Decoding Your Myers-Briggs Personality (Part 2): Sensation & iNtuition
When you ask a person: “How do you know that?” you are asking them to draw on their perceptive trait – the second letter of the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator. This trait drives how we become interested in one thing over the other, and most importantly it determines how we understand and how we explain.
Sensation is the process of conscious awareness, and iNtuition is the process of unconscious awareness.
Everyone has some degree of both perceptive traits. iNtuitive individuals have a Sensing function that is subordinate to their iNtuition, and vice versa. However, the dominant perceptive trait reflects the primary way a person perceives his/her world.
The perceptive processes are not simply passive in their nature. They are generative -- helping the individual to formulate understanding and expectation. Jung said that these traits are not “mere reactive process[es] of no further importance for the object." He called them, "almost actions, which seize and shape the object...active and creative processes that [must] build into the object just as much as they take out.”
The Sensation and iNtuition represent fundamental differences in how individuals interpret their environment and how they interpret themselves. Sensers see the world as it is, and iNtuitives see the world as it might be. It may be because of this fundamental difference that people tend to relate best with others that share their same perceptive trait. Indeed, the opposite is also true; i.e. iNtuitves may find Sensers too literal and unimaginative, while Sensers may find iNtuitives too abstract and unrealistic.
SENSATION
Sensers focus on the present, concrete details, and are primarily oriented toward what is available to them through their five senses.
The Sense trait is directly to-do with how an individual perceives present reality to actually exist. They are concerned with seeing the world as it is, accurately and without affectation.
"His ideal is the actual, [and] he has no ideals related to ideas.”
Because of this, Sensers are more likely to seek out concrete and (seemingly) definitive ways of understanding things. They will favor explanations that are grounded in what is provable rather than what "could be."
For example, a Senser would be more likely to attribute the cause of a headache to skipping breakfast (which is provable) than to stress (which is less provable).
Regarding individuals with this trait, Jung writes: “Nothing can be more than concrete and actual; conjectures that transcend, or go beyond the concrete, are only permitted on condition that they enhance sensation [or what is real]."
As well, Sensers are more likely to be drawn to things that "appeal to the senses." That is, things that are objectively and presently appealing, rather than things that are potentially or relatedly appealing. For example, someone with a Sense dominant trait would more likely be interested in buying a well-maintained, furnished house over a promising fixer-upper.
In some cases, when someone with a strong S trait experiences a sensation that is out of line with reality – whether due to their unacknowledged intuition or some type of unconscious desire – Sensers may insist that their subjective perception is the objective truth. This is a type of projection -- a defense mechanism. Consider a painter, who after a frightening encounter with an unfriendly dog, produces a painting of the dog as snarling and foaming at the mouth with oversized teeth and beady eyes. The Sensing painter may well insist the depiction is a true to form: an objective and unexaggerated account. When in truth, the dog likely appeared far less menacing. The Senser’s intuition about the dog has unconsciously influenced what he believes to be an objective understanding.
INTUITION
If the role of Sensation is to "discover the realities" of the objective situation, then the role of iNtuition is to "discover the possibilities" of that same situation. iNtuition helps us see beyond the literal data of our objective sensations. It is responsible for our ability to make connections, predict, and understand things outside of what is immediately evident.
Jung notes that while the iNtuitive does have sensations, she “is not guided by them per se, merely using them as directing-points for [her] distant vision.”
Unlike the Senser, the iNtuitive is oriented by this expanded vision, rather than by what arouses the strongest physiological sensation. Instead, the iNtuitive is directed towards sensations that are expanded by her unconscious knowledge and attitudes.
For example, a woman with a strong iNtuitive trait might be drawn to a particular dress that appeals to her because it (unconsciously) reminds her of her mother, or perhaps some other fond association. That is to say, the dress has not stood out in an objective sense – e.g. the dress is the brightest, best cut, most popular, least expensive, etc.
In many cases the iNtuitive will be unaware of the many of the contingencies driving their interest, since much of the related content may be unconscious to them or at least "subconscious." In these cases, when the iNtuitive woman is asked why she like a particular dress, she may believe that her interest is based on (objective) sensations (i.e., “I like it because it’s the most beautiful") or she may be unclear as to specific source of her interest, and simply acknowledge: “I don’t know; I just liked it.”
In this way, you might call iNtuitives less connected to the present situation, focusing not on what is immediately in front of them, but instead bringing-to-bare an unconscious culmination of their past experiences, which is overlaid into their initial perception of reality in order to predict its course or envision the whole.
“The intuitive is represented by a certain attitude of expectation: a perceptive and penetrating vision, wherein only the subsequent result can prove, in every case, how much was ‘perceived-into’.”
This, of course, has its draw-backs, as attending to "what could be" often defers attending to "what is." This type of looking to the future can also bring with it a persistent dissatisfaction with things as they are. As Jung notes, “because his eye is constantly ranging for new possibilities, stable conditions have an air of impending suffocation.”
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Both traits have their strengths and their weaknesses. Sensation helps us to see things objectively, as they are in the present. While, iNtuition helps us to see beyond what is obvious and envision what might be. They are not unlike the rods and cones in our eyes, whose similar and yet specialized functions enhance and complement one another.
In Jung's view, the complementary relationship in these traits is transpersonal in nature – helping the whole of humanity achieve balance between “what is” and “what might be.”
Do the descriptions above match your experience being a Senser or an iNtuitive? If so/not, let me know by comment or tweet.
In Part 3, I'll talk about the third letter of the Myers-Briggs, the Judging traits: Thinking and Feeling.