The four human functions — What the Little Prince did not know

Have you ever wondered why people can be so different in the way they act, think and feel? I ponder about this since I noticed that social misunderstandings seem to spring from different ways one perceives the present or evaluates incoming information. This turned out frustrating for the anonymous narrator in one of the most beautiful books ever written. He was stranded with his machine in the desert and met a little person who claimed to be a prince from another planet.

When the pilot was a boy, he wanted to become an artist. Later, he gave up on his dream because nobody could discern his initial drawing as to what it meant to be. They all saw the mere shape and claimed it to be a hat. Adults just appeared to view the world through other glasses than him. Not so the little prince who had more infantile glasses. He interpreted the actual content of the picture — a snake that had just swallowed an elephant. I started to imagine these glasses or filter lenses as programs and functions that we prefer to operate by. Only later I learned that the concept of the so-called cognitive functions in psychology was already widely developed.

Is it possible to put our behavior in a nutshell? Is there a favorite angle we love to view the world from? Do we notice distinct commonalities and differences in the behavior of our peers? Do personal tastes, values and preferences affect our operating mode? According to behavioral studies, the answer is “Yes”. Our judgments, tastes and values interact with our personality type, which links to our preferred operations mode. It controls our decisions and how we interact with the environment which in turn defines our lives. It is therefore crucial to discover our own functional preference, that is our glasses, and identify those of our next ones. The stranded pilot eventually learned how grown-ups tick and how to adapt to their views and demands to come by. All that while not giving up his original childlike personality. Similarly, by getting to know the different functions of humans, we obtain more tools to predict what might be the best choice to adopt in our daily life, our career, and our love relationship. We will become real knowers of human nature, similar to the greatest man who ever lived. “He did not need to have anyone bear witness about man, for he knew what was in man”, attested his contemporaries. Imagine how much easier effective communication and reaching our goals would be with such a superpower. Okay, most probably we will not come close to the skill level of a Jesus. But by striving to learn about basic human functions, we will better understand and adapt to other people’s needs. It empowers us to build deeper relationships, settle disagreements, and enhance our chances to win, convince others or sell anything. Finally, all of this contributes to enjoying our lives instead of unknowingly repeating the same mistakes.

Are you curious to find out what our core functions are? Okay, here we go. According to the German psychologist C.G. Jung, the founder of the theory of cognitive functions, most human behavior comprises perception and validation. Perception is about how we exert awareness towards ourselves or our surrounding world. Validation represents how we validate available information, eventually making decisions. These two aspects imply two functions each.

First, there are two active functions responsible for our perception. They represent what sort of information we are interested in, consequently making up the focus of our attention. These are the functions of sensing and intuition. The major difference is that sensors are practically oriented and focus on what is real in the present moment. Intuits on the other hand prefer to dwell on the abstract and consider possibilities. It means that we can direct our attention towards impressions reaching us through our five senses — to what is obvious, present, and real. In the pilot’s narrative, this would coincide with the adults who saw and interpreted the apparent shape of the drawing. Intuition, sometimes referred to as the sixth sense, is more about trying to discern the deeper meaning, reading between the lines, seeking hidden connections. It works more deductively, coming up with concepts, visions, and ideas out of nowhere. In the story, these are the preferred glasses the unfortunate pilot and his little alien visitor sees the world through. Luckily, the pilot found a way to translate his curious intuition-based drawing into the grounded language of the sensors. He drew another version of the picture in a kind of x-ray vision, showing the cross-section of the snake, including the swallowed elephant.

Then we have two reactive functions to validate and decide, which are thinking and feeling. Thinkers base their validations on logic, valuing understanding and knowledge. They strive to do what is right and makes sense objectively, and for this, they step emotionally out of situations. Feelers are people-oriented and step into the situation to implement the subjective viewpoint and sentiments of the persons involved. They base their decisions on value systems. So the little prince and his desert stranded acquaintance constantly dwell on feelings, their own and those of others. Contrary, many of the personalities which he encounters on his journey use the thinker lens. For example, the conscientious man who works as a lantern lighter on a planet that is so small, that it turns around once a minute. As the single inhabitant of that planet, this reliable being feels compelled to switch the only lantern on and off every day, that is each minute. His reasoning therefore is that so is his job, and fulfilling it seems right to him. Here we observe the sober logic of a thinker. While this attitude earned the prince’s respect, the businessman he encountered shortly after just gave him a hard time wondering. The businessman’s 24/7 occupation on his tiny lonely planet was counting the stars which belonged to him. The little prince tried to convince him that this activity is in vain if it does not bring any use to a person he loves. Unfortunately, the prince did not know about Jung and the functional preferences. Otherwise, he could have foreseen that this argumentation will be fruitless, as he based it on his feeling preference. Instead, to reach the businessman he needed to come up with facts, studies, and numbers proving in a thinker language that counting stars is of no logical or monetary benefit.

We all have a favored active and reactive function that we feel most comfortable using. The four possible combinations make up the core of our character. There is no right or wrong in any of the functions or their combinations. They all have pros and cons depending on the situation and other factors. And the world needs them all — pilots and artists, grown-ups and children, princes and lantern lighters. So do we, depending on our functional preferences, have corresponding dispositions for certain jobs, relationships, values, etc. Learning our functional preference helps us harness our strengths and manage the weaknesses. Would you like to unveil what your preferred functions are and how they can work for you? Contact me to get detailed information for your personal assessment and potential development possibilities.