#fi vs fe

[little-forget-me-not]

Speaking of ocs, I wanted to mention it was interesting that in the noday reunion fight/talk, Day was so unlike his usual self, very paranoid and distrustful, seemed a bit withdrawn even. Goes to show how much stress he's under lol

YEAH I was kinda weirded out by that. But I think it made sense. I'm glad you picked up on the withdrawn part actually! I imagine him being a lot more subdued and he's still outwardly cheery and friendly but…anyone who knows him would see that his smile never reached his eyes and his friendliness was hollow (like a default setting). Inside he's hurting, angry, confused, guilty and deeply disillusioned because his mom had always been like a paragon of "goodness" to him. He saw her like an angel. To have that…ripped away in an instant really shook his world. I mean he even left her to go on this trip-thing. Despite her pleading for him not to leave. And he hasn't really kept in contact with her. It's all very unlike Day. Didn't help that he had no one to talk to about this so it kinda festered in him, and the more he introverted, the more those feelings of distrust and wariness grew. ..and then his ex showed up. Which was kinda like the last straw (over the first last straw)

I was thinking about the power of names. It's such a powerful acknowlegement of a person. And what they choose to identify themself as…is so..telling somehow. I was just thinking about how Day…we always call him Day. But his actual name is "Daymond" (like if you really think about it, it's so weird xD) and he does respond to it but usually in official/formal settings. But even then he doesn't fully relate to it. He prefers Day because it's more casual, it's lighter, friendlier and happier. Also cuz that's what Aeriel called him by, mostly.

Made me wonder about an AU where he doesn't choose that. Like what would've happened to him to make him feel so differently enough he never thinks about keeping that nickname? Interesting stuff. Do you have any thoughts on stuff like this? If he didn't have his mom growing up and was not allowed to explore his sensitive, social and carefree side. Like in an AU where his developmental years pushed to be more closed off, serious, distrustful and cynical..he would probably just go by Daymond.. Granted I am also thinking of like a polar opposite of his upbringing which was full of nurture so it's a little extreme. But I could see that. A Day that learns that emotions are shameful. He'd definitely rely a lot more on his Ti I think. Kinda resentful and wounded with fake smiles and platitudes..but not knowing who he is and not liking it. His relationships would he hollow because he can't really trust or be vulnerable. Ok this went beyond a name and I just came up with an AU him lol

Tomodachi Life him was more faded. He was also trans in that one which gave him depression because he didn't know how and why he was feeling the way he was and had no one he could turn to or trust… Also little socialisation and was isolated. Which apparently turns him into smth like a ghost since he spends too much time in his head.

Nolan kind of the same tho….. like his base is pretty the same…he just either gets more angry/violent vs calmer/chill…the duality of nolan is pretty simple lmfao.

Nolan's core personality is just quite steady. Even when he has growth and maturity he doesn't change that much. Less affected by external influence vs Day.

It's basically Fi vs Fe. Nolan by nature has a more defined sense of self. Even with the best nurture, Day took a long time to understand who he was separate from everyone too…only mid-20s.

[random-esfp]

Hey I just found your blog and I believe you have really good knowledge of MBTI. I am sorry if this question is a little too repetitive but how can you really know whether you use Fi or Fe? I've been trying to type myself and just when I think I may be a Fi user, I can't say for sure cause I feel like I use Fe. Except for the value oriented and people oriented stuff people say, how else do you think you can differentiate between the two functions? You can just ignore the ask if you don't feel like doing it, thanks a lot!!

MBTI RESOURCES

Did a silly little thing to illustrate some differences between extraverted feeling and introverted feeling! WHAT ARE COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS? I

Sorry I misunderstood a sentence lol I edited the answer.

Remember to not mistake empathy as Fe. A lot of Fi users are empathetic. But Fe users project emotions while Fi don't. Fi will relate to people because they imagine themselves in that situation and compare to something similar that happened to them. Fi users tend to personalise when other tells them about their feeling etc. Fe users don't, they will understand you without putting themselves in that situation because they already "absorb" how you feel.

Another thing I've observed is that Fe users are quite likely to tell little white lies in order to not upset people. Lies that may seem stupid for Fi users. Like, for example:

*At a korean restaurant*

Waiter: did you like the food? Oh next day you should come and try the Korean barbecue!!! It's delicious!!

My vegetarian friend: yes of course :) we will :)

Me: ??? Why the fuck you don't say you are vegetarian ? If we come here again he will eventually know you don't eat meat!!!

Things like that... anyway, here you go some resources about Fe vs Fi to see if it can help you:

https://mbti-resources.tumblr.com/post/143535578456/did-a-silly-little-thing-to-illustrate-some

https://practicaltyping.com/2020/08/10/8-differences-between-fi-and-fe/

[dearmbti]

I'm an ENTP so I have Ti-Fe but the rest of my family has Fi & Te. Can you tell me how they might clash? I'm having trouble understanding them. My parents tell me I need to be friends with a variety of people (smart, dumb, athletic, artistic, etc) but then they, along with my sister asks me why I have less intelligent friends even when I don't necessarily like them. I just like helping them sometimes because it makes me feel useful. could it be my enneagram (3)?

Fi users tells you to be friends with everyone: “Treat everyone as a human being, and certainly don’t dismiss nonconformists.”

Fi users ask you why are you friends with someone you disike: “Our own feelings should be honoured because they dictate our well-being.”

Here you can see a conflict between two Fi values. It’s not about you. The clash only lies in motivation and desired outcome, such as Fi users primarily craving inner harmony, and Fe users - outer harmony. But as long as you can act as a decent human being and remain positively motivated, you’re good.

And as for E3... Enneagram 3 motivation would be “I want to help you so I can ask you a favour in the future,” so I am not sure if this is what’s motivating you.

[random-esfp]

Why does healthy Fi sometimes look like Fe? It seems to contribute to a lot of mistypes..

Yes, I feel you and I'm auxiliary Fi so... imagine. I think it is mostly because stereotypes tell that Fe are altruistic, collective, generous and people oriented while Fi are individualist, loners and more prone to be selfish, when actually being Fe or Fi has nothing to do with that. It doesn't even have to do with EMPATHY at all. You can be a Fi user and be more empathetic than a Fe user.

The main difference is the kind of framework they have. Both are judging functions, and their job is to evaluate things and making decisions but, How do they do it?

Fi users use a inner framework based on subjective values they may share, or not, with the society, as a concept. They go through an internal process which doesn't depend on what is socially acceptable but with "what is acceptable valuable and right for me and my relationships". And that's why we associate Fi with "self" intelligence.

Fe users use an external framework based on values socially accepted and seen as general or "objective". That's why we associate it with "kindness, politeness, generosity etc". Because that's typically socially acceptable and nurtures harmonious interpersonal relationships.

So, if a Fi user's framework and pattern of action shares most of the collective values out there, they can easily be mistaken as typical Fe users. But the process they take to get to behave like that is mainly different. One is internal, the other is external.

E.g. That's why people believe Harry Styles is ENFJ when he is clearly a Fi user. He does this internal process. But as his motto is "treat people with kindness", a trait associated to collective values... people mistype him so easily :)

Sad.

[atomicfilm]

Fi: What’s right for me so I can go on to help others?

Fe: What’s right for others so I can go on to help me? 

[plagueamon]

Wow your MBTI typings are really impressive! You’ve managed to convince me on every one of your typings so far, with one exception. Have you considered ENFJ for Nunnally? This might get long, I apologize. Let’s tackle NeSi first. I definitely agree that she is an intuitive, but I don’t see the out of the box creative thinking that you get with say, Milly. Rather, she has a single vision, “a kind world” which is more of a Ni thing. 1/?

Continued: I agree that Si really isn’t evident. But I would argue she compensates for being blind and crippled by developing Se in the other senses. She has excellent hearing, sense of smell and a near magical ability to sense emotion by touch. In terms of Fe vs Fi, values conforming to society is more of a Si thing, I find. But she is extraordinarily people and relationship focused. She wants the people in her life (Lelouch, Suzaku, etc.) to get along.

Remember how Lelouch said Nunnally’s smile is for other people’s sake? That’s a very Fe kind of “hiding your own feelings to ensure harmony” thing to do. Ni is subordinate to Fe, in that the point of having a kind world is so people can live together peacefully. She only brings it up because Lelouch asks. She sincerely believes it but it’s not her top priority compared to living with her brother, and she told him as much at the end.

As for extroversion, again her disability and position do restrict her social life. She does make friends very easily and is shown to enjoy social interaction. As well, she doesn’t want to be a burden socially on the student council, which again shows other people’s needs > her needs. Lastly, objecting to a coldly rational way of doing things is more inferior Ti. She rejects it precisely because spending time in her inferior function is uncomfortable. 4/4 Thanks for reading

Great question, anon, and a good opportunity to bring up Fe vs Fi! Both functions have a moral and human focus, but in quite different ways.

Fe is an extroverted judging function, hence, having an outward focus makes it a lot more rational in its approach to morals (sometimes in fact being very similar to Te in that aspect). The main thing that separates Fe from Fi, is that the morals of a high Fe-user always exist as a reaction to the values of their respective society (society in this case is quite a broad term that can imply both society as a whole as well as one’s social group of close friends, depending on the person): they always exist on a scale from agreeing to disagreeing with them and hence are often concerned with values that affect this given society. A Fe-dom in particular also perceives themselves through the role they play in their society. Take Shirley as an example: the relationships she is in are very much the main component of her life and the one that she has standards for. She cares about Lelouch’s physical and emotional well-being and her relationship with him, but she doesn’t really try to understand him as a person until R2 comes along.

Comparing that to Fi, the values supported by this function originate independently from societal values (again remember that “society” is talking pretty broad here) and rely on the Fi-dom’s personal experiences and the conclusions drawn from these experiences. This doesn’t mean that a Fi-user cannot agree or disagree with societal values, but the focus of Fi morals is a personal and human one, focusing much more on what people believe than what they do and often prefers not to be restricted by social systems in favor of human values that are much more subjective to the user.

We see that Nunnally’s values originated independently from any society she could have been a part of: they don’t come from either Lelouch or Suzaku, nor did they originate as a reaction to Britannia’s value system. She finds racism towards the Japanese to be unethical of course, but she’s much more prone to judging people on a case-by-case basis, which also explains why she is willing to fight Lelouch and Suzaku at the end of R2: not only have they personally deceived her, but in her eyes they also have abandoned their personal morals to achieve theirs goals. Her Fi is also why her final challenge for Lelouch is giving him a choice to use Geass on her - it’s a test of Lelouch as a person, as if she’s asking “Have you, my brother, fallen so low as a human being that you would enslave and use me, your sister, whom you knew for your whole life? The brother I know would never even think about doing such a thing.” It also helps her understand what Lelouch was actually trying to do at the end of the story and ultimately forgive him (the same goes for Euphy, Nunnally just recognizes that her actions didn’t fit her nature without even needing evidence for it). To a Fe-don in her position this kind of opinion would likely seem biased and unfair, based on what Lelouch did ass opposed to who he was as a person.

You also bring up the possibility of auxiliary Ni, however we have to remember that it is quite different from Ni as a dominant function: for an ENFJ Ni is used to think of ways to improve upon the current state of the society important to them, questioning the parts of it that may seem flawed to the user. We see that Nunnally doesn’t tend to go through this process, for her, she knows how she believes people should treat each other based on her Fi values, once they do society will essentially fix itself due to the nature of human kindness (from her perspective). We do see her use her Ne however to understand which part of her Fi is realistically applicable to the world around her: when addressing the Japanese people she’s trying to appeal to their personal human values, yes, but her Ne also helps her understand that after the ways in which they’ve been hurt they will need a lot of convincing before they agree to anything, hence why she also uses highly personal gestures to make the Japanese trust her.

(I would also quickly like to note, that behavior is not really type-dependent, but rather thinking is, hence many stereotypical MBTI behaviors such as being shy/outgoing or easily making friends can often be a trait of a member of any type)

I hope that this answered your question, but in case you’ll need more comparisons, I can assure you that more Fe-doms and Fi-doms are to come in the future as a frame of reference. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my slow output of content!

[funkymbtifiction]

I have a question. If you understand people’s feelings very well and catch on to them easily (even when nobody else does) does that mean you are Fi or Fe?

It means you are LIKELY a feeler type, but not always. Thinkers can also have a good conceptualized and personal understanding of emotion – it’s just that they do not choose to prioritize those feelings over factual information when making judgments.

Fi/Te assumes individual emotion by theorizing how one might feel, if one were in another person’s place. This means Fi/Te is sometimes out of sync with the emotional environment and assuming emotions that are not there. When paired with intuition (Ne or Ni), Fi/Te allows the individual to ‘theorize’ on someone’s emotional center based on prior knowledge / reading between the lines – which may clue the NFP into their feelings, without actually ‘feeling’ what they are feeling (or even being emotionally engaged themselves). The Fi/Te user is unable to ‘feel what others feel,’ only able to ‘feel’ shared experienced emotions (your dog died; when my dog died, I felt this way, so I know how you feel… I’m sorry).

Fe/Ti assumes everyone is part of a greater whole, and human emotions are universal – in short, people have more in common than they have different, so emotions are easily understood and not that ‘complex’ (and all logic is universal also). So the Fe/Ti user tunes in to the emotional environment, processes the emotions around them (and their own) as things happen, and can articulate those emotions or even try and influence the mood of others by tugging their emotions in greater directions. The result is that the Fe/Ti user can sometimes be ‘feeling’ emotions that are not their own; or be influenced by others’ feelings in the moment (your dog died; it’s so sad, I can feel how sad you are, I have never had a dog, but I know what sorrow is like, and I’m sad now too).

=)

- ENFP Mod

[kendrixtermina]

INFP vs. INTP - Another potential distinguisher in the form of “Venting Behavior”

So I read this post recently where the person observed that “Vent Songs” that sorta aim to rile you up or get you to join in are a Fe thing as is “venting” in general, even in lower Fe users. 

Heck, I’m working on an entire Vent- Book at the moment

Of course one person saying it doesn’t mean anything but I’ve thought it over and I though I’m still observing for more data it does seem consistent with my experience so far. In particular it jives with my previous observation that “Hate Songs” & “Musical Pause for Shock value” seem to be lower Fe things. 

Come to think of I saw some other distinguishing writeups mentioning “venting” as a distinction (during those embarassing 3 days a while ago where I briefly considered that I might be xNFP) but the full structure of the statement didn’t stand out to me at the time-

Some of these writeups weren’t exactly correct either (nor is the socionics conception of the inferior and how it would come in here... on the other hand, one concept from there that might or might not be relevant here is ‘role functions are a thing, especially with contact subtypes’), since most INTPs are enneagram 5s (5s generally prefer to process their feelings on their own or with some distance to the situation) - perhaps its different with the 9s (who’d have their own hangups tho) but it would probably not be accurate to say that “You prefer to talk out your feelings with others rather than be left alone” as the ore general Fe description goes. 

So it’s more nuanced, complex & varied (as it often is with the inferior - because of its nature individual biographical factors matter a lot) and I daresay a great percentage of INTP’s aren’t going to be down for sharing (the 5 tendency would be to compartementalize/ have it on your own terms somehow - say, tell the whole thing to strangers on 4chan in all gross detail - indeed it seems to be a commonthing for ppl to dislike it if someone calls attention to their involuntary reactions to stuff. ) but there’s something to be said about “venting” being present as a general tendency even if it presents mostly as a “fuck you too” attitude. 

This also reminds me of this socionics article where - as you may know they tend to conceptualize Fe as being about “changing & influencing the emotions of oneself & others” & in that contexts well Fe doms are very persuasive & good at cheering ppl up (or withering their souls away with judgemental glares, depending, presumably, on their mood and alignment) & at the other end you get “Can’t really change/regulate mood very well  & may treat it as “fixed””( also “might benefit from having a lovely ESFJ to fix that & animate them” because socionics is the crackships fangirl of typology.  Or you know, maybe thats my natural state of existing and there’s nothing to “fix” about it only to manage & read the instruction manual so to speak)

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So in that sense you could classify both INFPs and INTP (though there’s excetions) as largely fitting the “melancholic” temperament in its “slow but sustained arousal” definition (”Hard to get thm into a particular mood, hard to get them out of it”) - the INFPs because they’re largely doing their own thing independent from the rest of the room & tend to have long-term reactions, the INTPs because there’s a higher threshold to reacting and if they do they may be “stuck” with the reaction for a while

In hindsight I say that a lot like “Hey they can’t turn it off like a button, sometimes this shit dont make sense,  what matters is wether they act on it” [= try to listen to rationality regardless]

I guess part of why this distinction isn’t really out there is that that the genereal gist of how our type’s emotional expression “Well they’re not very expressive at all”, which I suppose might be what some outside perspective might notice, but from a First Person pov this is a tad useless, after all you react when you feel a reaction is merited, same as everyone else.

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This isn’t really something I picked up on before reading that because I interpreted things from my own minset were “people obviously do that” & perhaps saw venting as more universal than it is, but in hindsight it seems overwhelmingly true that Fi doms don’t exactly vent or at least not start conversations like “Ughh this thing that happened” - Usually their emotional state is quite apparent, but it’s more indirect like you’ll notice in the kinds of comments they make & how they make it, sure they might talk to you further if you ask without too much pushing. 

Even when they express it indirectly (art & sad blog posts) it’s more of an enclosed, just-for-myself thing telling very specific stories, like all those INFPs post their stuff with no thought that someone (like some Fe user (tertiaries included) who thinks they’re the police or something) may aprroach it and go “Wait do you mean to imply...?!” when that’s not the purpose of their statement. 

(And I was aware of this tendency but I see it in a different light in the realization of how it’s really a different purpose. Also, I always though the subset of FJs who nonstop talk shit about people are the worst kind of FJs. Gotta be careful in the future that I don’t sound like that)

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I’m not 100% sure especially in how the TJs fit into this. Some of them can have little tolerance for “drama” or just read it as  weakness (8), negativity (1w9) or ingratitude (1w2) though to some extent they’rejust not comfortable to people blowing reactions into the air. That might be enneagram based to some degree the one 5w(cp)6 INTJ I know drips dark sarcasm though more as a way to critique things than personal venting. Still reserving judgement

Or perhaps the difference is more in how the ‘feels discharge’ is supposed to happen - In that Fi users come from a PoV where one person tells their life & the other kinda sits there & absorbs whereas with Fe there’s an expectation of “reaction noises” which the Fi peeps may be annoyed at or... 

I’ve had the situation where I tell a joke and my Fi dom sister stays quiet and I’m like “Sorry was that joke bad?” and she explained that she was just reacting inwardly but totally listening. 

Another thing I’ve observed is Fi users getting worried when their favorite TP is having a sucky day and goes  “AAGHH EVERYTHING ALWAYS SUCKS!” and just voicing that kinda discharged the battery and snaps you bad to SenseMakingMode where they’re able to put the local little annoyance in context, but the Fi user will be all worried because they assume it’s a long-term thing that’s always under the surface because that’s what their feels are generally like.