Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F): What’s the Difference?

In the Myers-Briggs system, those with a “T” in their four-letter type code are thinkers, while those with a “F” are feelers. Some people think the difference between thinkers and feelers are obvious. After all, thinkers think and feelers feel, right? Thinkers are rational and feelers are emotional, right? Unfortunately, thinking vs. feeling is not quite that simple. In some instances, it may be obvious when someone is a thinker, or when someone is a feeler, but for the times when it’s not so obvious, it’s important to understand the real distinctions between thinking vs. feeling.

Beware of Bias

Feelers are often subjected to a negative bias within the typology community. The assumption is that they are irrational, and not capable of intelligence like a thinker is. To be clear, that is a misconception (which will be discussed more later). Being a thinker within the Myers-Briggs system (or any variant of the 16 personalities theory) has nothing to do with intelligence. Thinkers can be emotional, and feelers can be intelligent. It’s important that you set aside your personal biases before proceeding forward.

Read More: Yes, Thinkers Feel and Yes, Feelers Think

Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F): The Myers-Briggs Dichotomy

If you’re new to the 16 personalities, here are a couple of things that you need to know.

(1) Carl Jung identified 4 dichotomies (Thinking, Feeling, Intuition, Sensing), each encompassing two cognitive functions of opposite orientations. In other words, extraverted thinking (Te) and introverted thinking (Ti) are part of the thinking dichotomy, just like extraverted feeling (Fe), and introverted feeling (Fi) are part of the feeling dichotomy. As a result, there are a total of 8 cognitive functions (Te, Ti, Fe, Fi, Ne, Ni, Se, Si). Carl Jung theorized that each individual would have one of these 8 functions as their dominant, and that dominant function would play the greatest role in how their personality type manifests.

(2) Myers and Briggs came along, studied his work, and reformed it into 16 personality types, based on how he described the framework. In the process, they identified similarities between cognitive functions within the same dichotomy, and created generalized descriptions based on these similarities. In other words, Extraverted Thinker (Te users) and Introverted Thinkers (Ti users) were grouped into a general Thinking description, while Extraverted Feelers (Fe users) and Introverted Feelers (Fi users) were grouped into a general Feeling description. (This thinking vs feeling dichotomy was then labelled as “T” and “F” in the four-letter type codes.)

Related Article: Carl Jung’s Psychological Types: A Look at the Framework

Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F) Misconceptions

Like all the other dichotomies, people often make Thinking (T) and Feeling (F) out to be something far more extreme than they actually are. I’m going to counter a few of the common ones before proceeding to the real differences between thinking and feeling.

1. Thinkers are mean, and Feelers are nice

So many times, I see people act like jerks under the guise of being a thinker. However, that’s not how this dichotomy works. Thinkers are not inherently jerks, nor are they jerks for the sake of being jerks. Likewise, feelers can be mean and tactless. There’s an element of social skills involved here, in addition to basic human empathy. Personality type does not define or determine these things.

2. Thinkers have no emotions, and Feelers are cry babies

Personality type does not magically exempt someone from having emotions. Rather, personality type will influence how someone might deal with their emotions, or how much they might value them by default. Thinkers may appear less emotional, at times, but that doesn’t mean they are. But with that being said, some thinkers are more open about their emotions, even if that emotion is just anger. As for feelers, believe it or not, feelers can be stoic, especially the introverted ones. The cry baby stereotype is more indicative of someone who is emotionally immature, rather than a feeler specifically.

3. Thinkers are the villains, and Feelers are the heroes

In the process of associating values with feelers, people have associated morality with feelers. This is also false. Morality is separate from type. So, someone takes the understanding that thinkers are mean and thinkers have no values and starts labeling every villain as a thinker. Once again, that’s false. In fact, there are many excellent examples of villainous feelers, just like there are excellent examples of heroic thinkers.

Related Article: The Myers-Briggs Personality Types As Heroes and The Myers-Briggs Personality Types As Villains

4. Thinkers are intelligent, and feelers are not.

Lastly, and probably the most prominent of them all, the intelligence bias within the MBTI community. The word “thinking” is often taken far too literally, creating the misconception that feelers aren’t analytical or intelligent because they don’t “think”. (They’re just emotional, cry babies, right?) Once again, this is false. Intelligence is separate from personality type.

5. Feeling is about values, and thinking is not.

People get all up in arms when the feeling (F) dichotomy is tied to emotions. They’ll adamantly claim that feeling is about values. While I understand why feelers want to disassociate feeling from emotions, there is an inherent problem with making it all about values. Namely, the word “value” is extremely general, encompassing all kinds of things that feelers won’t necessarily “value”. Please realize that everyone has values, and everything can be a value. Values drive everyone’s actions, because everything is tied to a value. It’s more accurate to say that feelers value certain kinds of values. But now I’m just being confusing.

Read More: Feeling vs Thinking: What Are Values?

2 Real Differences Between Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

In the above misconceptions, I didn’t really dive into explaining how the stereotype came about, or what truth at the core of each has been twisted to produce the stereotype. That’s because I’m going to talk about those things below, while covering the real differences between the thinking (T) and feeling (F) dichotomy.

1. Thinkers devalue emotional data, while feelers do not

The reason that thinkers may appear to be less emotional, and that feelers may appear to be more emotional, is due to how they view emotions in general. Thinkers often view emotions as something that is getting in the way of objectivity. They see emotions as distractions, or weakness. They see emotional data as invalid. Of course, this isn’t to say that they’re not affected by emotions. All humans being are (rare exceptions aside). In reality, what tends to happen is that thinkers try to section off their emotions, or compartmentalize them, which can lead to a couple of different issues.

• Emotions end up having a subconscious influence on them, one that they’re totally oblivious to. This can lead to them thinking they’re being objective, when in reality they are the farthest thing from it.
• The attempt to completely detach themselves from emotions can lead to them being “emotionally constipated”, so to speak. They can struggle to form deep relationships, express vulnerability, etc.
• The suppression of emotions can become a ticking time bomb, leading to an extreme and inappropriate emotional explosion.

Feelers, on the other hand, view emotions as relevant. After all, a person’s decisions and experiences all impact their emotions. It’s unavoidable. Therefore, emotions should be taken into account, whether those emotions be one’s personal emotions or the emotions of others. Because of this willingness to validate emotions, feelers are often more willing to express emotions. Of course, I’m not saying feelers won’t be private, and cautious with whom they express their emotions to. I’m just stating a general tendency. So, while thinkers are trying to strip out the emotional data to be objective, feelers are valuable because they recognize the need to take emotions into account. One cannot truly be objective without recognizing and accounting for the substantial influence that emotions have on people.

2. Thinkers are task-focused, while feelers are people-focused

Remember my little explanation about values in the misconceptions section earlier? Here’s where it’s relevant. Feelers often focus on defining or forming values that measure someone or something’s worth and importance, specifically in regard to emotional or social impact. For Fi in the FPs, this will center around evaluating the specific type of person they want to be, and forming personal ideals. Whereas, in the FJ, this will center around forming values in direct response to their chosen community, or the external impact. This inherently makes feelers more people-focused, even if they aren’t moral or extraverted.

On the other hand, thinkers focus more on tasks, even when it’s to help people. In a sense, thinkers are more concrete in nature. They’ll look for physical ways to solve people’s problems, resulting in them either missing or ignoring the emotional component. Many people miscategorize thinkers as mean because of this, because in the moment thinkers are prone to completely tuning out the human component, focusing entirely on completing the task or solving the problem. Thinkers aren’t intentionally being mean when they do this. Oftentimes, they’re legitimately just trying to be helpful, useful, or productive.