Extraverted Feeling and Feeling Judgment

• Extraverted Thinking—ET and TJ one-sidedness
• Extraverted Feeling—EF and FJ one-sidedness
• Extraverted Sensing—ES and SP one-sidedness
• Extraverted Intuition—EN and NP one-sidedness
• Introverted Thinking—IT and TP one-sidedness
• Introverted Feeling—IF and FP one-sidedness
• Introverted Sensing—IS and SJ one-sidedness
• Introverted Intuition—IN and NJ one-sidedness

📝 The structure of this reference article resembles a pyramid, beginning with concise and straightforward information and progressively delving into more intricate and detailed content to accommodate various levels of depth required by different readers.

Extraverted Feeling—The Definitive Official Definition by Myers & Briggs Foundation

Extraverted Feeling: 

(Fe) ESFJ/ENFJ: Seeks harmony with and between people in the outside world. Interpersonal and cultural values are important. Encouraging and interested in others. Keyword: Harmonizing.

The Myers & Briggs Foundation

Psychological Types BY CARL JUNG: Adapted Simplified Translation

It is now clear that the bulk of Carl Jung’s work was not about type but one-sidedness. Carl Jung simply saw the type as a lens, a language and a liver to help free man from excessive one-sidedness.

His main purpose and the bulk of his work in typology was to help free man from excessive one-sidedness. One-sidedness is a form of aberration.

“Children learn by an adult’s example, not by their words.” — Carl Jung

Other translation: “Children are educated by what the Grown-up is and not by his talk.” — Carl Jung

extraverted feeling—EF(S) and EF(N)

• The extravert’s feeling [EF and FJ one-sidedness] is always in harmony with objective situations and general values. It is under the spell of traditional or generally valid standards of some sort.
  
  ‐ E.g. Extraverted Feeling [EF and FJ one-sidedness] may feel obligated to use the predicate ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’, not because they find the object ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’ from its own subjective feeling, but because it is fitting and tactful to do; and fitting it certainly is, inasmuch as a contrary opinion would disturb the general feeling situation.

• A feeling-judgment such as this is in no way a simulation or a lie — it is merely an act of accommodation. There is a benevolent intention in Extraverted Feeling [EF and FJ one-sidedness] to create a pleasant feeling-atmosphere, to which end, everything must be felt as agreeable.

• Such feelings are governed by the standard of objective determinants. The values resulting from Extraverted Feeling [EF and FJ one-sidedness] either correspond directly with objective values or at least harmonize with certain traditional and generally known standards of value.

• Without this feeling, a beautiful and harmonious sociability would be unthinkable. It is of the highest importance for Extraverted Feeler [EF and FJ one-sidedness] to establish an intense feeling of rapport with the environment.

• But this beneficial effect is lost as soon as the object gains an exaggerated influence. When Extraverted Feeling [EF and FJ one-sidedness] draws itself too much to the object, its initial charm completely fades.
  
  ‐ Extraverted Feeling [EF and FJ one-sidedness] then becomes cold and untrustworthy.
  
  ‐ It no longer makes an agreeable impression which usually accompanies genuine feeling; instead, one suspects a façade, or that the person is acting.

• Every conclusion, however logical, that might lead to a disturbance of feeling is rejected from the start.

• Hysteria is the principal form of neurosis with this type.

“The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” — Carl Jung

Unveiling Extraverted Feeling (EF and FJ one-sidedness) with Unparalleled Depth and Precision

Let me offer a cautionary note about the following, Carl Jung’s work primarily addresses one-sidedness rather than specific functions or personality types.

Short summary of Extroverted Feeling as described by J.H. van der Hoop

Extraverted Feeling type emphasize their life focused on establishing emotional relationships. People of this type constantly seek to create feelings in others, skilfully perceiving the emotions of those around them. They read others’ feelings from subtle cues and adjust their reactions accordingly, making them highly effective in social interactions.

This type derives a sense of security from conforming to accepted social norms and values. They seek harmony in their relationships, becoming unhappy when out of touch with their environment. Extraverted feeling individuals can turn unpleasant or harsh when met with indifference or discord, aiming to preserve the emotional connection they desire.

They place great value on relationships and are prone to idealize loved ones and aspects of their lives. However, they can overlook faults, repressing any attributes that might disturb their harmonious environment. Repression has a significant influence on their behavior, sometimes leading to an artificial sense of harmony and idealism in their interactions.

The traits of this type can be observed early in children who tend to idealize their parents and yearn for praise and affection, often displaying over-sensitivity to criticism. They strive to create emotional connections, and their happiness is dependent on such relationships, which might sometimes lead to profound despair when unattainable.

Individuals with an extraverted feeling disposition are emotionally expressive, creating an atmosphere by fully immersing themselves in the feelings of the moment. They are adept at expressing a wide range of emotions and can arouse responsive feelings in others, found among famous orators, actors, and even in their outward appearance.

This type is highly sensitive to praise and criticism, with encouragement intensifying their emotional reactions. They often insist on friendliness, fair play, and orderliness in their relationships, but their persistence and emotional investment may lead to conflicts, particularly due to their insistence on their judgment’s universal validity.

While they use reason effectively, their judgments are deeply influenced by their emotional inclinations. Their thinking is entirely aligned with their feelings, even in scientific matters, which makes them highly emotionally invested and often prone to making judgments in a very personal manner.

“To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.” — Carl Jung

Below are several significant characteristics of the Extraverted Feeling type, extracted from an AI analysis, drawn directly from Chapter 10 of Carl Gustav Jung’s “Psychological Types” (1921):

1. Objective Orientation: Extraverted feeling is primarily oriented by objective data, making the object the decisive factor in shaping feelings.
2. Alignment with Objective Values: It conforms to objective values and generally accepted standards rather than individual subjective feelings.
3. Act of Accommodation: Extraverted feeling can lead to the use of certain predicates like “beautiful” or “good” not because of personal feelings but due to social expectations and politeness.
4. Social Harmony and Conformity: It is concerned with maintaining social harmony and fitting in with established norms, creating a pleasant feeling atmosphere.
5. Creative Factor: Extraverted feeling plays a crucial role in supporting social, philanthropic, and cultural enterprises, contributing to sociability and cultural standards.
6. Loss of Authenticity: If taken to an extreme, extraverted feeling may lose its warmth, becoming cold, material, and unreliable, often masking egocentric motives.
7. Dissociation of Feeling: Exaggerated extraverted feeling can lead to a dissociation of feeling, where every object is valuated differently, undermining the authentic personal aspect of feeling.
8. Hysteria: The extreme form of this function can manifest as hysteria with infantile sexuality being part of the unconscious world of ideas.

Summary of Extraverted Feeling Type:

1. Predominantly in Women: Extraverted feeling types are often found among women, and these individuals follow the guidance of their feelings.
2. Adjusted Feeling Function: They have a developed feeling function that can be consciously controlled, aligning with objective situations and values.
3. Love Choices Based on Objectivity: The “suitable” partner is chosen based on objective criteria like age, standing, and family respectability, rather than personal feelings.
4. Thinking is Subordinate: Extraverted feeling types tend to repress their thinking function, which serves the feelings and lacks independent logic.
5. Irrational Thinking in Unconscious: Unconscious thinking in these types is primitive, infantile, and negative, often leading to obsessions and neurotic symptoms.
6. Negative Thinking Erupts: Unconscious thoughts can be highly negative and depreciatory, centered around valued objects, which leads to doubt in feeling-values.
7. Repression of Sensation and Intuition: Sensation and intuition are relatively repressed and exist in an inferior state of differentiation in these types.
8. Irrational Elements in Their Lives: What happens to these types often corresponds with irrational, unconscious processes, making them appear irrational from their own standpoint.
9. Strong Objective Orientation: They base their reasonableness on objective data, conforming to generally accepted standards and collective norms.

These characteristics highlight how extraverted feeling types navigate their lives, focusing on objectivity and social harmony while repressing certain aspects of their unconscious mind, leading to unique challenges and strengths.

Carl Jung’s Description of the Extraverted Feeling Type summarised in 1500 words

Here is an AI summary of a verbatim excerpt taken from Chapter 10 of Carl Gustav Jung’s work “Psychological Types” (1921):

Feeling

In the extraverted attitude, feeling is influenced and oriented by objective data, making the object the essential determinant of the kind of feeling experienced. Extraverted feeling has distanced itself from subjectivity and is wholly subordinated to the influence of the object. While it may appear to be independent of the concrete object’s quality, it remains under the sway of traditional or generally accepted standards. This type of feeling leads to judgments that align with objective values and social expectations, even if they do not reflect one’s own subjective feelings.

Extraverted feeling undergoes a process of differentiation to remove subjective biases. It results in valuations that directly correspond to objective values or conform to well-established standards of value. This aspect of feeling is responsible for people’s positive reactions in social, cultural, and religious contexts. It fosters a harmonious sociability and supports philanthropic endeavors. When in balance, extraverted feeling is a benevolent and creative force, enriching social interactions.

However, when the object’s influence becomes exaggerated, the person’s identity is subsumed, and the true charm of feeling is lost. It turns cold, untrustworthy, and may serve hidden personal motives, creating an impression of affectation. This overemphasized extraverted feeling may provide aesthetic appeal, but it lacks the heartfelt connection it should evoke. Its effect becomes sterile and unremarkable, leading to a contradictory dissociation of feeling, where incompatible relationships are formed.

In this state, the individual’s true subjective standpoint is suppressed, and they become consumed by various feeling processes, losing their original warmth and genuineness. The feeling seems erratic, unreliable, and even hysterical. While extraverted feeling is positive when balanced, excessive emphasis on the object can lead to a loss of authenticity, posing challenges in maintaining genuine emotional connections.

The Extraverted Feeling-Type [EF and FJ one-sidedness]

The passage delves into the extraverted feeling type, which is predominantly found among women due to feeling being a more apparent feature in feminine psychology than thinking. When extraverted feeling takes priority in a person, we refer to them as an extraverted feeling-type, and such examples are predominantly women.

These individuals are guided by their feelings, which have been refined through education to become an adjusted function under conscious control. Despite repressing the subjective factor to some extent, their feelings maintain a personal character, and their personality appears to be in harmony with objective conditions, valuations, and general values.

The so-called “love-choice” exemplifies this type’s behavior, as they tend to love those men who meticulously align with reasonable requirements like standing, age, capacity, height, and family respectability. While some may view this as a cynical observation, it is genuinely reflective of the love feelings of this type of woman. Reasonable marriages of this kind are not uncommon and can thrive when the partners possess conventional psychic constitutions.

These individuals can experience correct feelings when they are undisturbed by other factors, and it is the intrusion of thinking that most perturbs their feelings. However, this does not imply they lack thinking altogether; they can think ably, yet their thinking primarily serves as a support to their feelings rather than operating independently.

As the importance of an object intensifies, an assimilation of subject to object occurs, almost entirely engulfing the subject of feeling. In such situations, feelings lose their personal character, and the individual appears wholly dissolved in the feeling of the moment. However, as life presents constantly changing and contrasting situations, the personality becomes dissipated in numerous feelings, leading to a seemingly manifold personality that is not truly possible.

The observer perceives these fluctuating feelings as mood alterations rather than genuine personal expressions. This internal disunion is an indication of the unconscious compensatory attitude manifesting as opposition.

The extraverted feeling type typically represses thinking to prevent it from disturbing their feelings. Thinking is seen as a potential threat to feeling-values and is therefore not allowed to function independently. Instead, it becomes a servant or slave to feeling, unable to operate based on its own laws. This repressed thinking resides in the unconscious, characterized as infantile, archaic, and negative thinking.

While conscious feeling maintains a personal character, the unconscious thinking compensates as long as personality remains intact. However, when personality becomes fragmented due to contradictory feelings, the ego’s identity is lost, and the individual becomes unconscious. The unconscious thinking then aligns with the subject’s unconscious state, occasionally surfacing in the form of irruptions, often negative and depreciatory in nature. These negative thoughts challenge the value of the most cherished objects, as they arise from the “nothing but” style of thinking, opposing the feelings attached to the objects.

Women of this type may experience moments of obsessive and negative thoughts directed towards their most cherished objects. This negative thinking utilizes infantile prejudices and parallels to cast doubt on feeling-values, leading to a “nothing but” interpretation. The collective unconscious also becomes involved in this process, with primordial images influencing the individual’s attitude.

Overall, this type’s predominant neurosis is hysteria, characterized by the unconscious world of ideas with infantile sexuality at its core. Understanding the interplay between feeling and thinking in the extraverted feeling type sheds light on their psychology and behavior.

CARL JUNG’S ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION OF THE Extraverted Feeling TYPE

Here is the original, verbatim excerpt taken from Chapter 10 of Carl Gustav Jung’s work “Psychological Types” (1921). This text can be used for direct, unaltered quotation of Carl Gustav Jung’s work:

Feeling

Feeling in the extraverted attitude is orientated by objective data, i.e. the object is the indispensable determinant of the kind of feeling. It agrees with objective values. If one has always known feeling as a subjective fact, the nature of extraverted feeling will not immediately be understood, since it has freed itself as fully as possible from the subjective factor, and has, instead, become wholly subordinated to the influence of the object.

Even where it seems to show a certain independence of the quality of the concrete object, it is none the less under the spell of. traditional or generally valid standards of some sort. I may feel constrained, for instance, to use the predicate ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’, not because I find the object ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’ from my own subjective feeling, but because it is fitting and politic so to do; and fitting it certainly is, inasmuch as a contrary opinion would disturb the general feeling situation.

A feeling-judgment such as this is in no way a simulation or a lie — it is merely an act of accommodation. A picture, for instance, may be termed beautiful, because a picture that is hung in a drawing-room and bearing a well-known signature is generally assumed to be beautiful, or because the predicate ‘ugly’ might offend the family of the fortunate possessor, or because there is a benevolent intention on the part of the visitor to create a pleasant feeling-atmosphere, to which end everything must be felt as agreeable. Such feelings are governed by the standard of the objective determinants. As such they are genuine, and represent the total visible feeling-function.

In precisely the same way as extraverted thinking strives to rid itself of subjective influences, extraverted feeling has also to undergo a certain process of differentiation, before it is finally denuded of every subjective [p. 447] trimming. The valuations resulting from the act of feeling either correspond directly with objective values or at least chime in with certain traditional and generally known standards of value.

This kind of feeling is very largely responsible for the fact that so many people flock to the theatre, to concerts, or to Church, and what is more, with correctly adjusted positive feelings. Fashions, too, owe their existence to it, and, what is far more valuable, the whole positive and wide-spread support of social, philanthropic, and such like cultural enterprises. In such matters, extraverted feeling proves itself a creative factor.

Without this feeling, for instance, a beautiful and harmonious sociability would be unthinkable. So far extraverted feeling is just as beneficent and rationally effective as extraverted thinking. But this salutary effect is lost as soon as the object gains an exaggerated influence. For, when this happens, extraverted feeling draws the personality too much into the object, i.e. the object assimilates the person, whereupon the personal character of the feeling, which constitutes its principal charm, is lost.

Feeling then becomes cold, material, untrustworthy. It betrays a secret aim, or at least arouses the suspicion of it in an impartial observer. No longer does it make that welcome and refreshing impression the invariable accompaniment of genuine feeling; instead, one scents a pose or affectation, although the egocentric motive may be entirely unconscious.

Such overstressed, extraverted feeling certainly fulfils æsthetic expectations, but no longer does it speak to the heart; it merely appeals to the senses, or — worse still — to the reason. Doubtless it can provide æsthetic padding for a situation, but there it stops, and beyond that its effect is nil. It has become sterile. Should this process go further, a strangely contradictory dissociation of feeling develops; every object is seized upon with feeling- [p. 448] valuations, and numerous relationships are made which are inherently and mutually incompatible.

Since such aberrations would be quite impossible if a sufficiently emphasized subject were present, the last vestige of a real personal standpoint also becomes suppressed. The subject becomes so swallowed up in individual feeling processes that to the observer it seems as though there were no longer a subject of feeling but merely a feeling process. In such a condition feeling has entirely forfeited its original human warmth, it gives an impression of pose, inconstancy, unreliability, and in the worst cases appears definitely hysterical.

The Extraverted Feeling-Type

In so far as feeling is, incontestably, a more obvious peculiarity of feminine psychology than thinking, the most pronounced feeling-types are also to be found among women. When extraverted feeling possesses the priority we speak of an extraverted feeling-type. Examples of this type that I can call to mind are, almost without exception, women. She is a woman who follows the guiding-line of her feeling.

As the result of education her feeling has become developed into an adjusted function, subject to conscious control. Except in extreme cases, feeling has a personal character, in spite of the fact that the subjective factor may be already, to a large extent, repressed. The personality appears to be adjusted in relation to objective conditions. Her feelings correspond with objective situations and general values.

Nowhere is this more clearly revealed than in the so-called ‘love-choice’; the ‘suitable’ man is loved, not another one; he is suitable not so much because he fully accords with the fundamental character of the woman — as a rule she is quite uninformed about this — but because [p. 449] he meticulously corresponds in standing, age, capacity, height, and family respectability with every reasonable requirement.

Such a formulation might, of course, be easily rejected as ironical or depreciatory, were I not fully convinced that the love-feeling of this type of woman completely corresponds with her choice. It is genuine, and not merely intelligently manufactured. Such ‘reasonable’ marriages exist without number, and they are by no means the worst. Such women are good comrades to their husbands and excellent mothers, so long as husbands or children possess the conventional psychic constitution.

One can feel ‘correctly’, however, only when feeling is disturbed by nothing else. But nothing disturbs feeling so much as thinking. It is at once intelligible, therefore, that this type should repress thinking as much as possible. This does not mean to say that such a woman does not think at all; on the contrary, she may even think a great deal and very ably, but her thinking is never sui generis; it is, in fact, an Epimethean appendage to her feeling.

What she cannot feel, she cannot consciously think. ‘But I can’t think what I don’t feel’, such a type said to me once in indignant tones. As far as feeling permits, she can think very well, but every conclusion, however logical, that might lead to a disturbance of feeling is rejected from the outset. It is simply not thought. And thus everything that corresponds with objective valuations is good: these things are loved or treasured; the rest seems merely to exist in a world apart.

But a change comes over the picture when the importance of the object reaches a still higher level. As already explained above, such an assimilation of subject to object then occurs as almost completely to engulf the subject of feeling. Feeling loses its personal character — it becomes feeling per se; it almost seems as though the [p. 450] personality were wholly dissolved in the feeling of the moment.

Now, since in actual life situations constantly and successively alternate, in which the feeling-tones released are not only different but are actually mutually contrasting, the personality inevitably becomes dissipated in just so many different feelings. Apparently, he is this one moment, and something completely different the next — apparently, I repeat, for in reality such a manifold personality is altogether impossible.

The basis of the ego always remains identical with itself, and, therefore, appears definitely opposed to the changing states of feeling. Accordingly the observer senses the display of feeling not so much as a personal expression of the feeling-subject as an alteration of his ego, a mood, in other words. Corresponding with the degree of dissociation between the ego and the momentary state of feeling, signs of disunion with the self will become more or less evident, i.e. the original compensatory attitude of the unconscious becomes a manifest opposition.

This reveals itself, in the first instance, in extravagant demonstrations of feeling, in loud and obtrusive feeling predicates, which leave one, however, somewhat incredulous. They ring hollow; they are not convincing. On the contrary, they at once give one an inkling of a resistance that is being overcompensated, and one begins to wonder whether such a feeling-judgment might not just as well be entirely different. In fact, in a very short time it actually is different.

Only a very slight alteration in the situation is needed to provoke forthwith an entirely contrary estimation of the selfsame object. The result of such an experience is that the observer is unable to take either judgment at all seriously. He begins to reserve his own opinion. But since, with this type, it is a matter of the greatest moment to establish an intensive feeling rapport with his environment, redoubled efforts are now required [p. 451] to overcome this reserve.

Thus, in the manner of the circulus vitiosus, the situation goes from bad to worse. The more the feeling relation with the object becomes overstressed, the nearer the unconscious opposition approaches the surface.

We have already seen that the extraverted feeling type, as a rule, represses his thinking, just because thinking is the function most liable to disturb feeling. Similarly, when thinking seeks to arrive at pure results of any kind, its first act is to exclude feeling, since nothing is calculated to harass and falsify thinking so much as feeling-values.

Thinking, therefore, in so far as it is an independent function, is repressed in the extraverted feeling type. Its repression, as I observed before, is complete only in so far as its inexorable logic forces it to conclusions that are incompatible with feeling. It is suffered to exist as the servant of feeling, or more accurately its slave.

Its backbone is broken; it may not operate on its own account, in accordance with its own laws, Now, since a logic exists producing inexorably right conclusions, this must happen somewhere, although beyond the bounds of consciousness, i.e. in the unconscious. Pre-eminently, therefore, the unconscious content of this type is a particular kind of thinking. It is an infantile, archaic, and negative thinking.

So long as conscious feeling preserves the personal character, or, in other words, so long as the personality does not become swallowed up by successive states of feeling, this unconscious thinking remains compensatory. But as soon as the personality is dissociated, becoming dispersed in mutually contradictory states of feeling, the identity of the ego is lost, and the subject becomes unconscious.

But, because of the subject’s lapse into the unconscious, it becomes associated with the unconscious thinking — function, therewith assisting the unconscious [p. 452] thought to occasional consciousness. The stronger the conscious feeling relation, and therefore, the more ‘depersonalized,’ it becomes, the stronger grows the unconscious opposition.

This reveals itself in the fact that unconscious ideas centre round just the most valued objects, which are thus pitilessly stripped of their value. That thinking which always thinks in the ‘nothing but’ style is in its right place here, since it destroys the ascendancy of the feeling that is chained to the object.

Unconscious thought reaches the surface in the form of irruptions, often of an obsessing nature, the general character of which is always negative and depreciatory. Women of this type have moments when the most hideous thoughts fasten upon the very objects most valued by their feelings.

This negative thinking avails itself of every infantile prejudice or parallel that is calculated to breed doubt in the feeling-value, and it tows every primitive instinct along with it, in the effort to make ‘a nothing but’ interpretation of the feeling. At this point, it is perhaps in the nature of a side-remark to observe that the collective unconscious, i.e. the totality of the primordial images, also becomes enlisted in the same manner, and from the elaboration and development of these images there dawns the possibility of a regeneration of the attitude upon another basis.

Hysteria, with the characteristic infantile sexuality of its unconscious world of ideas, is the principal form of neurosis with this type.