Stratyevskaya's description of Ne in ENFps
This is an edited version of Stratyevskaya's description. Enjoy. If you're an ENFp, you might want to sit down before reading this.
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Exceptional insight is characteristic for IEEs. They can see someone’s character practically at one glance. And not merely that: their insight is so accurate that the IEE is able to almost instantly give a comprehensive and laconic description of the person.
IEEs are excellent at foreseeing the development of the ethical aspects of a situation. They are often capable of more or less accurately predicting the future course of events.
They are psychologists with a good eye for nuances and subtleties, and they notice the least change in a relationship’s mood. They excellently understand [or: empathize with?] the person they are talking to. They relate easily to people and can get along with almost everyone.
As actors, IEEs very quickly find contact to their audience, and they are able to hold its attention for as long as they are on stage. They have great talent for show business. Their performance is usually better on the night itself than during rehearsals: stage fright isn’t characteristic of IEEs, and for them, the presence of an audience is agreeably exciting rather than nerveracking.
IEEs also show talent for working in the medical field. As a rule, they are splendid diagnosticians, capable of noticing a disease at the earliest stage of its development and from the most subtle signs.
Because of their ability to select the most promising and successful possibility for putting a plan into practice, IEEs are capable of achieving enormous success, and this without superfluous effort. Any possibilities a situation affords are made excellent use of. From each situation IEEs know how to extract the maximum of benefit for themselves.
Typically, IEEs constantly and generally test their own possibilities and compare those to the possibilities of the people around them. They love to create situations of competitiveness for themselves and improvised tests, checks and examinations for others. IEEs are usually more or less jealous of other people’s achievements, and if they praise someone, then it’s someone whose competition they do not fear or someone they attempt to surpass.
The IEEs’ acute focus on their own possibilities makes them also attach greater importance to a factor as success. For the IEE, success is standard. An absence of success makes him prick up his ears and strikes him as something unfortunate and undesirable. The automatically high standards they have for themselves make it impossible for IEEs to allow themselves any errors, mistakes or failures. They cannot allow themselves any of that, because an acknowledgement of their own errors and failures will lower the opinion they have of themselves, i.e., will diminish their opinion of their own possibilities.
An IEE will therefore in any situation and under any circumstances try to be successful, or at least to make those around him think he is. („The way you present yourself is the way they’ll see you.“) IEEs generally rather often strive for the reputation of a person „without faults“. They absolutely hate it when people criticize their behaviour, and although they understand theoretically that „we are none of us free from sin“, they personally can see no serious „sins“ in themselves, and that lets them sometimes say (half in earnest): „If you see any faults in me, tell me about them, and I’ll try and mend my ways.“
How to achieve success – this question always interests IEEs. Many IEEs write books on how to be successful in a specific sphere or field. Their need to be always on top of everything forces them to try and gain the prize or make some gain in any situation, under any circumstances. In their opinion, hopeless, no-win situations must not exist. It is impossible to place an IEE in an awkward position, since they simply can’t see any faults in themselves and behave in any situation as if nothing special had occurred. IEEs are extraordinarily good at concealing their weaknesses and never considering themselves defeated.
The prospect of achieving success by long and tedious work does not seem very attractive to IEEs. They know too well that popularity is short-lived and that the interests of the crowd are changeable. Is it therefore worth to gain one minute of glory by slaving away for years and years single-mindedly, totally absorbed by one object, missing other possibilities?
IEEs consider it necessary to gain the attention of those around them and to keep it at all cost. This [trains?] their „intuition of success“. Many of them constantly try to draw other people’s attention to themselves, especially in childhood and youth. If they are ignored, they become irritated and nervous. When others pay them attention, IEEs literally blossom: if possible, they try to be even more interesting, and they become more original. Others had better not compete with them in this. But if they still feel that others are not interested in them enough, they demonstratively ignore all those who are present. This is at once an appeal for attention and an additional means of gaining attention.
Being successful, becoming popular, staying popular – all these goals are alike, and for IEEs they are achievements of paramount importance. Therefore many of them tend to do audacious, daring and extravagant things. Even in old age, many IEEs are still able to tease and mimic others playfully (always in a sensitive and appropriate kind of way).
IEEs love to boast. They often talk about their success with members of the opposite sex, or about how easily and unusually they managed to find a way out of a very difficult situation. One gets the impression that IEEs do not realize that those stories make listeners want to follow the IEE’s example. In reality, though, that is precisely the effect the IEE wants to achieve. Even if the IEE’s „exploits“ are invented from beginning to end, the IEE still finds it interesting to observe how others will do a thing that, in reality, the IEE himself never did (but talked about very vividly).
IEEs constantly investigage the potential possibilities of people in the most diverse situations. The entire world around them is their laboratory. IEEs know well how to investigate the situation others are in, how to learn from other people’s experiences or mistakes.
Each time an IEE has any original idea, he visualizes quite quickly which of his friends and acquaintances could put it into practice and test it. IEEs know very well how to find people who will be interested in his concepts and agree to put them into practice. They are able to convince even the most cautious and wary person that the project serves his interests and that it will not cause any trouble at all – on the contrary, there will be great and obvious benefits. IEEs always know with faultless accuracy what „bait“ and argument will be needed to convince the person they are targeting for their experiment. If his concept is successful or of some benefit for the guineapig, the IEEs will be sincerely glad, but they will not miss the opportunity of extracting some specific benefit for themselves as well (for example, they will hint that the guineapig is now under some obligation to them).
If the experiment is a failure, then the IEEs think nothing of the fact that someone did the experiment for them and is to blame for the failure. (IEEs generally try not to focus on their failures. No use crying over spilt milk.) When inspiring someone with a new idea, IEEs hope for success, although in any case there will be some gain and no risks: If the project succeeds, people will be grateful and obliged; if it fails, at least the thing has been tried out, and no harm has come to the IEEs themselves.
This manner of conducting „experiments“ can be explained by the fact that IEEs are pessimists. In spite of their apparent easygoing recklessness, they are careful and prudent. Therefore they prefer to stick to the beaten track, but they attempt at any cost to come out first and to win the prize. (If they manage to „intercept“ the prize and win it before the finishing line, that does not diminish the value of their victory at all, on the contrary, it increases it.)
Since the success, merits and achievements of others do not leave IEEs indifferent, IEEs frequently feel a wish to double-check that it is all in fact true. If a friend of theirs, for example, has recently changed jobs and is now bragging about the marvellous prospects and opportunities of her new job, the IEE will not rest until he has made someone verify all this. After this has been done, he finds these prospects tempting. Any information about possibilities is extremely important for IEEs, and if some information seems improbably, they try to double-check and verify it. They themselves are extremely unwilling to act as „intelligence officers“, though: at the least danger for themselves they feel torn and with „sincere simplicity“ deflect the danger towards those who sent them.
Sending IEEs on a critical mission is very risky. It only seems that they behave unpredictably in any situation; there is, in fact, always one constant thing in their behaviour: they attempt to come out of any circumstance with the smallest possible losses for themselves.
IEEs will not miss the opportunity to test anything that seems attractive and tempting. They excel at [holding their nose downwind?]. They know how to be up to date in all movements, events and opinions. They know what opinion to support and what direction to join, and they will always be among the first to do so. (This makes many others think that IEEs are insinuating people.)
IEEs know how to present their abilities, possibilities and qualifications in the most advantageous light, independent of their real level. They frequently bluff, and they do not fear exposure, since they consider their behaviour as an experiment: if their self-advertisement works, then the means justify the end; if it does not work, then that is not the end of the world either. Acquired experience can sometimes prove useful.
IEEs are prone to overestimating their abilities and to underestimate the abilities of others. They often begin projects that considerably exceed their competence, thinking that sooner or later they will get the hang of it and work just as competently as anyone else, or that there will come an opportunity to shine.
IEEs do not fear to be exposed as incompetent, since they are capable of making a huge effort and (as I have already mentioned) never acknowledge their own errors even if those are frankly exposed: if that happens, the IEE simply turns and walks away without troubling him- or herself with explanations and apologies. If they do decide to justify themselves, they will always know how to do so with ease: „So let’s agree that I’m not yet perfect, but I’m willing to learn and I don’t consider myself to be hopeless.“ (In certain situations, IEEs do not mind being seen as incompetent, especially by those who love explaining and teaching, like for example their duals, the SLIs.)
The ease with which IEEs can acknowledge errors is explained by the fact that they never actually consider themselves to be guilty, but are quite willing to create an impression of repentance and self-criticism if that is necessary in order to [accompany?] someone. Sometimes this „acknowledgement“ of the IEE’s errors is an advantageous ethical or tactical trick.
Humility, for IEEs, is not considered to be a necessary virtue, although they sharply condemn its absence in others. (This is a means for slowing down someone else’s progress.) And although they try to manifest their own individuality in each convenient (and inconvenient) situation, they criticize any manifestation of individuality in others. In any sphere they act in, they always note who is and is not their competitor. If they do not see someone as a rival and if they want to get him onto their own side, they know how to cheer him up, support him, inspire him. But they will feel compelled to „hew the wings off“ anyone who might get in their way.
IEEs know how to draw other people’s attention even to the most insignificant of theirs, and they can give it added weight and significance, sometimes even blowing it up into a big victory. (This quality enables IEEs to be accepted very well in new surroundings and to strengthen their own professional authority.)
IEEs love to teach unfortunate wretches, frequently using the achievements of others as examples. They are are able to (and fond of) orienting others towards their own values. They condemn any manifestation of indifference to glory, to carreers, and to the achievements of others, and any unwillingness to take part in competitions or contests; they see this as a sign of weakness and superficiality. (Sometimes they consider it to be a manifestation of individualism: „This is something everybody and anybody needs, but you – for some reason, you think you don’t need it!“)
IEEs try not to talk to much about themselves, at least among unfamiliar people or in larger groups: they fear that this information could be used against them. If someone close to them happens to blurt out some information about them, they always condemn this. At the same time, they themselves are unable to keep the secrets of others, especially when they are not asked to do so beforehand. Sometimes IEEs accidentally blurt out compromising information without a moment’s hesitation.
IEEs love to create risky situations (and they love to observe them!). In the most innocent kind of way, IEEs can bring someone in awkward situations. If the person in question is then offended, the IEE is puzzled. For him, it is all just a game: it would seem that IEEs themselves manage to easily extricate themselves from any awkward situation.
Ironically, however, IEEs would not under any circumstances take someone else’s place in possible troubles. Therefore they hate having to [cover?] someone. They fear taking on too many responsibilities. For that reason, they can quietly „forget“ all of the promises they have previously made, if keeping them would be too difficult or risky.
IEEs adore being friends with celebrities or at least with the members of a celebrity’s family. They do not miss an opportunity to mention their brilliant (or influential) „friends“. IEEs are the indispensable participants and habitués of the most popular parties. They are always looking for something new and interesting.
The IEEs’ interests are extensive and diverse, but very superficial and unstable. All that is new and unknown attracts them, but only for a while. The IEEs’ interest is rapidly attracted and it rapidly cools down again. Their interest in new acquaintances and new relationships is superficial and brief. As a child investigates a new toy by giving it a glance, only to lose interest immediately, so IEEs hurry to get at the essence of each person: [the following is unclear, perhaps: whether superficially or deeply is not important] – as soon as their purpose is achieved and their curiosity satisfied, their interest in that person ceases to exist, and they are completely indifferent as to how the relationship with that person is going to develop. (IEEs often boast of being sought after, of saying no to people, of kicking someone out or of [nadinamil?] someone.
IEEs know how to rapidly estimate people’s possibilities and abilities. They always know what to expect from whom, and they know whom to use for which task. They are able to see everybody’s most vulnerable point, everybody’s Achilles’ Heel. They know very well how to [play on?] other people’s weaknesses, and they use this ability to achieve their own purposes, creating their own [mechanism of relations?], which will be examined in the following section.
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Originally Posted by FDG
. I laughed the whole time.
You crazy ISTPs.
