The Function Order vs Development

[tcaudilllg]

I'm really good at figuring out thinking styles that correspond to observed personal expressions. However, even if personality dictates how your think, it is your motivation which dictates how you feel and what you *want* to do. Proficiency =/= personal desire. Somewhere between these two is a middle ground... but until we understand both angles we can't say what that middle ground really is.

We know from cognitive psyche that the brain seeks seeks to stimulate parts of itself that. However, we also know from relativity, that energy seeks the path of least resistance. It follows then that we will use brain functions that are more fully developed more often, simply because it is more pleasurable to stimulate these areas. For example, you may be an INFp type, but your Te may be the most developed of your functions and thus, you will have an appetite for knowledge. (I think Kioshi said something along these lines recently? Or was it Esper?) This is where subtypes come in, probably. This doesn't mean you are a different type: function order determines type, not your stimulative preferences; it just means you are an INFp who likes to pay attention to the way things work.

[Wynch]

This is why I keep saying that it's difficult to type people properly on the image they project and also by their experience while they still live at home. When you live with your parents and haven't had a chance to get out on your own and really explore who you are without the influence of your parents then you're going to have difficulty at times dividing between what is proficiency developed under the influence of a strong parental role and what is naturally desirable to you. Sometimes we don't realize while we live with our families just how much their personalities and personal desires influence us and our development as individuals and it takes a heavy dollop of independence to really seek out your genuine motivations. I've spoken with numerous people on this trend already and it seems to be pretty common place.

That being said, it's possible for someone to know themselves with genuine truth and clarity while they're at home and it's possible for people to think they know themselves when they live independently, but still be working with the effects of external influences on their sense of self. One needs to have an honest relationship with him- or herself before they can know the difference. Sometimes that takes time and sometimes it takes luck, but a lot of people struggle with this issue for a large part of their adult lives.

Something interesting to note about this idea and the trend associated with it is the number of people on this forum between the ages of about 18 and 30. These years are some of the doozies where "getting to know yourself" is concerned. It seems to follow that individuals seeking their own sense of self and understanding would find themselves turning to things like socionics and it seems to further support the idea that people who are coming into independence will realize that they are perhaps not as fully knowledgeable of themselves as they had previously supposed.

This is perhaps the trip up of socionics and "personality" typing in general: many people are influenced by those around them and it shifts their priorities. Additionally, different times in one's life influence priorities in perspectives and manners of thinking. Digging past each of these and figuring out what makes up the essential whole is the trickiest and most important part.

[FDG]

Like remembering directions when they drive. Or that would naturally see how to take the most efficient route (not take a long time but get the job done good enough) when doing simple, practical process-oriented things, like building, cleaning, cooking, etc. I could see myself devaluing the ability to observe these things in real time, that that would be boring for me, and that I would prefer to get things done through ways other than paying them constant subconscious observation (which tires and frustrates me).

That's a great description of extraverted thinking in my opinion.