What are the 8 cognitive functions of MBTI?
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the self-assessment that helps a person to understand their personality in a detailed way. Our cognitive functions, are thinking, feeling, sensing, and judgingThese Funtions are all based on psychological preferences. Thus, the MBTI personality test assists us to identify our potential and indicates how our personality, may evolve over time.
What does MBTI Stand For?
MBTI is an acronym for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This personality test was developed in the United States by a mother-daughter duo, Katharine Briggs, and Isabel Myers. During their research, they found a close connection with Carl Jung’s theory which states that human beings experience four psychological factors: thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuition. Briggs and Myers provide the practical application of Jung’s theory by developing the MBTI.
How do I find my MBTI Type with Cognitive Functions?
The simplest way to find your MBTI cognitive functions is to take an online test. This test consists of 90 plus forced-choice questions. The end results will yield your MBTI personality and mental processing patterns. According to Jung, there are 8 different function types. The primary and auxiliary functions are the most dominant in the personality, while tertiary and inferior ones reflect rarely.
How are the 8 cognitive functions of the MBTI used in management?
The eight functions of the MBTI help us understand how employees process information and make decisions. By leveraging these functions, as specialized MBTI Consultants, we optimize task assignments and create balanced teams, enhancing collaboration, innovation, and problem-solving capabilities in the corporate environment.
We mostly use MBTI for Management and Leadership training. We also recommand this tool for executive coaching. We mix intuition, logic, and perception to whip up a recipe for success, transforming workplace challenges into opportunities and creating a dynamic, harmonious work environment.
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Can MBTI Cognitive Functions Change ?
The cognitive functions tend to remain the same over time like the MBTI personality type. The psychological preference of each person is inborn and growing up it does not change. However, once you understand your personality and have learned about it you can work on it to enhance it. By using the information from your MBTI results you can improve your communication, relationships, and decision-making in one way or another. But your overall preferences and way to perceive the world and the little things inside it do not change drastically.
What are the 4 Areas of MBTI?
According to MBTI, there are four categories or dichotomies in which a person can be classified. Each personality prefers one trait over another in each category, creating 16 different MBTI personalities. As a result, these traits affect how people make decisions, see things around them, develop ideas, and analyze energy in the world around them. The four MBTI categories are:
- Introverted/ Extraverted
- Sensing/Intuition
- Feeling/ Thinking
- Judging/ Perceiving
What are the 8 Types of Functions?
The following are the 8 types of Jung’s cognitive functions that shape the personality of a person. Each MBTI personality is a four-letter acronym, and each letter describes a particular category that the person exhibits in different scenarios. Here is a brief description of each ones:
Introverted Sensing: such a person reminisces about their past time and senses the consequences of the future based on their previous experiences. They usually follow routines and traditions at work and have an organized way to get things done.
Extraverted Sensing: People with extroverted sensing use the five senses to learn about this physical world in no time. This information helps them to observe things and experience different situations. They don’t like to follow routines in life and are eager to explore new ideas and new possibilities.
Introverted Intuition: People with introverted intuition are often uncertain about the consequences of their decisions. They are intelligent and know how to plan to work on bigger achievements. They use their gut feeling to understand things and make decisions in the world.
Extraverted Intuition: A person having extroverted intuition as their primary or auxiliary function is good at devising information from the available data. They know how to connect the dots and understand the pattern. They drive energy from the external world and are good communicators.
Introverted Thinking: Such personality types don’t like to have a social life. They usually have their own little world. Their way of thinking and perceiving is based on personal experiences of the past time.
Extraverted Thinking: A person with extroverted thinking makes decisions based on facts and research. They don’t like abstract ideas or theories for making conclusive statements. It might not matter how they feel or what they feel when they make decisions.
Introverted Feeling: People with this function as the dominant one have a soft heart for others. They are careful about how others feel. They are the role model when it comes to showing empathy, compassion, and care to others around us.
Extraverted Feeling: This extroverted function promotes harmony and compassion between the person and other people in the world. They like to live a social life that is full of happenings. The majority of them have strong values and want other people to understand and follow them as well.
How Functions Can Help a Person?
The information you gain about the cognitive functions of yourself, and others can help you to understand the cognitive processes in a much better way. Using this information, you can improve your cognitive ability and get benefitted by applying them in real-world applications of the world. Here are a few uses of cognitive functions:
- Cognitive functions help you to understand your MBTI personality to find a suitable partner in life. Compatible personalities are important to live a contented life. Thus, MBTI cognitive functions can help you get the right partners at the right time.
- Knowing your dominant and auxiliary functions can help you make better decisions about your life and career in general.
- Cognitive functions can also assist you in dealing with the things you find troublesome. Having information about your strengths can help you devise strategies to solve problems efficiently in less time.
- Based on the understating of cognitive functions, a person can decide how to communicate in certain situations to improve and enhance their personality.
All in all, MBTI cognitive functions are a great way to know how a person perceives things in this physical world. With such information, you can make better decisions and achieve more in less time in your life.
FAQ
In what ways does inferior function affect the behavior of an individual?
The inferior function often emerges during stress, causing uncharacteristic behavior and emotional responses. It represents an underdeveloped aspect of personality that individuals, whether introverted or extraverted, struggle to control. This results in impulsive reactions and decision-making that contradicts their usual cognitive functions, including their dominant function and preferred way of thinking. When feeling overwhelmed, a person may rely on their inferior function, leading to seemingly unrelated actions that challenge their usual feeling or sensing preferences. This dissonance can create discomfort and confusion in social interactions, highlighting the complexity of the Myers-Briggs personality types, such as ENFJ, where a dominant function like extroverted feeling can clash with an inferior introverted thinking. Understanding these dynamics can help individuals navigate their emotional landscape and improve their interactions with others.
How do cognitive functions interact in individuals with the ENFJ personality type?
ENFJs lead with Extraverted Feeling, prioritizing group harmony and emotional connection. Their Introverted Intuition assists in understanding underlying patterns and enables them to process information through a cognitive framework that values feelings and human connections. Extraverted Sensing provides present-moment awareness, allowing them to pay attention to their surroundings, while Introverted Thinking, their inferior function, sometimes challenges logical analysis under pressure. This dominant use of Extraverted Feeling may seem like a straightforward cognitive function, yet it often intertwines with their Introverted functions, leading to a complex interplay of thought and feeling in their personality type.
What functions are considered unrelated and how do they affect personality?
Opposite functions on the cognitive stack rarely work together smoothly. For instance, Introverted Thinking and Extraverted Feeling create internal conflict between logical analysis and emotional harmony, reflecting the tension between dominant and inferior functions in personality types. These seemingly unrelated forces generate tension, requiring individuals, whether introverted or extraverted, to consciously balance competing priorities in their decision-making processes. They must pay attention to their intuition and sensing, as well as the feelings of others, to navigate their lives effectively.
How is attention directed differently by introverted versus extraverted users?
Introverted functions direct attention inward, focusing on internal frameworks, personal values, and subjective interpretations. In contrast, extraverted functions orient attention outward toward external data, social dynamics, and objective reality. This fundamental difference in cognitive processes shapes how individuals, whether they are introverted or extraverted, gather information and engage with their surrounding environment. Cognitive types, such as those identified in the Myers-Briggs framework, highlight the interplay between dominant and inferior functions, indicating how people feel and perceive life. The dynamics between thinking and feeling, as well as intuition and sensing, reveal the complexities of personality types, which may seem seemingly unrelated, yet profoundly influence how a person navigates interactions and experiences.
Other pages and articles on MBTI
This article has been written by Marc Prager.