Similarities between Tertiary Feelers

The longer you are immersed in the world of type, the more patterns and parallels you start to see emerge, sometimes between functions and placements that you wouldn’t even expect. One of those instances will be the subject of today’s article. I have noticed that function placement can do a lot in the way of causing mirror behaviors even if the I/E preference is the opposite. See 5 differences between IXTP and EXTJs. Even though those types lead with two different thinking functions (Ti and Te), there are common traits that they share. The same is true for tertiary feelers. Allow me to explain.

Tertiary Fe and Fi users tend to share similar attributes when it comes to how they approach relationships and social perception. What I am talking about is how the internal and external judging functions are coming into play. I suppose this article could just as easily be labeled similarities between thinking auxiliaries, but I digress.

Disclaimer:

Before I continue, I want to clarify that I am speaking to underdeveloped, purely tertiary behavior. This means that the use may not be considered healthy or appropriate, and may not apply to users who have worked on and matured their tertiary function.

Tertiary Attitude

Tertiary feelers tend to be secure in relationships and have a relatively static identity. They also tend to not factor in much emotional information. This results in a security in self (for the average healthy individual). The tertiary Fe/Fi users tend to not need external validation for their capabilities. In other words, their idea of themselves tends to be relatively self-sustaining and consistent.

So why is this? Having the judging functions (T/F) in the middle of someone’s stack tends to leave the thinking and feeling functions relatively balanced. This is part of the reason why tertiary feelers tend to be secure in their identity. Having a T or F function in the dominant position tends to result in imbalances that lead to varying degrees of insecurity or obsession with identity or image. Now, you may ask, “What about the auxiliary feelers? They have their judging functions in the middle too.” This is true, but when the feeling function is auxiliary they tend to place much more importance on emotional information and relationships. This generally means that they won’t have the same attitude that is produced by the tertiary feelers as it tends to be a product of devaluing relationships.

The tertiary feeler’s attitude is what tends to lead them into trouble, because they under think their social standing and/or relationships. In some cases, this can cause them to gain a false confidence or ego which can obviously be quite detrimental. This problem can be compounded by a lack of self criticism, leading to an indifference to how people perceive them in certain situations. Of course, being indifferent means that they will feel no need to change.

Relationship with Emotions

Not placing importance on emotional information leads to generally under-thinking one’s feeling function. This leads the tertiary feelers to not have much of a focus on their feeling function, while other types do. (The higher feelers value their feeling function as a rule, while the inferiors have a negative, more spiteful or avoidant relationship with theirs.) Tertiary feelers, on the other hand, have enough confidence in their feeling function to not need to overthink it, while simultaneously not valuing it enough to lean on it heavily.

The fact that their emotions tend to be under-thought is partially why their well-being isn’t wrapped up in the well-being of others. Obviously, they’ll hold certain relationships to be highly valuable, and will be emotionally affected by those. But otherwise, the tertiary feelers tend to more easily assert themselves in relationships even when it may result in conflict or strained interaction. They may not provoke conflict intentionally, but they don’t typically go out of their way to avoid it, especially if that means self-suppression.

Relationship with Others

Tertiary feelers tend to leverage others to their advantage, not thinking much about it one way or another. As hinted at earlier, their feeling function is developed enough to use as a tool, but not always good enough to make meaningful, long standing relationships. Instead, they tend to forge relationships for gain, where they will view people by how useful they are rather than as meaningful connections. They can be socially adept enough to be pleasant and seemingly agreeable, but lack the desire to make the relationship anything more than one of convenience and utility. Sometimes, these relationships are mutually beneficial to both parties; other times, they are not.

They will probably view most of their relationships as acquaintances, only feeling compelled to form a deeper relationship with a hand-picked few. If you are only on an acquaintance level with them, they will have no problem completely dropping all communication with you, if they deem you to be more trouble than you are worth.

Relationship with Social Image

Another similarity between tertiary feelers is that both can readily pick a social identity given their current situation or needs. They will stick closely to a certain identity in spite of external criticism or even self evaluation, but being able to shift around as needed is baked into that identity. They usually see no need to change the way they are (from a social image standpoint) to accommodate others needs, since their well-being is not tied closely to the well-being of the public or their general circle of acquaintances. For better or for worse, they can be very stubborn and resilient when it comes to their identity. Consequently, this can give one a pretty significant confidence boost as it is definitely helpful and ego boosting to be secure in who you are and in your own self-perception.

Now, this isn’t to say that the tertiary feeling functions manifest completely the same. The commonality is the under-thought confidence in one’s social image, but it manifests differently due to either the Fe or Fi persuasion. The tertiary Fe users will tend toward more of classical social confidence and charm, while the Fi users will go more for the secure independent route. They both do tend to give off a similar confident vibe when they are healthy or are leaning more into the egotistical side of being unhealthy.

Conclusion

In the end, tertiary feelers seem to have enough of an emotional awareness to use it in a utilitarian way even if they don’t have an interest in creating a meaningful relationship with the other person. Of course, this is assuming the user is only using that function in an underdeveloped tertiary capacity and is not attempting to further develop or grow it. There are many tertiary feelers that are extremely amiable and care about their interactions with others. This article was more focused on a basic tendency, without taking into account any deeper feeling development.