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When Thinkers and Feelers Communicate

When Thinkers and Feelers Communicate

By Donna Dunning

Communication is complex and it is, of course, impossible to describe all of the dynamics and complexities of relationships or interactions in a short post.

What this post will do is describe some general positive characteristics and potential challenges that may occur when a person with preferences for Thinking interacts with a person who prefers Feeling.

I hope you can use this information as a starting point for a better understanding of your relationships with others.

Enjoy the conversation

• A blend of considerations when deciding as T’s focus on logic and the bottom line while F’s focus on how people may be affected.

• As a result, decisions may be well rounded when both these subjective and objective perspectives are incorporated.

• F’s help T’s see the importance of support and encouragement and the value of checking in to see if people are OK with what is happening.

• T’s emphasize the importance of critical analysis and help F’s ensure their perspective is logically defensible.

• Together, T’s and F’s can learn to provide both positive and constructive feedback; using this combination can be very effective.

But watch out for

• Using different kinds of criteria and priorities when making decisions can create conflict.

• T’s and F’s may seek different outcomes. F’s may be seeking cooperation and harmony while T’s look for efficiency and clarity.

• T’s may not validate the F’s feelings or give them the support they need; F’s may feel threatened or attacked by corrective feedback.

• F’s may not give T’s direct, corrective feedback; T’s may interpret F’s support and suggestions as meaning no improvement is necessary.

For more information on this topic, take a look at some of my previous Thinking/Feeling posts:

What’s Your Preference? Thinking or Feeling?

Direct vs. Indirect Requests

Working with your T/F Preferences

Of course, personality type preferences are only part of how you communicate and a discussion of one personality type preference pair doesn’t adequately describe personality type dynamics.

If you are interested in reading more about whole type interactions, see my Getting Along post and my Introduction to Type and Communication booklet.

If you live in the USA, Introduction to Type and Communication is now available on Kindle.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2012 at 8:08 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “When Thinkers and Feelers Communicate”

  1. That’s certainly been my experience as an INTP married to an INFP: took us years to understand some of what was going on and then MBTI gave us a vocabulary for it. Very helpful. Thanks for this post which, although short, sums up some of the main issues really clearly…

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