As an ISTP personality, have you experienced certain moments and showed behaviors and attitudes that are very different from usual? These behaviors not only surprise others, but also confused yourself? Have you ever thought about where these unusual manifestations come from and what significance and value do they have? If you are an ISTP type person, you may become very interested in your own shadow function personality, because it can help you understand yourself more thoroughly, explore your hidden abilities, and achieve the transformation of growth and development.
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In this article, we will explore the following key issues in depth based on the theory of MBTI and Jungian 8D:
- What is Shadow Function Personality?
- What is the shadow function personality of ISTP?
- How to give full play to the advantages of shadow function personality?
PS This article is for readers who have a basic understanding of the concept of Jung 8D (MBTI cognitive function). If you have not yet understood the relevant concepts, you can read this article on MBTI cognitive function introduction , or search for relevant information by yourself.
What is Shadow Function Personality?
MBTI (Miles-Briggs Personality Type Indicator) is a widely used personality test that divides people into 16 different types, each of which consists of four letters, representing four preference dimensions:
- Extraverted (E) or Introverted (I): This dimension reflects the individual’s tendency to acquire energy. Extraverted people prefer to interact with the external world, while introverted people prefer to immerse themselves in their inner world.
- Sensory (S) or Intuition (N): Indicates the individual’s preference in the way of information acquisition. Sensory people rely on five senses to capture concrete facts, while intuitive people rely on intuition to understand the possibility of abstraction.
- Thinking (T) or emotion (F): reflects the dominant basis of individuals when making decisions. The thinking type is judged based on logic and principles, while the emotional type is based on emotional and value trade-offs.
- Judgement (J) or Perception (P): Revealing individuals’ tendencies in lifestyle choices. The judges tend to plan their lives in an orderly manner, while the perceptuals prefer flexible and open models.
Jungian Cognitive Functions, as the theoretical cornerstone of MBTI, believes that everyone has eight different psychological functions:
- Extravagant Feeling (Se): It is closely connected to the external world through the five senses, focuses on the current actual situation, and actively seeks stimulation and change.
- Introverted Feeling (Si): Use the five senses to interact with the internal world, pay attention to past experiences and memories, and pursue stability and security.
- Extravagant Intuition (Ne): Interact with the outside world through intuition, pay attention to future possibilities and potential, and explore innovation and diversity.
- Introverted Intuition (Ni): Rely on intuition to establish connection with the internal world, focus on deep insights and meanings, and pursue insights and foresights.
- Extraordinary Thinking (Te): Use logic to communicate with the outside world, attach importance to objective facts and rules, and strive for efficiency and results.
- Introverted thinking (Ti): Use logic to engage in dialogue with the internal world, pay attention to subjective theory and analysis, and pursue accuracy and understanding.
- Extravagant Emotion (Fe): Communicate with the outside world through emotions, care about other people’s feelings and needs, and create an atmosphere of harmony and cooperation.
- Introverted emotions (Fi): Resonate with the internal world through emotions, pay attention to your own feelings and values, and stick to your true self.
Everyone has these eight functions, but their priorities and degree of development vary. MBTI pointed out that everyone has a dominant function, an auxiliary function, a third function, and an Inferior function. These four functions constitute a person’s Ego Personality, which is the most commonly used and familiar personality in daily life. Taking ISTP type people as an example, their positive surface functional personality is as follows:
- Director function: Introverted thinking (Ti), empowering ISTP to independently analyze, build and verify theoretical models, and be good at solving various problems and challenges.
- Assistive function: Extraverted feeling (Se), allowing ISTP to flexibly adapt to and control the external environment, and enjoy the experience brought by stimulation and change.
- Third function: Introverted emotions (Fi), making ISTP adhere to its own values and beliefs and express personal unique feelings and wishes.
- Disadvantage function: Extraverted intuition (Ne), which is relatively conservative when facing new external possibilities.
In addition to the positive functional personality, each person also has a shadow functional personality, which is opposite to the positive functional personality and consists of four other functions. Not only is the order opposite to the positive functional personality, but the direction of each function is also completely opposite. Shadow function personality is usually hidden in the subconscious and is not common in daily life. However, in some special circumstances, it will surface, affect the individual’s behavior and attitudes, and even cause conflict and problems. The emergence of shadow function personality is usually caused by factors such as stress, growth, and balance. When faced with stress or crisis, individuals may exhibit improper or excessive behaviors; when they desire to grow, they may exhibit novel behaviors; when they pursue balance, they may exhibit appropriate and beneficial behaviors. Shadow Function Personality is not an individual’s enemy, but a friend who helps individuals to know themselves more comprehensively.
Detailed explanation of ISTP’s shadow function personality
The shadow function personality of ISTP corresponds to the ESTJ. This personality is in sharp contrast with the male functional personality of ISTP and shows different characteristics in each functional dimension.
- Differences in dominant functions: ISTP is dominated by in-depth analysis of introverted thinking (Ti), tends to independently construct an internal logic system and deeply explore the essential principles of things. ESTJ is dominated by extroverted thinking (Te) that focuses on execution, and is more concerned about how to transform ideas into practical actions. She is good at organizing resources and personnel, efficiently achieving external goals, and paying attention to the efficiency and results of things.
- Differences in assistive functions: ISTP’s extroverted sensation (Se) allows them to quickly perceive and adapt to changes in the external environment, enjoy the rich sensory experience at the moment, and respond quickly to the actual situation around them. ESTJ’s introversion (Si) makes them rely on accumulated experience and established patterns to ensure the stability and reliability of their actions, and focus on maintaining existing order and traditions.
- Different functions of the third function: ISTP’s introverted emotions (Fi) emphasizes the persistence of personal values and beliefs, judges the meaning of things from the bottom of the heart, and expresses real self-feeling. ESTJ’s extroverted emotions (Fe) focus on coordinating the feelings of all parties in external relations, and strive to create harmonious interpersonal relationships based on the needs of others and social norms.
- ** Characteristics of disadvantage function**: ISTP’s extraverted intuition (Ne) is relatively weak, and it is more cautious in exploring new external possibilities, and it is not easy to actively explore and try new directions. Although ESTJ’s introverted intuition (Ni) is not commonly used, once enabled, it can deeply understand the essence and development direction of things, and use intuition to foresee future trends, providing a long-term perspective for decision-making.
The shadow function personality of ISTP has the following distinctive characteristics and significant advantages:
- Excellent organization and organizational skills: Good at formulating detailed and reasonable plans, being able to strictly execute, and accurately arrange various tasks, ensuring that all affairs can be carried out in an orderly manner according to the established goals, effectively avoiding chaos, optimizing resource utilization to the greatest extent, and ensuring efficient operation of work and life.
- High sense of responsibility and reliability: Treat yourself and others’ responsibilities as the top priority, always stick to your commitments, take every task seriously and responsibly, never perfunctory, and is a partner worthy of others’ trust and trust. In any case, it can make people feel at ease to rely on.
- Excellent leadership and influence: Be good at leveraging your authority and professional qualities, and effectively manage and guide others with rich experience and decisive decision-making ability. Their professional performance and leadership style can win the respect and support of others, thus leading the team to move towards a common goal and achieving coordinated development of the team.
- Good adaptation and cooperation: Be able to keenly perceive changes in the external environment, quickly adjust your behavior and attitude, and actively integrate into different situations. At the same time, be good at establishing and maintaining good cooperative relationships with others, knowing how to listen to others’ opinions, giving full play to the advantages of team members, promoting smooth team collaboration, and achieving common progress.
The emergence and impact of ISTP’s shadow function personality in different situations is as follows:
- Stress Situation: When ISTP encounters great stress or crisis, it may be overly reliant on extraverted thinking (Te) and introverted feeling (Si). At this time, they may show strong, stubborn, stereotyped behaviors, trying to deal with difficulties in a tough and familiar way, but this method may ignore flexibility and innovation, resulting in a more rigid way of dealing with problems.
- Growth Situation: In the process of pursuing growth and development, if ISTP actively uses external emotions (Fe) and introverted intuition (Ni), it may show an active and cooperative and creative side. They will communicate and cooperate with others more openly, use introverted intuition to explore potential opportunities and directions, thereby expanding their own vision and ability boundaries and achieving self-improvement.
- Balanced Situation: When ISTP seeks its own balance, rational adjustment of external thinking (Te) and introverted sensation (Si) can make it pay more attention to other people’s feelings while maintaining rationality. At this time, they will show a caring and insightful side, and on the basis of adhering to principles, they will better understand and take care of others, create harmonious interpersonal relationships, and achieve balanced development between themselves and their surrounding environment.
How to give full play to the advantages of shadow function personality?
Shadow function personality is not an obstacle to the individual, but an important force that helps individuals develop in an all-round way. It can help individuals understand themselves more deeply, tap potential abilities, and achieve growth and breakthroughs. However, to give full play to its advantages, individuals need to have enough courage and willingness to face and accept their own shadows, deeply understand their characteristics and advantages, pay attention to their emergence and reasons, adjust their expression and use, and make them coordinated and unified with the positive functional personality rather than conflicting with each other. Here are some methods and techniques to help ISTP exert their personality advantages in shadow functions:
- Recognize and accept your own shadow: ISTP should clearly realize that shadow function personality is an integral part of itself, not a negative existence, but a ‘other side’ with unique value. It should be accepted calmly, rather than denying or suppressing it, because it can bring a new perspective and ability to the individual and promote the integrity and balance of personality.
- ** Understand the characteristics and advantages of shadow functional personality**: ISTP can deeply learn the characteristics and advantages of shadow functional personality by reading professional books, academic articles, browsing authoritative websites, or participating in related courses, lectures and workshops, clarify the differences and connections between it and the positive personality, and fully understand its positive significance for personal development.
- Observe the emergence of shadow functional personality and reasons: ISTP should pay attention to the emergence of shadow functional personality in different scenarios, analyze the trigger factors behind it, such as stressors, growth needs, balance demands, etc., and think about its specific impact on one’s own behavior and attitude. You can enhance your self-awareness and understanding by recording daily experiences, reflecting on your inner feelings, or communicating and sharing with trusted people.
- Regulate the expression and application of shadow functional personality: ISTP can reasonably adjust the expression and application of shadow functional personality through the following methods to achieve coordination with the positive functional personality:
- Stress response: When facing huge pressure or crisis, avoid over-reliance on extraverted thinking (Te) and introverted feeling (Si), and try to reactivate the dominant role of introverted thinking (Ti) and extroverted feeling (Si) by relaxing the body and mind, changing thinking angles, seeking advice from others, etc., and deal with problems more effectively.
- Growth Promotion: In the stage of pursuing growth and development, actively participate in various meaningful activities, projects or clubs, communicate and cooperate with like-minded people, fully exercise and enhance external emotions (Fe) and introverted intuition (Ni), broaden your horizons, and enhance your innovation ability.
- Balance realization: In daily life, by cultivating interests and hobbies, maintaining good living habits, or establishing deep relationships with those who understand and support themselves, they naturally adjust external thinking (Te) and internal thinking (Si), so that they complement each other with internal thinking (Ti) and external feeling (Se), and achieve physical and mental balance and harmonious development.
in conclusion
Shadow functional personality is a potentially valuable asset of an individual. For ISTP, although its shadow functional personality ESTJ is different from the yang functional personality, it contains unique advantages and potential. In specific situations, its emergence can bring new ways of thinking and behavior to ISTP. If ISTP can correctly understand, accept and reasonably use the shadow functional personality and organically combine it with the positive functional personality, it will surely achieve a new leap in self-growth and development.
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