Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Letter Meanings
MBTI Results as a Cognitive Function Preference Encoding
This essay will describe and correct common misconceptions about the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (“MBTI” or “Myers Briggs”). You’ll be able to recognize the most common misconceptions yourself and explain it for your friends.
A common argument is that four binary parameters (represented by the four letter results) can not describe human personality. This argument shows a lack of understanding of MBTI source material.
The MBTI does not claim to describe human personality comprehensively. It’s important to understand that the original MBTI assessment is only about determining two parameters. Not four but two. One parameter is preference for collecting and synthesizing information. The second parameter pertains to making judgements or decisions.
The MBTI is commonly described as a personality test. Here’s a more precise definition. The MBTI indicates a person’s preferences in perceiving information and making judgements based on Jungian psychology. The results of the MBTI are an encoding of dominant and auxiliary cognitive preferences based on Jungian theory. I used the phrase based on because it is an expansion of Carl Jung’s ideas refined through collecting information on people in reality.
The four letters themselves are not four variables of equal weight. I’m going to explain the origins of this misconception later. Let’s dive into perceiving and judging cognitive functions.
Perceiving and Judging Function Encoding for Extroverts
The MBTI divides cognition preferences broadly between perceiving and judging functions. These words have specific meanings. Perceiving refers to preferences in absorbing and consuming information. Judging refers to the cognitive processes used in making judgements and decisions.
The encoding of perceiving preferences in the MBTI occurs in the second letter of the results. People either prefer to perceive information through their senses (xSxx) or intuition (xNxx). The encoding of the judging (or decision making) function occurs in the third letter of the MBTI. People either prefer to make judgements through thinking (xxTx) or feeling (xxFx).
The last letter of the MBTI points towards an extrovert’s dominant function. Let’s evaluate an ExxP as an example. For an extrovert, the P indicates a dominant perceiving cognitive function. Perception is represented by the second letter. It is either sensing (xSxx) or intuition (xNxx).
The term sensing describes observations that can be described with human senses. Intuition refers to concepts, possibilities and abstractions of ideas that can not be described with human senses. For ExxJ results, the judging function points towards the third letter of the four letter encoding. Judging preference is represented by the third letter. It is either thinking (xxTx) or feeling (xxFx).
Two extroverts as an example: ENTPs vs ENTJs
Let’s compare ENTPs with ENTJs. ENTP’s dominant cognitive function is extroverted intuition. They expend a large portion of their cognitive energies on observing external patterns and taking in information. ENTJs dominant function is extroverted thinking. They expend a large portion of their cognitive energies on making decisions through logic.
Most of an ENTJ’s mental energy is directed towards making judgements using extroverted thinking. Most of an ENTPs mental energy is directed towards collecting observations on external patterns using extroverted intuition.
ENTPs make decisions in order to collect more information. ENTJs collect information in order to make decisions.
The MBTI encoding is meant to indicate a person’s dominant and auxiliary cognitive functions. The auxiliary cognitive function has an opposite world orientation in terms of internal or external relative to the dominant function.
For ENTJs (TeNi), the dominant function is extroverted thinking (Te) which describes how they make decisions. The auxiliary function is introverted intuition (Ni) which describes their preferred information intake process. N represents intuition instead of I to avoid confusion with introversion.
For ENTPs (NeTi), the dominant function is extroverted intuition (Ne) which describes how ENTPs absorb information. The auxiliary function is introverted thinking (Ti) which describes their preferred decision making process.
The shorthand naming convention of cognitive functions is the character representing the perceiving or judging function as the capitalized letter. The world orientation (introversion or extroversion) is in lowercase (i or e).
ENTPs and ENTJs have no overlapping dominant or auxiliary perceiving or judging cognitive functions. This is an example of how the idea of four equally weighted binary parameters for the MBTI is an inaccurate interpretation of the results.
An ENFP is more similar to an ENTP within the context of MBTI because they share extroverted intuition (Ne) as a dominant cognitive function. This is despite the fact that one letter is different (for ENTPs vs ENFPs) for both (ENTPs vs ENTJs).
Perceiving and Judging Function Encoding for Introverts
An introvert’s dominant cognitive function is internal and private. An extrovert’s dominant cognitive function is expressed with default public settings. The last letter of the MBTI indicates an introvert’s auxiliary cognitive process which is external facing. However, it is not the most used cognitive function of an introvert.
The auxiliary cognitive function for INTJ is extroverted thinking (Te). The auxiliary cognitive function for an INFJ is extroverted feeling (Fe). For INTJs and INFJs, the dominant cognitive function is introverted intuition (Ni) which is an internal pattern recognition system. Ni is default private for INTJs and INFJs.
INTJs and INFJs are more open in sharing their decisions (Te or Fe) to strangers. They are more likely to keep their observations hidden (formed using Ni) before reaching their conclusions. The outward expression of a new INTJ is similar to an ENTJ in terms of observable usage of cognitive functions. The same applies for INFJs relative to ENFJs. However, INFJs and INTJs share a dominant function of introverted intuition (Ni). They share more cognitive similarities than their extroverted equivalents within the MBTI paradigm.
The analogy used by the creators of the MBTI is the analogy of a general and their aide. For an extrovert, the dominant cognitive function is observable at the forefront. You encounter an extrovert’s dominant cognitive function first. For an introvert, the aide is at the forefront and the general is inside a tent. The external facing cognitive function for an introvert is the second most used cognitive function. Unless forced or coerced, introverts are inclined to keep their dominant cognitive function private except to people they trust (which may just be themselves).
Let’s take a look at INFP. The P means that the auxiliary function is extroverted intuition (Ne). The last letter points to the auxiliary function because INFPs are introverts. The dominant cognitive function is judging which is the third letter. For INFPs, this cognitive function is introverted feeling (Fi). An INFP can resemble an ENFP to unknown parties because their external persona is expressed in usage of their auxiliary function (Ne). For INFP themselves, Ne plays a supporting role in terms of mental energy expenditure and usage. Fi receives priority but is more hidden from strangers.
The important thing to remember is that you typically observe the auxiliary cognitive function of introverts you just initially meet. This is also useful for approximating how much introverts trust you by gauging whether or not they share openly about their dominant cognitive process. It can also be used to determine who introverts don’t trust in group settings.
How is this useful?
Understanding a person’s dominant and auxiliary cognitive functions allows you to build affinity and influence people more effectively and efficiently.
An ENTP persuading an ENFP can assume that the ENFP is picking up on the same observational data. Where they differ is their auxiliary processes which influences decision making.
In terms of social affinity development, it can be beneficial for ENTPs and ENFPs to focus entirely on observations without making any decisions or judgements at all. The alternative is true. Disagreement between an ENTP and an ENFP is more likely to emerge in conversations focused on final conclusions.
An ESFJ persuading an ENFJ can assume that the ENFJ is making decisions along the same cognitive process (extroverted feeling). Where they differ is their perception process (introverted sensing vs introverted intuition). Persuading the other party occurs through rerouting observations in this scenario.
Misunderstandings about the MBTI
The big misunderstanding about MBTI is that all four letters represent attributes that are equally weighted. This assumption is reasonable but incorrect. The most popular method of deriving MBTI results is a free assessment on the 16personalities website as of the past few years. 16personalities offers a modified OCEAN (Big 5) assessment rebranded as an MBTI assessment.
The 16personalities results can be incorrect because it is a repurposed OCEAN assessment and not actually an MBTI assessment. This is because it does not actually assess cognitive function preferences. The hint that it does not actually measure cognitive preferences lies in the percentage results on a sliding scale of the four output letters of the MBTI.
The 5th letter on the 16personalities test is a proxy for neuroticism and does not exist in the MBTI. Additionally, all the archetype descriptors are made up on 16personalities. The descriptions help people categorize the types but are not part of the original assessment.
Despite delivering wrong results, I still occasionally refer people to the site because the url is easy to remember and the results are free. The tradeoff is that down the line, you might have to directly assess the person’s type or redirect them to a more reliable test.
How to get correct results? Do they change?
If you have self awareness, the most accurate process can be derived from just reading about the types one by one. Cognitive function preferences stay the same. The only time cognitive preference usage changes is under extreme stress, trauma, or a strong dose of an extremely strong hallucinogen. An example of a strong hallucinogen would be ayahuasca but would not include magic mushrooms.
Cognitive preferences develop throughout childhood and do not change. It would be like a left handed person saying they are now right handed as an adult. Your results might change because of the way a test is written or because you want a certain result. You may develop proficiency in other cognitive functions as a result of intentional practice or just aging (this topic will be explored separately). But your core perception and judging cognitive preferences do not change. The creators of the assessment explicitly state that they stay the same.
ISFP (FiSe) / INFP (FiNe) / INTP (TiNe) / ISTP (TiSe)
ISFJ (SiFe) / INFJ (NiFe) / INTJ (NiTe) / ISTJ (SiTe)
ESFP (SeFi) / ENFP (NeFi) / ENTP (NeTe) / ESTP (SeTi)
ESFJ (FeSi) / ENFJ (FeNi) / ENTJ (TeNi) / ESTJ (TeSi)
Preference leads to practice. Practice leads to proficiency.
The MBTI is a cognitive function preference assessment. The key word is preference. People put into practice cognitive processes that they prefer. Extended practice leads to proficiency.
This understanding allows us to benchmark people and identify outliers. What makes one person an outlier in their cognitive abilities varies from type to type. You have to benchmark a person relative to the average person of their type in order to identify outliers. Incorrect benchmarking can lead to overrating or underrating different people.
Favorites, benchmarking, lying and other common logical MBTI flaws
The question of favorite or least favorite type is itself flawed. I want the best of everything. I use MBTI for comparative benchmarking.
If your goal is to aggregate the most exceptional people, you need to understand what the distribution curve of their type is along different dimensions. An example I use is stocks. You wouldn’t compare a pharmaceutical company with a defense company. You want to benchmark a pharmaceutical with another pharmaceutical. The same applies to people.
Otherwise you run the risk of thinking someone is exceptional when they are merely average or vice versa. Likewise, the act of lying about type to increase affinity represents flawed thinking. It is flawed because any MBTI enthusiast like myself is constantly collecting information about everyone.
One common question I get is, “do you make people take the test?” “What if people lie?” The answer is no to both. Lying doesn’t matter to me. If someone tells me they are an INTJ. I am benchmarking them against all the INTJs I know. Specifically I’m studying their use of introverted intuition (Ni) with extroverted thinking (Te) as a supporting cognitive function.
If your goal is to build relationships with the best people and you benchmark people - being lied to about type does not matter. Lying about being of a type and being mediocre at the core functions of the type will lead to being filtered out.
If you have any questions or if there is anything that is helpful to clarify, I’m happy to have a conversation about this topic.