# Functions as "singling out" distinctions of things



## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

Functions as we know them, are what are considered “abstract” rather than “concrete”, as we have been discussing here from time to time. “Concrete and abstract” have become associated with S/N, it seems from Myers and especially Keirsey, and it is understandable why, but the terms are ambiguous used this way, having broader meaning.

Looking over a discussion I had with someone that touches upon this (and it took me time to realize it would answer some of the questions I had on “concretism” as discussed on the forums recently), another way to express the definition of “abstraction” was “*abolishing distinctions among many concrete things in order to focus on what they share in common, which can thereafter be treated as an idea*.”

We can see why this would sound like iNtuition, but it’s really all functions that do this. This is what the functions are; what I’ve been calling “perspective” or “sense of meaning”.
As further described to me, “we don’t see reality, we see what’s important to us, and the rest of it we take for granted. A differentiated function represents the manner in which we prefer to abstract from the whole.”

So this concept of “abstraction” in terms of “_singling out_” then is the key to understanding just what the functions are!

*Sensation* singles out tangible or “at hand” elements

* *




*e* focuses on external, emergent sensations. Aware, by way of literal senses, of exactly what needs to be done in order to exploit the conditions from moment to moment
*i* focuses on an internal storehouse of sensations, what they know through experience to be true, and organizing it in a predictable way through Je.



*iNtuition* singles out “larger pictures”, which are not at hand (and thus, the N process is sometimes called “unconscious”)

* *




*e* focuses on external, emergent elements matching them to a larger picture that gives them meaning
*i* focuses on an internal storehouse of arrangements of elements used to infer what’s left out of patterns



*Thinking* singles out the impersonal, (or "technical") qualities of things

* *




*e* draws upon impersonal aspects of objects as the standard of order
*i* draws upon an internal blueprint of impersonal order



*Feeling* singles out the “personal” or “interpersonal” (I’m trying to collectivize this as “pan-personal” or “humane”) qualities of things, which would include emotions, and often called “feeling-values” (have always thought this common term was too vague).

* *




*e* draws upon personal qualities of objects, such as group values, as the standard of order
*i* draws upon an internal blueprint of personal elements, such as individual or universal values




Concretism marks the undifferentiated forms of the functions, which are expressed as images (the example given me was someone describing themselves as feeling “heavy, slow and inert, like a blob sitting there and getting nowhere”, where the doctor might simply abstract the condition as “burnout”. The latter is one “idea” that can be shared in common by many different people, while what the patients is using an image or metaphor, which has meaning for _her_. This is said to be the language of the psyche (as opposed to the ego).
You cannot always isolate a particular function in such examples, as concretism usually reflect admixtures of functional products. They’re all “mixed up with each other”, hence “undifferentiated”.

This I’m still trying to understand fully.

Jung’s examples:
S: sensuous as opposed to aesthetic sensation
N: fantastic as opposed to symbolic intuition
T: being unable to conceive of anything except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses
F: the inability to discriminate between subjective feeling and the sensed object (I guess like unusual attachment to objects?)

(primitive T/F examples: (F) “the magical influence of the the fetish is not experienced as a subjective state of feeling, but sensed as a magical effect”, (T) men experience objects as divinity. In either case, there is a “projection of inner factors into objective data, produc[ing] an almost superstitious veneration of mere facts”).
So I imagine, when the patient describes feeling slow like a blob, we can’t really single out S, N, T or F. Obviously, sensation is involved, but it’s not really singling out any tangible or at hand element; it’s an image.
It’s mixed up with personal and impersonal aspects of the situation, and perhaps an inferred (non-tangible) “big picture” (pattern) in there somewhere, but you cannot really separate anything into a “use” of S, N, T or F.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

In the definition for abstraction in Psychological Types, Jung says



> Thus, for me, abstraction has the meaning of an energic _depreciation of the object. In other words, abstraction can be expressed as an introverting libido-movement._


which sounds like introverted functions are abstract and extraverted functions are concrete. I don't think abstraction/concretism is necessarily tied to differentiated/undifferentiated. Though I have been pondering this very same question myself.


I think extraverted/concrete functions are inevitably tied to the senses because you are dealing with objects outside the psyche.



Eric B said:


> This I’m still trying to understand fully.
> 
> Jung’s examples:
> S: sensuous as opposed to aesthetic sensation
> ...


Here is an example of Se vs Si / concrete vs abstract that I wrote in another thread:



> Se and Si deal with tangible concrete objects, but Si is an abstraction of that impression. For example a red, juicy apple. Red is concrete and observable by all. 'Juicy' is an abstraction of the concrete object because you cannot literally see, hear, taste, touch, or smell 'juicy' and subject to the individual's experience. Si is still abstract, even though it's concerned with the tangible.




Example from Jung on abstract/aesthetic sensation:




> Abstract sensation, on the other hand, immediately picks out the most salient sensuous attribute of the flower, as for instance its brilliant redness, and makes it the sole or at least the principal content of consciousness, entirely detached from all the other admixtures alluded to above.




Fantastic intuition is imaginative. Ne and their "What-if's". A good example of Ni and symbolic intuition is:




> _In another account of the same case, Jung mentions "a young woman about 27 or 28" who informed him during her initial analytic session that she had a __snake__ in her __belly__: "Her first words were when I had seated her, 'You know, doctor, I come to you because I have a __snake__ in my abdomen.'" Jung exclaimed: "What?!" The woman replied: "'Yes, a __snake__, a black __snake__ coiled up right in the bottom of my abdomen.'" According to Jung, "I must have made a rather bewildered face at her, for she said, 'You know, I don't mean it literally, but I should say it was a __snake__, a__snake__.'" In the middle of her analysis, "which lasted only for ten consultations," the woman told Jung that she had predicted how the analysis would conclude: "'I'll come ten times, and then it will be all right.'" How, Jung asked, did she know? "'Oh,'" she said, "'I've got a hunch.'" When the woman appeared for her fifth or sixth session, she said, 'Oh, doctor, I must tell you, the __snake__ has risen, it is now about here'" (1977: 309). When she appeared for her tenth session, Jung inquired: "'Now this is our last consultation. Do you feel cured?'" (1977: 309-10). The woman said: "'You know, this morning it came up, it came out of my mouth, and the head was golden'" (1977: 310)_







> T: being unable to conceive of anything except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses


This sounds like Te and evidence based reasoning to me.





> F: the inability to discriminate between subjective feeling and the sensed object




My ENFJ girlfriend, when getting emotional, will examine those feelings and judge whether her feelings are justified or irrational as compared to what is socially acceptable. I think in this case, object does not mean a tangible thing in the colloquial sense, but as a thing that exists outside the subject and thus could be something intangible like social values.


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

PaladinX said:


> In the definition for abstraction in Psychological Types, Jung says
> 
> _Thus, for me, abstraction has the meaning of an energic __depreciation of the object. In other words, abstraction can be expressed as an introverting libido-movement.
> _
> ...


That's what I thought at first as well, but it seems at this point, Jung is being very ambiguous. Like "rational" in "Abstract thinking singles out the _rational_, logical qualities". Here's he's using "rational" in the common way, to refer to T products, but in his theory, "rational is supposed to be what we call "judging", and thus comprise both T and F.

This I think is why Jung is so hard to digest. A term always tends to mean something else.
While Chapter 10 is familiarly published, I'm not finding Chapter 11, where this portion of his work comes from, so apparently, people who really know a lot of Jung have pointed out that in the larger context, "abstracting" involves "abolishing distinctions...in order to focus on what [things] share in common" and then "subtracting what is irrelevant", so this is an "introverted movement", but it doesn't necessarily indicate the introversion of _the function_ itself. The function itself is an introverted movement, as the ego is internally doing something through it. 

Likewise, concretistic functions are bound to the senses in a way that goes beyond an external reference point (which is what extraversion of the function is about), but as I had pointed out, expressed through concrete means, such as imagery, rather than any cognitive interpretation of the data being done.


> Here is an example of Se vs Si / concrete vs abstract that I wrote in another thread:
> _Se and Si deal with tangible concrete objects, but Si is an abstraction of that impression. For example a red, juicy apple. Red is concrete and observable by all. 'Juicy' is an abstraction of the concrete object because you cannot literally see, hear, taste, touch, or smell 'juicy' and subject to the individual's experience. Si is still abstract, even though it's concerned with the tangible._


 Actually, from what I was told, "red" is an abstraction! "Anything can be red. Redness is an idea". You've abstracted that property from all sorts of fruits (juiciness too). And from another source, I heard red could be seen as more of a Thinking "category".



> Example from Jung on abstract/aesthetic sensation:
> _Abstract sensation, on the other hand, immediately picks out the most salient sensuous attribute of the flower, as for instance its brilliant redness, and makes it the sole or at least the principal content of consciousness, entirely detached from all the other admixtures alluded to above._


 That is not particularly introverted Sensing. Extraverted Sensing does that too. This is proof that abstraction is not introversion of the function here.




> This sounds like Te and evidence based reasoning to me.


 No, Te is not "_unable_ to conceive of _anything_ except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses". This is clearly an undeveloped function being described.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

@_Eric B_

Can you please cite the source for the following:

"Abstract thinking singles out the rational, logical qualities"
"being unable to conceive of anything except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses"

I would like to read them in context.



Eric B said:


> This I think is why Jung is so hard to digest. A term always tends to mean something else.
> While Chapter 10 is familiarly published, I'm not finding Chapter 11, where this portion of his work comes from, so apparently, people who really know a lot of Jung have pointed out that in the larger context, "abstracting" involves "abolishing distinctions...in order to focus on what [things] share in common" and then "subtracting what is irrelevant", so this is an "introverted movement", but it doesn't necessarily indicate the introversion of _the function_ itself. The function itself is an introverted movement, as the ego is internally doing something through it.


There is no Chapter 11. What are you referring to? After Chapter 10, there are definitions, then there are 4 papers on Psychological Types in Vol 6 of the Collected Works (Psychological Types).



> Actually, from what I was told, "red" is an abstraction! [/COLOR]"Anything can be red. Redness is an idea". You've abstracted that property from all sorts of fruits (juiciness too). And from another source, I heard red could be seen as more of a Thinking "category".



Interesting! I'll have to think on that. This distinction lends itself to my original understanding based on relating Se to the noun and Si to the adjective.




> That is not particularly introverted Sensing. Extraverted Sensing does that too. This is proof that abstraction is not introversion of the function here.


I'll post the whole definition to provide more context:




> *Sensation*
> 
> According to my conception, this is one of the basic psychological functions (_v._ Function). Wundt also reckons sensation among the elementary psychic phenomena [65].
> 
> ...


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

PaladinX said:


> @_Eric B_
> 
> Can you please cite the source for the following:
> 
> ...


 I wanted to read the context too. I got the quotes from @Naama (over on TypoC not too long ago, but we had discussed this here too, earlier), and I saw somewhere a reference to "Chapter XI", but now the copied citation I'm looking at says "Definitions CW 6 Par 697-9", which is most likely what was being called "Chapter XI"


> I'll post the whole definition to provide more context:


 And I see in there "abstract" associated with "differentiation", and "concrete" associated with "undifferentiation" (e.g. "primordial")!


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Just as a point of clarification, I own the _Collected Works_ edition of Psychological Types, and the definitions are "Chapter XI" in that version.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Eric B said:


> I wanted to read the context too. I got the quotes from @_Naama_ (over on TypoC not too long ago, but we had discussed this here too, earlier), and I saw somewhere a reference to "Chapter XI", but now the copied citation I'm looking at says "Definitions CW 6 Par 697-9", which is most likely what was being called "Chapter XI"


I'll look it up when I get home from work (I have a copy of CW6). Otherwise here are the definitions:

Psychological Types - Wikisocion

ToC: Psychological Types - Wikisocion



> And I see in there "abstract" associated with "differentiation", and "concrete" associated with "undifferentiation" (e.g. "primordial")!


I will think on this more...


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## nonnaci (Sep 25, 2011)

Jungian therapy jungian analysis new york Abstraction

Moreover,


> I visualize the process of abstraction as a withdrawal of libido from the object, as a backflow of value from the object into a subjective, abstract content. For me, therefore, abstraction amounts to an energic_devaluation of the object. In other words, abstraction is an introverting movement of libido.[Ibid, par. 679.]
> _


Differentiation
http://www.jungny.com/lexicon.jungian.therapy.analysis/carl.jung.78.html

Concretism
http://www.jungny.com/lexicon.jungian.therapy.analysis/carl.jung.68.html


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## Dastan (Sep 28, 2011)

Eric B said:


> We can see why this would sound like iNtuition, but it’s really all functions that do this. This is what the functions are; what I’ve been calling “perspective” or “sense of meaning”.
> As further described to me, “we don’t see reality, we see what’s important to us, and the rest of it we take for granted. A differentiated function represents the manner in which we prefer to abstract from the whole.”
> 
> So this concept of “abstraction” in terms of “_singling out_” then is the key to understanding just what the functions are!


Do you mean that the act/process of "singling out" something relevant to a function (or to some principle) is the *essence* of a function? I thought the sensing function for example is primarily the actual activity/process of sense perception and the thinking function the activity of thinking (deduce, define...) and so on. There are these processes of abstraction that identify relevant information for a type or function. For example the dominant thinking type:
Processes that identify logical units that make thinking possible. But I don't think that they always* are* the thinking function or the *core* of it. Maybe it is more like a special orientation/adaption of the perceiving functions for the purpose of thinking. Especially because this thinking is *conscious* and the process that provides logical units (for example: identify physical objects, words and sentences in texts, facts, geometrical patterns...) can be* unconsious*. When someone begins to think the abstraction (preparation for thinking) can already be done. Yeah, a thinker may focus on impersonal, technical data but I don't think the thought function itself does primarily focus on something, but rather "just thinks". Of course focusing on and searching for impersonal data can also be an conscious thought activity, but really the *essence*?

The same for feeling: Feelers may have a specialized intuition and sensation that looks for things that are related to values, society, persons, aesthetic impressions and so on.

Sensing and intuition may be identical with the process of providing relevant information "for them", because this is just what they do - provide information.

Sorry if I understand your words in a too directly manner!


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

Dastan said:


> Do you mean that the act/process of "singling out" something relevant to a function (or to some principle) is the *essence* of a function?


Well, yes, for what makes Sensing Sensing and not iNtuition (or thinking, or Feeling)? It's the data being singled out. S singles out what's "at hand", or "tangible". (Even if introverted, it still references a storehouse of things that were at least _once_ at hand). N is about a "bigger picture", or what Jung termed what it means". This is intangible.


So it's like the root distinction I was making between Thinking and Feeling. 
Thinking: impersonal, Feeling: personal (meaning either individual, or also interpersonal, so I call it "pan-personal").
So S: tangible, and N: intangible


tangible/intangible is the means of observation or nature of the data being gathered (perception)
personal/impersonal is the means of assessment or nature of the elements being ordered (judgment)


An analogy I came up with for the difference between personal and impersonal is that you might love your little child or pet, and never harm them, right? That's the personal aspect of you. However, you trip and fall and crush them, that's the impersonal aspect. Your body is still a physical object that obeys the law of gravity regardless on the effect on another living being that you might be emotionally connected to.
And when the person asks "why", one answer would simply be "that's the law of gravity; it is what is it", which is the tangible or empirical dynamic at hand. Another may try to add some meaning to it, like "God allowed it to happen for a good purpose" Or another religion might talk about "Karma". This is totally intangible, and cannot be seen at hand, and has no empirical basis (some who defend some of those religious philosophies might try an [faux] empirical approach, and it always ends up being personal experience or "testimonial" hearsay. This was the type of discussion I was trying to raise here: http://personalitycafe.com/critical...perspectives-faith-how-they-fit-universe.html). 

It's just an "organizing model to *make sense* of it" so you don't have to concentrate on every single detail without knowing where to "put it". 
S draws from the environment itself (whether directly from the outside, or from a "storehouse" inside), while N's "reservoir" is a conceptual model that things fit into. (I'm thinking you could say Ne uses the "blueprints" of Ti or Fi, while Ni will have its own blueprint, and use Te or Fe to carry it out).


So this gives an idea of the division of reality into the S/N/T/F perspectives. This of course doesn't tell us about type, which is determined by a preference for one kind of observation and one kind of assessment.


For the undifferentiated or concretistic form, the easiest for me to imagine is an S dom. with the other three undifferentiated. So he can tell us how it is, but then when thinking of a meaning behind it, come up with something totally ridiculous, like gravity is caused by angels pushing objects down, and God could have ordered them to not push him down that time, but wanted to teach him how it felt when He sacrificed His Son. (There are teachings in parts of the church that come close to this!) He would not be able to extend logical principle to the situation. And they would be so certain this was infallible truth, rather than subjective.
I'm still trying to separate the undifferentated form of each function, but if I'm not doing a good job of that, that's good, because remember, the undifferentiated functions are all mixed up together and don't really operate one at a time. So that should give us a close enough idea.




> I thought the sensing function for example is primarily the actual activity/process of sense perception and the thinking function the activity of thinking (deduce, define...) and so on. There are these processes of abstraction that identify relevant information for a type or function. For example the dominant thinking type:
> Processes that identify logical units that make thinking possible. But I don't think that they always* are* the thinking function or the *core* of it. Maybe it is more like a special orientation/adaption of the perceiving functions for the purpose of thinking. Especially because this thinking is *conscious* and the process that provides logical units (for example: identify physical objects, words and sentences in texts, facts, geometrical patterns...) can be* unconsious*. When someone begins to think the abstraction (preparation for thinking) can already be done. Yeah, a thinker may focus on impersonal, technical data but I don't think the thought function itself does primarily focus on something, but rather "just thinks". Of course focusing on and searching for impersonal data can also be an conscious thought activity, but really the *essence*?
> 
> The same for feeling: Feelers may have a specialized intuition and sensation that looks for things that are related to values, society, persons, aesthetic impressions and so on.
> ...


 The Sensing function isn't simply "sensation" in the general sense, and the Thinking function isn't "thinking" in the general sense. Everyone does those things, and animals, since they have sensation but not intuition would then be by definition, Sensing types. But they aren't. The functions go beyond those literal processes (thought they were named after them). They _interpret_ them. As I was told, "They represent the different ways the psyche brings our unconscious emotional subsystems into relationship with our higher mental operations". When they haven't been abstracted, they're acting in concert with one's emotional responses to life.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Eric B said:


> That's what I thought at first as well, but it seems at this point, Jung is being very ambiguous. Like "rational" in "Abstract thinking singles out the _rational_, logical qualities". Here's he's using "rational" in the common way, to refer to T products, but in his theory, "rational is supposed to be what we call "judging", and thus comprise both T and F.


Can you please elaborate on how the following quote is ambiguous?



> _Thus, for me, abstraction has the meaning of an energic __depreciation of the object. In other words, abstraction can be expressed as an introverting libido-movement._


Whole quote for context:

Psychological Types - Wikisocion


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

I guess what's ambiguous is the snippets we quote, but the larger context makes it less ambiguous. 
Like the next sentence clarifies it:
"I call an _*attitude* _(v. Attitude)_ abstracting _when it is both introverting and at the same time assimilates to already prepared abstract contents in the subject a certain essential portion of the object". 

So "abstracting" in that context is talking about specifically about attitude; not that _all_ abstracting is about attitude, so that abstract is contiguous with introversion.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Eric B said:


> I guess what's ambiguous is the snippets we quote, but the larger context makes it less ambiguous.
> Like the next sentence clarifies it:
> "I call an _*attitude* _(v. Attitude)_ abstracting _when it is both introverting and at the same time assimilates to already prepared abstract contents in the subject a certain essential portion of the object".
> 
> So "abstracting" in that context is talking about specifically about attitude; not that _all_ abstracting is about attitude, so that abstract is contiguous with introversion.


And how does that differ from your meaning of abstraction and differentiation?


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

The meaning I was using was what makes each function (whether introverted or extraverted) distinct from each other.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Eric B said:


> The meaning I was using was what makes each function (whether introverted or extraverted) distinct from each other.


Just to clear up my own confusion... Do you still think that abstraction applies to both introversion and extraversion or just introversion?


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

If you're talking about "attitude", then it refers to introversion. If you're talking about function differentiation, it refers to the functions in general, regardless of introversion or extraversion. So if either attitude of the function is differentiated, then it is abstracting in that latter sense


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Eric B said:


> If you're talking about "attitude", then it refers to introversion. If you're talking about function differentiation, it refers to the functions in general, regardless of introversion or extraversion. So if either attitude of the function is differentiated, then it is abstracting in that latter sense


And what do you mean by "attitude"?

EDIT- Sorry for all the questions, I am trying to avoid assumptions.


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

"attitude" is *i/e* aka internal or external "orientation" of the function.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Eric B said:


> "attitude" is *i/e* aka internal or external "orientation" of the function.


What if attitude could mean Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, or Intuition?



> Au fond, the attitude is an individual phenomenon and is inaccessible to the scientific method of approach. In actual experience, however, certain attitude-types can be discriminated in so far as certain psychic functions can also be differentiated. *When a function habitually predominates, a typical attitude is thereby produced. In accordance with the nature of the differentiated function, constellations of contents take place which create a corresponding attitude. Thus there exist a typical thinking, a feeling, a sensational, and an intuitive attitude.* Besides these purely psychological attitude-types, whose number might possibly be increased, there are also social types, namely, those for whom a collective idea expresses the brand. They are characterized by the various '-isms'. These collective attitudes are, at all events, very important in certain cases, even outweighing in significance the purely individual attitude.


Link: Psychological Types - Wikisocion

Could that not therefore mean that abstraction is related to introversion of functions?


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## Eric B (Jun 18, 2010)

No, once again, more ambiguous terms:



> For us, attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or to react in a *certain direction*.
> 
> Whether the attitude's objective be *conscious or unconscious* [other ambiguous terms that can apply to extraversion and introversion] is immaterial to its selective effect, since the choice is already given a priori through the attitude, and therefore follows automatically. It is useful, however, to distinguish between conscious and unconscious, since the presence of *two* attitudes is extremely frequent, the one conscious and the other unconscious. Which means to say that the conscious has a preparedness of contents different from that of the unconscious. This *duality* of attitude is particularly evident in neurosis.
> 
> ...


So this is like when we refer to the eight Xy combinations as "function-attitudes". So for short, we can say "the attitudes", but "attitude" clearly refers to "y" (i/e), not X (S/N/T/F).


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