how the system is built

Jungian Type theory

four functions · two attitudes · sixteen types

Jung’s Type theory starts with four functions that everyone uses - sensation (S), Intuition (N), Thinking (T), and Feeling (F). Each one is either extroverted or Introverted, meaning that each either “turns inward” or “turns outward” (it does not mean whether someone is social or not…).

Example: Ni means Introverted Intuition. Ne means extroverted Intuition and so forth.

  • Ssensation
  • NIntuition
  • TThinking
  • FFeeling
  • NiIntroverted Intuition
  • Neextraverted Intuition

Four functions

Everyone has sensing and intuition, which take information in, and thinking and feeling, which finish a decision. Sensing and intuition are perceiving functions: they notice. Thinking and feeling are judging functions: they sort and conclude. You use all four. Preference is which ones lead, and in which way, introverted or extroverted.

Perceiving Functions

  • SSensing — takes what is given: the fact, the texture, the already-there.
  • NIntuition — takes what the given implies or could become.

Judging Functions

  • TThinking — judges by a concept that can be stated.
  • FFeeling — judges by value: whether this is fitting, worth keeping, or injurious.

The four-letter code is a later shorthand for each arrangement of the four functions. It was created at a later date by Myers Briggs and is not associated with Jung, but we do still use it for ease of communication.

For example, the four function stack for INFP is: Fi, Ne, Si & Te.

INFP
  1. Fi
  2. Ne
  3. Si
  4. Te

Introverted or extraverted

Each function can turn extraverted or introverted. Extraversion here is not sociability. Extraverted means the function is oriented towards the object in the shared world. Introverted means it is oriented by the subjective factor - the impression, image, or standard the object leaves in the person.

We mark that with a small e or i after the function: Si, Ne, Ti, Fe. Introverted intuition is not “quiet intuition.” Extraverted feeling is not “being socially active.”

For any type, one perceiving function is introverted and the other extraverted. The same is true of the judging pair. You do not get Ni and Si together as the two perceiving attitudes, or Te and Fe as the two judging ones.

If one perceiving function is Introverted then the other is extroverted. And if one judging function is extroverted then the other is introverted.

Perceiving

  • NiSe
  • NeSi

Judging

  • TiFe
  • TeFi

The function stack

A type is those eight function-attitudes arranged in preference. The first four are the classical ego stack; Beebe later named eight roles, including four shadow positions that carry the opposite attitude of each ego function which we discuss in another article.

INTP

  1. Ti
  2. Ne
  3. Si
  4. Fe

ISFP

  1. Fi
  2. Se
  3. Ni
  4. Te

ENTJ

  1. Te
  2. Ni
  3. Se
  4. Fi

ENFP

  1. Ne
  2. Fi
  3. Te
  4. Si
  1. Hero / Heroinewhat you trust first
  2. Parenthow you foster and take responsibility
  3. Eternal Childplay, relief, inflation
  4. Inferioraspiration, embarrassment, and what you tend to project

Two rules, sixteen types

Two constraints produce the sixteen types rather than a heap of combinations.

The perceiving and judging functions alternate in a fixed rhythm: JPPJ or PJJP. The attitudes also alternate: ieie or eiei. Those two rules, plus which perceiving function and which judging function sit higher, give sixteen lawful stacks.

JPPJ

PJJP

ieie

eiei

What this quiz does

This quiz does not ask you to choose E or I, N or S. It asks fifty-two statements about the eight function-attitudes, then names the classical type whose stack best fits those scores, with the leading function weighted first. The letters, if they appear, are a name for the stack.

If you want the eight in more detail, read Jung’s eight function-attitudes next. If the letters still look like a separate language, the four-letter code page is the decoder. If you want what each position is for, including Beebe’s shadow roles, read the function stack.

Begin the quiz