Dominant Function According to Carl Jung

Posted on July 7th, 2025 in Jungian Theory by Mara

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The longer I’m into personality theory, the more I’ve felt compelled to dive into Psychological Types by Carl Jung. To be honest, this article, on the dominant function, is sort of a prelude. What actually captured my interest recently was Carl Jung’s description of the auxiliary function, a subject that’s hotly debated among those who dive “Jung” deep into cognitive function theory. However, it seems disjointed to start with an article on the auxiliary function, so I’m doing this linearly, by first covering how Carl Jung described the dominant function.

Prerequisite Information

I want to keep this article focused on the dominant function, so I’m not going to lay out a bunch of groundwork, like sometimes I do. The key information that you need to understand is that Carl Jung initially identifies two general attitudes, or attitude-types, which are introversion and extraversion. He then identifies four basic psychological functions, or function-types: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. These are then combined to make 8 variants, or as we call them today, the 8 cognitive functions.

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

What is the Dominant Function?

“If one of these functions habitually predominates, a corresponding type results.” – Psychological Types, Page 6

Your personality type is first determined by which cognitive function takes the greatest precedence, which is why it’s referred to as the “dominant” function. It’s the one in charge of all the others, or the one that the other functions are subservient to. Carl Jung also refers to the dominant function as the primary function. Of course, every variant of Carl Jung’s theory (that I know of) includes other functions, such as an auxiliary function to further clarify one’s type. However, the starting point is always the dominant function, because it is the capstone of your personality type.

Attributes of the Dominant Function

1. There Can Only Be One

“This absolute sovereignty always belongs, empirically, to one function alone, and can belong only to one function, because the equally independent intervention of another function would necessarily produce a different orientation which, partially at least, would contradict the first.” – Psychological Types, Page 405

Everything filters through your dominant function first. It’s the team leader of your cognitive function stack, the one heading up the charge. If any other cognitive function were to gain equal precedence, it would create a contradiction, or at the very least, trap you in a realm of indecision. Consider the scenario of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Both are pushing opposite goals or opposing paths. You can’t function in that state. However, while people can be extremely inconsistent in their response to moral dilemmas (whether they choose the angel or the devil), your function stack is consistently your function stack, so your dominant function will be the one that rules your behavior the majority of the time. The other functions can act as advisors and counselors, but ultimately the dominant function is the one with the greatest influence.

2. Under Conscious Control

“To recapitulate for the sake of clarity: the products of all functions can be conscious, but we speak of the “consciousness” of a function only when its use is under the control of the will and, at the same time, its governing principle is the decisive one for the orientation of consciousness. This is true when, for instance, thinking is not a mere afterthought, or rumination, and when its conclusions possess an absolute validity, so that the logical result holds good both as a motive and as a guarantee of practical action without the backing of any further evidence. This absolute sovereignty always belongs, empirically, to one function alone…” – Psychological Types, Page 405

When Jung refers to the consciousness of a function, he’s not referring to an individual’s awareness of that function, but rather, their conscious control of it. We can all be aware of the products of all of our cognitive functions, but that doesn’t mean we can consciously create those products. Naturally, the dominant function is one that must be under conscious control, not just something always running wild in your mind with no reins or direction. Sure, as the most prominent function, there might be times when it’s just going and going, but to truly be someone’s dominant function, they must be able to consciously direct it to do their bidding and act on it.

3. Best Equipped By Nature

“The demands of society compel a man to apply himself first and foremost to the differentiation of the function with which he is best equipped by nature, or which will secure him the greatest social success. Very frequently, indeed as a general rule, a man identifies more or less completely with the most favoured and hence the most developed function. It is this that gives rise to the various psychological types…” – Psychological Types, Page 450

People debate whether one’s personality type is determined by genetics (nature) or molded based on circumstances (nurture). Jung was a firm believer in nature, citing that a mom can treat every baby the same, and they will all turn out differently. However, either way, whether you believe in nature or nurture, the point remains that each individual will lean into the cognitive function that they feel best equipped to use, because whatever they’re best equipped to use will give them the greatest chance at success in life. That preferred function becomes the most favored, and thus the most developed, further earning it the title of dominant function.

In the above quote, Jung specifically calls out that an individual will apply himself first and foremost to the differentiation of their preferred function, causing them to identify completely with it. This is why it’s fairly well known that people develop their dominant function early, in their younger years, and don’t start developing the auxiliary and tertiary until a little bit later. I’m going to discuss differentiation further in the next section.

Related Article: Are Personality Types Born Or Made?

4. The Most Differentiated

“Differentiation consists in the separation of the function from other functions, and in the separation of its individual parts from each other. Without differentiation direction is impossible, since the direction of a function towards a goal depends on the elimination of anything irrelevant. Fusion with the irrelevant precludes direction; only a differentiated function is capable of being directed.” – Psychological Types, Page 424-425

Differentiation essentially means developing a function’s distinctions. That process makes it separate from all the other cognitive functions. As shown in the previous section, everyone initially focuses on the differentiation of the function that they’re most predisposed to be successful with. Therefore, the dominant function ends up being the most differentiated function. If it were not differentiated, it would not be usable, because undifferentiated functions are incapable of being directed. He also explains in another section that undifferentiated functions are unable to operate on their own, because they’re all mixed up with the rest of the undifferentiated cognitive functions.

5. Elimination of the Irrelevant

“The possibility of self-alienation by identification with the directed function does not depend solely on a rigid restriction to the one function, but also on the fact that the directed function is itself a principle that makes self-alienation necessary. Thus every directed function demands the strict exclusion of everything not suited to its nature: thinking excludes all disturbing feelings, just as feeling excludes all disturbing thoughts. Without the repression of everything alien to itself, the directed function could never operate at all.” – Psychological Types, Page 299

The concept of eliminating the irrelevant was introduced in the previous section’s quote. In this one, he’s referring to directed functions, which includes the dominant function, as we’ve discussed. He makes a point to call out that directed functions aren’t just functions that are given sole focus, but rather, they’re functions that demand the exclusion of anything directly contradictory to it’s nature. In other words, thinking must exclude feeling, and feeling must exclude thinking. Continuing that train of thought, sensing would exclude intuition, and vice versa. This is why cognitive functions exist in pairs, with each member of a pair on opposite ends of the spectrum.

“The separation into pairs of opposites is entirely due to conscious differentiation; only consciousness can recognize the suitable and distinguish it from the unsuitable and worthless. It alone can declare one function valuable and the other non-valuable, thus bestowing on one the power of the will while suppressing the claims of the other.” – Psychological Types, Page 112

The opposition between the dominant and it’s inferior function is also why we often see a whiplash relationship between dominant and inferior functions. People will shift suddenly (or jarringly) between the two, making both fairly visible, but they’ll be unable to synchronize the two, or use them in conjunction with each other. The relationship between the auxiliary and tertiary functions is usually different, since the two often work together more seamlessly, making them harder to distinguish. Of course, this makes sense because the auxiliary function is less differentiated, making it less distinct from it’s opposing function and therefore more capable of merging with it.

No One Is A Pure Type

“In the foregoing descriptions I have no desire to give my readers the impression that these types occur at all frequently in such pure form in actual life…Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated function, another, less differentiated function of secondary importance is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence.” – Psychological Types, Page 405

Jung writes this caveat towards the end of the chapter 10, after his eight cognitive function descriptions, in order to emphasize that the descriptions are extreme. The descriptions he provides are how someone might be if solely embodying their dominant function. However, anyone acting that way would be unhealthy or extremely imbalanced. Other cognitive functions exert an influence on the dominant, most namely, the auxiliary. These other functions flavor the dominant and hopefully balance it out to some degree. I’ll be discussing the auxiliary in a separate article. I called this out to emphasize that, while our dominant is our main driver, we are far more than just our dominant function.

Reference Book:

Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 6) (Bollingen Series XX)

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