Are Thinkers smarter than Feelers?
So many times I’ve seen people make the mistake of assuming intelligent people must be thinkers. Now, I’ll admit that the terminology MBTI uses is kind of… misleading. Judgers are not always “judgemental” in the traditional sense, just like some perceivers can be very judgemental. Thinkers do, in fact, feel, and feelers also think. Our intelligence has nothing to do with our personality at all.
We naturally associate thinking with the ability to reason and with our IQ. However, that is not the way MBTI is using the term. Thinkers prefer to make decisions without considering emotion, our own emotion or the emotion of the others. We (speaking as a thinker) feel emotions cloud reason, create bias, and prevent the right decision from being made. We may make a decision that we feel is best for others in spite of their feelings, or perhaps completely disregard our own feelings in an attempt to make what we’ve deemed “the best decision.” Don’t get me wrong – This can be a mistake. There are times when feelings should be considered, and there are times when they shouldn’t. A thinker is self-deceived if he/she thinks he/she is capable of completely removing emotion from the equation. Human beings are emotional. Bottom line. However, with all of that said, while being a “thinker” defines a preferred decision making process, it does not define one’s ability to reason.
Feelers can be just as smart as thinkers. Feelers can and do go into “braniac” fields. Our MBTI types affects our personality and motivations. It certainly does not affect our biology, nor does it determine our interests or what career path will be best for us. (That’s a whole ‘nother post that will be written…eventually.) Certain types are prone to find certain types of things interesting, but that is a relatively broad statement, and there are exceptions to every rule. Let me bring up some examples.
My sister is an INFP. I have no clue what anyone’s IQ is so I can’t give that kind of information as an example, but I can say that she is a very intelligent person. She graduated college in the top of her class with a 4.0. I also know a very obvious ESFJ. No one meeting her would doubt that she’s a feeler. It’s…(not to be redundant).. very obvious. She worked as some kind of biochemical… something or other for NASA. Engineer perhaps? Molecular biologist? I’m honestly not sure of her exact title. Regardless, she’s a highly intelligent scientist. My brother is an ENFP software developer/computer scientist/linux system administrator. (His role has varied over the past few years because he can just… learn new things as necessary). I could grab others from my personal life, but I’ll go ahead and move on to some movie/tv examples.
Abby Sciuto from NCIS is a pretty clear ENFP. I once read a forum thread where someone tried to label her as an NTJ, because she is a highly intelligent scientist. I gaped at my computer screen in dismay. Chuck from the show Chuck (>.>) is a pretty clear NFP as well. Elle Woods from Legally Blonde is definitely a feeler of some kind. There’s also Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds. I’m sure there are a million other examples I could produce if I thought about it long enough. If you were to look at a list of some of the most rich and successful people out there from businessmen, actors, lawyers, doctors, and etcetera, I guarantee you would find a rich and diverse population of personalities. They will most certainly not be limited to thinkers.
The bottom line here is that you should never assume someone is a certain type based on how smart they appear to be. It is completely irrelevant in the typing process. There are plenty of statistics out there that attempt to pin down the smartest type based on statistics, but that is either bogus or a temporary statistic. Maybe at this point in time, the smartest person in the world (if that were even possible to determine) is an ENTP. Tomorrow it could be an INFP. In a year, perhaps an ENFJ. Maybe right now, there are more intelligent INTJs then INFJs, but that could change at anytime. It’s about biology, not personality type.
(Disclaimer – If biology is not the scientific field I should be referencing here… sorry. I’m not a scientist. >.>)
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You are making the age-old mistake of confusing MBTI feeling with emotions (why do Thinking types always do this? It’s really not that hard to understand….)
MBTI feeling is about values: about your preference for gauging what the self/collective find important in this life and directing your time, focus and energy on the outputs which sprout from these variables. As an Fi-dom I find the thinker tendency to do the logical thing all the time irresponsible and short-sighted: not only are their reasons for doing xyz not addressed (they just do the logical thing yet don’t know why) but they also suppress their visceral and subconscious wants and needs: a tendency which blows up in their face sooner or later. The vast majority of thinkers are cowardly (instead of enlightened as they like to present themselves) and whilst intelligent remain critically stunted in various areas which feelers eventually come to excel.
“MBTI feeling is about values”
This is true, however, feeling types in general tend to be more emotionally driven or emotionally intelligent than the thinkers, which does link it to emotions, even if that’s not the root definition. However, I never claimed that what the thinkers do is “better”. (I’ll correct it if I have). I have had my tendencies as a thinker blow up in my face many times. And oftentimes, thinkers do use “logic” as an excuse to not do the right thing.
But the point of this article was that intelligence has nothing to do with whether someone is a feeler or a thinker.