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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk about which Myers-Briggs cognitive function is more selfish “Harmony” (Extraverted Feeling) or “Authenticity” (Introverted Feeling).
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Joel defines selfishness as taking more than you should.
- Antonia defines selfishness as making sure you get yours first.
- Extraverted Feeling “Harmony” Fe – All FJs and TPs
- Introverted Feeling “Authenticity” Fi – All FPs and TJs
- Fi is selfish for the individual.
- Fe is selfish for the collective.
- Fe may define selfishness as individuating away from the collective.
- Fi thinks it’s selfish to make everyone assimilate.
- Fe finds it rewarding when someone gets their needs met.
- Fe also takes a hit if someone isn’t getting their needs met.
- Fe uses other people’s emotions to calibrate if everyone’s needs have been met sufficiently.
- To a Fe user, Fi does feel selfish because they are taking more energetic resource than they are allowed.
- Why is it okay to sacrifice inner turmoil over group turmoil?
- Fe allows everybody to have a bad day as long as everyone agrees that they take turns.
- Fi sometimes forgets that other people have struggles too and need a turn in the bitch fest.
- Fi sometimes wants everybody else to focus on their problems and solve them.
- Fe can be a sickly sweet commandant who condescends to others and forces them to do things their way.
- Fi can’t understand why anyone would suppress who they are for the group’s benefit.
- Fe sacrifices themselves every day for the group’s benefit.
- Fe creates a system where everybody gets their time/day to be special. And the rest of us acknowledge when it is our day and when it is not.
- Fi doesn’t understand why they need to assimilate for the benefit of everyone.
- We all have to take the hit on occasion.
- Fe does more emotional labor than the other types, so they notice when things are imbalanced.
- Sometimes we project selfishness on to people who have permitted themselves to do what we haven’t. So, it’s a sort of envy.
- Fe: “I wish I had permission to take for myself.”
- Fe can learn from Fi that they need to acknowledge their needs freely.
- Individuals matter, and they need to acknowledge their needs eventually.
- Fe users can become passive-aggressive, angry, and resentful against the people around them who seem to take, take, take.
- What Fe fails to realize is they are the ones who created the situation.
- It becomes a false virtue for Fe users to sacrifice to others while hiding feelings of anger and resentment.
- Resentment’s root is in envy.
- Fe hates feeling negative emotions about others, so instead of stacking resentment maybe they can learn from the actions of the Fi user.
- “They’re giving themselves permission to have those feelings and be disruptive, and I need to give myself the permission to do the same thing on occasion.”
- Less mature Fe wants us all to buy into the same reality.
- Fe teaches us that even if we can’t find compassion for ourselves, we can still be compassionate to others.
- Fi can feel emotionally cavalier to Fe because Fi assumes everybody can deal with their emotional experience.
- Fe is more gentle with people’s emotions, but they tend to overdo the nurturing and over-protecting.
- Over-protecting is selfish of Fe because they are protecting themselves from having to see someone else in pain.
- Our egos are the manifestation of selfishness.
- So, our way is always going to appear better to us than someone else’s way.
- Selfishness is not the product of a cognitive function.
- Selfishness is the product of the individual.
- All of us are selfish.
- We have thrived as a species because we are selfish and have a will to live and dominate.
- We accuse each other of selfishness but rarely admit it to ourselves.
- Fe has its finger on the pulse of how serving the group helps serve self.
- The more seasoned Fe gets, the more it will bring in Ti and need less input from others.
- It’s common for younger Fe users to conflate harmony with agreement.
- When Fe is caught up in something symbiotic, it wants to share it.
- Fi has to get good at knowing the sweet spot.
- “Most of me is on board, so it’s good.”
- Fe assumes everyone is going to be on board.
- Fe feels good when everybody is experiencing the same emotion.
- Fi wants to make sure it won’t regret doing something that runs contrary to its values.
- Project positive intent on others.
- Fi can learn from Fe and vice versa.
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50 comments
Yes I agree with this so much. I’m ENFP and I’ve known some other Fi-heavy people – another ENFP, an INFP and an ISFP. We’re all the same as what you’ve said – we care a lot about what other people think and need. I think it’s a good observation that we take what we learn from all that so-called navel-gazing and apply it to the world around us, to understand and help other people. It’s kind of amazing to me that this aspect of Fi gets overlooked so much.
Even when I’ve heard people complain about overbearing Fi users who think everything should reflect their own values, those values are usually other-centred – for example, I heard a complaint about an INFP who was being pretty intense and overbearing with her pro-life views, & people viewed it as selfish (ie. “do what I think is right; I don’t care if you feel uncomfortable, I’ll speak about this anyway”). But her intensity isn’t coming from a place of selfishness, but because she cares a lot about unborn babies (ie. other people), & of course any decent person who believes that abortion kills a baby would be intense about that. Sure, maybe her conversations would be improved by a little more tact and some understanding for where others are coming from. But selfish, it is not.
Haha, this reminds me of an experience I had with an ESTP friend (Fe 10 year old). We were all hanging out and a bunch of people were drinking, and like you, I don’t drink. Not that I mind having a little bit to drink but I rarely even finish half a beer, & even that I only do like, maybe once a year. So I didn’t want to drink with everyone. My friend was like, somewhat chidingly, “You’re not gonna not drink with us again, right?” and kept kinda bugging me about it a little bit. So we went into the kitchen, I got a glass, filled it mostly with ginger ale, and added a bottlecap’s worth of whiskey, and was like, “There, now I’m drinking with you” and she just rolled her eyes, lol.
Funny thought, but when someone says I should put others’ needs and wants first, if you flip that around, you can see it as me caving in to someone else’s selfishness.
Put another way, it’s selfish if I want to meet my own needs, but if a different person wants their needs/wants met, it’s not selfish for them to want me to meet their needs. Realistically, what the group wants is what a bunch of individuals want for themselves. It’s as if enough people having the same desire makes it not selfish somehow. It’s kind of weird hey.
The story about the INFP friend doesn’t seem like an Fi thing, it just seems like it was a bit rude and short-sighted. I think most people would find it unreasonable to expect visitors to make good local restaurant suggestions, just generally speaking.
Personally, I hate all the generalizations about this stuff. I kind of see Fi as a really strong internal compass that guides everything you do. Yeah, that means that sometimes you’ll stick out from the crowd, and yes you’ll value your own views highly. Every higher Fi user I know puts their own values as being higher than whatever society tells us. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be an ass all the time who doesn’t care about what other people want & need – heck, caring for others can be part of that Fi internal compass. Personally, for myself as an ENFP, I was in a spot for a long time where I cared so much about helping my family that I burned right out & it negatively impacted my health pretty badly. So selfish of me, right? And a few times when I did something to look after my own needs at the expense of what they wanted, even when it was reasonable to do so, some of those lovely unselfish Fe users came down made my life hell for being “inconsiderate” and “selfish”.
Frankly I think both forms of feeling, when they’re in an unhealthy or immature spot, can take the form of selfishness & even sometimes forcefulness, and both can be easy to work with when the person is healthy and/or their values are in the right place.
PS. I wrote this as I was listening and realize you guys touched on something similar like 2/3 of the way through there. I liked those thoughts. The bit about conflating agreement with harmony is good food for thought, & a really good way of phrasing an issue I have with others sometimes :P I’ll still my comment as it is though, lol.
Great episode! I’m interested if you were part of ATI – Antonia. I grew up in that religious organization, and some of your stories sound similar.
Some more thoughts… I see that there is a lot of emotions out there in the discussion and the battle of feelers. I am just analyzing simply “where that come from”
INFJ here and during the path of discovering my personality I read a great book by Susan Storm “INFJ discovering the mystic” which I highly recommend.
In one chapter she is talking about the shadow functions of INFJ where introverted feeling she call “the critical parent”
I am not the expert of personality typology ( yet :D ) but if my deduction is correct INFJ and ISFJ has Fi as their second shadow function and ENFP, ESFP posses Fe on the critical parent shadow position as well.
I am big explorer of shadow functions, digging there is like waking up the ghosts and I am also interested in the topic “ how our personality evolved” like why I am INFJ and for example not ESTJ or why she is that and not that.
I am proud of being what I am it is just interesting how the mechanism works.
I would agree that some of functions can be generated genetically but maybe we are the white pages on the beginning and the early days/ yers of life defines who we are.
I would like to refer to this critical parent. So maybe in my early life my Mom teach me to share the playground with other children, and talked negatively about people who are not concerned about others needs meet, and for example the ENFPs Mom encouraged her to be authentic and not give up on her values. Maybe that’s why we see each other “selfish” because it refers to the inner child.
Just my thoughts.