I think Beta NFs (and maybe all NFs) really seek external validation. For IEIs, I think it's because we know that we live in our own worlds sort of, and so while we may be perfectly confident that we're right within our own worlds (and many confident IEIs will bluff and act as though we're certain that we're right), we always have a nagging doubt that we're really wrong relative to the real, external, outside world. But when someone else tells us we're right, or better yet, demonstrates why we're obviously right, then it our confidence improves a hundredfold, and we feel more comfortable being even more honest with our perceptions, not because we really thought we were wrong before, but because we were somehow afraid that it wouldn't fit...
Also, another way (SeTi) authority helps Ni is that sometimes with Ni, due to the abstractness of the function, you can't really demonstrate it or prove it, you sort of have to live it. That doesn't (necessarily) mean you believe it if it doesn't make sense. But that's how poetry works, in my opinion: you read the poem, but it doesn't make sense until you experience what the words are talking about in real life. The poem didn't prove that it was right (although the poem is that which is the proof of itself, from a formal perspective), it just was right, and then you discovered it by experiencing and then noticing that its fit with experience. So SeTi may sort of "take it on faith" that Ni is correct (or more accurately, see what the Ni-person is talking about), and then say, "just try it" or "just do it" to others, who will then discover that it's right. I don't know if that really makes sense, but maybe it's one way in which Se works better than Ne for betas as a mode of extroverted perception?
Also, I constantly find socionics showing up in my poetry. One of the concepts I like the most that I've been sort of developing is the idea of the poem as external validation of the soul/self. It's an image of the soul in the world, and if the image of the soul survives in the world, it's validation for the soul. That's one of the main reasons I write poetry. External validation, freedom from uncertainty as to the value of my existence. Sound E4ish enough for you?


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