Thinking of how you can FINALLY fulfill your New Year’s resolutions? Then consider using Jungian typology! It’s useful for identifying how your personality type is contributing to your successes and failures. According to Jungian psychology, there are 8 cognitive functions that make up a personality. We use all 8 but each person mainly uses the top 4 preferred functions (Videos about the cognitive functions and personality types are linked at the end of this article).
So far, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has been the best at operationalizing the cognitive functions that comprise our personalities. But as an assessment tool, the MBTI needs to be either updated or replaced with another test that’s more psychometrically sound.
What I want to focus on in this blog entry is Dave Powers’ observation that we fail to achieve our goals (e.g., New Year's resolutions) when we overwork our top 2 functions (“Saviors”) without improving the 3rd and 4th functions (“Demons”). Our demon functions are just as crucial to our success because they balance the saviors. Jungian typology as a framework will not give you a step-by-step process for improving your habits or attitudes. However, it’s helpful for identifying your strengths as well as your blindspots. I’ll use INFJs as an example because I’m most familiar with our type.
INFJ: The Counselor
All INFJs lead with Introverted Intuition (Ni) as a savior function. This means that we INFJs mainly operate by thinking of possible connections among the implications of physical phenomena both past and present. Because we observe our thought patterns all the time, we can often recognize how others’ thinking processes resemble or differ from ours within certain contexts. Seeing the broad strokes of how people think enables us to approximate how they will behave under certain circumstances and how their collective actions will lead to large-scale outcomes. We’re far from perfect at it, but this comes more naturally for us than the other personality types.
Because we lead with Ni, extraverted sensing (Se) becomes our 4th function, thus making Se a demon function for all INFJs. This means that we tend to either disregard physical realities to pursue our goals or overfocus on the present.
A Tale of Two INFJs
Our Ni-visions though are morally neutral. How we judge what is good and true is where INFJs diverge into two groups.
Classic INFJs have Extraverted Feeling (Fe) as a second savior function, making their cognitive stack, Ni-Fe-Ti-Se. Ni-Fe INFJs judge what is valuable by first taking their Ni-visions to other people so that they can get others’ viewpoints about what’s important in what they’re perceiving through Ni. From the stories, reactions, needs, and beliefs of other people, Ni-Fe INFJs will derive principles of how the world works and hold steadfastly onto them, thus making Introverted Thinking (Ti) their demon function.
Healthy Ni-Fe INFJs thrive in building harmonious relationships. They meet people’s needs in highly individualized yet logical and practical ways to achieve their Ni-visions. Unfortunately, people are not good at identifying their true needs and wants because of depravity. So when Ni-Fe INFJs are addicted to Ni-Fe, they try to include and please too many people on those people’s terms no matter how erroneous those terms are. They’re also engrossed with eliciting reactions from others and reacting to the reactions of people, including those who are unworthy of their attention. That’s because addicted Ni-Fe INFJs lack transcendent principles for filtering which people are deserving of their company and their efforts.
Stack jumper INFJs (like me!), on the other hand, have Ti as a second savior function. Our cognitive functions are in the order of Ni-Ti-Fe-Se. Ni-Ti INFJs judge what’s valuable by first taking their Ni-visions through theoretical frameworks to check them for logical consistency. We then use our understanding of where the world is heading to frame people’s stories, reactions, needs, and beliefs so we can improve their lives, thus making Fe our demon function.
Healthy Ni-Ti INFJs fight for truth and reforms. More importantly, we live out the principles that we believe by engaging in acts of service towards others to achieve our Ni-visions even though we will gain neither wealth nor approval. But our own depravity causes addicted Ni-Ti INFJs to cling to falsehoods about the world. Because Ti is presuppositional, one or two faulty premises will make our entire system of dealing with life collapse. Consequently, we become dogmatic even when it comes to gray areas. Our ideas also become irrelevant and downright cruel towards others. Such dysfunctional behaviors will alienate almost everyone. The few ones who will remain with us will be just as toxic as we are, or worse.
In time, both types of unhealthy INFJs will take on the attributes of the dark triad personalities that we’ve let into our lives. The ultimate result will be an out-of-control Se in which unhealthy INFJs will neglect their health and overindulge in sensory pleasures such as overeating, taking illegal drugs, or engaging in sexual immorality.
Getting Your Demons to Save You
To prevent the aforementioned unhealthy loops, INFJs must put themselves in situations that require them to exercise their demon functions in healthy ways. For one, all INFJs must learn to see the present reality for what it is and do what needs to be done about it (Se) instead of constantly daydreaming or worrying (Ni).
Ni-Fe INFJs must take the time to examine their beliefs. They ought to make their worldviews more comprehensive even if they WILL come to conclusions that are not in consensus with the crowd. It’s only when they know what they believe and allow the right worldviews to form their unique identities will they have the courage to set boundaries with people, especially the dark triad personalities who want to mold them into the latter’s image.
We Ni-Ti INFJs must learn from different people in their various circumstances because we don’t have a monopoly on the truth. Seeing the nuances of people’s real situations will allow us to apply principles in ways that are more compassionate. When we build relationships with people because we like them for who they are — and not because we will use them to advance our agenda — they’ll find it easier to unite with us in bringing about positive changes that will benefit them.
The question now is, how do you change yourself? The solutions will vary for every person. But regardless of the personality type, it will start with an awareness of the parts of ourselves that are easy to miss because they come naturally to us. So if you’d like to learn more about YOUR personality type, study the cognitive functions and the 16 personalities using Michael Pierce’s videos below.
The 8 Cognitive Functions
Extraverted Intuition (Ne) vs Introverted Intuition (Ni), Extraverted Sensing (Se) vs Introverted Sensing (Si), Extraverted Feeling (Fe) vs Introverted Feeling (Fi), Extraverted Thinking (Te) vs Introverted Thinking (Ti)
The 16 Personality Types
(Photo by Nicolas Tissot)
Very interesting!