Barefoot Personality
Thinkers vs. Feelers
Thinking and Feeling are ways to describe how people operate within the world. When a person makes a decision, are they optimizing for good interactions between people? or between things? What criteria are they using for decision making? Which details are significant and which are not?
Thinkers
“Thinkers” focus on processes. There’s an operational focus that optimizes for efficiency. Thinkers want things (and people) to be functional. They struggle to deal with poorly made products or high maintenance people.
Feelers
“Feelers” focus on values — which of these is more important? Where does this person or thing fit in in the scheme of things? What’s its value?
Feelers want, and respond to, relational feedback — where is this in relation to that? Where am I in relation to them? Where is he or she in relation to me?
Extraverted Thinkers (Te)
“Does this work for the tribe?”
An extraverted thinker wants to play their part in society. They feel a responsibility to the “tribe” (their community, their workplace, their country….) to participate and be a functioning member.
Introverted Thinkers (Ti)
“Does this work for me?”
Extraverted Feelers (Fe)
“Does the tribe like this? Does this fit the values of the tribe?
An extraverted feeler wants to know where they fit in within the tribe (social group, workplace, society,…). Participation is about fulfilling their specific position/role within the group.
Fe’s feel an obligation to get consensus from the tribe. They don’t want to do something without knowing that the tribe is going to want them to do that. They don’t want to do something that the tribe isn’t going to like or value.
Introverted Feelers (Fi)
“Do I like this? Does this fit my values?”
The extraverted thinker needs to constantly adjust the world around them so that its running as efficiently and as orderly as possible. They will straighten the pictures on the walls, clean the crumbs off the table, or tuck in the tag on your shirt almost without thinking. They want things to be working well for the tribe and will enforce their sense of what that means onto those around them (whether its actually working better for the tribe or not… although more often than not, it really does help.
The extraverted feeler needs to constantly orient themselves within the tribe. This is done through what I call “pinging” — like a type of relational echolocution. When in conversation with someone, they will physically or verbally interject responses while the other person is speaking — nodding their head, smiling, saying “uh huh” or “yeah” or “I hear that,” etc. They also elicit feedback from others, asking for opinions on things where the other person’s opinion really has no bearing upon them other than helping them to position themselves within the scene of the tribe. (Like asking a waiter what their thoughts are on the ____ despite the fact that the Fe has eaten the ____ many, many times already and already knows if it’s good or not.)
An Extraverted Feeler may name drop (mentioning the University they attended, important people that they know, etc.) as means of helping the rest of the tribe understand their own position within the tribe.