Thursday, July 05, 2007

Thinking/feeling or feeling/thinking

C and I had an interesting discussion yesterday. He claims to be a feeling/thinking person. By that he means that he tends to make decisions based on how he feels more often than how he thinks. Feeling, for him, trumps thinking. I am the opposite. I tend to think first and feel later.

What is odd about this is that I would have thought that we were opposite. I'm the poet, he's the project manager. For instance, this website says:

Thinking vs. Feeling

Thinking is an ability to deal with information on the basis of its structure and its function. Feeling is an ability to deal with information on the basis of its initial energetic condition and its interactions. The most common differences between Thinking and Feeling type are shown below:

Thinking types
  • are interested in systems, structures, patterns
  • expose everything to logical analysis
  • are relatively cold and unemotional
  • evaluate things by intellect and right or wrong
  • have difficulties talking about feelings
  • do not like to clear up arguments or quarrels
Feeling types
  • are interested in people and their feelings
  • easily pass their own moods to others
  • pay great attention to love and passion
  • evaluate things by ethics and good or bad
  • can be touchy or use emotional manipulation
  • often give compliments to please people
I definitely fit the "feeling types." And after taking their test, I found that I am considered a feeling type (a intuitive-ethical type, to be exact). Yet, I think that I make decisions based on thinking, not feeling. The test did say that I am "very aware" of the testing process, so my scores may not be correct. There is that thinking problem again. I want to think I'm emotional, but who knows. I even over-think the test!

Anyway. Which are you?

1 Comments:

Blogger Jebbo said...

Perhaps being strongly inclined one way, one would "pre-filter" options that matched that tendency, leaving the final tie-breaking "decision" to the other part.

That is, if something passes your analytical filter, your experience of the final decision-making criteria is that only then are you allowed to use your feelings. And vice-versa.

So for a feeling type, you might think about your decisions, but if something felt wrong might it never even make it that far? Or looked at another way, would someone adapt/adopt a habit of making sure that the "other side" is checked to counterbalance a known tendency towards thinking/feeling?

As my Dad said once, 'I know you aren't going to do something you hate, so focus on something you'll make money at."

2:26 PM  

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