See: personalityjunkie.com/infj-page. 

• Eight Cognitive Functions Total: Every type has one Sensing, one Intuition, one Feeling, and one Thinking function in their "stack". The opposing function of each type is part of their "shadow functions"

• My Dominant Function: Ni (Introverted Intuition)

• My Auxiliary Function: Fe (Extraverted Feeling)

• My Tertiary Function: Ti (Introverted Thinking)

• My Inferior Function: Se (Extraverted Sensing)

• My Type: INFJ

• My Shadow Functions: 

  • My Opposing Role Function - Ne (Extraverted Intuiton), 

  • My Critical Parent Function - Fi (Introverted Feeling), 

  • My Trickster Function - Te (Extraverted Thinking)

  • My Demon Function - Si (Introverted Sensing)

• Importance of Studying Cognitive Functions: the Cognitive Functions are a lot more important and relevant and maybe even scientifically valid (which I hope to do research on in the future) than simply their corresponding personality types (although the types are derived from the functions) which are what people often talk about when it comes to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Although many online articles and the books such as The Personality Brokers by Merve Emre claim that there also isn't much validity to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator because it is not scientifically objective or measurable, I would say MBTI cognitive functions are psychologically inherent meaning they are set in stone (likely after the toddler stage but that's purely my speculation) but can be developed and balanced out as a person matures. 

If you know the MBTI system well enough, referring to the "car model" from personalityhacker.com you could probably deduce my "Driver function" to be Introverted Intuition (Ni) based on the fact that I'm writing a blog like this, and Extroverted Feeling (Fe) as my "Co-pilot" based on the topic and how I communicate. 

In general, I think Ni makes sense as my Driver function as I have a firmly-developed belief system/faith, I tend to get into one-track, all-or-nothing mindsets, and I can often go for long walks on my own or car/bus rides staring out the window without any music, reading, or other stimulation because I can be entertained with all the thoughts and connections that are going on inside my head.

I only really started feeling like I could be and express my true self more recently when I started embracing my Co-pilot function, Fe (will get into that more in a later post). I enjoy being with people, helping people, talking about feelings with people and expressing my emotions and love for people, but it takes effort to do these things. It is easiest for me when the topic of conversation I'm having with people is deep and insightful because it allows me to stay with and make use of my Driver Ni function, but fun and playful conversations are also comfortable because they satisfy this Fe and my other two functions Ti and Se.

My 10-year-old Ti function has caused me a lot of trouble in the past. As described in the picture above, it can cause me to be perfectionist and also very judgmental of others and myself. It can also do good though: it got me through 2 years of Computer Science at UW, and was the main drive behind some letters to the editor of the Waterloo Region Record. I think I'm at my best when I can find a healthy balance between this function and Fe (a major theme of this blog: the importance of balance).

Finally, my 3-year-old Se function has also been troublesome in the past but I've been getting better at keeping it under control and harnessing it for good. I've found the best thing to do rather than suppress it like I've done in the past (ex. going cold turkey on desserts or coffee for a while), is to give it what it wants and over time I will find out what is healthy for it (it being me) and eventually it will be classically conditioned to only desire what is good for it (me). Continuing with the analogy, since it's a 3-year-old, if it gets out of hand you can always pick it up and force it to stay in its room for a while if need be.

So far in this blog post I've coined the terms MBTI personality type and MBTI cognitive function stack, and now I want to return to the conversation on how these terms and their definitions are related and can be used to help us better understand gender and sex. 

As mentioned, I see someone's MBTI cognitive function stack as being an inherent aspect of a person - although they don't have to let it define who they are, it is part of them. I would say the same is true for one's biological sex.  I will further reinforce this point by bluntly stating that I see the cognitive function stack as being as real and as an inherently part of one's psychology, as I see one's genitalia being a real and inherent part of one's body. I am not my biological sex or genitalia, but my biological sex or genitalia is part of me. I am not my MBTI cognitive function stack, but my MBTI cognitive function stack is part of me. 

I also see parallels between gender and MBTI personality type but they are on a different plane than sex and MBTI cognitive function stack. Last post, I brought forward a concise, definition for gender: "gender is the communication of one's biological sex". This contrasted the many non-consensus, ambiguous definitions that stem from society's confusion and discomfort with gender issues.

One such definition, the Oxford dictionary one, defined gender as describing "social and cultural differences" between people. I actually don't think this is in conflict with the definition I proposed but I think it is way too general and all-encompassing. In my opinion this dictionary definition would align better with MBTI personality type than gender because personality is about the whole person, and how one acts socially and culturally is directly related to personality. 

All this being said I want to forget about that Oxford definition again and provide my own definition for MBTI personality type that fittingly parallels the one for gender: MBTI personality type is the communication of one's cognitive function stack. 

It's the same thing, the four letters are just a way people communicate their MBTI cognitive stack to others or themself, just as gender communicates biological sex (but people have found many more creative ways to do so, so much so that many people confuse this communication with their identity). 

***

(There was more to this blog post, but I am still searching for it)

Theory

Scores from August 2024 (see: understandmyself.com):

• Openness: 83rd percentile (Intellect: 86th, Aesthetics: 69th)

• Conscientiousness: 41st percentile (Industriousness: 62nd, Orderliness: 25th)

• Extraversion: 75th percentile (Enthusiasm: 79th, Assertiveness: 63rd)

• Agreeableness: 61st percentile (Compassion: 77th, Politeness: 38th)

• Neuroticism: 36th percentile (Withdrawal: 23rd, Volatility: 53rd);

My intuition tells me that there is likely connections and correlations between one's Big 5/OCEAN score and their Jungian/MBTI Cognitive Function Stack but that would be something to do further research on.

An interesting thing to note here is despite being typed an "introvert" with Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, my Extraversion score from this Big 5/OCEAN test is very high - according to this I am more "extraverted" than 75% of the population.

This is another indication to me why it's more important to study and discuss Jungian/MBTI cognitive functions rather than MBTI types.