A short piece about how we process information

In 1928, Carl Jung identified that people receive and process information in four ways:

thinking
feeling
intuition (which I refer to as ‘knowing’ because that’s the word people tend to use in natural speech) and
sensing (in a kinaesthetic sense).

Each of us favours one of the modes above the others but we all use all four. I am using these words with a slightly specialised definition, so here is my illustration of them.

Consider you’re in a restaurant with a group of people.

The thinkers will have to read every page of the menu, check out the prices of all the dishes, check they can afford their choice, check they’re not allergic to lemongrass—it’s all analytical and can take some time in your average Chinese restaurant.

The feelers will be asking themselves ‘what do I feel like today?’, they will be recalling how much they enjoyed similar dishes on previous occasions—this can take quite a lot of time, too.

The knowers probably knew before they got to the restaurant what they wanted and see no reason to look at the menu. The thinkers and feelers drive them mad and their best tactic is to slope off to the bar for ten minutes.

The sensors really want to have a taste, bur will settle for having a look at what other people are getting.

To be crassly simplistic, you might say that accountants are probably predominantly thinkers, coaches are feelers, stock market traders are knowers and graphic designers are sensers.

We all do all four.

Noone is purely one of these ways.  We all use all four, but the vast majority of people favour one way over the other three, sometimes markedly so.

by Jeremy Marchant . © Jeremy Marchant Limited . uploaded 25 may 2015 . image:  Free images