Cognitive Function Theory > MBTI

The Basics of Cognitive Function Theory

(If I’m wrong please don’t eat me—this is just what I’ve picked up from reading constantly about this stuff the last 6 months or so)

WHY COGNITIVE FUNCTION THEORY > MBTI

When people talk about MBTI, they’re actually talking about a simplified version of cognitive function theory. In Myers-Briggs typology, there are four binary choices: you’re either introverted or extraverted; you’re either a sensor or an intuitor; you’re either a thinker or a feeler; you’re either a judger or a perceiver. It’s a too-simplified, dichotomous way to look at personality and relies on stereotypes.

Cognitive function theory is more precise and nuanced. Cognitive function theory is a way to understand how people look at the world, how they process information and make decisions with it. It doesn’t predetermine your character and doesn’t reduce you to “a thinker” or “a feeler”. That’s why cognitive function theory is awesome. It’s also why it’s complicated, because people are complicated, and the more accuracy you gain in describing them the more complex your theory becomes.

WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS?

Cognitive function theory starts with the cognitive functions. There are four of them: sensing, intuiting, thinking, and feeling. Sensing and intuiting are a pair. They describe the way you take in information, and you have a natural preference for one or the other. Thinking and feeling are the other pair, and they describe how you make decisions with the information you took in through sensing or intuiting, and you also have a natural preference for one of them over the other. Sensing/intuiting are the “perceiving” pair, and thinking/intuiting are the “judging” pair.

Sensing vs. Intuiting. As before mentioned, this pair describes how you take in information. A person who has a sensing preference (if they have an S in their type name) is, well, connected to their senses. They see concrete facts and rely on seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling things. They are interested in things that are real and tend to be detail-oriented because of how they process information—through their five senses.

A person who has an intuiting preference (if they have an N in their type name) tends to gloss over individual facts in the interest of seeing the whole. They process information based on the “feeling” of the situation. (I’m not using the word “feeling” in connection to emotions but rather instinct.) People who have an intuiting preference aren’t generally as detail-oriented as sensors because DETAILS NOT IMPORTANT (points for the reference).

The best way I can think of to describe the difference between these functions is this: a sensor starts with the facts of a situation and tries to see the pattern—they start from the bottom up. An intuitor instead sees the pattern in the situation and tries to fit the facts they see into the pattern they already have in their head—a top-down way of looking at things. Each way of seeing the world is valuable and has advantages and disadvantages.

Thinking vs. Feeling. This pair describes how you make decisions with the information you processed with your sensing or intuiting functions. This pair is easier to explain and understand. People who have a thinking preference make decisions based on logic, and people who have a feeling preference make decisions based on values. Again, it can be tempting to consider one of these functions “better” than the other, but that’s just not true. Each way of making decisions has advantages and disadvantages, and the world needs people of both disposition.

Every single person has each of these cognitive functions. If you have an intuiting preference, that doesn’t mean you don’t use your sensing function. It just means that intuiting is your default. It’s more developed and sophisticated in your personality than sensing. Likewise, if you’re “a feeler”, that doesn’t mean that you never make decisions based on logic alone; it just means that you’re more likely to make decisions based on values and emotions. That’s your default preference, but it doesn’t mean you’re “not a thinker”.

Remember when I said thinking/feeling was the “judging” pair of functions and sensing/intuiting was the “perceiving” pair? Well, just like within each pair you have a preference, you also have a preference for one pair over the other. I can’t fully explain this idea without talking about introversion/extraversion, so just keep that thought in the back of your mind.

FUNCTION STACKS

In cognitive function theory, you hear people talking about “function stacks”. That’s what they’re talking about. Everyone uses all four of those functions, but has preferences for what order they use them in. For example, I’m an INTP, so my cognitive function stack goes: Thinking, Intuiting, Sensing, Feeling. See how the first two functions is a judging function and a perceiving function? That is the basis of my personality: I have one perceiving function (intuiting) and one judging function (thinking) through which I see the world and interact with it. That’s called my primary axis. Everyone’s primary axis contains one judging function and one perceiving function.

INTROVERSION/EXTRAVERSION

Let’s go over introversion/extraversion. In cognitive function theory, it’s not quite talking about the same exact thing as when people talk about introversion/extraversion in the mainstream. Introversion verses extroversion is called an attitude. Each function can be introverted or extraverted. If a function is introverted, it’s directed inward, toward your internal life. If a function is extraverted, it’s directed outward, toward the world outside yourself.

If a person’s primary function is introverted, they generally act like a person who is mainstream “introverted”—they renew their energy by being alone and big groups or long interactions tend to exhaust them. That’s because the primary way they see the world is directed inside, and if it’s overloaded with external stimuli with no time to convert it to internal stimuli, it can be tiring. Likewise, a person whose primary function is extraverted will be frustrated with too little external stimuli.

So you see that I/E and J/P aren’t actually separate functions. Those two letters in your type name just tell you what order your function stack goes in and whether the functions are introverted (directed inward) or extraverted (directed outward).

(This next part is somewhat long and complicated and may require a few read-throughs to understand. It took me a couple days to work through it.)

NUTS AND BOLTS (the fun stuff)

How do you figure out your function stack from your type name? We’ll use INTP as an example, because that’s my type.

Let’s start with the “I” at the beginning. “I” means that your first function is introverted, second is extraverted, third is introverted, and fourth is extraverted.

i e i e

Now, there are only two possibilities when you’re talking about function stacks. The first function is either a judging function or a perceiving function. Going off that, the next two functions are from the other pair, and the last one is from the same pair as the first function. That’s a little complicated—a diagram might help.

Either it goes “p j j p” or “j p p j”. See? The first function is perceiving, so the next two are judging and the last one is the other perceiving function. In the other case, the first function is judging, so the next two are perceiving and the last one is the other judging function.

The “P” or “J” on the end of your type name helps you decide which one you are. If there’s a “P”, that means that the first extraverted function you come to is a perceiving function. When we’re looking at INTPs, that means that it goes:

i ep i e

So you see that the “p j j p” stack doesn’t fit. It has to be the “j p p j” stack.

ij ep ip ej

Remember, intuiting/sensing are the perceiving functions, and thinking/feeling are the judging functions. Since INTP has N instead of S, that means my preferred perceiving function is intuiting and since it has T instead of F, that means my preferred judging function is thinking.

So the first function is a judging function and it’s introverted, so my primary function is thinking, and it’s introverted. The second function is a perceiving function, so it’s intuiting, and it’s extraverted.

Ti Ne ip ej

So then we just fill in the other perceiving function and judging function

Ti Ne Si Fe

So we can see that for an INTP, function #1 is introverted thinking, then extraverted intuition, then introverted sensing, then extraverted feeling.

Let’s practice with another one, say ENFP. The E tells us that it goes e i e i. The P tells us that the first extraverted function is perceiving, so it has to go p j j p:

ep ij ej ip

ENFPs prefer intuiting and feeling, so:

Ne Fi Te Si

See how it works? It’s a little complicated, but it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

COGNITIVE FUNCTION THEORY IS COOL

Let’s review from “FUNCTION STACKS”:

> Everyone’s primary axis contains one judging function and one perceiving function.

“NUTS AND BOLTS” demonstrates why that’s true. Now I want to explain why it’s cool. If you remember from when we were talking about the functions themselves, we process information through our perceiving functions and then we use our judging functions to make decisions with that information. This is why cognitive function theory works: everyone’s primary axis has one perceiving function, to process information, and one judging function, to make decisions with it. Isn’t that cool? It’s precise and descriptive and actually very lovely, in my opinion, because systems that work are beautiful.

JUDGING AND PERCEIVING (extra credit/optional reading)

Now I’d like to address something that confused me for a while, and that is judging vs. perceiving. It took me a while to figure out why it’s a thing. People talk about “judgers” as having a particular set of characteristics—namely that they’re scheduled and self-disciplined and get things done and can be uptight. Likewise with the “perceivers”—they’re go-with-the-flow and laid-back and can be lazy. I thought, if the J/P distinction only tells you which order the functions go it, why do people think it’s a separate characteristics.

Remember from “NUTS AND BOLTS” that the J/P at the end of the type name tells you that the first extraverted function is judging or perceiving. Now remember what introversion and extraversion are: introversion is you interacting with yourself in your inner world, and extraversion is you interacting with the external world. Now remember that perceiving functions describe how you process information, and judging functions describe how you make decisions with it.

Doesn’t it make sense that if your first extraverted function is primarily concerned with processing information, not making decisions with it, that you would be more laid-back and go-with-the-flow? Likewise, if your first extraverted function is used to make decisions, you’re going to tend more towards the “judger” stereotypes. It took me a while to understand this nuance, but it makes me excited, because I love intricate systems that describe the world.

PARTING WORDS

This has been a very long journey. I’m sorry if it didn’t make sense. I tried to explain things clearly, but I tend to either over-explain in my quest for accuracy and precision, or over-simplify because I assume that the audience has more information than they actually do. So, sorry. But I hope you’ve found this an interesting read and that you feel a little more confident in your understanding of cognitive function theory. Because it’s awesome.