ENFJ - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article is about the Myers-Briggs personality type. For the Socionics ENFj, see Ethical Intuitive Extrovert.

ENFJ (extraversion, intuition, feeling, judgment) is an abbreviation used in the publications of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions...

(MBTI) to refer to one of sixteen personality type

Personality type

Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences...

s. The MBTI assessment was developed from the work of prominent psychiatrist Carl G. Jung in his book Psychological Types
Psychological Types
Psychological Types is the title of the sixth volume in the Princeton / Bollingen edition of the Collected Works of Carl Jung. The original German language edition, "Psychologische Typen", was first published by Rascher Verlag, Zurich in 1921....

. Jung proposed a psychological typology

Personality type

based on the theories of cognitive functions that he developed through his clinical observations.

From Jung's work, others developed psychological typologies. Jungian personality assessments include the MBTI assessment, developed by Isabel Briggs Myers

Isabel Briggs Myers

Isabel Briggs Myers was an American psychological theorist. She was co-creator, with her mother, of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ....

and Katharine Cook Briggs, and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves and others. It was first introduced in the book Please Understand Me...

, developed by David Keirsey

David Keirsey

David West Keirsey , is an internationally renowned psychologist, a professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of several books...

. Keirsey referred to ENFJs as Teachers

Teacher (Role Variant)

The Teacher Idealist is one of the 16 role variants of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves. David Keirsey originally described the Teacher role variant; however, a brief summary of the personality types...

, one of the four types belonging to the temperament he called the Idealists

Idealist temperament

The Idealist temperament is one of four temperaments defined by David Keirsey. Correlating with the NF Myers-Briggs types, the Idealist temperament comprises the following role variants : Champion , Counselor , Healer , and Teacher .-Description:Idealists are abstract in speech and...

. ENFJs account for about 2–5% of the population.

The MBTI instrument

E – Extraversion preferred to introversion: ENFJs often feel motivated by their interaction with people. They tend to enjoy a wide circle of acquaintances, and they gain energy in social situations (whereas introverts expend energy).
N – Intuition preferred to sensing: ENFJs tend to be more abstract than concrete. They focus their attention on the big picture rather than the details, and on future possibilities rather than immediate realities.
F – Feeling preferred to thinking: ENFJs tend to value personal considerations above objective criteria. When making decisions, they often give more weight to social implications than to logic.
J – Judgment preferred to perception: ENFJs tend to plan their activities and make decisions early. They derive a sense of control through predictability.

ENFJ characteristics

Type description

Extraverted feeling types seek continuity through harmonious relationships and collective values. They excel at picking up on the tone of a situation and acting accordingly, adding warmth to a cool setting or turning sour into sweet. They naturally seek to know what people do well, what they enjoy, and where and how they work. They seem to have an infinite number of acquaintances from all walks of life and are always on the lookout for people in need and those who can help out. ENFJs weave and strengthen the collective fabric of social conventions and interactions. Inclusiveness is important and they are particularly sensitive to those who are excluded.

ENFJs focus on others, feeling a glow when those around them are happy, and troubled when something is amiss. They are natural cheerleaders, often expressing support, gratitude, and encouragement, and heaping praise onto those they appreciate. They take note of what is being done and what needs doing, offering their assistance wherever necessary.

ENFJs enjoy organizing group activities and tend to take their commitments seriously. In general, they are reliable and do not like to disappoint others. As team players and project leaders, they have a gift for rallying their players, focusing on what is being done right and each member's strengths. They are loyal and they expect loyalty. They carry conversations well, finding common ground with their speaker. They tend to find the correct and gracious way to respond in any given situation, no matter how tense or uncomfortable it is.

Types with dominant extraverted feeling may uphold a wide range of values, simply because shared values are what create harmony. Some will profess the importance of tough-minded logic, justice and scholarly debate because their environments have these shared values. They tend to adopt the collective values of those in their social group.

Correlation with Enneatype

According to Baron and Wagele

Elizabeth Wagele

Elizabeth Wagele is an American artist, musician, [writer]] of books on personality types: the Enneagram of Personality and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator .-Life:...

, the most common Enneatypes for ENFJs are Helpers (Twos) and Achievers (Threes).

Cognitive functions

Using the more modern interpretation, the cognitive functions of the ENFJ are as follows:

Dominant: Extraverted feeling (Fe)

Fe seeks social connections and creates harmonious interactions through polite, considerate, and appropriate behavior. Fe responds to the explicit (and implicit) wants of others, and may even create an internal conflict between the subject’s own needs and the desire to meet the needs of others.

Auxiliary: Introverted intuition (Ni)

Attracted to symbolic actions or devices, Ni synthesizes seeming paradoxes to create the previously unimagined. These realizations come with a certainty that demands action to fulfill a new vision of the future, solutions that may include complex systems or universal truths.

Tertiary: Extraverted sensing (Se)

Se focuses on the experiences and sensations of the immediate, physical world. With an acute awareness of the present surroundings, it brings relevant facts and details to the forefront and may lead to spontaneous action.

Inferior: Introverted thinking (Ti)

Ti seeks precision, such as the exact word to express an idea. It notices the minute distinctions that define the essence of things, then analyzes and classifies them. Ti examines all sides of an issue, looking to solve problems while minimizing effort and risk. It uses models to root out logical inconsistency.

Shadow functions

Later personality researchers (notably Linda V. Berens) added four additional functions to the descending hierarchy, the so-called "shadow" functions to which the individual is not naturally inclined but which can emerge when the person is under stress. For ENFJ these shadow functions are (in order):

Introverted feeling (Fi): Fi filters information based on interpretations of worth, forming judgments according to criteria that are often intangible. Fi constantly balances an internal set of values such as harmony and authenticity. Attuned to subtle distinctions, Fi innately senses what is true and what is false in a situation.
Extraverted intuition (Ne): Ne finds and interprets hidden meanings, using “what if” questions to explore alternatives, allowing multiple possibilities to coexist. This imaginative play weaves together insights and experiences from various sources to form a new whole, which can then become a catalyst to action.
Introverted sensing (Si): Si collects data in the present moment and compares it with past experiences, a process that sometimes evokes the feelings associated with memory, as if the subject were reliving it. Seeking to protect what is familiar, Si draws upon history to form goals and expectations about what will happen in the future.
Extraverted thinking (Te): Te organizes and schedules ideas and the environment to ensure the efficient, productive pursuit of objectives. Te seeks logical explanations for actions, events, and conclusions, looking for faulty reasoning and lapses in sequence.

External links

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