Understanding Personality Evolution - Insights from Jungian Functions

A deep dive into understanding one's personality through the lens of Jungian functions and MBTI.

Understanding Personality through Jungian Functions

Introduction For three to five years, I have been intermittently researching Jungian functions and MBTI. After taking numerous tests and reading many articles, I finally have a relatively clear understanding of myself. Hence, I am writing this diary.

I. What Personality Type Am I? Personality is analyzed through eight functions, with each divided into extroverted and introverted types, totaling eight. Based on these, there are 16 personality types. By nature, I am an ENTP. Since I can remember, the prominent characteristics of ENTP, such as being energetic, optimistic, loving to tinker and research, and being friendly yet argumentative, have always been present in me. Therefore, ENTP is my inherent nature.

II. How Has My Personality Evolved? Personality is constantly evolving. The ENTP I am now is different from the ENTP I was a decade ago. To understand myself better, let's examine the development of each function.

The two dominant functions of ENTP are Ne (Extraverted Intuition) and Ti (Introverted Thinking), while the two inferior functions are Fe (Extraverted Feeling) and Si (Introverted Sensing).

1. Development of N and S Due to years of being alone, my greatest weakness, Si, has been significantly refined and improved. Now, in many aspects, I am persistent and down-to-earth. However, as a trade-off, Ne, my dominant function, has been somewhat suppressed as S and N are opposites. Overall, the development of Si has helped me better adapt to society.

Unexpectedly, the shadow function of Si, Se (Extraverted Sensing), has also greatly developed. At the same time, the shadow function of Ne, Ni (Introverted Intuition), has hardly developed at all. This has little impact on personal growth but often leads to professional psychological measurements misclassifying me as an S type, and it takes others a bit more time to truly understand me.

2. Development of T and F The development of the inferior function Si is generally beneficial to work and life. However, the insufficient development of the other inferior function, Fe, is not conducive to close relationships.

Over the years, perhaps due to excessive thinking, I have always been fond of abstract physics. After senior year in high school, my math has continuously improved. I scored first in the math exam for postgraduate entrance in my department. After starting work, I taught myself databases and programming and wrote a bunch of code for automation and research projects... As a result, the T functions have developed comprehensively, leading to a serious underdevelopment of the opposite F functions.

The full development of T functions is not without its advantages. Being intelligent and wise is always admired. Being very insensitive to emotions and feelings means having fewer troubles and more joys.

However, the serious problem is that 'everything is done through thinking rather than feeling', which causes relationships with others to be like a funnel, naturally hurting and distancing those who value emotions.

In addition, Ti and Te have developed to a point where they surpass my original dominant function Ne. Psychological measurements often misclassify me as a Ti-dominant personality, which once caused me great confusion.

III. How to Improve My Personality and Live? Now that I understand my nature and the development of my personality, I can reasonably plan for my future development.

1. The top priority is to comprehensively develop Fe. Pay attention to others' feelings, enhance empathy, and establish more connections with others. This is the main thread for me to improve my personality.

2. When making important decisions, especially those related to emotions, try to avoid being dominated by F. In the coming period, it will be a sensitive period for enhancing Fe. I may be more confused. Therefore, I should avoid making decisions using functions I am not good at and instead use T to make decisions.

3. In the future, if I establish a close relationship, from a personality perspective, an S type is not suitable. An N type with balanced development of T and F is more appropriate. Of course, this is not absolute. It still depends on the specific personality development. In general, a healthy and long-lasting close relationship is one in which both individuals have fully and completely developed their personalities.