# Is this an Si dom thing? Or an intuitive thing?



## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> Exactly. The other stereotype I hate is the one about Si being a "rules and traditions" function. That one doesn't even make sense. If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting. Since Si is an introverted function it's more about personal, subjective experience.
> 
> Is it only SJs and NPs who experience the "take me back" thing in response to sensory stimuli, or do NJs and SPS have it too, but just downplay it since they prefer Se?


In response to that last question, I have to forcibly reconstruct sensory experiences if I'm going to, except auditory (I received extensive auditory training as a child), and even then it's simply objective, remembering how a song sounds with its exact notes and tonal quality as much as possible. I don't naturally turn to these for memory - I most readily recall things in terms of concepts or overall ideas, generalities, reproducing details from that standpoint, with little to no sensory focus.


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## Jewl (Feb 28, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> Exactly. The other stereotype I hate is the one about Si being a "rules and traditions" function. That one doesn't even make sense. If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting. Since Si is an introverted function it's more about personal, subjective experience.
> 
> Is it only SJs and NPs who experience the "take me back" thing in response to sensory stimuli, or do NJs and SPS have it too, but just downplay it since they prefer Se?


It's part of being human to have the "take me back" response to sensory stimuli. Over time we do look at life through our "subjective lens" -- our experiences and memories. We relive moments and are hit by a massive wave of nostalgia. We feel the emotions we felt then. The difference for Si-users is when they relive memories, they remember the subjective "feeling" (I hesitate to use that word but the English language is failing me at the moment), the way they experienced that moment. "_I _saw." If a Se-user were to relive a memory, you would notice how focused the Se-user would be on objects. 

From this people make a nasty stereotype. Si becomes a stubborn function, bent on not trying out new things. Young people especially begin typing adults as Si doms or auxs because adults are seen comparing _now _with _then_. However, to do so is actually human, not Si. Or any Sensing function for that matter. And I also see this as a generational difference. 

Humans are stubborn and humans like experience what they are comfortable with experiencing, whether that means always doing something new or doing one familiar thing over and over again or what have you. This should not be attributed to a certain function.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

Julia Bell said:


> It's part of being human to have the "take me back" response to sensory stimuli. Over time we do look at life through our "subjective lens" -- our experiences and memories. We relive moments and are hit by a massive wave of nostalgia. We feel the emotions we felt then. The difference for Si-users is when they relive memories, they remember the subjective "feeling" (I hesitate to use that word but the English language is failing me at the moment), the way they experienced that moment. "_I _saw." If a Se-user were to relive a memory, you would notice how focused the Se-user would be on objects.
> 
> From this people make a nasty stereotype. Si becomes a stubborn function, bent on not trying out new things. Young people especially begin typing adults as Si doms or auxs because adults are seen comparing _now _with _then_. However, to do so is actually human, not Si. Or any Sensing function for that matter. And I also see this as a generational difference.
> 
> Humans are stubborn and humans like experience what they are comfortable with experiencing, whether that means always doing something new or doing one familiar thing over and over again or what have you. This should not be attributed to a certain function.


Very wise words. It's all too easy to say you're an intuitive and blame your _supposedly_ SJ parents, or SJs in general, for all your frustrations over authority figures not allowing you to do what you want. I think Keirsey's theory doesn't help, since he classifies SJs as traditionalists, so they've become an easy target. Then I think there are people who want to use typology as an excuse, or as a label to classify themselves as part of the "cool" crowd. Those stereotypes don't help those of us who genuinely want to find our type, and it's made me reluctant to call myself an intuitive in case that makes people think I'm one of the sensor haters.

I like your point about people sticking with what makes them feel comfortable and, as you said, constantly trying new things can be a way of staying in your comfort zone if that's what you're comfortable with.


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## wisterias (Jul 15, 2012)

Probably Not said:


> In response to that last question, I have to forcibly reconstruct sensory experiences if I'm going to, except auditory (I received extensive auditory training as a child), and even then it's simply objective, remembering how a song sounds with its exact notes and tonal quality as much as possible. I don't naturally turn to these for memory - I most readily recall things in terms of concepts or overall ideas, generalities, reproducing details from that standpoint, with little to no sensory focus.


Same thing as this ^

When I experience something, anything.. I remember the concept of what happened, what it means, what's significant about the event, and then I (literally) discard the sensory data. It's pretty barebones. Reconstructing is a good term for what happens when I want to recall a sensory experience because it's like I re-create the event in my head based on what I remember of what happened (the things I mentioned above) -- it's generally not entirely accurate either, there's always something off.

As for Si being the memory function, it's a silly stereotype - taking what Jung said about reliving experiences by internalizing them to mean memory, and then extrapolating this (and losing the originally intended meaning) to mean 'Si users have great memories'.


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## Helios (May 30, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> Exactly. The other stereotype I hate is the one about Si being a "rules and traditions" function. That one doesn't even make sense. If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting. Since Si is an introverted function it's more about personal, subjective experience.
> 
> Is it only SJs and NPs who experience the "take me back" thing in response to sensory stimuli, or do NJs and SPS have it too, but just downplay it since they prefer Se?


Hmmmm. When I recall sensory experiences it's not very subjective and it's very fragmented rather than whole. It's like looking at a photograph of poor quality- certain parts stick out and are more prominent than others while the rest remains an unintelligible blur. Most of these memories are tied to some sort of thought or emotion if anything, and those are the parts that really stand out in my mind. It's not so much the sight, taste, sound, or smell, that I focus on when remembering something, but whatever idea I attached to it.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> *The other stereotype I hate is the one about Si being a "rules and traditions" function.* That one doesn't even make sense. *If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting.* Since Si is an introverted function it's more about personal, subjective experience.





Octavarium said:


> I think the best way to get away from the stereotypes would be for people to stop writing type descriptions altogether. After all, they're just inferences of what a person with a particular cognitive makeup should look like, based on someone's narrow interpretation of the type. Take this, for example. (from ISTJ Relationships)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


On the one hand, I'd agree that the portion of that ISTJ description you quoted (from the other thread) sounds somewhat cartoonish and over-the-top. But, on the other hand, I can't resist pointing out the irony involved in you disapproving the description primarily on the grounds that it contradicts Jung's conception of introversion — because, when it comes to cartoonish over-the-topness, Personality Page cannot hope to compete with Jung's description of Si-doms. To Jung, Si-doms were awkward, touchy eccentrics who inhabited "a mythological world, where men, animals, railways, houses, rivers, and mountains appear partly as benevolent deities and partly as malevolent demons." Jung said that an Si-dom "has an illusory conception of reality," and that the relation between the real world and the Si-dom's perceptions of it is "unpredictable and arbitrary." Both because of that and because the Si-dom's thinking and feeling are either unconscious or "have at their disposal only the most necessary, banal, everyday means of expression," Jung said an Si-dom was typically unable to really communicate his views to the world in understandable ways — and that he typically "fares no better in understanding himself." Jung said the main hope for an Si-dom to be able to communicate was through art — in which case others would be able to get a glimpse of the Si-dom's soul, but it would also be "strikingly clear" how "irrational" the Si-dom's perspectives were. But, alas, Jung also noted that most Si-doms were _not_ artistic — with the result that, "as a rule, [the Si-dom] resigns himself to his isolation." Not surprisingly, Jung concluded that, from the standpoint of achieving practical, real-world results, Si-doms (along with Ni-doms) were "the most useless of men."

Meanwhile, returning to planet Earth, and to the issue of introversion and tradition.... If you're living somewhere where the people most temperamentally inclined to be traditional/conservative don't include plenty of introverts, it sounds like a different country from the one I inhabit.

As I understand it, both MBTI and Big Five studies have pretty consistently found that an S preference (or, in Big Five terms, being low on Openness to Experience) is the personality dimension that makes the biggest contribution to a tendency to be traditional/conservative, with a J preference (Conscientiousness, in Big Five terms) making a smaller contribution — with the result that, on average, SJs tend to be the types most likely to strongly value established traditions of various kinds.

I'm not aware of any studies showing that extraverts tend to be significantly more traditional than introverts — or ES_Js more traditional than IS_Js. Are you? McCrae and Costa (two of the leading Big Five psychologists) long ago noted that "Jung's descriptions of what might be considered superficial but objectively observable characteristics often include traits that do not empirically covary. Jung described extraverts as 'open, sociable, jovial, or at least friendly and approachable characters,' ... but also as morally conventional. ... Decades of research on the dimension of extraversion show that these attributes simply do not cohere in a single factor."

And similarly, it appears that the MBTI data has pretty well established that there's _no meaningful correlation_ between extraversion and being traditional. Since 1977, for example, the S/N items on the primary official MBTI instrument (first Form G, and then Form M) have included "In doing something that many other people do, does it appeal to you more to (a) do it in the accepted way, or (b) invent a way of your own?" The items that Myers put on Form G in 1977 were chosen from a list of over 2,000 items based on their statistical reliability in terms of how they clustered with the other items for the applicable dimension. And the items that were carried over unchanged from Form G to Form M (in 1998) survived the revision based on further analysis of more than 20 years of additional data. And here's the thing: There is _no significant correlation_ between the E/I and S/N dimensions on the official MBTI, which means there's now a very large body of test results demonstrating that an extravert is no more likely to favor doing things "in the accepted way" than an introvert.

Meanwhile, the more recent "Step II" version of the MBTI breaks each of the four dichotomies into five subscales. One of the S/N subscales is specifically labeled "Traditional" vs. "Original" (I am not making this up); the three descriptive phrases that are used to encapsulate Traditional in the Step II reports are "conventional," "customary" and "tried-and-true"; and the five longer bullet points include "Admire and support established institutions and methods" and "Enjoy participating in traditions at work and at home." And as I understand it, as with the Step I test items, these subscales (and their associated items) were created based on extensive testing and analysis in terms of which responses did _and didn't_ correlate with other responses. "Traditional" is a subscale of S/N because the people who choose the traditional side of the applicable test items are largely S's and not N's — and, at the same time, _are not significantly more likely to be extraverts than introverts_.

You say anyone who'd describe an Si-dom as tradition-oriented would have to be someone who "can't even be bothered to learn the functions properly" — but most of the leading _function-centric_ MBTI theorists include the traditional streak in their descriptions of Si-doms. Naomi Quenk, for example, notes that Si-doms "are typically seen as ... dedicated to preserving traditional values and time-honored institutions." Linda Berens incorporates Keirsey's four temperament groups into her type analysis and notes that all the SJ types (introverted and extraverted alike) tend to be "traditional." And Lenore Thomson notes that ISFJs "can become overly dependent on others' ideas about what's appropriate in a situation, especially if those ideas coincide with their own ideas about integrity and commitment. For example, they may find it difficult to approve of those who don't behave or dress appropriately for their social position. Extreme types can place a great deal of weight on social signs and signals of all sorts. Like ISTJs, they may believe that men and women should comport themselves quite differently from each other." (So... if you end up sending a critical email to Personality Page, you might want to at least cc Ms. Thomson, if not Quenk and Berens as well.)

It's true that Jung said extraverts were more likely to adopt the "generally accepted values" of their time — but, of course, Jung never did any studies. And it's also worth noting that Jung assigned what's arguably the lion's share of the modern conception of S/N (the concrete/abstract duality) to E/I, with the result that, when Jung looked out at the world and spotted what he thought was a definite "extravert," he was presumably more often looking at what we'd consider an ES than an EN — and, conversely, the more individualistic "introverts" he spotted were presumably more often INs than ISs.

Jung broke with Freud in large part because he thought Freud wanted him (and others) to treat Freud's theories as a kind of religion, rather than having an appropriately sceptical and open-minded scientific attitude toward them. So, to the extent that you're inclined to ignore much of the personality research that's been done over the past 50 years — not to mention most of the leading MBTI theorists, both dichotomy-centric and function-centric — and treat Psychological Types as some kind of sacred gospel, I would respectfully suggest that, if he were alive today, Jung would probably not approve.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

The Internet is a component of the real world, you are talking to real people, and I actually think that the people who DON'T recognize that are the ones who have a screw loose. True, people may maintain false identities, exaggerate or underplay their qualities, or show a side of themselves that they usually keep inside their head except with close friends or family, but these are people who you are talking to. 

I however do not imagine we're sitting in rooms or anything like that. I do recognize, though, that people are sitting in some room, somewhere, I rarely lose sight of the fact that I'm talking to real humans, but that might just be an F thing.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

reckful said:


> On the one hand, I'd agree that the portion of that ISTJ description you quoted (from the other thread) sounds somewhat cartoonish and over-the-top. But, on the other hand, I can't resist pointing out the irony involved in you disapproving the description primarily on the grounds that it contradicts Jung's conception of introversion — because, when it comes to cartoonish over-the-topness, Personality Page cannot hope to compete with Jung's description of Si-doms. To Jung, Si-doms were awkward, touchy eccentrics who inhabited "a mythological world, where men, animals, railways, houses, rivers, and mountains appear partly as benevolent deities and partly as malevolent demons." Jung said that an Si-dom "has an illusory conception of reality," and that the relation between the real world and the Si-dom's perceptions of it is "unpredictable and arbitrary." Both because of that and because the Si-dom's thinking and feeling are either unconscious or "have at their disposal only the most necessary, banal, everyday means of expression," Jung said an Si-dom was typically unable to really communicate his views to the world in understandable ways — and that he typically "fares no better in understanding himself." Jung said the main hope for an Si-dom to be able to communicate was through art — in which case others would be able to get a glimpse of the Si-dom's soul, but it would also be "strikingly clear" how "irrational" the Si-dom's perspectives were. But, alas, Jung also noted that most Si-doms were _not_ artistic — with the result that, "as a rule, [the Si-dom] resigns himself to his isolation." Not surprisingly, Jung concluded that, from the standpoint of achieving practical, real-world results, Si-doms (along with Ni-doms) were "the most useless of men."
> 
> Meanwhile, returning to planet Earth, and to the issue of introversion and tradition.... If you're living somewhere where the people most temperamentally inclined to be traditional/conservative don't include plenty of introverts, it sounds like a different country from the one I inhabit.
> 
> ...


Dude, I think I've known like three Si doms who were awkward, touchy eccentrics, so I'm really down with Jung. Between my grandfather, @_JTG1984_, and this old guy I know from my prior roommate situation, I would say that it's pretty accurate. They like things to be a certain way, and if things are not that way, they may become upset. I think superficially Si and Fi share some outward manifestation of characteristics, because of these deep personal preferences. Fi says that life must be humanely congruent to me, and Si says that life has to be this way (familiar to my existing storehouse of data), and superficially they kind of look like these subjective personal preferences for ME MINE MY WAY. Of course Fi is a judging function, though, and is concerned with ethics and feeling tones, while Si is a perceiving function, simply observing the world through a personalized sensory lens.

I think that Si types do tend want to preserve tradition...their own tradition. And if an ESFJs parents are liberal atheist hippies, it's doubtful he'll rise up and become an evangelical Christian and a rabid conservative just by virtue of being SJ. It's much more likely that he's going to adopt, for example, his mother's liberal values, and his father's way of doing things, and so forth, rather than becoming some ideal of mainstream conservative. Do you follow me? So yes, they are preserving things as they were, but that doesn't automatically translate into what most people would call conservative, necessarily, in the political sense.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

Possibly said:


> Same thing as this ^
> 
> When I experience something, anything.. I remember the concept of what happened, what it means, what's significant about the event, and then I (literally) discard the sensory data. It's pretty barebones. Reconstructing is a good term for what happens when I want to recall a sensory experience because it's like I re-create the event in my head based on what I remember of what happened (the things I mentioned above) -- it's generally not entirely accurate either, there's always something off.
> 
> As for Si being the memory function, it's a silly stereotype - taking what Jung said about reliving experiences by internalizing them to mean memory, and then extrapolating this (and losing the originally intended meaning) to mean 'Si users have great memories'.


Yah, my ESFJ friend was amused that I can repeat things back like a mocking bird sometimes, verbatim, because I'm literally reading back sensorily what happened. An ISTJ also told me that I bogged him down with my intense sensory recollection of events. Se remembers what was seen, heard, felt, etc. I think. 

Si has a good memory...for what Si deems important. Just because you have Si doesn't mean that you remember everything, or notice everything, but may annoyingly focus sharply in on what you care about, and be critical of others if they don't care about that thing too. My ESFJ ex-roomie went batty if people left water spots on the floor, and if they did, they were inconsiderate, never once entertaining the possibility that other people expect the bathroom floor to be a bit damp from time to time and don't consider it a big deal. My ESFJ exes ISxJ mom once expressed outrage that we didn't even make our bed one day, because clearly all people with good character make their beds. I know all SJs aren't sticklers like this about cleanliness, an ESFJ can even be a messy person (I have a dear ESFJ friend back in WV who is pretty messy and cluttery) but my intention is to show that Si sharply notices and remembers what it cares about, and what his or her sensory preferences are, not necessarily every little thing that just happened.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

fourtines said:


> I think that Si types do tend want to preserve tradition...their own tradition. And if an ESFJs parents are liberal atheist hippies, it's doubtful he'll rise up and become an evangelical Christian and a rabid conservative just by virtue of being SJ. It's much more likely that he's going to adopt, for example, his mother's liberal values, and his father's way of doing things, and so forth, rather than becoming some ideal of mainstream conservative. Do you follow me? So yes, they are preserving things as they were, but that doesn't automatically translate into what most people would call conservative, necessarily, in the political sense.


It doesn't sound to me like you're really disagreeing with the idea that adopting external traditions is not an _extraverted_ characteristic — rather than an S (or SJ) characteristic. I didn't make a distinction between, e.g., cultural traditions and family traditions. Octavarium had said (echoing Jung) that "If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting."


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

reckful said:


> It doesn't sound to me like you're really disagreeing with the idea that adopting external traditions is not an _extraverted_ characteristic — rather than an S (or SJ) characteristic. I didn't make a distinction between, e.g., cultural traditions and family traditions. Octavarium had said (echoing Jung) that "If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting."


Well you are certainly extroverting feeling if you are altering yourself to meet the ethics of the outer world, and Fe doms do tend to be the most obvious extroverts.

Sometimes I think we have to use Jung as a starting point, not always as a finishing point.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

reckful said:


> It doesn't sound to me like you're really disagreeing with the idea that adopting external traditions is not an _extraverted_ characteristic — rather than an S (or SJ) characteristic. I didn't make a distinction between, e.g., cultural traditions and family traditions. Octavarium had said (echoing Jung) that "If you bring your behaviour in line with a rule or tradition you are altering yourself to meet the expectations of the outer world, I.E. you are extroverting."


Oh also saying something is an "S" characteristic may be false in the context you're using it. Si seeks to replicate what it is comfortable or happy with, and is in turn comfortable or happy with that which is replicated. I think Se may be more comfortable with existing things to point to, but may not be as concerned with aligning new experiences with the old. Se is simply more concerned with what does exist. Rocks are hard, water is wet, this political idea is not new it existed in the 19th century and look how it failed then so why would it not fail now, look at how well the Netherlands are doing, I trust the security of what exists in the Netherlands now against your ridiculous new theory which may jeopardize all that is. Speaking as an Se aux, that is how Se keeps me tied to what is. I also want to live on Earth, not Mars, thank you very much. I want to live in an environment that was not created by fallible men when this one works perfectly well for human and animal health.

Yes, I would say I do express a mistrust of the purely theoretical, but I do not necessarily seek to replicate; I've noticed one of the conversations I have REPEATEDLY with Si doms (and sometimes even Si aux) is: this is not the food I grew up with, oh really we didn't eat rice very much when I was a kid, no I think I'll just stick to lasagna I know I like that, I can't just spend the night at a youth hostel or a strangers house, are you out of your mind? I on the other hand have almost a problem with frequently wanting to try new foods and different cuisines (though not to a crazy Ne extent like what if I ate this spider, eww, no thanks, I don't want my own freaky food show) and find staying in hostels or running away for a few days a necessary break or stimulating experience. That isn't to say that I'm comfortable just anywhere, as I get older I'm pickier about where I sleep (I NEED MY SLEEP), but I'm still not as picky at 30 as most SJs I've known are at 16 or 21.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

@reckful I've spent enough time arguing with you, so I'm not going to go through your post in detail. I'm not sure, however, why you are making posts in the cognitive functions forum about dichotomies. I've noticed you doing that a couple of times; someone asks a question about which function something is and you reply with an answer about dichotomies. That would be a bit like me going into the socionics forum and answering everyone's questions with a post about how socionics is a stupid theory and everyone would be much better off sticking to cognitive functions or enneagram.

It was actually one of your posts that made me want to start this thread. In my typing thread you talked about INxx types not making much of a distinction between the internet and the real world. I thought that sounded like me, but maybe that's not a sign of being an intuitive, but rather of having a subjective perception of reality (Si). I'm quite prepared to accept that Si involves sticking to what is personally familiar, but that is not the same thing as aligning yourself with an external tradition. If MBTI theorists define being traditional as part of the sensing preference, then of course they're going to find that sensors are more traditional. That's a bit like defining a bachelor as "a man who is not married" and then conducting a study to find that there are no female married bachelors.

Where your argument fails is that you're mixing up two different I/E definitions. I'm sure being traditional has nothing to do with being sociable and outgoing, so it doesn't have anything to do with extroversion on the big five. It is, however, relevant to cognitive extroversion, because it's about aligning yourself with an external standard. Those are two entirely different things. I've noticed there's a lot of Te in your posts, so much so that I would be inclined to think you are more likely an ENTJ than INTJ. No matter how reserved or unsociable you may be, your posts demonstrate that you want to align your thinking with an external standard, and you won't consider anything unless there's evidence for it in the outer world. I see no reason why you couldn't be a cognitive ENTJ and a big five INTJ. I don't want to get into an argument about your type, I was just using you as an example.

As a final note, you seem to think I'm an obvious intuitive, but I would consider myself to be low on "openness to experience". I just don't see the point in trying a whole load of new things when I can stick to what I know I like. When I'm choosing food for myself, I'll go for something I've tried before and I know I like rather than something exotic that I've never heard of. You might explain that by saying I'm an intuitive who's out of preference on the "traditional" scale, but that doesn't make sense because I'm not interested in conforming to society's traditions; it's more about what I'm personally used to. I think that's one of the reasons why I'm an Si user, rather than an Se user, though. I don't want to get into another in depth discussion about my type, I'm just saying that particular construct doesn't work for me.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> @reckful I've spent enough time arguing with you, so I'm not going to go through your post in detail. I'm not sure, however, why you are making posts in the cognitive functions forum about dichotomies. I've noticed you doing that a couple of times; someone asks a question about which function something is and you reply with an answer about dichotomies. That would be a bit like me going into the socionics forum and answering everyone's questions with a post about how socionics is a stupid theory and everyone would be much better off sticking to cognitive functions or enneagram.


For purposes of many MBTI-related discussions, it's often not possible to make a clean distinction betweeen talking about the "dichotomies" vs. talking about the "functions." Jung spent more of Psychological Types talking about extraversion vs. introversion than he spent talking about all eight functions put together, and the point you made (following Jung) was about _extraversion generally_. In general, as long as one of my posts is specifically addressing points that another poster made in the same thread, I think it makes sense to reply in that same thread (regardless of which subforum is involved).



Octavarium said:


> It was actually one of your posts that made me want to start this thread. In my typing thread you talked about INxx types not making much of a distinction between the internet and the real world. I thought that sounded like me, but maybe that's not a sign of being an intuitive, but rather of having a subjective perception of reality (Si). I'm quite prepared to accept that Si involves sticking to what is personally familiar, but that is not the same thing as aligning yourself with an external tradition. *If MBTI theorists define being traditional as part of the sensing preference, then of course they're going to find that sensors are more traditional.* That's a bit like defining a bachelor as "a man who is not married" and then conducting a study to find that there are no female married bachelors.


Here you make the same mistake you've made in some of your other posts in terms of failing to distinguish theory from facts/evidence. Jung's typology, as has often been noted, was almost entirely theoretical. Myers spent much of her adult life putting it to the test in various ways and adjusting the typological categories to reflect the statistical analysis of results from thousands of subjects. The 2012 versions of the MBTI don't "define being traditional as part of the sensing preference" because that seemed appropriate to Isabel Myers as she sat alone in her den, pondering Jung. Instead, being traditional has ended up with the other MBTI S characteristics for the same reason it's ended up associated with being low on Openness to Experience in Big Five tests and descriptions — because the _fact_ is that people who choose the traditional side of self-assessment test items are generally the _same people_ who choose the S side of the items that tap into the other facets/characteristics of an S preference. And again, as covered in more detail in my first post, it's also really a matter of fact (not opinion or theory) at this point that an extravert is _no more likely_ to choose the tradition-oriented responses than an introvert.



Octavarium said:


> Where your argument fails is that you're mixing up two different I/E definitions. I'm sure being traditional has nothing to do with being sociable and outgoing, so it doesn't have anything to do with extroversion on the big five. It is, however, relevant to cognitive extroversion, because it's about aligning yourself with an external standard. Those are two entirely different things. I've noticed there's a lot of Te in your posts, so much so that I would be inclined to think you are more likely an ENTJ than INTJ. No matter how reserved or unsociable you may be, your posts demonstrate that you want to align your thinking with an external standard, and you won't consider anything unless there's evidence for it in the outer world. I see no reason why you couldn't be a cognitive ENTJ and a big five INTJ. I don't want to get into an argument about your type, I was just using you as an example.


I don't think it really makes sense to talk about two different "introversions" and "extraversions" and, in any case, Jung certainly didn't. Jung viewed what you call "social introverts" and "cognitive introverts" as the same people. He said, "[Extraverts and introverts] are so different and present such a striking contrast that their existence becomes quite obvious even to the layman once it has been pointed out. Everyone knows those reserved, inscrutable, rather shy people who form the strongest possible contrast to the open, sociable, jovial, or at least friendly and approachable characters who are on good terms with everybody, or quarrel with everybody, but always relate to them in some way and in turn are affected by them." I think it's fair to say that extraversion/introversion is the dimension of human temperament that's been most studied by modern psychologists and, besides being relatively consistent with each other in that respect, the MBTI and Big Five have lots of other company in terms of respectable data-gathering psychologists who work with an essentially unified concept of extraversion, rather than multiple extraversions. You again make the point that you think there's some kind of "extravert" who's more likely than an introvert to "align [themself] with an external standard," but it seems to me that this is you committing the sin that you (wrongly) accused MBTI theorists of in the previous paragraph. You're working with a theoretical _definition_ of something you call "cognitive extraversion" that, by your definition, involves "aligning yourself with an external standard" — and it naturally follows from that that people who align themselves with external standards are (cognitively) "extraverting."

Again, though, your concept of "cognitive extraversion" is inconsistent with Jung to the extent that it purports to be something separate from social extraversion. And it's inconsistent with decades of data to the extent that it purports to claim that, among people in the real world, a tendency to adopt traditional standards is part of a personality dimension that includes any of the other significant personality characteristics associated (by Jung or any other well-known theorist) with extraversion and introversion.



Octavarium said:


> As a final note, you seem to think I'm an obvious intuitive, but I would consider myself to be low on "openness to experience". I just don't see the point in trying a whole load of new things when I can stick to what I know I like. When I'm choosing food for myself, I'll go for something I've tried before and I know I like rather than something exotic that I've never heard of. You might explain that by saying I'm an intuitive who's out of preference on the "traditional" scale, but that doesn't make sense because I'm not interested in conforming to society's traditions; it's more about what I'm personally used to. I think that's one of the reasons why I'm an Si user, rather than an Se user, though. I don't want to get into another in depth discussion about my type, I'm just saying that particular construct doesn't work for me.


I'd say your self-description in this paragraph isn't significantly inconsistent with NJ (and sounds like me, for that matter) and has virtually nothing to do with being "traditional" in the sense that you used the term in the posts I was addressing. Sticking to "what you know you like" is a routine/novelty thing that arguably implicates J/P more than S/N (although each plays some role) and, in any case, would only relate to being "traditional" if you had an above-average tendency to make choices on the basis of cultural or family or other external traditions, rather than on the basis that _you (individually)_ like those choices based on your own past experience.



Octavarium said:


> @reckful I've spent enough time arguing with you, so I'm not going to go through your post in detail.


As a final note: In the vast majority of cases where I make an issue-oriented post, I really think of myself as addressing the thread readers generally rather than having a back-and-forth with whoever's post I quoted and am ostensibly "replying" to. (I actually embarrassed myself a few times in my early INTJforum days by my tendency to refer to whoever I was "replying" to in the third person, which sounded weird/condescending to anyone reading my post as part of a two-person dialogue.) For that reason (among others), you shouldn't ever feel like you're under any pressure to reply to any of my posts, regardless of the fact that I may have used one of your posts as a starting point. And you can assume that I won't assume that the fact that you didn't reply to any particular post means that I changed your mind to any significant degree. I have enough internet forum experience that, if anything, I'm more likely to assume the opposite. :tongue:


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

@reckful, I think the biggest reason why we're not seeing eye to eye is due to a Ti/Te clash. I'm looking at it from the perspective of "is it logically consistent with itself? Do the models and frameworks fit together?" So I'm using introverted, or "subjective" logic. You've criticised me for not citing external evidence, and for "failing to distinguish theory from facts/evidence". I, on the other hand, don't really consider those studies to be facts, or their evidence to be very reliable. You don't like my approach because it's not externally focused enough. I don't trust the studies because they're full of logical holes. In fact, it was our discussions that helped me to see how much of a Ti user I am, and I think our exchanges would make a good case study in Ti/Te differences for anyone who is confused between the two. This is where the theory gets really interesting for me, much more interesting than trying to figure out whether I'm a thinker or a feeler... or a judger or a perceiver. 

This is what I mean by "cognitive extraversion", it's that external focus that you seem to have. We could do with coming up with different words for them, because they're different concepts, and maybe Jung was wrong to assume they're the same. That's why I say you could be a cognitive ENTJ and a big five INTJ, because I'm quite content to think I'm a cognitive INTP and a big five INTJ.

Here's a quote from a post I made in another thread explaining my problems with these studies:



Octavarium said:


> There have been attempts to measure personality; the big five is considered a scientific theory, and there have been studies proving the validity of its dichotomies. What they are proving, however, is not that people have certain personality traits, but that people test as having those traits. If you put into the test that you are introverted, then it will tell you that you're introverted, regardless of whether you are or not.
> 
> As an example of the problems with this approach, I've been thinking about the idea that men tend to be thinkers and women tend to be feelers. What if we wanted to conduct a study to find out whether that's true? We could get a sample of people to take the MBTI and then analyse the results to see how much of an effect gender has on T/F preference. I would imagine that such a study would find that most men are indeed thinkers and most women are feelers, but we have only found out what people test as, not what they actually are. There would be no way of knowing whether people are testing as what they want to be/think they should be rather than what they actually are. In this case we haven't found out whether gender-based differences in how people test are due to genuine differences between the sexes, or whether they're just stereotypes that are being reflected in test results.


The idea of people testing as what they think they should be is relevant to this discussion in a very ironic way. How do we know there aren't "traditional" people who test as "non-traditional" because intuitive qualities are valued in their family? Maybe those people don't even realise they're choosing the option that is expected of them. It becomes a case of "I'm a nonconformist, just like everyone else". You can see evidence of that attitude on this forum, where people choose a "rare" type because they don't want to be "just like everyone else," and because rare types are seen as "cool" around here. So those people ironically become "just like everyone else", while they are trying to assert their uniqueness.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

@reckful, something else I forgot to add in my last two posts, regarding this question:
"In doing something that many other people do, does it appeal to you more to (a) do it in the accepted way, or (b) invent a way of your own?"

Are you seriously telling me that scientific conclusions are based on people's answers to these questions? Because I have no idea how to answer it for myself. It's such a vague question that I could give different answers depending on the context. I'll do whatever works. If I don't like the established method, I'll do it my own way. Just about anything can be improved so in most cases it's possible to find a better way. But if the established method works I'll stick to it. If I'm not confident in what I'm doing, or if changing methods is risky, I'll be sure to stick to the method that has been proven to work. So, I'm leaning towards the "stick to the established method" side even though, according to you, I have a strong N preference. As far as I'm aware, and it's entirely possible that I'm deluding myself about my own motivations, my reasons for leaning towards that side of the dichotomy have nothing to do with wanting to stick to traditions, but rather because I don't want to screw things up, I hate making mistakes and I have a lot of anxiety about potentially doing everything wrong. You might tell me that has more to do with being conscientious and/or limbic than sensing/traditional, but that is beside the point. If I had answered a whole set of questions similarly, I might have ended up with the traditional preference, regardless of what my motivations were for picking each answer. The tests don't take that into account.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> Are you seriously telling me that scientific conclusions are based on people's answers to these questions? Because I have no idea how to answer it for myself. It's such a vague question that I could give different answers depending on the context.


As I've noted in past posts, people often overanalyze questions on the official MBTI and online tests and scoff and say WTF in various ways, but the fact is that the items on the official MBTI are there because — regardless of whatever oversimplicity or ambiguity or other faults anybody might want to charge them with — based on factor analysis of thousands of tests, the responses line up reasonably well with the expected preference (i.e., cluster with the other items for the same preference) a significant majority of the time. On Form G, that particular item got scored as 1 point for each response, which means that S's (based on the overall type result) picked the S side somewhere between 63% and 71% of the time, and ditto for N's and the N side. You will note that those numbers leave room for plenty of N's to choose the S response and plenty of S's to choose the N response. And if you can develop a testing instrument with more magical items that almost invariably put people in the correct category, _the typology world is waiting for you._ You could start by trying your test out here at PerC and move ahead from there. :tongue:

In the meantime, as I already noted, the new Step II version of the MBTI has _multiple_ items (not just the one you've objected to) that reflect a "traditional" orientation (further described as people who "admire and support established institutions and methods" and "enjoy participating in traditions at work and at home") and, as I understand it, those are items that have reliably (within the limits applicable to personality typologies) been found to both (1) correlate with S/N and (2) more importantly, for purposes of our discussion, _not_ correlate with E/I.

ADDED: I should probably note that I'm torn on that question myself. I've often said that both the official MBTI and many online MBTI tests include items where it seems to me that an NF and/or NP is more likely to choose the N side than an NTJ, and I'd put that particular item in that category. I'd say my temperament lacks any tug to assign "the accepted way" any added value simply because it's the "accepted way" (which I'd say is at least somewhat reflective of the fact that I'm an NJ rather than an SJ) but that I'm also not likely to add much value to an alternative way simply because it's something that's original to me (whereas I'd expect an NF and/or NP to be more likely, on average, than an NTJ to enjoy being original somewhat for its own sake).


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## CaptainWayward (Jun 8, 2012)

Here's Jung's example. 



> Whereas introverted sensation is mainly confined to the perception of particular innervation phenomena by way of the unconscious, and does not go beyond them, intuition represses this side of the subjective factor and perceives the image which has really occasioned the  innervation. Supposing, for instance, a man is overtaken by a psychogenic attack of giddiness. Sensation is arrested by the peculiar character of this innervation-disturbance, perceiving all its qualities, its intensity, its transient course, the nature of its origin and disappearance in their every detail, without raising the smallest inquiry concerning the nature of the thing which produced the disturbance, or advancing anything as to its content. Intuition, on the other hand, receives from the sensation only the impetus to immediate activity; it peers behind the scenes, quickly perceiving the inner image that gave rise to the specific phenomenon, _i.e._ the attack of vertigo, in the present case. It sees the image of a tottering man pierced through the heart by an arrow.


If I understand the difference correctly... if one were to compare how an Ni / Si individual perceives a statue, they would find that the individual who uses Ni would be most concerned with the type of individual the artist is, and the tools used to create the statue, while the Si individual would be most concerned with the message the statue is conveying to them. An Ne on the other hand would perceive how they could transform the statue and the Se would simply see a statue.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

reckful said:


> the fact is that the items on the official MBTI are there because — regardless of whatever oversimplicity or ambiguity or other faults anybody might want to charge them with — based on factor analysis of thousands of tests, the responses line up reasonably well with the expected preference (i.e., cluster with the other items for the same preference) a significant majority of the time.


Ah, but why? Why do those correlations exist? You're assuming that people who prefer concrete over abstract are also people who are traditional. But couldn't the cause and effect go the other way? If someone, for whatever reason, wants to fit in with social norms, then in most cases they would be more likely to choose the S items regardless of their actual preference, since sensing qualities are more socially acceptable on the whole.



reckful said:


> And if you can develop a testing instrument with more magical items that almost invariably put people in the correct category, _the typology world is waiting for you._ You could start by trying your test out here at PerC and move ahead from there. :tongue:


Oh, I would never claim that I could produce a test that's much better than the MBTI. It's very difficult to come up with questions that aren't either so vague that they're open to wildly different interpretations, or so specific that they only apply to people in certain circumstances. Even if we manage to overcome that challenge and produce a perfect set of questions, we still have no way of taking into account that people test as _what they want to be/think they should be,_ rather than what they actually are. Also, people might not even be aware of what they are. I've done a lot of introspection and analysis of myself, so I think I know myself pretty well, but still I wouldn't claim that I know myself completely. Some people seem to be under the impression that tests are omniscient, that the type the test gives you is the type you are. But really, the type the test gives you is _the type you tell it you are._ It'll spit back out at you whatever you put into it, so you do need some degree of self-awareness for a test to type you accurately.



reckful said:


> In the meantime, as I already noted, the new Step II version of the MBTI has _multiple_ items (not just the one you've objected to) that reflect a "traditional" orientation (further described as people who "admire and support established institutions and methods" and "enjoy participating in traditions at work and at home") and, as I understand it, those are items that have reliably (within the limits applicable to personality typologies) been found to both (1) correlate with S/N and (2) more importantly, for purposes of our discussion, _not_ correlate with E/I.


You seem to have got very hung up on the E/I thing. I'm fine with the idea that people who are more outgoing are no more likely to be traditional than people who are less outgoing. You're probably getting confused over the word usage, so I'll start again.

Some people have more of a desire to fit in with social norms than others. In some cases, that's because they want to fit in and are afraid of being rejected. For others, it's because they believe that following certain traditions is morally the right thing to do. We could divide this second group into people who align their morals with external standards, and people whose personal convictions just happen to coincide with current social norms. Then there are people who want to follow traditions not because that's what society dictates, but because they were raised in a traditional environment and they like sticking to what they're personally used to. So it's not as simple as people who follow traditions and people who don't.

You may notice that in the above paragraph, some of the people described follow traditions for internal, personal reasons, while others are externally focused, aligning themselves to the expectations of society. "Externally focused" isn't necessarily going to mean "outgoing", although there might be some sort of correlation between the two. Either way, this perspective leaves plenty of room for traditional introverts.


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## SharkT00th (Sep 5, 2012)

It sounds like an Si orientation in which you are orientating you're self by making a comparison between two forms. Now as for their use being similar and in that fashion that is Ti being used there. You are describing TI+SI interaction.

Si is bringing in data while the TI is being used to make judgments about it.


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