Typing Close Friends and Family

This may seem like a no-brainer, and it may be very brief, but I think it’s worth putting out there, since I’ve seen some people struggle in this regard. It probably seems odd to some of you that one might struggle to type someone close to them. After all, you know the person really well right? You know their flaws and their strengths, their likes and their dislikes… and perhaps even the way they think. So, how can this possibly make typing them more difficult? Allow me to explain.

We all wear masks, to certain degree. I don’t mean to imply that we’re all fake or inauthentic, but it’s common sense that even healthy personalities act slightly different in public than in private. I’m sure there are those few rare people that act exactly same wherever they go, but for the most part, we all mask ourselves in varying degrees, depending on comfort level. Sometimes it’s because we’re shy, or introverted, or private, or just trying to act polite. The list of reasons could go on, and many would be legitimate. Essentially, the more comfortable someone is, the more of their true self they display, and vice versa.

To explain this in terms of the cognitive functions, we each approach life with our cognitive function stack, but we really only display the ones that we are the most comfortable with, which is typically only our top two. As we get older and more mature, we may reveal more of ourselves as we gain greater use of the functions lower in our stack. However, until that point, a lot of that lower use will be displayed purely in private, in addition to anything else that makes us feel uncomfortable. Let me give you a practical example.

It’s common knowledge that thinkers prefer to hide their emotions. (I’m aware that feelers do this too, so please don’t nitpick my example.) The reasons why may vary, but as a general rule, thinkers are usually very private when it comes to their emotions. We don’t trust emotions and we prefer not to dwell on them, so we hide them from others and even ourselves, at times. That type of person is going to appear unemotional in public, usually, but that doesn’t mean that the person is actually unemotional. They’re just masking that part of themselves.

Here’s where the problem comes into play. Let’s say someone (Jane) has a thinker (Bob) for a sibling or intimate friend. Jane notices that Bob, in private, is actually very emotionally expressive. He gets angry a lot, laughs a lot, has a dorky side, and etc. In fact, in private, Bob is more prone to getting angry and emotionally argumentative than Jane, and Jane is a feeler. Jane starts believing that Bob is, in fact, a feeler. Unfortunately, this logic is flawed.

All human beings have emotions…unless there’s something terribly, terribly wrong. We all have to outlet our emotions somewhere. Thinkers will usually present as less emotional, but due to their tendency to unhealthily bottle everything up and not actually deal with them, those emotions typically explode out into a mess at some point. More often than not, this will happen around their close friends or family. Thinkers are most definitely not less emotional than everyone else. Ergo, you can’t use the presence of emotion at home as a indication of their type.

So, what’s the takeaway here? If you’re trying to type a close friend or family member, learn to distinguish their private persona from their public persona. Remember, if you know someone well enough, you’ve seen all sides of their personality. You’ve seen them mad, sad, insecure, afraid, and etc. Try to obtain a high level view of who they are as a whole, and not just who they are around you. Focus on their consistent patterns of behavior and preferences… what they choose to maintain in non-intimate settings, and what they choose to mask. Remember, the introverted dominant may act like a quirky, goofy extravert in the presence of just a few loved ones, the apathetic thinker may become sweet and sensitive, the overly confident extravert might act insecure, the conflict avoidant feeler may become more opinionated, and etc. Knowing the way they are in private should help you recognize their introverted functions, which ought to give you a leg up in typing them, so long as you don’t allow your glimpse of their vulnerable side to confuse your ability to type them.