EF - Extraverted Feeling
Superior Function
Extroverted Feeling (Fe) is:
- A Rational, Objective, Feeling cognitive function.
- Extraverted Feeling seeks to judge the value of objects based on objective factors, while completely suppressing the subject. That means assigning value to objects purely based on objective and universal values and sentiments.
- Fe seeks to stay in full alignment and influence of the objective value standards.
- Source: Jung, Psychological Types - Page 595
Extroverted Feeling (Fe) explained from MBTI authors:
Is determined chiefly by the objective factor and serves to make the individual feel correctly, that is, conventionally, under all circumstances.
Adapts the individual to the objective situation.
Depends wholly upon the ideals, conventions, and customs of the environment, and is extensive rather than deep.
Finds soundness and value outside of the individual in the collective ideals of the community, which are usually accepted without question.
Has as its goal the formation and maintenance of easy and harmonious emotional relationships with other people.
Expresses itself easily and so shares itself with others, creating and arousing similar feeling and establishing warm sympathy and understanding.
Has a tendency to suppress the personal standpoint entirely, and presents the danger of becoming a feeling personality, giving the effect of insincerity and pose.
Myers, "Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type"
Extraverted Feeling (Fe) surveys a breadth of human emotions, values, and morals. It strives toward interpersonal rapport, consensus, and continuity. It can also be associated with effective communication and social intelligence,
facilitating growth and transformation in others. Outwardly, it delivers opinions and directives in a direct yet tactful way, often with a sense of emotional urgency and conviction.A.J. Drenth, "My True Type: Clarifying Your Personality Type, Preferences & Functions"
Shepherd Fe:
Announce values and prescribe the best actions. Correlated outliners and encourage them to join in the group. Actively work to fix relationships. Inspire as an orator. Make sacrifices, and ask others to sacrifce, in push to meet needs.
Host Fe:
Enjoy supporting your community, family and friends. Value harmony with others over being right. Sensitive to negative feedback. Accommodate peoples differences. Can be self-sacrificing as you even help foes.
Dario Nardi, The Magic Diamond: Jung's 8 Paths For Self-Coaching
Discussion about Fe (From PDB Discussion Boards)
Fe & Harmony
Fe is commonly associated with harmony in the MBTI community, and honestly I disagree—it's honestly lacking a lot of the "why"—the underlying cognitive process that leads to the need and prioritization of harmony, so I classify it as an emergent property of Fe, rather than an inherent property of Fe.Some people do attempt to explain why harmony is Fe by saying "well Fe is affected by negative emotions—hence why it's about harmony." but it honestly feels so incomplete to me, cause why wouldn't Te/Fi users also be affected by negativity? Like just because you don't automatically align yourself with the collective value consensus, doesn't mean you're oblivious to the emotional environment—it will also take a toll on you.The truth is both Fe/Ti and Te/Fi can focus on harmony but the cognitive process that will take place for that to happen will be different.Here are a few examples (but are not limited to just these few examples):
- Fi may want to maintain harmony because it values peace, and thus seeking out harmony helps Fi be aligned with it's values.
- Fe may want to maintain harmony because it has positive sentimental effects for others.
- Te may want harmony because it leads to positive results, like increased sales.
- Ti may want harmony because it helps it concentrate better and be more internally coherent.
What Fe actually is:
Fe is objective and proactive. Every judgement that is made must have external foundations—it must be transcendental of the subject, thus assigning value to things based on objective factors, i.e what the collective sentiment is and the objective sentimental effects things have on the external world.
Harmony may arise because Fe wants to make sure others are feeling positively, but that doesn't mean Fe can never do something drastic or blunt. For example Fe could be aggressive for the greater good—something that will lead to positive sentiment in the end and thus the aggressiveness would be worth it.
Takeaway is, look at the why behind why someone is maintaining harmony—rather than just assuming an Fe cognitive process is taking place in the psyche, because it's usually more complex than that.
Fe derives value from objective sentiment-based measurements
something i think people miss about Fe (instead thinking it’s about maintaining harmony and being nice or whatever) is that really, to Fe, moral character is influenced by external effects. hence why it’s objective. so like for example, actively making an effort to help communicates morals/ethics/whatever the F functions deal with in an externalized way gets you Fe points instead of just the static purity of the beliefs like Fi. analogously to Te about Ti. Fe is really just like, “oh youre a good person? prove it” in contrast to Te though, it’s not so much about the mechanical efficiency of what’s externally accomplished, but the objective measure of moral effort put into it and its sentimental effects.
So essentially, Fe is inclined to define and act on their morals based on the external environment (“I’ll volunteer at this food bank because it would help others fill their stomachs and make them feel good, which makes it the right thing to do”). Whereas Fi defines and acts upon their morals based on the individual (“I’ll volunteer at this food bank because I personally believe that others shouldn’t go hungry, which makes me believe this is the right thing to do”).
Inferior Function
What exactly is Dominant Fe repressing Inferior Ti?
Dominant Fe repressing Inferior Ti is when an individual puts predominant focus on the external values or collective forms of objects, like ideas and people. It enslaves its own thinking to the opinion of the majority, to mix itself into a crowd. It represses its own thinking if it fails to meet the convinctions of the heart since their dominant function is more focused on adapting to the values of the external world, things like fashion trends, traditional values and accepted values are put at utmost priority.
How does Inferior Ti manifest?
The more Inferior Ti gets repressed, the more cold, ruthless, and paranoid they become. They get into a "neurotic" state wherein they start to become "unhealthy." It manifests whenever they have the most hideous of thoughts fasten on the objects they value the most. Essentially, becoming "unhealthy" due to their "thinking" contradicting the value of an external object. This thus makes them paranoid, infantile, hysterical, dramatic, theatrical, and moody.
Quote by Carl Jung
It has ulterior motives, or at least makes an impartial observer suspect them. It no longer makes that agreeable and refreshing impression which invariably accompanies genuine feeling; instead, one suspects a pose, or that the person is acting, even though he may be quite unconscious of any egocentric motives. Over-extraverted feeling may satisfy aesthetic expectations, but it does not speak to the heart; it appeals merely to the senses or—worse still—only to reason. It can provide the aesthetic padding for a situation, but there it stops, and beyond that its effect is nil. It has become sterile. If this process goes any further, a curiously contradictory dissociation of feeling results: everything becomes an object of feeling valuations, and innumerable relationships are entered into which are all at variance with each other. As this situation would become quite impossible if the subject received anything like due emphasis, even the last vestiges of a real personal standpoint are suppressed. The subject becomes so enmeshed in the network of individual feeling processes that to the observer it seems as though there were merely a feeling process and no longer a subject of feeling. Feeling in this state has lost all human warmth; it gives the impression of being put on, fickle, unreliable, and in the worst cases hysterical."
References
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