by Ruth Snowden
Extroverts direct their psychic energy outwards towards the external world. They naturally give their greatest attention to the ‘object’ – they are interested in the external world and relationships, and their behaviour tends to be governed by objective factors. They are outgoing and frank, with accommodating, adaptable personalities. Extroverts need action and other people around them. Extreme extroverts are not happy with their own company: they cannot bear silence and solitude and need constant excitement and stimulation from others in order to prevent boredom or depression from setting in.
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Insight
Introverts direct their interest inwards towards the inner world of thoughts and feelings. Extroverts direct their interest outwards towards external relationships and objects. Remember also that subjective means to do with, or coming from, the self and objective means to do with, or coming from, the external world. Can you think of particular professions that might suit each way of thinking?
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Jung realized that nobody ever fitted exactly into one type. People have an infinite variety of different personalities and it would be too narrow and simplistic to fit them neatly into two categories. Because we all possess both attitudes, it is more a question of whether one predominates over the other. Jung’s theory is not really attempting to explain individual psychology – it is a generalization, aimed at trying to explain human behaviour by looking at what people have in common. Usually one or other attitude will dominate the personality and the other attitude becomes unconscious. The psyche will then find compensatory ways of expressing this hidden attitude. The two types of attitude tend to clash because where the extrovert will follow the crowd, the introvert will deliberately reject the majority view. The introvert likes peace and solitude, whereas the extrovert likes to be active and sociable. Each type tends to despise and undervalue the other. So the introvert sees the extrovert as brash and noisy, often shallow and critical; whereas the extrovert thinks the introvert is self-centred and tends to see all that inward reflection as pointless, even morbid. As a pair the two types follow the law of opposites, so if a person is an extreme type, the opposite type will tend to emerge at some point – an amusing example is given in Jung’s story about the churchwarden in Chapter 5.
Jung attempts to base his two psychological types firmly in biology, pointing out that the relation between subject and object is always to do with adaptation to the environment. He says that in nature the two main ways of adapting are:
by increased fertility, at the expense of individual defence and preservation
by increased self-protection, at the expense of fertility.
Jung sees this biological contrast as the basis for his two psychological types of adaptation. The extrovert has a constant urge to use his energy in the external world, whereas the introvert concentrates on defending himself and conserving his energy.
The four functions
The idea of there being four balanced elements within nature is very old. Shamanic and magical traditions often use a system where four elements – earth, air, fire and water – are related to four directions – north, east, south and west. Each element is also associated with different corresponding energies that are often represented symbolically by animals, plants, seasons, colours and so on. For example, south is usually associated with the fire element, so an appropriate animal might be a dragon, the colour could be red and the season summer.
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Insight
Shamanic: relating to ancient, tribal spiritual practices.
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Long ago in Ancient Greece, doctors and philosophers began to identify four personality types, based on the same idea of four balanced natural energies. These types, or ‘humours’, were called melancholic, sanguine, choleric and phlegmatic. Jung developed his theory of four personality functions based on a similar idea. His four functions are grouped as two opposite pairs, giving them a feeling of balance. He named the four functions thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Thinking and feeling are opposites, as are sensation and intuition. If one function is more developed in a person, then its opposite will be correspondingly underdeveloped and even repressed. For example, an intellectual, thinking person who is always ‘living in the head’ might have difficulty in the feeling areas – expressing emotion and coming ‘from the heart’. Similarly, a person with a more developed sensation function relies on stimuli from the outer world and tends to ignore the inner ‘gut feelings’ of intuition.
Figure 7.1 The four functions.
THINKING
This is to do with rational analysis – it tells you what something is. Thinking people have logical, probing and questioning minds. They are good at seeing cause and effect, judging things and reaching logical conclusions by using their intellect and connecting ideas. They are frank and may appear cool and distant emotionally. This kind of person is good at adapting to new circumstances. Examples of this type are the scientist and the philosopher.
FEELING
This tells you whether something is agreeable to you or not. Feeling people make judgements about how they value things, assessing them on whether they are ‘pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and so on. The word ‘feeling’ is not a very good choice really and it has led to a lot of confusion. Jung eventually realized this and tried to clarify what he meant, saying that he used the word ‘feeling’ to refer to a rational function, used for putting things in order of value. He did not use it to refer to emotional feeling, which can be associated with any of the four functions. ‘Evaluating’ or ‘assessing’ might have been better words to use. Feeling people have a strong sense of traditional values, and human relationships are important to them. They are often warm, creative people.
SENSATION
By sensation Jung means sense perception. This tells you that something exists in the outer world and gives information about what it is like. This kind of person relies very much upon conscious sensory impressions, perceived through the sense organs. They assess their world by how things look, what words sound like and so on. Material things are very important to them and they are solid, grounded people. They take everything at face value and ‘call a spade a spade’. They can be boring and plodding, lacking in imagination, but on the other hand they are often jolly and easygoing. Their calm nature makes them appear rational and practical, but this is not always the case, and at its most negative this type may be crudely sensual.
INTUITION
This gives you hunches about things. It tells you where something comes from and where it is going. It differs from sensation in that it does not rely on the known sense organs and seems to have no physical cause. This kind of person is aware of chances, possibilities, the past and the future. They are often unaware of their own bodies and may be dreamy and ungrounded. They can become impatient with solid, monotonous detail and they are not practical people. Intuitive people are able to perceive possibilities that are not known consciously through the normal senses. Intuition is the source of creativity and inspiration.
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Insight
Jung’s four functions are four basic personality types. Just as with introversion and extroversion, he recognized that most people are a mixture of types. He intended these divisions as a kind of model of human personality, rather than for categorizing the individual. Combinations of the four types and the two attitudes give rise to eight psychological types.
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Thinking and feeling are both seen by Jung as rational functions, because they are ordering functions that involve making judgements and evaluations about the world. Intuition and sensation he calls ‘irrational’. Again, this is a misleading word to use as it seems to imply that they are illogical or deranged in some way. But Jung does not mean to imply this – he uses the word to describe processes that depend on objective stimuli which owe their existence to physical causes rather than mental ones.
Again, Jung points out that the
four functions represent only one possible way of classifying human behaviour. There are many others, such as will power, memory and imagination. He said that he did not intend to be dogmatic about them: he was simply presenting them as a helpful tool in explaining parents to children, husbands to wives and so on, and also in understanding and overcoming one’s own prejudices.
A person’s conscious orientation will usually be towards one of the four functions. This dominant function is called the ‘principal function’ and it will determine how the person reacts to experiences. There is usually a second function that is mainly conscious, and this is called the ‘auxiliary function’. A third function, the opposite of the auxiliary function, is slightly suppressed and partially unconscious. The last function, which is the opposite of the principal function, remains largely unconscious. When the conscious function is particularly strong there is a tendency for the opposite function to break through into consciousness now and again. This is called ‘the return of the repressed’ and it may manifest as hysteria, phobias, obsessions, unbalanced moods and so on. In order to gain a balanced, healthy mental attitude it is often necessary to work with the repressed function in therapy.
The eight psychological types
Each of the four functional kinds of personality may be extroverted or introverted. Jung therefore combined the four functions and the two attitudes, to arrive at eight psychological types. A person’s psychological type is important in determining their view of the world and how they cope with situations and relationships.
THE EXTROVERTED THINKING TYPE
This type is dominated by rational thinking and logic. They always direct their libido outwards, towards practical outcomes, basing all their thinking and actions on analysis of objective data. They love order and facts and are good at problem solving and clarifying issues. They tend to think that their view of the world is the correct one, so they may become tyrants. In fact, they conveniently suppress anything that doesn’t fit in with their world-view. Their opposite, or ‘shadow’, type is the introverted feeling type. Because they repress the feeling function they are not very good at personal relationships and they tend to scorn religious ideas. What they repress may return as violent moods, wild love affairs and petty, bigoted behaviour towards those who threaten their world-view. They have a strong sense of duty but they may lack warmth and tolerance. Many scientists, lawyers, technicians, administrators and engineers may belong to this type.
THE INTROVERTED THINKING TYPE
This type is also interested in intellectual ideas, but is orientated more towards the inner world of ideas than external facts. These people are by nature contemplative: they constantly ask questions and formulate theories about things, but they are reserved about accepting ‘facts’. Their thinking is directed inwards, towards subjective ideas, and they are not particularly interested in practical outcomes. They may appear eccentric and impractical to others and may be so cut off from the world that relationships are unimportant to them. Their shadow type is the extroverted feeling type. The repressed feeling function makes it hard for them to share their feelings with others. It may surface in the form of childish naivety or strange unpredictable behaviour and they may interpret criticism of their ideas as personal attack. Philosophers and intellectuals may belong to this type, and Jung is once said to have put himself into this category when talking to a colleague.
THE EXTROVERTED FEELING TYPE
This type is well adjusted to the world around them and fits in well with their peer group. This is very important to them, because their thinking is based on traditional social values. They are conventional, outgoing people, close followers of fashion, and much concerned with personal success. They are tactful and charming, handling people well, and enjoy social gatherings and groups. The shadow type is the introverted thinking type, which can lead to an unconscious way of thinking that is infantile, archaic and negative. This means that on the negative side they can be rather shallow, insincere and posing, and in extreme cases may develop hysteria or mania. This group may include actors, people in PR work or marketing and TV stars.
THE INTROVERTED FEELING TYPE
This type is rather remote and inward looking, the ‘still waters run deep’ type of person. They are reserved and enjoy peace and quiet, poetry and music, tending to undervalue objective reality. They prefer to have a few intimate friends and they understand people close to them quite well. They are often very religious and self-sacrificing. These people are usually very genuine because they are hopeless at role-playing, so they make loyal friends. The shadow type is the extroverted thinking type, so this group may not be able to think things through logically and may get caught up in primitive obsessions or depression. Monks and nuns may belong to this group, and its extreme form is shown in the mystical, ecstatic character who totally turns away from the world.
THE EXTROVERTED SENSATION TYPE
For this type, physical objects and sensations in the outside world are very important. This is the practical, man-of-the-world type who accepts the world as it is and enjoys living in it. They enjoy such things as good food or dangerous sport, and are good entertainers. The libido is directed towards objects and activities that arouse strong sensations that are usually, but not always, pleasurable. They are not interested in the inner world and are suspicious of people who look at things in terms of psychological processes. The shadow type is the introverted intuitive type and this can give rise to unfounded negative obsessions. This type can be addictive and pleasure seeking and extreme cases have a tendency towards perversion, or joining weird cults. Their repressed intuitive side may also be projected onto others, so that they can be irrationally suspicious or jealous in their behaviour. People of this type are often in business or property dealing, and they may be into extreme sports.
THE INTROVERTED SENSATION TYPE
With this type it is the internal, subjectively experienced sensation that is important. Objects do not count much. They are so full of their own sensations that they may appear out of touch and find it hard to express themselves to others. This is because they are reacting subjectively to external events: they may even claim to see ghosts, visions and startling imagery. In extreme cases this type becomes psychotic and is unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. The shadow type is the extroverted intuitive type – this repressed function may lead to negative hunches about things that might be going to happen and even to paranoia. Some artists, musicians and writers may belong to this group, and Emma Jung placed herself in this category.
THE EXTROVERTED INTUITIVE TYPE
This type uses the intuitive part of the brain whenever a judgement or decision has to be made without knowing the full facts. They like to look at a problem from all angles and see different points of view. They get bored with fixed, familiar, well-established things and like to explore the new and look to the future. Because of this they may view customs and convention as unimportant and may trample on other people in order to get what they want. They are ‘chancers’, with their own form of morality. They rarely see a thing through and their personal relationships are often weak. The shadow type is the introverted sensation type – the repressed function may lead them to compulsively addictive behaviour, phobias or hypochondria. Entrepreneurs, journalists, fashion designers and businessmen may belong to this group.
THE INTROVERTED INTUITIVE TYPE
To this type, the mystical world of dreams, visions and the collective unconscious is important. They are often preoccupied with inner day-dreams, fantasies and religious revelations, and try to interpret the outer world in terms of these. In the past this type of person would probably have been the shaman of the tribe, but nowadays they are often rather outcast and regarded as being odd. The shadow type is the extroverted sensation type – as with the extroverted intuitive type, the repressed function may appear as compulsive behaviour, obsessions and hypochondria. These people are always in danger of losing touch with reality and may even become schizophrenic
. Many psychics, mystics and poets belong in this group.
The idea of looking at the human psyche in terms of differing psychological types is still popular. After Jung’s work was published, Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother took the idea further, and in 1942 they published the first version of a personality test called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator that is still used today in various different forms.
What determines the psychological type
Jung argues that the inclination towards a dominant psychological type is basically inborn in the individual, basing this argument on the fact that two children of the same mother often display very different behaviour without any apparent difference in the attitude of the mother towards them. A person’s psychological type begins to become apparent quite early in childhood. Its further development is then determined by a number of different factors: