Each Cognitive Function’s Relationship to Consequences

In the never-ending mission to try and provide practical examples of the relationships between the cognitive functions and real world interaction, I started to mull over how each cognitive function relates to consequences. What is their reaction to consequences? What role do they play in the processing and analysis of them? What would their focus change in one individual to another if they were swapped around or replaced with another? That is what we are going to delve into today.

Introverted Sensing (Si)

Long lasting, deeply impactful, details of user’s experience vividly imprinted

Si’s relationship with consequences is the focus on the record of what happened and the recollection of that record. When negative consequences are brought down upon a dominant Si user, they tend to recall their experience of that very vividly. It, in most cases, will serve as a strong deterrent far into the future, causing most SJs to steer well clear of whatever situation happened to lead to that negative outcome. The situational factors will be set as high importance, activating the memory center of the brain and burning a vivid impression of what they went through into their mind

Related Article: Do SJs Have The Best Memories?

Extraverted Sensing (Se)

Presently focused, fleeting, moved past once initial shock is past

Se’s relationship with consequences is one of present focus and immediate reaction. Se will hone in on the current implications of the negative experience, assessing the immediate damage and if anything can be presently done to change those circumstances. Unlike Si, Se is not focused on burning a permanent and vivid impression into one’s memory. Rather, it is focused on taking as much in about the present moment and updating it as quickly as possible. This would necessitate the discarding of each past moment in order to focus on the present one. As such, if the consequences do not have long-term lingering side effects, the Se user can be quick to move past the consequences and will not necessarily be avoidant of whatever circumstances led to them to begin with.

Introverted Intuition (Ni)

Long lasting, deeply impactful, symbolic representation of experience imprinted

Ni’s relationship with consequences is more similar to Si. It also focuses on records and recollection. When experiencing negative consequences, Ni will distill down an impression or warning that will invoke wariness if it recognizes similar patterns or events unfolding at a future time. Due to the imprinting of the experience being more vague (IE: less detailed), it may apply in more scenarios than the one that initially caused the negative circumstances to occur. They may not feel as compelled to avoid the exact circumstances that led to them either. This is to do with the abstract way that Ni chooses to create impressions. If an element of the experience didn’t get distilled down into the impression they stored away, it won’t trigger the alarm bells.

Related Article: Si vs. Ni: Details and Patterns

Extraverted Intuition (Ne)

Presently focused, further side effects spun out from initial interaction, fleeting, moved past once initial shock is over

Ne’s relationship with consequences is one of extrapolation. It will focus on the present, negative effects and then spin them out into other possibilities. This leads to a compounding effect and sometimes a snowballing into worse or better scenarios than they are currently in, depending on the leaning of the individuals psyche. While they initially focus on the immediate situation, they do not stay there for long and will try to find a path forward to change the current consequences into something else, with the ultimate goal of either lessening them or avoiding even worse imagined scenarios than they are currently in. Like Se, the focus on present possibilities moves them past the creation of strong impressions, instead favoring a focus on changes. For this reason, they may also be quick to move past the current consequences, especially if they are not long term.

Extraverted Feeling (Fe)

Severity measured by social harm, checked against social standing after incident, aware and focused on group impact.

Fe being a extroverted judging function focuses less on the surrounding information that caused the consequences and more on the consequences themselves. They will be mostly zeroed in on what kind of harm it has done to them, either reputational or the harm it’s brought to the group and their standing within it. The severity of the consequences will be measured by how damaged their positioning is in the aftermath. If the situation causes their support network to rally around them rather than reject them, it will be viewed as less severe even if it was a large set back. (Remember, a support network can be a large community they are a part of, or a small group of friends, or their family unit, etc.)

Introverted Feeling (Fi)

Severity measured by personal harm, how much did the incident negatively impact the individual, aware of damage to one’s own psyche

Fi is also a judging function and as such will also focus more on the consequences themselves. However, unlike Fe, the focus will be more so on the damage that has been done to them internally. They will be acutely aware of how the consequences have impacted their view of themselves. The severity of the consequences will be measured by emotional damage and how much distress it has caused the individual. This is why these types often have a clear recall of the emotions associated with their memories (although, technically, the perceiving functions are what prompted the memory to internalize that data, because the emotions are part of the impression).

Extraverted Thinking (Te)

Severity measured by how much of a set back it caused, checked against social standing after incident, aware and focused on external impact

Like Fe, Te’s view of consequences is focused outward. The difference here is that Te will focus on how much it has set them back more so than how it has damaged them socially. They will focus more on the social damage if it starts to blend into the overall setback, but that will not be the main or initial focus. The severity of the consequences will be measured in how much time and energy has been lost by the set back and how long it will take to get back on track toward the initial goal. This is ultimately because is Te is focused on the “logical” impact that consequences have, or the physical cause and effect.

Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Severity measured by personal harm, how much did the incident negatively impact personal reasoning, re-evaluation of reasoning that led to consequences, aware of damage to one’s own logical structures

Ti’s relationship to consequences is one of re-analysis. It will focus on how much damage it has done to them internally, similar to Fi, but they will be more likely to frame it within the context of their mental framework, rather than identifying it directly as emotional damage. (This is not to say that they won’t retain emotional damage, but their process will detach that aspect for the sake of analysis.) The severity of the consequences will be measured by much faith they have lost in their own reasoning skills and how much of their reasoning is what led to the consequences. In other words, they must determine if it was due to an error within their internal judgements, and then update the framework accordingly.

In Conclusion

Most people will be a combination of at least two of these categories, usually their top two functions. (Although, it’s a possible a looper will relate more to their tertiary than their auxiliary.) They will blend the areas of perceiving and judging together to get a personal perspective of how the consequences impact them based on what they prioritize most. This can lead to very different takeaways even from the same experience. If we were to, for instance, have a group of people all experience the same set of consequences from a joint endeavor, these individuals may have very different experiences of those consequences even if the physical consequences were exactly the same for them all. This is a testament to how cognitive reasoning can cause different experiences of a shared reality and why recollections of events seem so inconsistent from one person to another. Hopefully, this analysis helps explain how different people process consequences and how that can potentially dictate the difference in reaction to them.