In my previous post, The Societal Role of Intuitive Introverts, I suggested that INTP, INFP, INTJ, and INFJ types function as the subconscious of society. They reveal overlooked or suppressed truths that can point the way to more ethical, rewarding, or sustainable ways of living. By showing us what we’re missing or how we’ve gotten off track, intuitive introverts function as catalysts of cultural change and evolution.
In many ways, the process of individual development is not unlike cultural evolution. We encounter new information, be it from within (e.g., self-insight) or without (e.g., culture), which, if accepted and integrated, can inspire real and lasting change. Just as cultural consciousness has been transformed over the course of history, our personal consciousness evolves as we assimilate new experiences and insights.
Integrating new information and perspectives involves an expansion of consciousness. According to Jung, the more material we integrate into consciousness, the more capable we are of experiencing and understanding the greater Self. Thus, Jung believed that remaining open and receptive to subconscious insights was critical to psychospiritual betterment.
There are limits, however, to the amount of new information we can process at one time. Too much can overwhelm us and may therefore fail to spark change. Moreover, the conditions must be right for us receive and make good use of an insight. Just as we must learn the alphabet before we can spell, there are certain prerequisites for our psychological development as well. As discussed in my book, The 16 Personality Types, personality type development typically commences with the dominant function and proceeds downward through the function stack, with the inferior function being the last and most difficult of our four functions to develop.
Because culture endures across generations, its knowledge and consciousness can expand indefinitely. And since this knowledge isn’t passed along biologically, individuals must “catch-up,” developmentally speaking, to the current level of cultural consciousness. While much of this gap between individuals and culture can be bridged by education, certain cultural ideas may be resisted when they come into conflict with the individual’s personality preferences. In this post, we will explore one example of this. Namely, we will examine some of the conflicts and challenges thinking (T) and feeling (F) types may experience in a culture that emphasizes what I will call role fluidity. We will also consider how our level of type development influences the types of roles we are willing to adopt as well as our political sympathies.
Thinking, Feeling & Role Fluidity
In using the term role fluidity, I am referring to the cultural belief that thinkers should be able and willing to assume the roles traditionally carried out by feelers, and vice-versa. The push for gender equality is an obvious factor here, as is the growing trend toward dual-income households, which has required parents to play both the provider and caregiver roles.
Nevertheless, many couples have been slow to implement role fluidity, in part, because it fails to resonate with their personality preferences. I’ve known a number of ISFPs and INFPs, for instance, who have opted to subsist on a single income in order to stay at home with their young children. Similarly, I’ve known a number of T types who love their work and seem happy to function as sole income providers.
So what’s going on here? Is there an inherent flaw in the role fluidity ideal?
Culture isn’t wrong in having establishing T-F role fluidity as a goal. I agree that, if all goes according to plan, we can transcend our personality type and embrace any number of life roles. However, we can also acknowledge that some individuals may want to exercise the unique strengths of their personality type in a focused or specialized way.
We can further clarify this issue by acknowledging its parallels with type development. As I mentioned earlier, we typically don’t develop all four functions to the same degree at the same time. Rather, there is a developmental sequence, in which certain functions differentiate and develop earlier than others. It often isn’t until later in our type development that we can competently alternate between several functions. So while we expect a capacity for T-F role fluidity to authentically emerge as a product of type development, it can take time, especially for dominant thinkers (INTP, ISTP, ENTJ, ESTJ) or dominant feelers (INFP, ISFP, ENFJ, ESFJ).
Granted, many proponents of role fluidity don’t see it as something that requires years of personal development, but instead consider it a moral imperative that should be universally embraced in order to ensure fairness and equality. They may also downplay the existence of inborn personality traits, seeing personality as a fluid product of environmental shaping. Thus, as cultural conditions and ideals shift, it is assumed that individuals can and should change accordingly.
To a certain extent, it is true that culture leaves its stamp on our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. It is also true that in cases where cultural beliefs fail to resonate with our personality, we may resist them, at least until we’re ready to adopt them.
So should we dive headlong into role fluidity from the outset, or should we remain open to type-specific roles? Culture, especially in urban areas, may nudge us toward the former, while our personality type may at times vie for the latter. Although immersing ourselves in a variety of roles may lead to an expansion of our personal competencies, it may also contribute to feelings of dissatisfaction and inauthenticity, not to mention personal burn-out. Thus, for some individuals, developing a narrower set of skills in early adulthood, such as those associated with their dominant and auxiliary functions, may be preferred over attempting to simultaneously develop and integrate the less conscious functions (see our post, Two Paths to Type Development, for more on this).
Political Insights
Understanding the structure and stages of type development can also shed light on the historical beliefs and values of the political parties. The political Left, which in the U.S. is sometimes called progressivism, is always pushing to expand and diversify our moral consciousness, including advocating for role fluidity. As we’ve seen, this can be associated with an advanced stage of type development, one which some people may fail to reach until later in life. By contrast, the political Right has largely defended traditional T-F role distinctions.
If our hitherto analysis is sound, both of these political perspectives have their own utility. The Right, in recognizing the realities of an earlier stage of development sometimes called differentiation, might be seen as providing a useful model for individuals aiming to employ and develop a specific set of strengths and competencies.
The political Left helps us envision a future where we are developed enough to transcend narrow role identifications. Its critique of fixed or pre-defined roles is also understandable, as fixed roles have not only been historically associated with bias and discrimination, but have limited opportunities for those wanting to explore alternative paths.
Recap
Individual type development can be seen as mirroring some of the broad phases of psychological and social evolution in Western culture. This includes a gradual expansion of consciousness to incorporate new attitudes, perspectives, and functions, allowing for greater comfort and competence in a variety of roles.
This doesn’t happen overnight, however, but occurs in multiple stages across the lifespan. These observations can further our appreciation of individual differences, as well as the respective emphases of the political Left and Right.
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To better understand your personality, identity, life roles, career path and more, be sure to explore our online course, Finding Your Path as an INFP, INTP, ENFP or ENTP:
Related Posts:
The Societal Role of Intuitive Introverts
Changing Faces of Type: Understanding Personality Shifts & “Identity Crises”
Jeff F says
Don Beck’s expansion of Clare Grave’s model of Spiral Dynamics is also useful in trying to make sense of human history and our contemporary struggles. Together with MBTI we’ve a chance to at least understand the situation we’re in and why certain approaches can or can’t work to help move us forward.
Thanks for this; I maintain hope.
Haya says
I recently found out that I’m an ENTJ, and I’m a female in my 40s. For various pragmatic reasons I developed my Fi as fast and early in young childhood and then my Se in my teens. But I did this at great personal cost, because doing so prevented the proper worldly development of my Te and Ni, (which I used mainly only in private or when discussing and making plans with my INTP father when he was still alive) and so I have operated in the world without my strengths and yet without really ever understanding the inferior and tertiary functions I have used so much, and consequently using them only in a defensive, rather than a creative, way.
Three major problems:
1) I don’t have a satisfying and fulfilling place in society (read high-energy, busy, dynamic, intellectually-stimulating work with the concomitant sense of purpose, sense of usefulness, confidence, respect and money);
2) I no longer have any NT friends I see on a regular basis b/c it seems that after university most NTs see each other at work, which would usually be the best place to find them – or else if they’re my old (male) friends their wives don’t get on with me/feel threatened by me, so I only get to see them rarely. This leaves me bored, lonely and extremely personally under-stimulated and with no NT ‘safe-space’(LOL) where I can argue and debate and cut through the BS with others who will enjoy it as much as I do – and also point out where and when I am going wrong in a way I can understand and respect;
3) I STILL really only use my Fi in a predictive and defensive way – I don’t REALLY understand on a gut level why feelers act and make decisions as they do. I just intellectually analyse them and usually accurately predict their reactions, without really understanding them, because their decisions essentially still seem illogical to me. I can see perhaps how they feel but can’t really empathise with why they choose to make THAT part of their reaction (the feeling bit) the bit they listen to and make decisions with. This means I am very good at seeing what’s going to happen when I say or do what I want to say or do, and I also can predict the precise amount of disappointment, shock, unhappiness, bafflement and rage that will follow on their part (and that they will likely ACT on those feelings) – and I then use a lifetime of practice to inhibit myself either partially or more usually, fully. This leaves me frustrated – miserable and helpless to act in the ways I want/need to in life.
Due to my super-sensitive Fi I am not protected as most NTs are by a sort of innocence about how others are going to react to their objective decisions and statements. Other NTs are usually free to make their objective case or statement or action and then watch in amazement as everyone around them starts crying, or screaming in rage and storming out. I however am always looking out in advance for how others are going to react and I stop myself from speaking or acting. I am horribly sensitively attuned using my Fi to see how non-NTs are going to react. Being female doesn’t help of course. But this means as well as not acting therefore in a way that’s useful to me, I’m also not acting in a way that’s useful to others/the world. Our tribe of humans needs all the types acting at high capacity. It even needs female ENTJs…
All in all, from my experience, I think it’s a disaster not to develop your dominant functions first and to use them to act in and on the world. Too much wisdom (from your weaker functions) at too early an age prohibits and prevents your development, stops you from setting out confidently on your worldy journey, and leaves you useless/of reduced utility to your tribe and therefore weak and depressed.
Obviously the next stage would be to start using my Te and Ni in public. But it’s very hard to start doing that when you’re in your 40s, surrounded by feelers and other non-rational types, and haven’t joined or built up any real-world NT-friendly structures. Ideas (especially from other NTs) very welcome!
A.J. Drenth says
Thanks so much Haya for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I agree that developing / employing the dominant function early in life is beneficial, but I’m not sure it’s too late to start in your 40s. As discussed in my post, Changing Faces of Type, most of us will feel prompted to start veering in a new direction in the second half of life, regardless of which functions were emphasized early on.
Daniel says
Hey Jordan Peterson, I caught you trying to pass this biological determinist misogyny off as prescriptive psychological insight. It seems like you’re trying to say there is some inherent and natural knowledge saying thinkers should think and feelers should feel, but that now “the Left” and its (gender) role fluidity are trying to say that there’s a little bit of thinker and feeler in each of us and trying to force us all into positions to which we weren’t born. Adding that leftists are idealists and conservatives realists doesn’t nuance this argument at all.
MBTI is already designed to help people recognize their strengths and develop their weaknesses. We don’t need some dogmatic explanation to convince us, especially when it’s packaged as women=feelers men=thinkers, thinkers=workers feelers=caretakers. These dichotomies are oppressive, superstitious and dangerous.
A.J. Drenth says
Hey Daniel,
Thanks for commenting. What I was trying to emphasize in the post is the importance of time in human psychology. In my view, appreciating the time element can furnish us with the empathy and the nuance to better understand each other. We don’t expect beginners to become maestros overnight, but recognize that developing any skill or advanced psychological capacity can require plenty of developmental time.
Politically, there is an ideal and reality for both the Left and Right positions. The main difference, again, is where they’re situated on the developmental timeline.
Finally, I wasn’t trying to package women as feelers, men as thinkers, etc. We know statistically, that there is some correlation in this respect, but one of the benefits of personality type is it allows those who don’t fit the “thinking male” and “feeling female” notions to better understand themselves (and for others to better understand them as well).
Mike says
Traditional gender roles can’t just be confined to political and personality preferences since long term evolution also has a significant impact. For example, it’s well known women are naturally more nurturing than men are due to bearing children and hence becoming the primary caregiver. There’s also no denying men are designed to hunt and gather. These traits are also applicable in modern day employment as opposed to having to sustain a family, or tribe, in the wilderness. While I believe it is possible to transcend natural gender roles (as it’s already underway) I believe it will take many generations for our in-born evolutionary”equipment” to adapt. This factor must be included in addition to type/personality preferences and political beliefs.