I want to go through this in real detail, so I’ll take a close look at the document hosted at www.kupredu.cz/data/editor/File/podklady-vyuka/mbti-podrobne.pdf , which writes about IFP, the group that includes the types INFP and ISFP.
Put simply, these are the “Introverted feeling-dominant types“: The dominant function of this group is introverted Feeling Fi. They tend to have a richly developed inner world of values, but they rarely mention it, because their gentleness and passionate convictions are hidden behind a quiet reserve. As a result, they are often misunderstood. If their auxiliary function is iNtuition NE, it communicates with the outside world through a filter of feelings.
If they relate to the world through their Senses Se, they tend to be rather passive receivers of data and information. They are usually open to new ideas and adaptable. But only until something they value is threatened. These people carry a great deal of warmth and an ability to get enthusiastic about things, yet this usually goes unnoticed until you really get to know them well.
They keep their warmth inside, like heat beneath a fur coat, and we won’t encounter it until they invite us into their closest circle – which rarely happens. Guided by their richly branching inner feelings, they tend to judge the world by sometimes idiosyncratic ethical principles and moralistic standards.
In other words, they like to judge things by their personal values and preferences. But because they are Introverts, they tend to choose these values subjectively, regardless of those around them. They know for themselves which things are most important to them and defend them at any cost. As Idealists, they are able to pour enormous amounts of energy into the good of some cause.
Which cause it will be, however, may not be clear until the very last moment. Their intense devotion to their world of inwardly cherished values and experiences makes them people who are led by their heart. If they fail to unify and organize their rich inner universe in some way, they are as unpredictable as a ship without a rudder.
Their firm and personally held value system can make them pillars of any organization. Their inferior function is extraverted Thinking TE, which tends to be somewhat less developed. That does not mean they are in any way logically inferior. But it can happen that they carefully gather, without selection, more data and information than they are able to process. A mass of unsystematic data can then easily overwhelm them.
While extraverted people gifted with Thinking ET tend to be brilliant at organizing information and picking out what matters most, IF types are the least capable of all types of handling such situations.
That is why, whenever possible, they should weigh each piece of information and decide whether they really need it. When they care about something, they usually champion it with their whole heart. If they get to work on things they believe in and identify with, their performance doubles; if not, it may be only half.
They long for their work to have some meaning, to contribute to something of higher significance to them – understanding between people, happiness, health or the elimination of poverty. They crave meaning beyond material benefit or financial reward, however large that benefit or reward may be.
In everything their Feeling touches, they tend to be perfectionists. They are most likely to be made happy by some independent, individual work infused with values. Unless it directly serves or is required by the nature of what they do (for example, raising funds for some worthy cause), they feel no urge to impress others or dazzle them, and even less to control them and hold power over them. Their friends are usually people with similar values. Because their judgments are governed by introverted Feeling, they measure their successes against inner standards of perfection that they have set for themselves, rather than against what might realistically be possible under the circumstances.
This can lead them to suffer from a sense of their own inadequacy, feeling that they themselves are partly to blame for the gap between their inner ideal and outer reality. They need to work toward or for something they truly care about. If they have such an ideal, and if they manage to develop their perception well enough to realistically recognize potential difficulties and possibilities, they can be extremely effective and achieve a considerable degree of self-confidence. But if they have no ideal worth their effort, they often become oversensitive and self-pitying, and lose faith in themselves and in life.
If they fail to master their perception, they will drift outside reality, striving for the impossible and achieving desperately little. For INFP only: If the saying “still waters run deep” applies to any type, it is INFP. In INFP, the dominant function is also introverted Feeling, which craves continuity, unity, harmony between values and behavior.
It likes to sign up for things, though it is not always clear to them in advance what that will involve. With a few of the people closest to them, they can form a very deep, even passionate bond. The same can be true of missions, ideas or ideologies.
The label that characterizes them is that they are truly idealistic. This trait sometimes makes them feel isolated, not least because they make up around 4 percent of the population. They are good at interpreting symbols, since symbols play an important role in their lives, and they are able to view situations from different perspectives.
Thanks to their extraverted iNtuition NE as an auxiliary function, INFP types are well disposed to understand how their behavior may have affected the world around them. The face they show the world tends to be rather shy and reserved, but principled.
They are usually calm, thoughtful, unobtrusive and mostly pleasant people. Even though outwardly they keep their distance from others, inside they are anything but aloof. They can feel other people’s concerns deeply alongside them, with an intensity we would rarely find in other types. INFP types tend to have a deep sense of honor, which springs from the inner world of their values.
The INFP archetype is the fairy-tale prince who fights against evil, or a defender of truth like Jan Hus. To understand them, we must understand what matters to them, because the sacrifices they are able to make for someone or something they believe in know almost no limits. Throughout their lives, INFP types keep striving for unity, the unity of body and soul, emotion and intellect, or scientifically speaking, of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
They cope poorly and struggle to come to terms with deviations and aberrations of every kind, and they can be ruthless toward renegades and traitors, even though they themselves easily become such. Keirsey and Bates note that a barely perceptible tragic motif can often run through their lives. On the other hand, their deep commitment to positive, thoroughly good, even redemptive goals makes them very sensitive to evil and to everything darker that goes on in the world.
Their reasoning favors emotional and subjective evaluation over logical rationality. They tend to think and decide in terms such as beautiful-ugly, good-bad or moral-immoral.
The impressions their iNtuition conveys to them tend to be blurred, holistic, global, as if constantly flowing around them. They are sometimes a bit at odds with logic, because they regard it as something rather utilitarian, optional. This irritates the Rational NT types, who see logic as the fundamental order of the world and swear by it everywhere.
They are drawn to the calling of missionaries, both literally and figuratively; we find them among the clergy, at universities in departments of psychology, architecture, psychiatry, literature and languages, and in scientific and artistic fields of a more individual kind. They mostly tend to avoid entrepreneurship and business.
They have strong willpower and enough self-discipline to prepare thoroughly for a given activity, and university-style study “suits” them better than high school. They are “scholar” types, and because they are NF, they tend to be especially gifted with languages. They readily answer someone’s call for help, which they are able and willing to give even at considerable sacrifice – their own and that of others.
At work they tend to be highly adaptable, openly welcoming new thoughts, ideas and information, and they are always aware of the moods and feelings of others. This allows them to get along well with most people, albeit with a certain psychological distance.
INFP types dislike frequent interruptions of what they are doing; they are irritated by unexpected phone calls, sudden urgent tasks and uninvited visitors. Given the choice, they prefer to work alone, but their performance does not noticeably drop if their work also involves contact with other people. They don’t mind complicated tasks, but they can’t stand “fussing” with too many repetitive routine details.
So they may occasionally slip up on dates and facts, but never on fundamental matters, where core values are at stake. Even though they are types driven by Perceiving, P, they dislike matters that are in some way conditional or hypothetical.
In this respect, they are people with a tendency toward black-and-white thinking: they see things either as real or as fantasy, with nothing in between. Thinking through “what if” scenarios doesn’t interest them, and they lose patience in such cases. At work and in their personal lives, they can often commit deeply, as if under a sacred oath. They love harmony and are willing to go to extremes to prevent conflict.
Harmony, as they understand it, also means balance. As a result, they may sometimes hesitate to express their affection or joy openly and directly, and so they prefer indirect ways. Occasionally these otherwise “still waters” may give in to temptation and, in their thoughts but also literally, surprisingly set off “somewhere else”, outside their own domain – change jobs, leave their field or a favorite way of thinking, or even let themselves be lured by another woman or man and leave their current partner – but in the overwhelming majority of cases, all of this happens only so that they soon realize that “there’s no place like home“, and return very humbly.
To be truly effective and motivated, whether as rank-and-file employees or as managers, INFP types need to see the meaning of their work and have a firm value system for it, such as a company philosophy, a corporate code of ethics or its vision and mission. They tend to be strongly devoted to both family and job, capable of strong sympathy and considerable adaptability, and that is why they are easy to get along with.
Their introverted Feeling does not allow them to intrude on other people’s private space. INFP types do not tend to assert themselves much, and sometimes even prefer others to make decisions for them. But only until someone or something touches one of their principles.
In such a situation, they can stubbornly resist any “reasonable” argument and not budge an inch. It is good to know that INFP types do not easily forgive offenses against their most cherished values. The trouble with them is that their basically non-confrontational and introverted nature can send an ambiguous signal.
Someone may have broken a rule or regulation, or violated something that INFP considers important. When they realize their mistake, they apologize: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to”, “I didn’t know” and so on. INFP will probably mumble: “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine”, and the offender believes in good faith that the matter has been wiped clean.
Unfortunately, they are often wrong: the matter is neither forgotten nor forgiven, and for INFP the person remains in the box of someone capable of behaving wrongly.
If an INFP is ever seized by a fit of anger or rage, the offender will be amazed even long afterward at how long the INFP can remember it and throw it in their face, even in a situation that has nothing whatsoever to do with their old offense.