Personality Type by Lenore Thomson

Author:Lenore Thomson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

17

Introverted Intuition

INTJ and INFJ Types

LIKE THE OTHER PERCEIVING FUNCTIONS, Introverted Intuition draws our attention to immediate sensory phenomena. However, Introverted Intuition is more cerebral than the three just discussed. It prompts an interest in perception itself—the process of recognizing and interpreting what we take in.

Whatever types we happen to be, we use all four means of Perception in one way or another. For example, if we were spending a day at the beach:

Extraverted Sensation would prompt us to go with our sense impressions as they occurred: to lie in the sun, play in the surf, listen to the gulls piping overhead.

Introverted Sensation would move us to stabilize our sense impressions by integrating them with facts we knew to be consistent.

We might bring our favorite book, a snorkel and flippers, a bag of snacks, extra towels because someone will probably forget one, and a watch to make sure we beat the traffic home.

Extraverted Intuition would move us to unify our sense impressions with their larger context, thereby creating new options for meaning and response. For example, as we lie on our blanket in the sun, perhaps we hear music in the distance. Someone passing by mentions a great restaurant in town. Suddenly we’re thinking: Hey, there must be an amusement park nearby. If it’s on our way to town, we can check out the rides before we look for the restaurant that passerby was talking about. In fact, maybe the guy knows about other places we should consider. Where did he go?

Introverted Intuition would prompt us to liberate our sense impressions from their larger context, thereby creating new options for perception itself. For example, we might find ourselves wondering why people feel so strongly about getting a good tan. We remember reading somewhere that before the Industrial Revolution, being tan marked one as a manual laborer, because it suggested work out of doors. After the Industrial Revolution, it was pale skin that suggested manual labor, because it indicated work in a poorly lit factory. Such correlations aren’t relevant today, but a good tan is still considered attractive. Why is that? We consider raising the question as a topic of conversation, but we’re pretty sure our friends will think we’re observing a situation instead of enjoying it.

Because we usually associate Intuition with “feelings” and hunches, the conceptual nature of Introverted Intuition may be difficult to appreciate. Like its Extraverted counterpart, Introverted Intuition is a Perceiving function, but it’s also a left-brain function. The left brain won’t focus on many things at once. It depends on words and signs to make outward experience predictable and orderly.

This is most clear in the areas governed by Extraverted Thinking and Extraverted Feeling, the left-brain Judgment functions. ETJs and EFJs, whose Judging skills are dominant, wield language like a knife, separating meaningful sense impressions from all the nameless experiential stuff that surrounds it. Such types may be hard pressed to grant the reality of impressions that can’t be explained or talked about.

The left-brain Perceiving functions are different.

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