When you ask someone for their MBTI, they’d likely reply “I’m an ISTJ!” or “I’m definitely an INFP!”. Most often, people can cite their MBTI, but most fail to understand what MBTI truly is and its place in the universe of psychological sciences.
But bro, what’s an MBTI? Can eat one?
No, the MBTI is definitely not edible. MBTI stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Originally conceived by the mother-and-daughter pair Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers in the early 20th century, it was an attempt to classify personalities into distinct groups based on how they perceive and react based on extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Whilst the system may seem accurate and reflective of real-world personalities and behaviours, it is ultimately a pseudoscience and not based nor is proven by scientific evidence and research.
Half the Story
Most people view MBTI as a four-letter code describing themselves like in the picture above. These four letters usually take on a dichotomous or binary nature in the form and order of:
- Extrovert or Introvert
- iNtuitive or Sensing
- Thinking or Feeling
- Perceiving or Judging
For most, the classification ends here. Upon further perusal of the system however, one can see that this is simply the tip of the iceberg. Before we dive in, let us pay a visit to the father of typology, Dr. Carl Jung.
Cognitive Functions
It is a known fact that the MBTI was Katharine’s and Isabel’s brainchild, but the idea was actually inspired by Jung. In 1921, Jung and Rascher Verlag published a German book named Psychological Types (or the Psychologische Typen). This book
“sprang originally out of [his] need to define the ways in which [his] outlook differed from Freud’s and Adler’s”
Arguably his magnum opus, the book proposed the existence of cognitive functions which existed in one’s consciousness, namely two perceiving or non-rational functions: Sensation and Intuition and two judging or rational functions: Thinking and Feeling, with each cognitive function possessing a “direction” or “attitude”: either Extraversion or Introversion.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI was influenced by Jung’s theory of cognitive functions, and in some instances drew on the notion of cognitive functions playing different roles in one’s psyche. Whereas the surface-level interpretation of the MBTI has 4 simple letters, the true potential of the MBTI has eight.
So what are they?
Realising this isn’t a simple linear this-or-that framework, we can now explore the true MBTI.
Cognitive functions in MBTI can be defined by two letters:
- The function in accordance with the “simple” MBTI (Thinking is T, Feeling is F, Sensing is S, Intuition is N, all in block letters)
- The nature of the function (introverted or extraverted as i or e in small letters) proceeding the function name itself.
As we can see, the functions really are quite simple. Thinking and Feeling are judging functions, which represent how we “judge” or evaluate in our cognitive psyche:
- People with dominant “Feeling” tend to value feelings, emotions, and moral values more than rational thought and logic. People with “Fi” would then prioritise their moral compasses and emotions (which are internal) over external code of ethics, or the atmospherical emotions around them (which are external), and likewise with “Fe” when evaluating
- Conversely, dominant “Thinking” users tend to value logic and hard facts over emotion. “Ti” naturally means that internal logic and thought processes are valued, whilst “Te” means that external rules, codes, and laws tend to be prioritised when evaluating.
Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, and people tend to react and change over different environmental stimuli and upbringing, and this inconsistency is precisely why MBTI is considered a “pseudoscience”. Not all Fi users are emotional for example, and not all Te users are upright or overly law-abiding.
Intuition and Sensation are the perceiving functions that people use. They “describe” how people perceive the world and their environment.
3. Dominant “Sensors” are sublime at seeing the physical world. They tend to view their surroundings at face value (an extreme description definitely) and seeing things as they really are. “Si” users usually recall details best and are good at memorisation (which can be phrased as “seeing internally” in a sense). “Se” users are naturally good at perceiving the external world physically there-and-then, and usually live in the moment (some tend to be good at sports too).
4. Dominant “Intuition” users tend to view the world through abstract thoughts and concepts. They tend to excel at understanding complex topics through boiling it down to a few key points and insights, and sometimes cannot explain their intuition. “Ni” would then refer to users that are able to use their insight and conceptual knowledge to “converge” (“introverted” can mean “inward” or “converge” here weirdly) into a singular insight (or “predict” or “extrapolate” as the Machine Learning practitioners would say). “Ne” users are good at brainstorming from a singular concept (or “widening” or “extraverted expansion”) and are usually spontaneous in their ideas.
Now that all the cognitive functions have been explained (which was a doozy), we shall move on to how these functions can be pieced together to form a complete MBTI, as well as some considerable modifications alongside Jung’s theory of the mind in the next article.