By Jesse Gerroir and Ryan Smith
Extroverted Intuition in ENFPs
Extroverted intuition is the ENFP’s dominant function. It is intuition directed outward and toward emerging patterns in the world, at dynamic change and potentiality. This tends to manifest in ENFPs as adaptability and a keen excitement for the unexpected ways in which things could develop. Unlike ENFJs, who tend to be more purposeful, ENFPs are more chaotic and open-ended at heart. They enjoy the process of discovery and exploration, often seeing the journey as an end in itself.
As intuition is their dominant function, ENFPs tend to focus on and deal primarily with concepts and ideas, and though they need not be intellectually oriented, according to the classical definition of the term, most ENFPs are, in fact, strongly attuned to intellectual or conceptual novelty.
On the other hand, on account of their auxiliary feeling, which we shall discuss later, the conceptual interests of ENFPs tend to revolve around people and their characters rather than around principles or systems.
To most ENFPs, the world is a fascinating place, and the people who fill it even more fascinating. As a consequence, their interests often gravitate toward issues and insights of a psychological, sociological, anthropological, or cultural nature, as well as to fields of a similar constitution—that is, those areas of mental life where the conceptual meets the personal and where the human element forms an indispensable part.
Many ENFPs are intrigued by the diversity of human beings, both in the ideas and cultures developed by them as well as how they are expressed and change across space and time; about what connects different groups and types of people and what makes them different.
As extroverted intuition is their dominant function, they are inclined to see multiplicity in everything and to be respectful of the differences they perceive. To many ENFPs, there is no one correct way to live, love, feel, think, or solve a given problem.
In their social style, ENFPs tend to be known for their distinctive dynamism. Where ENFJs tend to interact in a way that weaves the different backgrounds, values, and opinions of a group together, instilling a shared sense of camaraderie in everyone around them, ENFPs can often be said to do the opposite, seeing each person as offering unique possibilities for interaction and containing unique potentials to be discovered. Rather than weaving the group together through a shared sense of commonality, they are interested in each person’s individual passions; in what moves and shakes them as human beings. In what each person considers their identity and how each individuality changes, is realized, created, and experienced.
While not always as exuberantly expressive as ESFPs, ENFPs nevertheless tend to be highly imaginative and expressive as people, often valuing the social give and take as an end in itself. This inclination of theirs is usually stronger than with the other N types (in fact, even many ENFJs see social interactions as means to an end; something that should serve a purpose and not, as with ENFPs, as an end in itself).
With extroverted intuition as their dominant function, most ENFPs have the ability to think and act in a creative fashion that tends to form a core part of their character and personality and is seen—both by themselves as well as by others—as a unique characteristic of theirs. Like ENTPs, most ENFPs are adept at coming up with creative and exciting new possibilities, perspectives, and ideas.
Extroverted intuition works in a generative fashion, taking different thoughts or ideas and combining them in innovative ways to create something new, running the gamut from insightful and innovative to humorous or just plain bizarre. It is in large part due to their extroverted intuition that ENFPs tend to come across as bubbly and excitable, but also what can cause social burnout in them or wear them down.
Having such a kaleidoscopic and torrential function as their dominant, the energy spent engaging with such a multitude of perspectives means that many ENFPs—despite the gregarious stereotypes others sometimes have about them—will also have a marked need to spend time alone and withdraw. While most ENFPs are outgoing and social, many can also get overwhelmed from dealing with people, dealing with their needs, demands, the different formalities, and engaging them in generating ideas and discovering new perspectives alongside others. In other words, while ENFPs are technically extroverted, many ENFPs consider themselves to be “somewhat introverted” or like “introverted extroverts” on account of this need to withdraw and recharge their dominant function.
Introverted Feeling in ENFPs
Introverted feeling is the ENFP’s auxiliary function. While ENFPs often appear highly adaptable on the surface, being able to socialize and engage with a wide variety of people; indeed, people from all walks of life, most also have a core set of values or ideals that they do not alter or sway in order to please others. While they are able to adapt, mingle, and—more often than not—forgive if pushed too far, ENFPs can nevertheless become deeply hurt and aggressive—often in ways that are not apparent at first—when others belittle or insult their ideals.
While ENFPs may seem similar to INFPs in this sense, INFPs are, on account of their introverted nature, more inclined to develop inner ideals and share them with the world in a way that is harder to separate from their person. By contrast, while also possessing such ideals, ENFPs are more likely to manifest them indirectly, as if the ENFP’s adherence to such ideals is an unstated premise in conversations with them. Some ENFPs may also experience their ideals as inner objects or archetypes, almost as if these ideals had a being of their own that the ENFP can enter into dialogue with when alone.
Hence, though deeply held and valued, ideals are rarely seen as “all or nothing” propositions or a zero-sum game to ENFPs the way they can be with INFPs and ISFPs. To ENFPs, identity is often seen as multiplicity, with the individual being free to shift between different aspects of their character; ideas constantly being in motion and continuously evolving as life presents yet more avenues to explore.
In this manner, ENFPs can perhaps be said to have more of a “live and let live” attitude than most other idealists with keenly held beliefs. They tend to champion or campaign for different values or causes at different times and may even adhere to clashing or technically opposite identities at various points in their lives, though almost always with the deeper motivation of furthering human flourishing and the credo that we must all learn to live more tolerant lives; to flourish side by side with one another. This tends to make them very accepting people, where just about the only thing they will not tolerate is intolerance itself.
On account of their dominant extroverted intuition, the ENFP is a very future- and possibility-oriented type. When coupled with the introverted feeling and extroverted thinking, these three factors frequently combine to yield an enchanted, hopeful viewpoint, instilling a sense of life as a progression of optimistic leaps into the unknown. With such a view as their backdrop, many ENFPs seek to inspire optimism in the individuals they encounter and to help them gain spontaneous and enthusiastic insights into their potential and their future possibilities.
This can often be seen in the way ENFPs interact, conversing in an intermittent fashion that invites lively banter and from that initial joust draws a person in, almost as if it were a game. And once the “game” is underway, the other person’s potential—their skills and merits—can easily be brought to the fore in a playful fashion that then allows for the give-and-take of confirmation and belief in one another’s qualities.
Whereas ENFJs are often more concerned with discovering a person's emotional needs and responding to them in a comforting, soothing fashion, underscoring what everyone has in common, ENFPs are more frequently interested in discovering the other person's quirks and peculiarities—the things that make that person genuinely unique—and then encouraging them to run with them in order to really be themselves. ENFPs do this in ways that make the other person’s unusual and genuine inclinations stand out, and which can then consequently be seen by the ENFP as the emotional fingerprint of that person’s being. Much like the ENFP’s own inner life and self-image internally, this pattern or fingerprint by which they recognize the other person encompasses differing (and at times contradictory) emotional drives and values, recognizing how these impulses are pulling the other person in different directions and giving them the impetus to express themselves in differing ways.
It is this 'unraveling' of the person that tends to interest ENFPs the most and serves as a salient motivation with regard to why they seek to draw others out. Whereas ENTPs will challenge or provoke and come across as slightly cold or confrontational, ENFPs are usually more playful and bubbly. Like ENTPs, ENFPs too are able to challenge people—their egos, identities, and fixed beliefs—yet ENFPs will more often have the challenge take the form of a warm-hearted process of discovery—an embrace of the other person’s identity, rather than a confrontation with or trial of it. In this manner, ENFPs excel at creating an energized and inspiring space that makes others keen to participate in this vivacious mixture of new perspectives and genuine excitement.
With their open-ended ability to recognize patterns and unwavering appreciation for individual identity, ENFPs—perhaps more so than any other type—tend to fundamentally understand how people actually see themselves in an unprejudiced fashion. When attempting to sympathize with others, it is all too easy to accidentally iron out all of the less-streamlined parts of human nature to arrive at conclusions about others that are, in fact, a projection of our own values—observations more informed by what we think are people’s values and wants as opposed to their actual characteristics.
For example, a city planner might look at a historically working-class neighborhood and conclude that the streets are crowded, the residential density too high, and the musical performances in the local square too loud. Often, in these situations, it will take an anthropological intelligence such as the ENFP’s, combining pattern recognition with an appreciation of unique values, to recognize that the streets may indeed be busy, the neighborhood indeed crowded, and the musicians indeed audible. But that the people who live there happily congregate and feel as if they truly belong.
Extroverted Thinking in ENFPs
Extroverted thinking is the ENFP’s tertiary function and, as such, the gateway to the unconscious for them. Extroverted thinking is thinking pointed outwards, scanning the external environment for opportunities for direct application, and always with an eye for how methods, systems, and modes of organization make such things work according to conventional standards and hierarchies. ENFPs may not always agree with the hierarchies and systems that are noticed by their extroverted thinking, but they nevertheless have an eye for them.
ENFPs will often feel pulled in many different directions at once in life, especially when younger, simply feeling that there is so much to do and explore that they will have a hard time committing to one path or direction. Furthermore, even once they have chosen a goal, many are often a bit unsure of how to achieve it and often end up approaching it in a meandering direction, like a person floating in an inner tube bumping about as they float downstream.
However, as they learn to integrate more of their extroverted thinking, more and more of a sense of direction will emerge in their consciousness. The goals they have set for themselves may be dictated by their passions, but the methods and the way to achieve those goals will be helped by the efficient and realistic criteria of extroverted thinking, that little inner voice asking them, “Will this be worthwhile? Will this work?”
When further developed, extroverted thinking tends to manifest in ENFPs by way of an increased awareness of the value of organization and hierarchy; of being able to look at things from that same impersonal “means-to-an-ends” perspective that ENFPs sometimes recoil from earlier in life. Extroverted thinking thus helps them to think strategically, to go beyond imagined possibilities and people’s needs, and the appreciation of individual natures to more impersonally thinking of people and things in terms of frameworks and structures.
One ENFP who was a school administrator traced exactly this path in her personal development. Handling managerial responsibilities, she found herself juggling a lot of teachers' egos in order to get everyone to do their jobs efficiently. In this situation, her usual appreciative and explorative way of interacting with others devolved into unwanted drama, negative gossip, attacks on her person, and the way she handled things.
In her managerial role, she found that the individualistically appreciative and non-hierarchical way she usually carried herself was not going to cut it. That, in fact, it opened the door for individual teachers to run wild with claims of unfair or differential treatment. She needed a way to minimize the potential for such drama and to come up with clear and tangible regulations that would work the same for everyone involved. Not without feelings of guilt or stress, she realized that she had to abandon her individualistic approach when it came to her managerial responsibilities—that she would have to flesh out policies instead of relying on her genial affability and warm amicability.
The school administrator’s situation mirrored a paradox often encountered by ENFPs as they develop. ENFPs often dislike management positions yet will, as they mature, almost to their surprise, frequently find themselves pushed toward them on account of their pattern recognition and communication skills. (Incidentally, the reason many ENFPs dislike management positions is not necessarily because they are disordered, as they are often stereotyped to be, but rather because many younger ENFPs dislike bossing people around.)
Left to their topmost interplay of extroverted intuition and introverted feeling, many ENFPs want to interact joyfully and amicably with others; to discover and appreciate other people’s dispositions rather than curb or regulate them. Telling people what to do or delegating tasks to them often makes younger ENFPs feel pushy or bossy in a way that is hard for them to process. This is where their systematizing and more hard-headed thinking can help balance the dreamy and enthusiastic dynamics of their feeling and intuition, providing the ENFP with balance, helping the ENFP feel at ease with organizing people, and making sure everyone is working toward an applicable goal in a timely and strategic manner.
It is thus through the development of their extroverted thinking and the ability to think in impersonal terms about the things they are usually so passionate about that the ENFP comes to realize that in order for there to be consistency on a larger scale, external structure is needed. And that sometimes an individual's identity has to grow and change along with the requirements of causes and needs that are greater than any individual or smaller clique or group.
Introverted Sensation in ENFPs
Introverted sensation is the ENFP’s inferior function and, as such, exists largely in the unconscious for them. Introverted sensation entails a cognitive focus on the inner subjective impressions concrete and empirical reality gives off in the psyche. It is essentially a personalized library of memories, as well as the details and facts related to the experience of tangible reality, and as such the opposite of their dominant extroverted intuition.
On account of introverted sensation being their inferior and thus the most challenging function for them to access, tasks requiring the engagement of precise attention to and the regimentation of facts (such as tax returns, insurance forms, and the like) will often feel intensely stressful to ENFPs, and many unconsciously seek to resist engaging with such tasks. All that they may recognize at first is perhaps an impulse, telling them that such tasks are very tedious and boring and that they would rather explore something inspiring or be creative instead. Yet beneath this voice lies the challenge of the inferior function, as its domain is exceedingly difficult for all of the types to engage with.
ENFPs tend to be natural improvisers who are highly adaptable and good at coming up with solutions on their feet. It is thus when they come into contact with tasks requiring rigid attention to specifics that cannot be changed or seen from a different perspective that they will feel the most at odds—not just with the task at hand, but (unconsciously) with themselves. They may be led to question themselves or their self-worth when coming face to face with such tasks since they render the ENFP’s usual strengths ineffectual.
In this way, ENFPs who have polarized strongly away from their inferior function may often see their ability to improvise and be creative as vital to their identity and unconsciously carve out a make-believe world where introverted sensation is never required. However, the further they push away from their inferior, the more strongly they will remain in its grip, and so their noble goals and dreams are likely to be held back by haphazard methods, slapdash efforts, or a lack of attention to details while in this state. ENFPs with a strong and unhealthy polarization away from sensation can even come to think that questioning the solidity of their less-than-stellar output while in this state is tantamount to an attack on their identity.
At worst, ENFPs in this unhealthy state can become parodies of their strengths as genuine agents of change, becoming people who are always full of big ideas and passions but where the requirements of their schemes are scarcely thought through while being, again, hyper-sensitive to even elementary criticisms pointing out the basic facts or truths of the situation.
The key to escaping this conundrum is to recognize that they have demonized their inferior sensation to the point where they live in willful ignorance of the facts. To come to terms with the full reality of life, they have to find a way to absorb more of the internalized impressions of their experiences. Pointing out that this is so is only to point out what they unconsciously already know but are presently ignoring because engagement with the inferior is typically difficult and slow.
This is why, as it is for all the types, the development of the tertiary function is vital to bringing the inferior into the light of consciousness, if only opaquely. It is through the development of their extroverted thinking that ENFPs tend to develop a greater ability to break down what they do; to isolate methods, facts, and components and see that a vision without a plan is forever likely to remain a pipe dream. And that sometimes criticisms of unrealistic plans are not criticisms of the vision or agenda a plan seeks to further, but more often kind-hearted attempts to improve the plans’ feasibility by engaging with the facts in a realistic fashion.
On the other hand, ENFPs who learn to listen, even if only indirectly, to their introverted sensation will often undergo a shit in this character, learning to subtly complement their passions and schemes with a realistic sense of direction, thus gaining a sense of focus thereby. The absorption of introverted sensation into the psyche permits a certain instinctive security that allows ENFPs to trust their experience, gauge future possibilities on the basis of what they have done before, and know that what has proven effective in the past will probably prove effective again in the future. In this manner, introverted sensation assists in tempering the realm of pure possibility and spontaneity. It allows the instinct that there is also value in hammering out the real-world requirements connected to a certain task to play along in their cognitive symphony.
Introverted sensation thus gives the ENFP a sense of solidarity with their own being in the world, allowing them to draw upon the reservoir of lessons and successes they have had in regard to what they have already done; to take stock of the status quo and of themselves in a sympathetic manner; to see that however adaptable and imaginative they may be, the things that played out in their past are also admissible parts of what exists now and that their pasts can be made to serve the future anew. ENFPs will often be intensely loyal and proud of past mentors who helped shape them and instill in them the values they hold. With a healthier relationship to their inferior sensation, ENFPs will also learn to extend this kindness to their own past accomplishments.
To see, indeed, that while their present may be chaotic and their future full of wanderlust yet to take form, their past is simultaneously the story of who they are and that—like all stories—there is a certain amount of unexplainable depth that goes beyond the immediate properties of the matter at hand. That their story is at once the story of their singular, unique existence in the world and the story of all shared human experiences, experienced again and again throughout the course of time itself.
Introverted sensation thus grants ENFPs the ability to champion the virtues they hold so dear for the present with an underpinning of everlasting evanescence, no longer wavering or pulled in different directions, torn between an inner need to explore their ideals and an extrovertive impetus to change the world. At their most developed, they will be able to do both at the same time, the two combining and intermingling as one. Embodying the virtues they hold dear on the one hand while espousing them in a skillful, realistic fashion on the other, they thus inspire not just possibility or encouragement but practicality and surety with their very being. In this state of happy intermixture, they are able to ground their passions in the real world, honed by the time-proven applications of those ideals that they hold in the highest esteem and embolden and excite with a keen, composite understanding and an authentic presence.