the FEELING function is counting real people. They are match makers and marriage councilors.
INTUITION is next and confuse everyone else because they prefer to deal with an INFINATE number of things. I am on the extreme of the scale intuitive and I can tell you that as I write this article I am thinking of the next 100 I can write over the next 5 years. The THINKING FUNCTION doesn’t do infinity but it can handle MANY ABSTRACT THINGS at once and so dominant thinkers are the ones who can do complex math and science theory.
When we come to talk of NEED it is good to remind ourselves that everyone has all these four needs. It is just that, like other preferences, we choose one over the others and so it affects our lives to a greater degree than the other three.
People with the dominate SENSING are like Madonna , “They just want to have fun…”
Dominate FEELING FUNCTION longs to BELONG.
People with dominate INTUITION will never be happy unless they can find MEANING in life.
Those with dominate THINKING are most interested in having a sense of CONTROL over their own destiny.
The next installment of How to understand people Part 3 : OUTPUT.
It will explain how two FUNCTIONS combine to create the activities of WORDS, IDEAS, HANDS, and BODY.
<Click here to go to Part 3