This is something I had to point out to someone today: not everybody thinks in the same way that you do.

And I don’t mean that in a superficial way. Of course people have differing opinions, favor different types of music or art, and have different life experiences and goals than you do. Most of us learn this lesson very early in life.

What I mean is that not everybody processes information in the same way that you do, not everybody uses the same mental-shortcuts, and not everybody values the same types of evidence as you.

So somebody’s thought process might look like a “deficient version of X” when it’s really a “real and true version of Y.”

It took me a long time to learn this lesson so I’m hoping to pass on what I’ve learned.

Preamble: About the MBTI

I find the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) an extremely useful tool, when used carefully. Whether or not it’s been approved by Peer Reviewed Science ™ is secondary to whether or not it works, in my opinion. And so far, it hasn’t steered me wrong.

It can be used as a psychometrics-flavored astrology chart, as with 16 Personalities.com. That site has a decent test, but the descriptions are built to flatter. You need something strong like the MBTI Asshole Index to counterbalance the saccharine flattery.

There are other sites, like Human Metrics, that are much more thoughtful in presentation and lay out a lot of what I’m about to gloss over.

As a brief overview: the MBTI is based on Jungian thought, and divides human cognitive functions into four binary pairs: Introversion/Extraversion (I/E), Sensing/Intuition (S/N), Thinking/Feeling (T/F), and Perceiving/Judging (P/J). Through a self-inventory (or reverse engineering, if you’re typing someone else), you can identify yourself on the sliding scale between each of the poles. That creates 16 different personality “types,” which have their own strengths and weaknesses.

That’s the first layer.

The second layer is how those preferences work together in concert to describe your preferred functions, or the manner in which you interact with and “process” the world. That means that one of the main functions – Sensing, Intuition, Thinking, Feeling – is our prominent mode of interacting with the world. The other functions – Introversion, Extraversion, Perceiving, Judging – do more to describe which of the primary functions we prefer.

I’m not an expert on this stuff, by any means, but it’s the second layer that is the most useful thing to me.

First, it explains why some people are really easy to get to know, have no filter, and say (out loud) everything that’s on their mind or that they see and want to make note of; other people, meanwhile, are very difficult to get to know, often change their minds after a bit, and hide surprising things in their personalities that you might not discover until you know them for a very long time.

This is the difference between a person whose primary preferred function is also extraverted, and a person whose primary preferred function is introverted – this person interacts with the world through their secondary preferred function. There’s an extra layer to get through.

Second, the “order of functions” makes it easy to understand why some people value certain types of evidence and arguments, and others don’t consider evidence and arguments to be real if there’s no emotional content to back them up. It explains kinesthetic learners, and why INTJ-type people are so inflexible to talk to sometimes.

Here’s an example: my mother is an ESFJ and I am an INTP. Complete opposites.

For ESFJ, the order of preferred functions goes like this:

• Primary Extraverted Feeling
• Secondary Introverted Sensing
• Tertiary Extraverted Intuition
• Inferior Introverted Thinking

That means that my mother’s main method of interacting with the world is through the emotional landscape. She’s “always feeling.” Emotional harmony is important to her, and she will “process” how she feels about things by talking about them out loud.

For INTP, the order is this:

• Primary Introverted Thinking
• Secondary Extraverted Intuition
• Tertiary Introverted Sensing
• Inferior Extraverted Feeling

So for me, I’m always thinking. But even though T is primary, it’s also introverted, directed inward. I still need a way to interact with the outside world, for which I call upon my intuition. Luckily for me and my mom, extraverted N and extraverted F look similar and play well together.

I am much less concerned with emotional harmony and much more concerned with thinking things through, and therefore “withdraw” somewhat, since all my thinking is happening internally.

Okay, all that theory is great. What does that mean in real life?

Well, friend, let’s continue with my personal example.

For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why I am so bad at emotions. Bad at identifying them, bad at sorting them through, bad at communicating what I was feeling to myself and to other people.

Here’s the reason: Feeling is my inferior function. I have to do much more work in that arena, my weakness, than I do in my strengths – T and N. (I hate processing emotions because it’s so difficult.)

But that’s just me. There are many other personality types, each with its own inferior function.

Some people hate feeling, because it’s hard. Some people hate dealing with sense evidence, because it’s hard. Some people hate recognizing patterns, because it’s hard. Some people hate thinking, because it’s hard.

And that, my friend, is the thing that is the most useful part about the MBTI. It’s simply a framework to help explicate that other people’s mental models aren’t the same as yours:

• What comes naturally to you, or to me, may not come naturally to someone else.
• Arguments or evidence or rhetoric that may convince you or me may not convince someone else.
• The best way to communicate with you or me may not be the best way to communicate with someone else.

More examples:

My boss is, as far as I can tell, is an Introverted Feeling person who communicates with Extraverted Intuition. The N is probably why we can get along pretty well, but I have to remind myself to communicate through emotional arguments, not logical ones, if I am to “speak his language.” And that I should not be surprised when an answer changes after my boss has had time alone with his feelings, which are not going to make logical sense – because Thinking is the inferior function for these types of people.

A friend is INTJ: Extraverted Thinking with Introverted Intuition. This can be a difficult type to work with, because all her Thinking is projected out into the world. Sometimes I feel like I have to dodge and parry through the Thinking to get through to the Intuition so I can make a point.

With an extraverted person, it typically helps to get it all out there, and leave nothing to speculation or inference. Personally, I hate to state the obviously, but what is obvious to me is not always obvious to other people – especially people whose Primary Function is also their Extraverted function. They are Extraverts and they tend to live outside of themselves, rather than inside of themselves.

The Method

When I meet someone new that I need to influence in some way, I size them up, so to speak. Do they seem to process externally or internally? Are they more impacted by physical evidence and facts, or by general theories and inferences? Do they respond to logic, or are the always talking about how they feel about something? Are they typically receptive to new ideas or do they have a judgement for how the world works?

This gives me a rough idea of where their preferences lie, and then I can try out different types of argument and persuasion until I find one that works the best.

This also gives me an idea of whether I should start out with some small talk, or if they’re the kind of person that likes to get right down to business.

In situations where I can’t figure someone out and it matters immensely that I can communicate with that person (such as my boss), I may sit down and reverse engineer the specific type. It will not be 100% accurate, but it’s enough that I can better anticipate what may come down the pipeline.

I don’t sit around and try to type every person I meet (that would be a waste of time), but I try to listen to what people tell me – in their words and actions both – about how they prefer to interact with the world.

This practice helps me be a better communicator on an individual level, but also understand when they make drastically different decisions than I would have made given the same information and circumstances. This makes the outside world a tiny bit more predictable.

As a person who relies heavily on Extraverted Intuition, this approach works for me. It may not work for you. 😉

Before you leave, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:

1. MBTI scales are a preference, not immutable law
2. Most people’s preferences will change or morph under stress
3. This is only one filter through which to understand people, so it is understandably imperfect
4. People are people, and no one person is 100% anything (except, ideally, their own self)