Another Look at ISFJ

By Jesse Gerroir and Ryan Smith

In some of the other 'Another Look' articles, we ventured to describe the type on the basis of personal experiences with them. In this article, we intend to first give a brief outline of the ISFJ type in general and then to go for a more function-based approach.

ISFJs - A General Outline

Warm-hearted, courteous, and congenial, ISFJs are often quiet – and sometimes overlooked – individuals whose inner worlds contain a vast amount of subjective detail and understanding. Though introverted and private, most ISFJs spend a great deal of time thinking about the people in their lives, and as a result, many ISFJs are remarkably perceptive about others – what they are like, what touches them, and also what possible ‘dark sides' they may have and how one should guard against those.

Though keen in their understanding of others, ISFJs tend to rely on hunches that come to them automatically and with great intensity, but which tend to be of a nonverbal nature. This means that when prompted to give their opinions about others, ISFJs can often just give their moral evaluation of someone, along with all the little details they have absorbed about that person's life, such as who they are married to, where they work, if they have children, and where they grew up, and so on. To others, these details may seem oddly irrelevant to the analysis of that person, but to ISFJs, these minutiae are often the only thing they find fit to express, since the rest of their analysis tends to come to them in too personalized a form to share with others. Yet typically ISFJs will be found to have one of the best "advanced warning radars" out of all the 16 types when it comes to deciding whether a given individual can be trusted or not.

On the other hand, once they have accepted someone as a genuine friend, ISFJs tend to be very trusting, accepting, and forgiving people. They tend to be quite adept at picking up on the moods, conditions, and emotional states of others and are often quite skilled at meeting their friends with exactly the kind of aid and reassurance that they are in need of when they are feeling down.¹ ISFJs are generally quite adroit in social situations and often carry themselves with a distinguished sense of social etiquette, no matter the setting. Likewise, they often know what to say and how to act in any kind of social situation in order to come across as friendly and diffuse any tension.

In their personal lives, ISFJs tend to be very particular about what they like and don't like. They often have a distinctive and quite elaborate aesthetic in terms of their taste in dress and interior decorating, even if that aesthetic may seem unremarkable to others at first glance. With them, the aesthetic value of something is very often to be found in the discreet and the understated. Frequently, it is only those who pay attention to the minutiae of their arrangements who realize the ingenuity of their compositions.

ISFJs tend to enjoy keeping an orderly environment. They can also be very fastidious at times where they will spend long hours making sure everything is just right. Many have a tendency to double-check things and review important information line-by-line so as to make sure that nothing is missed and that nobody has made a mistake. Because most ISFJs are intimately orientated towards what others feel, these exacting standards can cause a bit of anxiety in some ISFJs at times: They feel like everything must be in order and live up to the highest possible quality of work, but they don't want to alienate others or be seen as bogeymen who always criticize. As a result, some ISFJs may find themselves in situations where they end up with more and more responsibility for the work and tasks of others, as if assignments gravitate towards them since everyone knows that the ISFJ's attention to such matters is a sure guarantee of a job well done.

Like their ESFJ cousins, ISFJs tend to be community-oriented and to see solidarity and comradeship as among the most important virtues of human activity: Everyone should come together and help each other out so as to form a community-based whole that is stronger than its parts. This social idealism can at times lead them to have a hard time asserting themselves and their own needs in interpersonal settings, as they are constantly thinking about what would make others happy, as well as the well-being of the group. Some ISFJs may thus find themselves in situations where they end up caring much more for other people, and taking much more responsibility for them, than the other members of the group do in return. Such ISFJs may often struggle to take care of themselves, as well as to make sure that their own needs are being met. Some may even experience a guilty conscience at the prospect of having to prioritize their own needs, even though on some level they know that it is both necessary and fair for them to tend a bit to their own well-being before returning to the function that others expect of them again.

Socially, ISFJs tend to form strong and deep attachments to those around them and to find strength in the bonds they have cultivated with others over the years. With their characteristic blend of conscientiousness and empathy, these bonds are often a source of identity, strength, and pride for the ISFJ. While their social commitments to others can in principle assume any form imaginable, so long as the bond is genuine, many ISFJs tend to draw upon the social archetypes prevalent in their culture for inspiration regarding how to express themselves and carry their commitments. For example, many ISFJs may look to the blueprint of what society commonly understands to be a good mother, father, sister, community member, group organizer, etc. and then consciously model their own contributions and social stance on that.

ISFJs tend to truly enjoy supporting others. Not merely in words and good intentions, but in caring attention to the specific and concrete problems in the other person's life as well. Since many ISFJs are well-organized and have a natural knack for planning and organizing, they will frequently find themselves in various managerial and administrative roles, spanning from simple office clerks to mighty generals and admirals serving their nation's armed forces. They tend to excel in all types of roles where their unique blend of people skills and attention to detail is called for. When serving in such roles, they tend to have an intimate grasp and understanding of material realities – the numbers, facts, and figures – on the one hand, but also an empathic understanding of the human side of the situation on the other. While ISFJs typically do not like to call attention to themselves, and rarely cause much of a stir, many ISFJs have juggled the two considerations (the human and the material) quite artfully while serving in administrative roles. In some cases, this artful balancing of priorities has even been carried out so artfully that nobody ever caught hold of the fact that it was going on at all – except for the ISFJ themselves of course. It is only when the ISFJ stops exercising their influence that others realize how important and taken-for-granted it was.

ISFJs tend to be naturally focused on the things that are going on in reality around them, rather than some grand abstract ideas or theories. Even when ISFJs are eminent thinkers and philosophers, one can still see the element of lived reality penetrating into their thoughts and permeating their philosophy (as in the cases of Marcus Aurelius and Roger Scruton).² ISFJs tend to relate the most intensely to what they have experienced in the past. This is also the reason why many are very particular in their interests, focus, and hobbies. Many ISFJs prefer to develop deep domain knowledge of a few select disciplines and to leave the fields they do not know anything about to people who might master those fields. They do not "sample" a broad range of activities the way many EP types do.

ISFJs tend to be cognitively close to their own lived experiences, and many enjoy photography, scrapbooks, diaries, or other means of preserving what they and those close to them have experienced. It is also not uncommon for ISFJs to cherish arts and crafts that require physical attention and finesse, such as handcrafting, scale modelling, or playing a musical instrument.

While ISFJs tend to place a premium on the certainty that comes with directly lived experience, many are also interested in history. Though they may become experts at any kind of history that interests them, a significant proportion of the ISFJs who dedicate themselves to history tend to eschew the traditional "grand scale" "kings and wars and conquests" type of history in favor of historical studies of how ordinary people lived and what everyday life was like back then. When studying history, many ISFJs also have a tendency to try and connect what they have learned about the period they have been studying to present life as it appears to us today, and it can often be especially exciting to them to discover how one detail or another that most of us simply think of as a "given" of reality is actually the result of a specific historical process. In this way, such ISFJ historians are part of a surprisingly small brotherhood of scholars whose work helps ensure that humanity's collective sense of memory is continuous and that the lessons and lives of the past are not forgotten.

Dominant Si in ISFJs

Turning now to the question of function arrangements, the ISFJ's dominant function is Introverted Sensation (Si). While this function has often been stereotyped as the uptight stickler function that passively and unquestioningly adheres to rules, routine and tradition, the truth is that it is perhaps the function that is the least well understood among contemporary typologists.³

Whereas Extroverted Sensation (Se) is easy to conceptualize as a keen awareness and attention to one's surroundings, to physical sensations and the body and how they affect us, and the opportunities inherent in the present situation, Introverted Sensation is much more difficult to comprehend.⁴ In a nutshell, while both Sensation functions are attuned to personal experience and physical sensations, one key difference is that Extroverted Sensation places the focus on experiencing the immediate situation to the fullest possible extent while Introverted Sensation cautiously withdraws from the present situation, preferring to approach it on the basis of how it conforms to previously experienced situations that were similar in nature.

Consequently, the Introverted Sensation dominant types (that is, ISFJ and ISTJ) are the types with the strongest predilection for filtering whatever they experience in the here and now with their internal storehouse of previously lived experiences. More so than all other types, the ISJs use this backlog of personal experiences as a blueprint through which to contextualize and make sense of whatever situation they find themselves in at present. Like all introverted types, they look inward rather than outward. By recognizing how each experience is similar to previous experiences, immense precision can be attained with a comparatively small expenditure of cognitive energy. The upside of this adaptation is that all situations that are inherently continuous and similar can be mastered to an unusual degree by the ISJ types. The downside is that ISJs will often be impassive, lost, or uninterested when finding themselves in completely new situations where no previously lived experience provides a lodestar for how to react.⁵ In this respect, their cognitive orientation towards Introverted Sensation (Si) is truly the opposite of the ENP types who, being orientated towards Extroverted Intuition (Ne), tend to get restless, frustrated, or depressed in familiar situations while experiencing an upsurge of energy in exactly the kinds of radically novel situations that more often than not will leave Si types feeling drained.

Because of the meticulous and detail-observant nature of Introverted Sensation, both ISFJs and ISTJs will typically be very comprehensive in the projects that they undertake. Often conscientious, many excel at tracking and organizing large amounts of information and (again unlike the more protean ENP types) truly absorbing the knowledge that they use to orient their world to the very core of their cognition. Consequently, while ISJs may be slower with their initial intake of information, once they have absorbed the information and acquired deep domain knowledge of a field, they will often be the ones who know it the most intimately of all the types. Such ISJs will often be capable of processing large amounts of information with a remarkable acuteness and without making many errors – their first hunch will often be correct from the get-go and rarely need much adjustment or revision before it can be applied. It stands to reason that such ISJs are immeasurably valuable as administrators, CEOs, high-level public servants, and the like, as the amount of problems they can address in a typical workday will tend to supersede the efforts of more noetic types who have to think through each individual problem conceptually.

Finally, while Extroverted Sensation is often stereotyped as ‘attention to bodily states,' and Introverted Sensation is often (erroneously) stereotyped as 'memory,' the truth is rather that both Sensation functions tend to direct a good measure of cognitive energy towards an awareness of the body. It is, however, nevertheless true that, all else being equal, Extroverted Sensation is directed more towards external stimuli that may be found in the environment while Introverted Sensation may more easily lead to a fixation on internal bodily states. This fixation may take the form of an incredibly fine-tuned attention to headaches, stomach aches, etc. of every kind, for example. Or it may lead to an unusual amount of cognitive precision with regards to how a particular dietary choice affects the mood and body of the ISFJ. In this way, many ISFJs have an acute grasp of the root biological factors that lead to many of the more "advanced" psychological states, such as moods and states, brainfog, difficulty (or ease) of sleeping, and so on.

Auxiliary Fe in ISFJs

Extroverted Feeling (Fe) is a cognitive orientation towards sentiment, mood, and emotion directed towards interpersonal and societal situations, also sometimes referred to as "the external environment." The sentiments that are likely to appear particularly noble to Extroverted Feeling are those which have an impact on the mutualistic bond between people – those that can be shared, expressed, and communicated in an affirmative, warm, and tangible way – sentiments where the intentionality and goodwill behind them are immediately palatable to others. In this way, Extroverted Feeling is very much like a language, whereas the idiosyncratic and subjective nature of Introverted Feeling (Fi) very much rests with the unique selfhood of the individual and cannot be understood "objectively" in the same way.⁶

Since ISFJs combine dominant Si with auxiliary Fe, this unique constellation tends to make them quiet and receptive on the one hand, yet also very empathic and congenial on the other. Their outward behavior will often be very courteous and socially graceful, yet beneath the well-mannered exterior there is also a genuine will to get to know the subjective idiosyncrasies of the people in their lives; to take stock of what makes the other person happy and to show goodwill and fellow-feeling through making considerate allowances for that. In this way, ISFJs often show their amiability and fondness for others through simply making such allowances matter-of-factly, without calling any attention to them whatsoever, thus acting in a way that quietly shows that the ISFJ has absorbed the things that makes the other person happy without making much ado of it. It is of such gestures that soothing atmospheres and warm relations are made.

As we also touched upon earlier, another aspect of the ISFJ's Introverted Sensation/Extroverted Feeling constellation tends to manifest in how they dress. Among those ISFJs who have a definite and conscious sense of style, many have a tendency to compose looks that are pleasing, understated, and beautiful from a classical (perhaps even slightly) impersonal perspective. In this way, the typical sartorial aesthetic of ISFJs tends to be the opposite of that of the ESFP, which is often purposefully experimental and loud.⁷ Generally speaking, ISFJs do not seek to make a statement with their clothing, indeed many seem to effortlessly gravitate towards creating a pleasing and harmonious look that contributes to the backdrop and atmosphere of the social situation rather than vociferously upsetting the mood of the situation and forcefully laying claim to other people's attention.⁸ While their personal views may run the gamut with regards to political opinions and gender roles, most ISFJs tend to dress in a conventional manner for their gender and usually embody a somewhat traditional sense of masculinity or femininity in their appearance.

This stylistic orientation often gives them an incredibly down-to-earth appearance and – whether ultimately correct or not – an appearance of dependability and candor. Many female ISFJs will at first glance embody a very feminine girl-next-door vibe, whereas male ISFJs tend to appear classically masculine, yet in a soft and friendly way that may come off as ordered and well-composed. They rarely use their aesthetic to tout a strong personal vision or some definite emotion, but instead embody a welcoming, comforting, and relatable look which becomes almost an archetype of its own; one of caring patience and the wisdom of the hearth. Many INTP and ENTP types, who may be socially awkward themselves, tend to be very appreciative of the calmness and acceptance communicated by this aesthetic and can often enjoy socializing with ISFJs because of this earthy quality. Likewise, it is far from unheard of that these types choose each other as mates.

With their generally pleasant and affable nature, ISFJs can sometimes have a hard time coping with conflict among their loved ones and being direct about their opinions. Many dislike it intensely when people argue with each other, express disagreement in a cutthroat "me-versus-you" type of way, or behave in a rude manner. Animated by their distaste for such shenanigans and spurred on by their own interpersonal sensitivity, ISFJs can become unusually riled up in a morally righteous and outspoken manner that forms a contrast to their usual more soft-spoken personality if such abrasiveness goes on for too long. When ISFJs rise to become outspoken in this manner, it is usually out of a sense of social concern, because they feel that such dynamics have been allowed to linger for far too long, and because they feel that others are causing distress for selfish reasons and at the expense of the social dynamics of the group as a whole. In their minds, groups should build each other up through shared experiences and by creating a sense of loyalty and belonging amongst the members of the community. To ISFJs, individuals who sour social relations by spreading strife and negative emotions may be said to be acting in a far more destructive way than they themselves realize.

Tertiary Ti in ISFJs

The ISFJ's tertiary function is Introverted Thinking (Ti), which, according to the model of function arrangements championed by the site admins (and possibly Marie-Louise von Franz as well), is typically hovering on the edge between the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche.⁹

The best way to explain the prevalence of Introverted Thinking in ISFJs is to contrast it with how their ISTJ cousins are characterized by Extroverted Thinking (Te). Like ISFJs, ISTJs are also very often aware of the importance of outward hierarchies, procedures, and systems of organization. But when compared to their ISFJ counterparts, ISTJs are on average even more attached to such structures, seeing the structure itself as both means and ends, whereas ISFJs tend to be a bit more fluid in their approach to these structures and more cognizant of the human elements that have to navigate these structures, as well as the interpersonal dynamics that are likely to arise within them. For example, while ISTJs may take stock of the workplace hierarchy and then reason that since they are someone's superior, they can simply tell them what to do with abandon, ISFJs are more likely to reason that a hierarchy is not necessarily a one-way street, and that subordinates also need support and encouragement from their leaders. The ISTJ is more inclined to become impatient with such considerations, reasoning through Introverted Feeling (Fi) and Extroverted Thinking (Te) that others are there to do a job and that, by not simply doing what they're told, subordinates are failing to adhere to organizational values such as efficiency, loyalty, attention, and dedication.¹⁰ Faced with the same predicament, ISFJs will typically be a bit more receptive to how their subordinates see things, remembering that in order for teamwork and camaraderie to really flourish it is important that everyone gets along and has positive emotional associations to their organization and their group. As the American typologist Boye Akinwande has said in his work on typology, Introverted Thinking tends to perceive exterior objects in reality, not merely on the basis of the objects themselves (which is what Te and Fi would be more inclined to do), but through blueprints of idealized Platonic structures.¹¹ Since both organizations and the people who are employed in them may thus lend themselves to such idealized Platonic representation, it follows that the a priori emotional needs of the employees must be recognized as valid.¹²

In this way, the goals and ends of organizations, and the emotional constitutions of the people within them, are all cognized as a form of impartial principle by the ISFJ, standing outside of more mundane considerations like who is technically the master of whom. For the organization to conform to the principle, the people within it must feel and think in a certain way; they must feel encouraged, or the whole edifice will fall apart and appear increasingly corrupt in comparison with its Platonic blueprint. Needs won't be met and people won't have the support and guidance that would otherwise allow them to contribute their best to the goals of the organization.

Introverted Thinking also helps ISFJs in a more personal respect. With Introverted Sensation and Extroverted Feeling standing at the top of their cognition, most ISFJs tend to be focused on personal experience, as well as on the empirical and the factual. It is here that Introverted Thinking can provide a sense of balance, prompting ISFJs to step out of the empirical perspective, which is the most natural to them, and to see things from a more archetypical perspective, seeing what relevance and worth a thing has, not just in its concrete empirical context, but in the noumenal scheme of things as well.¹³

Inferior Ne in ISFJs

Finally, we turn to the inferior function of ISFJs, which is that of Extroverted Intuition (Ne). According to all function models that are Jungian in nature, the inferior function will as a rule be wholly unconscious.¹⁴

Socially, Extroverted Intuition is probably the most immediately obvious in ISFJs in the way that they – under the right conditions – can become animated, purposefully silly, and bubbly. When in this mode, they will often come across as the very contradiction of their usual, more restrained and inhibited personality, appearing hyper-energized and unhampered, as if ready to have the time of their lives. This side of the ISFJ is rarely visible for everyone to see, however, and as a rule it will only be the people closest to them who have ever experienced the thrill of seeing them in this state.

As with all inferior functions, Extroverted Intuition can also be more of a mixed blessing for ISFJs. It can at times give them a definite difficulty with novelty. Especially in moral and intellectual affairs, it will often be easier for the ISFJ to simply go along with what they have already concretely experienced and adapted to through their uppermost functions, and to let the sleeping dogs of unfamiliarity lie.

Inferior Extroverted Intuition can also make ISFJs appear excessively pessimistic and worried at times, especially about the future and how nations, corporations, the environment, and the globe will fare in the face of oncoming and unfamiliar challenges.¹⁵ In this respect, ISFJs are truly the opposites of ENTPs like Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley, who with their books The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) and The Rational Optimist (2010) have outlined more carefree (some would say pollyannaish) visions of a future where almost everything will be better than it is today.

In general, ISFJs tend to think in terms of sustainability and solutions that have already been proven to work. If the trail from one state of affairs to the next is not known to human experience, this may cause them to ruminate intensely on how things are going to work out. In such cases, the unconscious nature of their Extroverted Intuition will mean that these scenarios will appear uncontrollable to them as well as possibly teeming with danger. In the same vein, their inferior Extroverted Intuition may cause them to worry excessively about "Black Swans," that is to say, statistically unlikely occurrences, such as an asteroid hitting the Earth and causing an extinction event, or the entire monetary system collapsing, leaving humans in need of more archaic forms of payment.

Even though both ISFJs and ISTJs have inferior Extroverted Intuition, ISFJs will tend to experience these problems more intensely than their ISTJ counterparts. This is because the Extroverted Thinking / Introverted Feeling constellation of ISTJs allows them to stay a bit more grounded and nested in their empirical experience of reality whereas ISFJs, as previously mentioned, also gain a Platonic and noumenal perspective on what they experience through their orientation towards Introverted Thinking. Thus (whether justified in this belief or not) ISTJs will on average tend to feel that they have a bit more control over how things will turn out, whereas on balance ISFJs will see the same future as more overwhelming and in more of a threatening light.

More mature ISFJs sometimes report that, as they start learning more about themselves, these problematic tendencies can be turned on their heads as they learn to recognize these worries and ruminations as the first steps of a generative process which helps them broaden the scope of their horizons and to consider alternatives they would not otherwise have thought of. In this way, highly-developed ISFJs can thus learn to turn their inferior Intuition into a positive asset, knowing that there is always more than one way of looking at something and that possibilities they would not otherwise have thought of may be exactly the thing that is needed to keep every skill and domain that has hitherto been mastered moving forward.

Notes

1. Van der Hoop: Conscious Orientation (Routledge 2001) p. 31
2. The authors of this piece (and admins of the site) are indebted to Hannah Strachan for her original (2016) suggestion that Roger Scruton is an ISFJ type.
3. See for example Myers' unfair stereotyping of the Si types in: Myers: Gifts Differing (Davies-Black 1995) p. 102 ff.
4. Von Franz: Lectures on Jung's Typology (Spring Publications 1987) pp. 27-28
5. Van der Hoop: Conscious Orientation (Routledge 2001) p. 32
6. Jung: Psychological Types (Harcourt 1921) p. 418
7. Furthermore, a common outcome of their well-developed Introverted Sensation with Feeling combination is that many tend to have a strong sense of whether an article of clothing is well-made; whether the stitching is correct; the fabric is of high quality, and other such details.
8. Jung: Psychological Types §649
9. Gregersen and Smith: The Puerile Nature of the Tertiary Function (IDR Labs 2016)
10. Smith: Determining Function Axes, Part 7 (IDR Labs 2015)
11. Akinwande: Determining Function Axes, Part 3 (IDR Labs 2015), cf. Akinwande: Illustrating Function Axes, Part 2: Fe/Ti (IDR Labs 2016)
12. Note here that it is predominantly what we have called the 'a priori' emotional needs that are regarded as valid, by which we mean the commonplace emotional needs that could reasonably be expected by the idealized Platonic Form of a human being. More idiosyncratic emotional needs, that may be regarded as flying in the face of reasonable expectations, and which can only be discovered a posteriori through intense acquaintance with the unique subjectivity of others, pertain more to Introverted Feeling (Fi) than to its extroverted counterpart.
13. Indeed, sub specie aeternitatis as Jung would have it. Jung: Psychological Types §649
14. Jacobi: The Psychology of C.G. Jung (Routledge & Kegan Paul 1968) p. 13
15. Von Franz: Lectures on Jung's Typology (Spring Publications 1987) p. 28

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Another Look at ISFJ © Jesse Gerroir and IDR Labs International 2017.

Cover art especially commissioned for this publication from artist Georgios Magkakis.

Image in the article commissioned for this publication from artist Darwin Cen.