Is It Possible to Alter Your Type Based on Necessity?

noisebloom said:
Faking Ne is easy, you just look like dis:

giphy.gif


And This how I fake Ni IMO:

giphy.gif
Click to expand...

Haha brilliant :laughing:
 
I guess if it's a behavioral level then it's possible. Behaviors can be altered but in a cognitive perspective, we'd still use the same functions as we always do. For example, if an INFJ has to live with an ESTJ (who share no common functions) he or she may start to act similarly to a dominant Te user, but he or she actually uses either Fe or Se.
 
I think type is abstract enough that in terms of what you can concretely do within its scope, there's not too much limitation

I think circumstances can make us change our concrete patterns of functioning, though ideally your type will still help explain why you take the approach
 
infinite dreams said:
Maybe a little, but only for types that share the same functions in close proximity (for instance INFJ can rev up and adequately mimic an ENFJ for an hour or two, INTP can appear similar to ENTP under the right conditions). But an INFJ trying to roleplay as an INTJ or ESTJ or ENFP will be putting on a staged performance, and nothing more.

Honestly if the above isn't true, then function theory is meaningless.
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense to me. It's actually quite tough for an INFJ to even act like an INTJ. Like how can I suddenly muster Te-aux when Te is one of my weakest spots? I'd be exhausted/stressed out within a few hours. Like you said, if we're just talking about staging a performance and seeming superficially like an INTJ, then perhaps. But not really an INTJ in real life.

On the other hand, it's much easier to be in ENFJ mode. I've been in that mode plenty of times for short periods at work. Ok, perhaps a slightly weird version of one.. but close to it :p
 
You're always your type. Adapting to circumstances and the environment is always give and take. You'll get burned out, get "shadowy", or otherwise unbalanced and burned out.
Keeping in mind that we have 8 functions, and four are in the shadows, when we use the "bottom four" we don't use them in as healthy a way as someone who is more dominant in that function, and has them in the top 4. You're not as natural an extrovert as a real ENFJ.
In general INFJs are good at extroverting and can fool a lot of people into believing they're extroverted, but there is always a bit of a quirk to it, IMO.

Stress causes shadow functions to take over, and if stress is prolonged you can "get stuck" in shadow functions, or even get stuck "in the grip". I've read this can even be permanent! But even if you are presenting as that shadow-self type, you won't be a healthy version of that type.

I don't know that much about Keirsey yet, but a past member claimed that you can change type over time according to the Keirsey system. I'm more of a, "You're always this" MBTI person.


Shadow thread talks about what happens when we aren't in our natural, dominant state:

https://www.infjs.com/threads/the-shadows.34021/#post-1019664
 
Asa said:
Stress causes shadow functions to take over, and if stress is prolonged you can "get stuck" in shadow functions, or even get stuck "in the grip". I've read this can even be permanent! But even if you are presenting as that shadow-self type, you won't be a healthy version of that type.
Click to expand...

This rings very true for me. My thoughts might take us a little outside the scope of the thread, but it’s something I feel strongly about. It struck me some time ago that it's easy to get lost in the words we use to describe type - the concept of your "preferred" type can easily be confused with meaning your "good-at" type. Hopefully they both apply but I think this is by no means the case, and when they don’t people may well seem to shift around.

I have thought for a while that a good analogy for the way our type preferences emerge is our preference for our right or our left hand - this develops in infancy without any conscious intent. There must have been millions of people in the past who were naturally left-handed but were forced by family or school to use their right hand when young - some of these may have never really reclaimed their instinctive left-handed preference fully and ended up with psychological problems. In the same way a child who is (say) naturally NF but is brought up within an ST family and school environment may have been more or less compelled to behave in a non-preferred way, and then has great difficulty in using their natural N or F properly later in life.

I certainly didn't develop my secondary Fe very well as a child and teenager, probably because I was unpopular at school and distrusted other people my own age as a result. I was clever, learnt to use T skills pretty effectively and got lots of affirmation from adults that reinforced it. Looking back with hindsight I can see there has been a constant tension going on between T and F over my lifetime, with Fe bubbling up in an unconscious / subversive way instead of being complementary and supportive. I taught myself to write with my left hand in my teens - got quite good at it but it's very tiring and I can't use it for (eg) note taking because it never became fully automatic and takes a lot of my focus of attention. I can see now that using T feels very similar to that for me.

It's quite weird deciding to use Fe very consciously for the first time in my late 60's - it just seems to click into place for me in a way the thinking functions don't: there is a release of tension instead of it building. At least the problem wasn’t with my dominant function – I suspect that could lead to chronic identity and anxiety issues.
 
Yah. Cognitive preferences that make up our core type are just preferences. They can be over-ridden and other "functions" used. The thing is that what we prefer is what we are more inclined to naturally develop over time therefore they cause us the least amount of stress when engaged. Other functions that are not our naturally prefered functions cause stress and may not develop as much as the preferred ones but they can be used effectively with practice and development.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top