[Ribonuke]

Okay, I figured it was worth asking: Is Dom or Aux Fe inevitably connected with maintaining and following social norms?

The reason I ask is because I was often oblivious to little social niceties as a child, such as maintaining eye contact and sometimes forgetting to say 'Please' and 'Thank you'. Still, I WANTED to be nice and polite and helpful, but I often didn't know HOW to be nice and polite and helpful. It took training in social skills classes to become better aware of this social etiquette. Nowadays I am much better able to navigate myself through the narrow crevasses of smalltalk to the point where I can avoid committing a major social faux pas. However, I *HATE* smalltalk, and so I'll want to kinda steer the discussion towards something deeper or more fulfilling to me, causing me to come across as 'intense' to strangers. -_-;;

Can anyone please shed some insight upon this?

[anticlimatic]

As an INTP with a healthy Fe function, I can tell you that it doesn't obsess with maintaining social norms, but maintaining social norms does tend to be a product of what it does. That part comes without effort. What Fe really does is attempt to affect the feelings of others, which is usually an effort to promote calm and happiness (especially for Ti doms, who cannot function without tranquility). This is where you get your 'social niceties,' though Fe is almost always custom tailored, via empathy, to whomever the Fe user is engaging. If someone is kind of curt and borderline rude, Fe will respond in kind. If someone is kind and sweet, Fe will also respond in kind-- it often works a bit like a mirror, but without any prior basis to go off of, it will default to standardized 'feel good' customs. I imagine that strangers who use a lot of Fe would come off as disingenuous or fake (the small talk thing) to Fi users...when really all they're trying to do is exhibit a respect for your feelings-- NOT a disrespect to your intelligence.

Fe and Fi don't mix so well, I've noticed.

[jndiii]

Actually, Si has more to do with following social norms, in that social norms make up a large part of the dataset that Si perceives. (And for Si, the "norms" are the culture in which one lives, not the stereotypical "SJ" temperament stuff.) For Fe dom/aux, Fe is how one goes about trying to "solve problems." Just as one's perceiving function determines the kind of things one sees, the judging function determines what tools one uses to evaluate what we see.

In an office environment, for example, this means that while Te tends to think in terms of material resources (do I have enough employees? do they have sufficient tools?), Fe tends to think in terms of the personnel themselves (do my employees work well together? do they interact well with my customers?). While both perspectives are important, and any wise employer thinks in terms of both, Te/Fe steers one to think in its particular terms, first. In a less mature individual, one might tend to think in only those terms, e.g., treating every business problem as a personnel issue and never as a logistics issue, or vice versa.

So, as such, Fe is largely concerned with "social niceties" because that's how it solves the problems it perceives. As an INFJ, of course you hate small talk, mostly because it involves catering to how other people think, and Ni is NOT how other people think. BUT, you're very good at seeing the people dynamics, and can, as you say, "navigate" through them.

An INTJ, on the other hand, "navigates" to the other side of the room, or stays home, seeing no purpose in small talk. You see the purpose, the INTJ doesn't. That's the difference between Fe and Te. It's not whether or not you like doing it, it's that you know how to process it.

Between INTJ and INTP, INTPs with inferior Fe actually understand the purpose of navigating social niceties, but tend to detest it when they're younger, believing people should be more logical and objective than that. As they get older, you see the Fe-ish-ness appear, though it tends to manifest like it does in terms of academia and academic reputation, where one "logically" gets a reputation on the basis of the merit of one's ideas. INTJs, on the other hand, tend to stay blind to the Fe version of events, doing their own thing in their own way and generally oblivious to all but the most obvious of social dynamics around them.

Interestingly, due to Si, ISTJs tend to be fairly aware of the social constructs in which they live, though they work around them in a Te way instead of an Fe way.

[shytiger]

Fe is definitely more about what people are feeling, group values and cohesion, as well as emotional problem solving. That's why Fe users typically make good therapists, motivators, etc. (When Fe is in the tert or inf position, it's typically a motivation for the user to apply their higher functions to people---the ENTP who invents something to make life easier or more enjoyable, the INTP who goes out of their way to make sure somebody understands a theory.)

Si users are definitely the ones best at social norms, small talk, etc. Si perceives rules (sometimes where there are none). Ni perceives outcomes. Therefore, coupled with Ni, the Fe user is more concerned with outcomes than rules. That means that small talk and social niceties are uninteresting next to achieving effective emotional outcomes.

[Ribonuke]

Yeah, I had a feeling that 'social norms' were more or less connected to Si rather than Fe. Riddle me this, jndiii: how does an ISTJ handle social norms differently from an ISFJ? As in...how do Fe and Te work with their Si's awareness of social norms differently?

Also, jndiii, your comparison of INTJs vs INFJs when it comes to smalltalk makes complete sense. xD I intensely dislike smalltalk, but I still do it anyway because I know it's what other people seem to want. Basically, my Ni causes me to piece together events to figure out theories about how people behave. Once I got what the gist of 'smalltalk' was, my Fe decided I should use it because it would probably help people feel more comfortable than if I skipped over it. An INTJ's Te, on the other hand, would probably cause them to eschew smalltalk, because they see it as a waste of time and resources.

Also, shytiger, I have a question in regards to your last post: would Si-users likely engage in smalltalk more because that's just the way it's been done and they feel more comfortable with it, while Ni/Fe-users would be more likely to engage in smalltalk because they see the ultimate social benefits of partaking in it? And would Ni/Te-users be less likely to see smalltalk as useful because they don't see it as having a direct impact or usefulness?

[vampyroteuthis]

A Fe user sits in a room full of people and sees their relationships to each other, how others are feeling, etc., first but may take him/herself out of the equation, especially when s/he is being quiet.

A Fi user will easily see how others see and respond to her/him but seeing how the relationships and emotions among others affect the dynamic in the room comes second or sometimes not at all.

But these are my observations of introverts. Suspect it would be very different for extroverts.

[Fecal McAngry]

	Originally Posted by jndiii To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Actually, Si has more to do with following social norms, in that social norms make up a large part of the dataset that Si perceives.

By itself, no. In conjunction with Fe, yes.

The province of SFJs, ESFJs in particular:


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A caveat, of course, is that because Si "lives in the past", SFJ types, especially ISFJs, can "transgress" social norms by upholding ones that are no longer "appropriate". My ISFJ mother continued to "dress up" to go grocery shopping at least into the late 1980s. While this may have been de rigueur for "a lady" in Cleveland in 1958, it was certainly not for a woman in Los Angeles in 1988.

[scorpiomover]

	Originally Posted by Ribonuke To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Okay, I figured it was worth asking: Is Dom or Aux Fe inevitably connected with maintaining and following social norms?

More that I want everyone to get along. That usually involves agreeing to some social norms, as an arbitrary set of ground rules for everyone to work with. Since there are existing ground rules, it makes more sense to stick with those, than to try to change them, as that is more likely to cause conflict.

However, if the ground rules are unfair, then that will bring disharmony and unhappiness anyway. Then I am bound to suggest a different social norm, that IMHO, would bring harmony and happiness. But I'll probably try to bring that about in a non-challenging way.

I personally like to be nice, polite and helpful. I've often spent so much time helping others in class, that I've neglected my own studies. Did that more than once. At least once, I almost failed a course because of it. Mostly, I could not care. But if I see others in trouble, I feel in pain, and must selfishly relieve that pain, by helping them out.