Have you ever heard anyone say someone’s “wheels are turning”? It’s as if someone’s brain is made up of several cogs you can see turning behind their eyes.
The common phrase references cognition, the mental process of acquiring and processing knowledge that includes both the conscious and the unconscious. It’s why you recoil if you touch a hot stove and why you prefer one color to another. It’s why you don’t run in front of a car and why you hate the taste of certain foods. Cognition is the process that determines every thought we think and every decision we make.
Needless to say, it’s an overwhelmingly complex topic.
Humans have an inherent desire– maybe even a need– to understand how they and others around them think. But if it takes a decade for a psychiatry student to be considered competent in their field, how can the average person like you and me even begin to understand the mystery of human cognition?
As it turns out, the solution was proposed by Carl Jung a century ago: cognitive functions. Jung proposed that people display four primary cognitive functions, each having two subtypes: one focused on the inner world and the other focused on the external world. Thus, the eight cognitive functions were born.
And these cognitive functions just happen to be the foundation for MBTI.
Let’s go over what these cognitive functions are:
“Introverted Thinking” (Ti)
Ti is best described as ‘subjective logic’. It works based on an internal framework of booleans (yes/no true/false) to come to logical conclusions. It’s subjective because it’s internal. Ti doesn’t ask “what is accepted as logical”, but “what is logical to me”.
“Extroverted Thinking” (Te)
Te is best described as ‘objective logic’. It works based on what is generally accepted as true and logical. Te is very efficiency-oriented and doesn’t care so much how something works as long as it does indeed work
“Introverted Feeling” (Fi)
A lot of people confuse the function Fi with emotions. However, Fi is not emotion at all; it’s feeling-based decision-making. Fi decides things by looking inward at the individual’s core values and beliefs and deciding if a decision is consistent with their own values.
“Extroverted Feeling” (Fe)
Fe is a decision-making process that uses the emotions of others to decide what is of value to them— Fe is socially aware. It checks to see if a decision is consistent with society’s values.
“Introverted iNtuition” (Ni)
Ni is a perceiving function that uses pattern recognition to synthesize incoming information and draw conclusions about the world from that information. Ni is often specific in its observations. From the outside, Ni can seem almost magical– but that’s not really the case.
“Extroverted iNtuition” (Ne)
Ne is the real magic to me, an ISTP with a Ne blindspot. Ne also uses pattern recognition, but instead of focusing on specific conclusions like Ni, Ne searches to understand every possibility. Ne’s approach to intuition is more broad.
“Introverted Sensing” (Si)
is mainly associated with memories, as the person is ‘sensing’ the past internally, from their memories. People with high Si also have a tendency to know when they’re sick and have an either extraordinarily high or extraordinarily low pain tolerance, all due to inward sensing.
“Extroverted Sensing” (Se)
Se is basically awareness of your surroundings. Se users take in information in real time from the world around them.
