An Introduction to Personality Types
I have been spending a lot of time recently delving into the inner workings of my mind. And the mind of my family. And co-workers… and random people I meet.
Understanding why people think what they think and having a foundation to work with them instead of against or in spite of them has been invaluable. Given this, I want to share what I have learned.
Personality Types
There are many types of personalities and they are not always easy to understand or navigate. Fortunately there are many tools and frameworks that we can pull from to help understand ourselves and the people around us. My focus in this series is understanding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
This personality framework helps explain how we perceive (or learn) new information, how we judge (or make decisions with) that information, whether our attitude is introverted or extroverted, and how these processes charge or deplete our internal battery.
I will start this series by explaining how each type indicator (ENTJ, ISFJ, ESTP, etc) is made of several cognitive functions. By the end of this article you should understand how to take a four letter type and translate it into the four corresponding cognitive functions. Then in future articles I will continue to build on this foundation by explaining each cognitive function, how they work together, and why it matters.
The easiest way to understand a four letter personality type starts with the middle two letters, then the first letter, and finally the last letter.
The Second Letter (S/N)
The second letter of a personality type indicates our preferred perceiving function. We all perceive new information through both sensing and intuition but in different ways.
Sensing, represented by the letter ‘S’, focuses on obtaining new information through the body (the five senses, sense of time, direction, space, etc).
iNtuition, represented by the letter ‘N’, focuses on obtaining new information through the mind (logic, abstraction, concepts, etc).
The Third Letter (F/T)
The third letter of a personality type indicates our preferred judging function. We all make decisions through both feeling and thinking but in different ways.
You may have noticed that the perceiving and judging letters of a personality type always point toward one of the first two cognitive functions in the stack. This is because even though we all sense, intuit, feel, and think, we each rely primarily on one perceiving function (sensing or intuition) and one judging function (feeling or thinking). Our primary functions are typically strengths and recharge our internal battery while secondary functions are typically weaknesses and drain our internal battery.
The First Letter (I/E)
The fourth letter of a personality type indicates our attitude type (introvert or extrovert). While we are primarily either an introvert or an extrovert, each of our four cognitive functions is also introverted or extroverted.
We each have two introverted functions and two extroverted functions. This helps explain why each of us feel introverted/extroverted in some situations but not others.
The order of our functions’ attitude-type in our “stack” always alternate, starting with the attitude represented by the first letter of the personality type. For example, an extrovert’s first and third functions are extroverted while the second and fourth are introverted.
Perceiving and judging functions manifest differently depending on whether our attitude is introverted or extroverted. This explains why there are eight total cognitive functions, which are listed at the bottom of this section.
Introverted functions focus inside of the self, while extroverted functions focus outside the self. For example, introverted thinking seeks to process information for the satisfaction of learning and understanding (internal) while extroverted thinking seeks to process information in order to do something with it (external). Introverted thinking can leverage its knowledge, but focuses on the journey. Extroverted thinking can enjoy the journey but focuses on utilizing its knowledge.
List of the eight cognitive functions:
- Introverted Sensing (Si)
- Extroverted Sensing (Se)
- Introverted Intuition (Ni)
- Extroverted Intuition (Ne)
- Introverted Feeling (Fi)
- Extroverted Feeling (Fe)
- Introverted Thinking (Ti)
- Extroverted Thinking (Te)
The first three letters of a Personality Type explain the two primary cognitive functions, but not the secondary functions. In order to understand the secondary functions and their order we need to know the fourth letter and the inverse rule.
The Fourth Letter (P/J)
The fourth letter of a personality type indicates our orientation to the outer world, or which primary function is extroverted. If the letter is ‘J’ then our primary judging function (feeling or thinking) is extroverted. If it is ‘P’ then our primary perceiving function (sensing or intuition) is extroverted. The outer world orientation is important because it represents how others see us show up.
Inverse Rule
Even after understanding all four letters in a type, we still need to know the order of the secondary functions. In order to determine the order of our four cognitive functions we need to understand the inverse rule.
Every function has an an opposite (Ti and Fi), an opposite attitude (Ti and Te), and an inverse (Ti and Fe). Because we need a way to handle a variety of situations in life, our secondary functions are always the inverse of our primary functions. This ensures that we can perceive and judge information both within ourselves (introverted) and in the world around us (extroverted).
Inverse functions are always either the two outer functions (1 and 4) or the two inner functions (2 and 3) in our cognitive stack.
For reference, all inverse functions are listed out here:
- Introverted Sensing (Si) — Extroverted Intuition (Ne)
- Extroverted Sensing (Se) — Introverted Intuition (Ni)
- Introverted Feeling (Fi) — Extroverted Thinking (Te)
- Extroverted Feeling (Fe) — Introverted Thinking (Ti)
Complete the Cognitive Function Stack
Now that we understand the inverse rule and know which primary function is extroverted we have everything we need to order all of the cognitive functions in our stack.
- Place the attitude-type (letter one) in alternating positions in the stack.
2. Use the Outer World Orientation (letter four) to place the corresponding perceiving or judging function in the primary extroverted position.
3. Place whichever perceiving or judging function hasn’t been used yet (letter two or three) in the primary introverted position.
4. Use the inverse rule to place the secondary perceiving and judging functions in the right order.
Summary
In summary, each of us have access to all eight cognitive functions, but a tendency to use four of them in a specific order: one introverted perceiving function, one extroverted perceiving function, one introverted judging function, and one extroverted judging function. The order indicates how comfortable we are with each function and what will charge our internal batteries or leave us feeling exhausted.
Thanks for reading!
