They say INTPs have childish emotions, but...?

[Torojan]

How is it that our emotions are childish? What's the difference between childish emotions and mature emotions?

 

[Bock]

Extraverted Feeling judgement, Fe, is the shadow function of the INTP, being by far the least developed of his faculties. Indeed, mature use of Fe typically doesn't begin to take shape until well into middle age. Feelings and emotions are regarded with suspicion and perhaps fear by the INTP and he may be keen to avoid considering or showing them. At the same time, he may experience a certain fascination for the emotional world, but he is desperate to de-personalize any thoughts on that area. He is compelled to subject his emotions to continual analysis, the Ti core literally suppressing the Fe shadow, attacking Fe with accusations of irrationality. He resists letting his feelings go, fearing that to do so would be to relinquish control to an unknown force. He believes emotions to be of a lesser substance than logic and his natural goal would be to conquer his emotions with pure rationality.

Much of the above demonstrates the immature and underdeveloped approach with which the INTP meets his emotional side. In reality, the extraverted nature of the INTP's feeling judgement means that his emotions, when visible, are pretty direct and easy to assess. Since the INTP normally wishes to hide his emotions; when they do come out, they do so in outbursts with an almost childlike innocence. There is a sense of all-or-nothing and, when visible, there is nothing enigmatic about the feelings of an INTP: indeed, shadow functions always seem pretty raw and basic.

When making on the spot decisions while extraverting with another person, the shadow Fe is often temporally exposed on the front line. Its immature nature may then result in an inadequate decision being made. The INTP may regret this later when the Ti core has analysed the events. Hence, INTPs tend to resist being forced to make quick decisions, for they know that their Fe judgement is their achilles heel. However, the resistance is sometimes weakened when Ne jumps in to back up the Fe. The accuracy of the intuitive insight then becomes crucial if the INTP is to avoid fatal errors. It is interesting to observe that the external world of the INTP involves a very free-spirited Ne-Fe partnership, while the internal world is a very clinical detail-structure-analysis Ti-Si combination. Hence, the outward behaviour of an INTP can contrast strongly with his introspective world.

For the INTP, emotions are seen as something mysterious and as uncontrollable as they are unalterable. Hence, the root of the fear of emotions is the fear that they cannot be controlled. Hence, when an INTP does finally respond emotionally to something, his emotions are indeed left uncontrolled, raw and open. However, when witnessing the emotional response of another person, the INTP intensely resists any similar emotion of his own. An example of this is when watching a 'weepy' cinema film in which some heart-wrenching scene is being shown. The INTP despises the attempt by the filmmaker to influence his emotions and is more likely to sneer than cry. This response has nothing to do with arrogance, however. Rather it is the INTP defensively avoiding exposing what he knows to be his weak point. Where an INTP may experience his own emotional response during a film is when he has had the chance to consider consequences of a element of the film. Hence, emotional response to media input usually occurs with a certain independence of will, which could appear enigmatic to others.

The mystery of emotion is also evidence in the INTP's use of music. He always chooses to listen to music which suits his current emotional state, be it aggression, warmth, excitement, relaxation or whatever. Hence, the emotional state is assumed to be an unchangeable, mysterious property of himself. It is easier to choose appropriate music than to attempt to influence this. People with introverted Feeling, Fi, however, will deliberately choose to listen to music which helps them change and improve their mood. INTPs could never do that. They feel an unpleasant sense of disharmony whenever a music style clashes with their emotional state. Indeed, it is remarkable how much attention they pay to their emotions when music is involved.

Sexuality is another important area which brings out the Fe shadow of the INTP. Sexuality fascinates INTPs in a similar way to music. Both have an emotional core which does not entirely yield to analysis. Sexual feelings often clash with the INTPs desire to control and understand his universe. They also clash with the desire for detachment and keeping a distance. But sexuality is the one thing who's natural power can break through any type dynamics. Hence, sexuality can play a big role in balancing the INTP's functionality. However, the INTP's natural approach to sexuality will still have true-to-type elements. He will be keen to understand and categorise his sexual responses. He will be keen to see first the generalities of male- and femaleness before any personal references are made. Nevertheless, in an intimate relationship, the extraverted nature of the feeling judgement leads to a beneficial openness and empathic directness in responding to the partner's needs, providing the healthy development of the Fe function is encouraged. Indeed, for many INTPs, an intimate relationship is the only place where the Fe shadow can really develop fruitfully.

The inferior nature of the Fe shadow shows itself, otherwise, in the lack of ability to show active empathy with people undergoing strong emotions. If he wishes to encourage the emotional person, the INTP tends to resort to giving T-based solutions to the problems involved. Often, the INTP does not really know how to empathize and may feel discomfort and helplessness, especially when he understands the rational basis for the emotions. He may become frustrated that the person remains unhappy in spite of hearing his T-based solutions. Much worse is when the emotional person appears to be being irrational. INTPs detest irrational emotion above all things. INTPs must take a very wide berth around people who appear to be irrationally, outwardly emotional. INTPs are very sensitive to such a trait and fear the potential excesses of the emotional attacks which do not yield to a defence based on logic.

In a similar way, INTPs dislike being in an atmosphere of emotional disharmony. If they need to say something unpleasant to someone close to them, they would prefer to avoid this task for fear of the disharmony that may result. This results from the INTP's fear that he does not have the emotional competence to deal with disharmony. INTPs never like doing something until they know they can do it. The best cure for this reticence is experience: to express his feelings, to live through disharmony and come out the other side with greater experience of his emotional side.

The feeling shadow is the fear centre of the INTP. He rarely fears any factual thing in the outside world, at least not things that will be encountered in normal day-to-day living. Logic stipulates that external objects or people which threaten can always potentially be dealt with by instigating an active defence strategy. Of course, the possibility of being left truly helpless leaves the INTP cold, for once the Ti core is defeated, the inferior Fe can offer little comfort. Resigned acceptance of the unacceptable is an anathema for INTPs. His typical response to helplessness is to hate the world which has produced it. However, the greatest fears of an INTP are usually ideas generated within his own mind. The problem is that the Ti-Ne axis is capable of conceiving very unpleasant ideas, which may be far from reality and even irrational. Ideas and possibilities assume so much importance in the mind of an INTP that they can override a common sense factual grasp on reality. Since the emotional response to an unpleasant idea is based on an underdeveloped function, it may also fail to bring a return to common sense. The net result is the fear that ideas alone may lead to self-destruction. This fear is irrational and is a cry of help from the feeling shadow when being overdominated by the Ti-Ne axis. This problem can be overcome when more balanced type dynamics result from increasing maturity.

or something

 

[Grayman]

I believe in psychology maturity is the ability to function in your environment.

How one functions within their environment:

1) Percieving - Taking the time to figure out what is really going on and ask questions while never assuming you know someones intentions. (Failure to do this leads to the wrong feelings in regard to the situation because you failed to understand the situation)

2) Examining- Recognize your emotions and listen to them and determine what is important to you. What is causing you to get angry at your mom when she is trying to take your laptop? (Lack of respect, and unfair treatment)

3) Expressing- Proper expression is important. You must express you emotions in ways that enable you to succeed and not simply exploding or dumping them on someone without thought. (Sit down and explain to your mother how you feel when she is calm)

4) Compromising in a relationship- It can be hard to give up a fight particularly when your standard/ethic/ideals are being compromised. Fair and equal treatment is an important value and you shouldn't have to ignore it in order to create peace. However, your mother also has standards and ideals that she feels is important. You must compromise a measure of your values as she must do also to come to an agreement where you both can function in the relationship. This simply means discussing your situations and trying to be understanding to the other persons issues.

5) Compromising with yourself- Find the most effective reaction to your emotions to resolving the issue and not just what feels good at the time.

******
I think sometimes people talk about maturity and it is in regards to your values not aligning to theirs. They believe that if you were mature, you would agree and feel and act in the same ways they do as a mature person. I do not agree with this mentality. I think it is mostly about understanding and being effective.

 

[Jennywocky]

It's kind of like seeing emotions from the outside, as single things without nuance. So it's just "joy" or "sadness" or "anger," and you're really only aware of one state at a time, and they also tend to dominate once they get large enough. Note that INTPs typically let good emotions run full-speed and suppress bad ones. So when the bad anger comes out (Fe explosion in the vernacular), it's like a short big ball of pure rage, there is no sentient thought or nuance to it.

The reality is that emotions are quite nuanced, with varying degrees, and they can also be mixed together and complex so that you can experience a few different emotions simutaneously. The emotion also does not drive the behavior; you can experience emotions WITHOUT suppressing them, you can let them exist in their natural form consciously in you, without reacting to them or letting them drive you. It's like thought-awareness, but here it's emotion-awareness.

Again, what typically happens in young INTPs is that good emotions are given rein in the right situations (if not filtered out), and bad emtions are just squashed until they explode and thus take control. INTPs seem to have trouble just experiencing emotions; the more intense they are, the more likely it is that they will control our behavior. Maybe that's why we suppress them early in life; they threaten to dominate our will, or we think they do, and we want to be independent of them and remain rational and preserving our volition.

 

[Pizzabeak]

It isn't necessarily that the emotions are childish, per se, what it refers to is that they are relatively undeveloped. This means it can be hard to tell what it wants. Dominant Fe generally signifies confidence in social interactions with others. If you juxtapose that into the inferior position, then you get maybe a little bit of awkwardness with a decent frequency in social interactions.

That also means it can take longer to take empathy into account and apply it. There's something like recognizing a feeling and doing stuff related to it. With inferior Fe there tends to be some suppression of this. A lot of people live by acting on their feelings which tends to look like hedonism. Sometimes it turns out that it is then too late to apply the feelings that have been processed. Without rigorous discipline it can still be possible to use those, such as having dinner at 9' o clock even when it isn't "logically sound" to do so because most sources say it's best to not have meals after 6PM. It can be more complicated than simply that though.

This isn't as dramatic as it sounds because Fe inferior people can still operate in situations, it's just that it isn't prioritized or seen as that important and/or it is done in ways unfamiliar to adept folks, which probably leads to confusion. Also don't quote me on this, I may be confusing it with Fi.

 

[Grayman]

@Pizza and Jeny

IDK I think all those F types treat their emotions like some mystical being and cannot really define logical plans and reasonable methods on how to handle them beyond weird breathing techniques and dumping them on other people. How could they possibly have a more developed emotional structure if they are often incapable of reaching their goals because their emotions continuously get in the way? Do I have a simple 'childish' emotional structure or am I just better at recognizing them for what they are, like beacons notifying me of what I care about and want or value but certainty not some unseen being guiding me to some special wisdom? (Follow your heart, they say) (Follow your heart and hope you don't go off a cliff, I say) I think it is better to look where you heart is going and give it a little tug back to reality.

What I am saying is that they only see their emotions as complex because they don't understand them but they are no different than our own. And yes I can fully define the singular elements of emotions in a molecule emotion.

 

[Yellow]

How could they possibly have a more developed emotional structure if they are often incapable of reaching their goals because their emotions continuously get in the way?

When we (NTs in general) look at people, we look for rational thought, logic, and objective insight. When we see a lack of these qualities in a feeler, we blame the emotions. We think the emotions have made them unstable, irrational, and on our more judgmental days, utterly useless.

I'd argue that it's not their emotions that are immature. They are usually quite robust. The immaturity lies in their thinking. They have an inability/unwillingness to objectively analyze the world and their own experiences.

Similarly, when feelers find our empathy, passion, and warmth to be seriously lacking, they blame our analytic nature. They think our logic has left us heartless, boring, and on bad days, completely devoid of humanity.

In this case, again, our logic and capacity for analysis are very well developed. Our immaturity is made apparent in our inability/unwillingness to openly experience and display the emotions that are an integral part of our existence.

So the goal, as part of the INTP maturation process, is to someday be able to not only recognize our own feelings and the feelings of those around us; but also process, demonstrate, and respond to them openly.

 

[Vrecknidj]

They say INTPs have childish emotions, but...?

"They" who?

 

[cheese]

Grayman,
General thoughts:
Fs seem to have an intuitive understanding of how to behave in relationships. They tend to read emotional subtext better and know how to respond to it better. They read people better, because they're more familiar and accepting of emotional nuance, complexity and intensity. An F might look at a hysterical person and understand how they feel and why they got to that point. A T might be unable to understand at all, having generally suppressed intensity and negativity - or if they're more open, they might have understanding but lack empathy because they're too busy judging and cataloguing the failures in the other's thinking which allowed them to get to that point. They're essentially focused on the wrong thing. The F is much more likely to address the emotion directly with reciprocal emotion, and actually create change in the other's state. The T would be trying to prove how their thinking failed them and created such an irrational outburst, which would work on few people in those moments of hysteria.

I find INTPs can have great theoretical and personal understanding of feelings, and eventually start to use them as beacons of value, as you said - analogous to Fi perhaps, which makes sense given that Ti is leading the process (both are focused on internal organisation). However, Fs in general seem to have more practical intelligence on how to deal with an emotional person effectively. Fs seem more able to directly interact with another's limbic system, while Ts seem to antagonise or avoid - even if they have theoretical understanding.

Not to say that Ts can't mature past that point. I believe it does happen when they start realising that their own feelings can actually be used as tools for self-understanding which can help them advance in their goals. However, Fs can use feelings as tools even more directly and not just for understanding when they realise they can cultivate certain feelings in order to achieve specific results with someone else, or to create change in themselves etc. This is when you start using a function directly for transformation, rather than just avoiding it in fear (inferior) or using it for pleasure and understanding (aux and tert).

When you analyse a feeling for its merit and as a guide to what you value, and then use that to transform your behaviour, I believe you're doing it through Ti. The active process is analysis and evaluation, simply on different materials, but with the same standards of internal consistency, logical coherence etc. It's still Ti that's being used to transform, which is natural as Ti is the dom, the strongest process able to achieve the highest state of use. The process occurring here can't be confused with the transformative route an F dom might take.

The bottom line though is that whoever has matured the most will be the most generally effective. There are mature Ts who are far better at people and relationships than immature Fs, because they have actively worked on their weaker side such that they now have two fields of competence to bring to bear. The same goes for mature Fs vs immature Ts.