Downside of Introverted Thinking (Ti): An Example
In this article, I want to focus on a negative attribute, or perhaps more accurately, a downside of Introverted Thinking via an example from my life. Personally, I think people’s negatives are more telling. Positive descriptions are often too easy to relate to. We all want to see ourselves through a positive lens, or emulate positive characteristics, whether to present ourselves in a positive manner or improve our lives. We aren’t typically driven to force or fake negative qualities, so those are often much more useful for identifying our natural leanings. Remember, there are two sides to everything, cognitive functions included. If you can’t relate to both, something is probably off.
Introverted Thinking, or Ti, is one of the cognitive functions that is often idealized, so it’s always been my goal to find a way to describe it, or how it works, both accurately and realistically. Many make it out to be the epitome of logic, implying that those without it cannot be logical. That is not true. Ti is better described as a style of logic, not the sole proprietor of it.
Everything Must Make Sense for Ti
The high Ti users, or XXTPs, want everything to make sense. It’s a well known fact about Ti. However, to state that too broadly isn’t exactly fair, because most people want things to make sense. Ti users aren’t the only ones that ask “why”, or rationalize, or desire logic in their day-to-day life. When asked if they want things to make sense, very few people are going to say “no”. So naturally, when trying to seek out their personality type, most people will get an automatic point toward Ti, on that premise alone. However, that’s not quite how that works.
Cognitive Functions Determine Priority
At Practical Typing, we say over and over again that everyone can do everything. We say this because, for example, having dominant introverted thinking doesn’t make someone incapable of accessing their feeling function. It simply means that they will usually prioritize their thinking function over their feeling function, especially when both are in conflict with each other. Thinkers naturally want to devalue emotional data, while feelers see value in emotional data.
Related Article: Each Cognitive Function’s Priority
A Ti User’s Priority
With that being said, a TP, especially an IXTP will prioritize logical, internal order. It will be of the utmost importance to them, to the detriment of everything else. Everything must make sense in their head before they can move forward. This is where an IXTP will start to look like a perfectionist. If they are in the middle of a project, and some tiny detail doesn’t quite make sense, the IXTP will typically stall out, and hyper focus on that one issue, because everything must be completely in sync. To put it more plainly, someone who values Ti will sacrifice efficiency because something doesn’t make perfect logical sense to them.
In stark contrast to this, someone who values Te will prioritize logical, external order. It won’t matter so much if they can’t make complete sense of the project, so long as they understand it well enough to make it do what it needs to do. Te users, or TJs, want to engineer a real world solution, and put it into action. They value efficiency. Even the FPs ought to be similar, in a way. If they can determine a real world solution to fulfill their Fi ideal, they’ll want to prioritize implementing that solution. What will slow them down, or make them stall out, is forming the perfect ideal. That’s where their perfectionism will show up. FPs often struggle with finding a goal that fully aligns with their identity or sense of self.
The Downside of Introverted Thinking (Ti): An Example
I said all of that to give you an example of Introverted Thinking from my personal life.
Scripting and web development are long time hobbies of mine. I guess, in that way, I’m a bit of a stereotype. Regardless, a couple of years back, my script wasn’t working, and I was trying to figure out why. Now, if you know anything about coding, the tiniest little bug or mistake can cause the entire thing to fail. One single missing semicolon will break the entire script. ONE SEMICOLON. Yes, yes, I’m sure I could be using a better compiling program, which would catch all those tiny mistakes for me. Etcetera. Etcetera. Blah blah blah. I don’t really care. I do what I do, and it usually works for me. Usually.
Anyway, I usually enjoy the troubleshooting process, at least to some extent. (It can get annoying, though, after a while, especially if it’s preventing you from getting to a part that you’ve been looking forward to working on.) However, that particular day, I didn’t have much time, and I had been trying to figure out the source of the issue for a while. My patience was wearing thin.
Finally, after messing with things for a while, I figured it out, and I was extremely excited. However, it then dawned on me that the code snippet that had been causing my script to bug out was also implemented elsewhere. In other words, my script should still be broken… but it wasn’t. For some reason, it was working just fine. That bothered me deeply, but unfortunately, I had real life responsibilities to attend to, so I forced myself to walk away. At least it was working.
Not too long later, the script broke again. Sure enough, the part that never should have been working in the first place, had finally stopped worked. I felt oddly relieved, albeit a bit confused, that the script could spontaneously stop working without any human intervention. (I still don’t understand how that makes any sense.) Regardless, that day I found myself proclaiming “Yes! It’s not working. The world makes sense again.”
In Conclusion…
The bottom line here is that I’d much rather something not work, and have to deal with the inconvenience of it not working, if that’s what makes sense. I was legitimately relieved when my script broke the second time around. Solutions that I can’t fully understand aren’t satisfying, and don’t really feel like a resolution to me. It’ll bug me, and bug me, and bug me. I think it’s easy for people to relate to wondering “Why didn’t that work?” Most people at some point or another have to obsess over finding a solution to something. But what about “Why DID that work? That shouldn’t have worked.” Can you relate to obsessing over that?
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“Solutions that I can’t fully understand aren’t satisfying.”
This line really got me, its kinda like when a solution works and you notice that it still has a flaw yet it manages to work. That kind of stuff really does result in confusion because it contradicts your reasoning and when it stops working, it suddenly makes sense because its finally aligned in your line of thought that: “Yeah, i knew there was a mistake, so therefore it shouldn’t work.” 😅
Btw nice article !
I absolutely relate to this and especially your last paragraph. Very nicely explained. If I ever told that to anyone else,all I’d get are looks of confusion and even disgust sometimes as if there is something wrong with me (maybe there is I don’t know haha).
Yes – i’ve had that too. working on a program, and you get output but you know you shouldn’t be – or the reason you have output is now not trustworthy so basically now you have to find why it still works – lol.’
and yes – i commonly sacrifice efficiency for perfectionism – in fact it cripples so many of my projects and yet i just don’t want to accept 2nd rate – unless i started the project to just be a quick fix type of thing – which i realised i do need to do every now and then – to get anything finished. in my 20s my family started noticing i don’t finish things, in my 50s i seriously don’t finish much. it really is an issue as a Ti dom. Recently i diverted onto a maths problem as an avenue of interest – which is rather unusual for me as an ISTP – since i prefer things with an Se element. I gave myself a month and was quite happy when i achieved a good result within a month, in fact i was in a group – all of us trying our own manner of solving it, but now another aspect of Ti comes into play – the mental connections and logical processes that i used – even when demonstrated to other people – was not adequate to demonstrate why my solution works. its mildly annoying not being able to convey a high Ti result to other people – some of whom may even be Ti dom themselves. – enough rambling… ISTP
Just wondering, how might Ti manage logistics, generally?
Or, perhaps this is a patience-related issue that varies from one individual to another?
To share my experience, as a Ti-Fe type, I tend to show a lot of patience in pondering various questions, gathering information, doing research, etc. Thinking tends to be so enjoyable. The excitement of reasoning something out on my own is just unparalleled. Sometimes, I get interested in sharing my ideas and taking part in a discussion with others. I would not mind spending hours on an idea, as long as the time is spent in a reasonable way, and for a reasonable purpose. It’s not like the Fi-type’s value-based judgment of good or bad, IMO, but rather, it is about whether it is a reasonable, meaningful thing to do, after weighing the pros and cons. Anything that satisfies my Ti, is what I consider to be meaningful, and am willing to invest time and effort in it.
However, when it comes to logistics, I tend to be very impatient and more irritable. Who would be interested in logistical stuff anyway?
This afternoon, I got literally mad at the two-factor authentication thing on my professional account. Got logged out like every 2~3 hours and had to log back in. Every time I had to use my phone to complete the process. Then I started talking to myself, asking questions aloud, why people would bother with such stupid things? Technology should aim at convenience and efficiency, not making life more difficult. You can hardly imagine how much time is wasted on such simple logistical issues as logging in. It does not have to be that way. I have drafted an email asking the IT department for an explanation. Unsurprisingly, I guess they will probably say something like, it’s for security considerations. But that sounds like nonsense. It’s not a bank, but a learning management system, and no hacker would bother to read the discussion posts and the instructions for assignments.
This is seen by me a typical example where people worry unnecessarily, so much so that they get paranoid. Time and efficiency are sacrificed under the name of security protection, but the attempts to protect security tend to be so overdone that they cause inconvenience and unnecessary hurdles. As I see it, there is nothing wrong to care about the security of online accounts, but to require people extra time to deal with such trivia seems truly unwise. It is unnecessary, unreasonable, and too complicated, IMO.
And, to make an Fe-driven argument, many people share this view. The paranoia of this sort has met common negative responses, and, perhaps similarly important, is that this can never fully prevent cyberattacks. So, what for?
Broadly, I guess that this stems from human instinct, and the concern for security has kept people safe and enabled human civilization to continue. But this comes at a price. Worrying too much might lead to ignorance and stagnation. It’s important to weigh the pros and cons and find a balance.
So, I think that Ti tends to aim for perfection and act patiently toward reaching the best answer. However, if Ti considers something to be unhelpful and unnecessary, the Ti user might take a very critical approach, and sometimes, may even demand correction or modification.
Last but not least, you have a good eye for detail. That is an admirable trait 🙂 I might not even notice something like that. And, if I must pay constant attention to the details like that, I can but I might eventually lose control of my temper. It would feel like entrapment.
Happy 4th of July weekend!