CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Cognitive functions are not tools, skillsets, or behaviors that can be improved or learned. They are passive perspectives through which one perceives information. Think of yourself as a "photographer" and your mind as a "camera". The functions could be seen as different "colored filters". People of each type combines several of these colored filters (functions) to achieve a unique shade in which the world appears to them.

There is no such thing as being borderline J/P, T/F, or S/N. These are not sliding scales though some tests misrepresent them as so. These letters that compose the 4-letter type code are representative of an underlying order of cognitive functions. It is these cognitive functions that define the type. For example, valued cognitive functions of type INFJ are Ni,Fe,Ti,Se while cognitive functions of type INTJ are Ni,Te,Fi,Se. If you take a look at the middle functions of these two types they are different: Fe,Ti vs Te,Fi. What this means is that INFJs extravert their feeling and introverted logic, while INTJs extraverted their logic and introvert their feeling. Thus one cannot be a "borderline" INxJ type.

'J' and 'P' letters do not represent any cognitive functions in themselves. They stand for "Judger" and "Perceiver" which is decided by type's highest order extraverted function. All types that extravert a Je function (Fe or Te) as their dominant or auxiliary are Judging or J-types. All types that extravert a Pe function (Ne or Se) as dominant or auxiliary are Perceiving or P-types.

J/P letters do not operate on a sliding scale, thus you cannot be "borderline J/P". Types that differ in their last letter are completely different in their cognitive functions. Changing the last letter changes all of the cognitive functions. For instance, INFJ's cognitive functional line-up is Ni,Fe,Ti,Se while for INFP's it is Fi,Ne,Si,Te. Even though their 4-letter codes differ only by the last letter, these two types share no functions in common and are very different. In studying types, it is better to conceptualize them in terms of underlying cognitive functional order rather than their 4-letter labels.

On the same note, results of MBTI studies that ignore cognitive functional basis of types and instead use four-letter codes to collect their data are problematic. A study that groups all NF types together irrespective of whether they value Fi/Ne (xNFP) or Fe/Ni (xNFJ) is not going to yield meaningful results, because such a study has grouped types that are cognitively dissimilar. The four-letter codes become meaningless if they are taken and used out of context of cognitive functions that they are supposed to represent.

Percentages displayed on MBTI tests do not indicate the strength of a dichotomy. They represent the certainty level of the dichotomy. So if you get 100% Introvert, it doesn't mean you're necessarily more introverted than someone who gets a 80%, it just means you can be more certain of being introverted.

Makachop^^128 wrote:oooh interesting INTJs are the scientists. Random question, do you find that you feel attached to animals more then people? I heard that because of the introverted feeling INTJs have a huge love for animals.

Makachop^^128 wrote:oooh interesting INTJs are the scientists. Random question, do you find that you feel attached to animals more then people? I heard that because of the introverted feeling INTJs have a huge love for animals.

Makachop^^128 wrote:oh cool ISFJ are kinda fascinating to me, my sister is one. They have a lot of the same functions as a INFJ, so its like they are alike but not haha.

Mr. SmartyPants wrote:Oh the MBTI. I'm well aware of the MBTI.

A minor pet peeve of mine (and I mean minor. It's not a *serious* deal at all but people always utilize the Myers-Briggs incorrectly) is how people use the MBTI without any understanding of the cognitive functional analysis that is the core of the MBTI. Which I mean like... it's fine. People like to use these in a not-so-serious manner. But there is a lot more depth to it than what people realize.