Thinking vs. Feeling

[robowar]

Hey guys, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs type inventory. For those of you who aren't, it is used to classify people into one of sixteen different personality types using four different traits, one of which is feeling/thinking.

 

Thinkers:

• Make decisions objectively
  
• Appear cool and reserved
  
• Are most convinced by rational arguments
  
• Are honest and direct
  
• Value honesty and fairness
  
• Take few things personally
  
• Tend to see flaws
  
• Are motivated by achievement
  
• Argue or debate issues for fun

Feelers:

• Decide based on their values and feelings
  
• Appear warm and friendly
  
• Are most convinced by how they feel
  
• Are diplomatic and tactful
  
• Value harmony and compassion
  
• Take many things personally
  
• Are quick to compliment others
  
• Are motivated by appreciation
  
• Avoid arguments and conflicts

I am a strongly expressed thinker while my girlfriend is a strongly expressed feeler. This has often caused communication problems for us. But the more and more fights we have that are basically manifestations of this difference, I am beginning to think that feelers are irrational. My girlfriend is extremely sensitive and can't suspend her emotions from anything she or I say. I always have to worry about how she's going to take something I say and if I say the wrong thing without meaning it, she goes off on me and says things she doesn't mean. Also, she can't receive criticism without taking it personally while criticism doesn't bother me personally in the slightest. It's very hard to understand her when I am so different.

 

I'm trying to be fair here because I know that while I think feeling-type people are often irrational, I know that they think that people like me are completely insensitive and without emotions. But I can't help but think that's there's a definite difference in letting your thoughts take over you and letting your emotions take over you. Rational, logical thought rarely screws things up but pure feeling can definitely cause problems.

 

I want to understand... what exactly are the merits of being a feeling person?

[Liam Weic]

wow..you and me both, brother.

[Scout]

I want to understand... what exactly are the merits of being a feeling person?

 

Well...if more people were tactful, diplomatic, prized harmony, and above all, were compassionate (all characteristics you attribute to "feelers"), it would certainly be a kinder world to live in, wouldn't it?

[robowar]

Scout, if the world were comprised entirely of feelers, then I think we'd have ourselves a Brave New World. I guess it's about what you think is important in the world: thinkers contribute more to the knowledge of mankind, feelers make people happy.

[Scout]

Actually, emotions as we know them were pretty much eliminated in Brave New World. And ruthless logic was behind that.

[robowar]

That's not what I was getting at, Scout... I cited BNW because the world was so harmonious but there was no thought.

[agent1607307371]

But there was no genuine feeling either.

 

 

Neither thought nor emotion are superior, to be healthy you have to have the two working to complement each other.

[robowar]

But don't emotions serve only to cloud judgement? I guess that's what I'm really trying to understand.

[agent1607307371]

No they don't.

 

Emotions, as long as you don't let them sweep you away, add a whole other dimension to your judgement.

 

Pure logic might seem the only way to judge but nothing is that clear cut whilst it contains the human element. Emotion enables you to take this into account and temper it.

[justwonderingkid]

oh man, i myself am nearly split between a thinker and feeler. as for my gf, i believe shes mostly a feeler hmm. interesting

[Scout]

I think Agent is more on the right track, here...rather than saying one or the other is a better thing to be, it's better to have both abilities.

[Momene]

I did Myers-Briggs a while ago and I'm a thinker. I think the best people have a balance, so if I plan more time to be impulsive, I'll be OK.

[robowar]

I see what you guys are getting at, but it's going to be a gradual process for me to understand feelers. For example, feelers will take tact over truth while thinkers value the latter more. But in the end, isn't it about getting to the bottom of things and not about not hurting people's feelings? Isn't that what matters??

[agent1607307371]

What matters is getting to the bottom of things whilst not hurting peoples feelings.

 

People's impressions of you can have a major influence over you, no matter how truthful you are.

[talo]

I'm trying to be fair here because I know that while I think feeling-type people are often irrational, I know that they think that people like me are completely insensitive and without emotions. But I can't help but think that's there's a definite difference in letting your thoughts take over you and letting your emotions take over you. Rational, logical thought rarely screws things up but pure feeling can definitely cause problems.

 

"Letting your thoughts take over you" is the same as "letting your emotions take over you". If one 'takes thought too seriously' that one is emotional. Thought produces emotion. Feeling is prior to thought. Feeling is not emotion.

 

Rational, logical thought is the only thing that "screws things up". Things are not screwed up unless one thinks about them.

 

I see what you guys are getting at, but it's going to be a gradual process for me to understand feelers. For example, feelers will take tact over truth while thinkers value the latter more. But in the end, isn't it about getting to the bottom of things and not about not hurting people's feelings? Isn't that what matters??

 

It is impossible to understand feeling via thinking. One understands feeling via feeling.

 

Tact, as understood here, is manipulation, not feeling. As such it is a thinking process.

 

Real truth is not found in thinking. Real truth is feeling.

 

"The bottom of things", as I understand the use of this phrase in your sentence, is that feelings cannot be hurt. If something is hurt, or thought to be hurt, it is an emotion.

 

What matters is what is taken to matter.

[itsallgrand]

I see what you guys are getting at, but it's going to be a gradual process for me to understand feelers. For example, feelers will take tact over truth while thinkers value the latter more. But in the end, isn't it about getting to the bottom of things and not about not hurting people's feelings? Isn't that what matters??

 

It requires stretching out your own mind. Flexibility of holding ambiguious perspectives.

 

For example, you stated: Feelers will take tact over truth

while thinkers value the later more.

 

Is that true absolutely? We could debate this statement alone til the cows come home!

 

Logic and thinking has its place. However, cold logic can be devasting and way off target.

 

Human beings experience through a body, a mind, and a spirit (your choice to believe this or not). So all experience must thereforeeee be influenced by all elements of our being! It is quite simple, yet many do not live from this mentality.

 

Imagine a situation of grave importance. War is a good example. Oftentimes, the most logical thing and most thought out is the 'craziest' in that it leaves out the important element of human feeling!

Imagine war without diplomats or feelers.

 

We need all sorts of people. Still, I understand the frustration of dealing with pure feelers. They are a politician's and lawyers' wet dream.