Jungian cognitive functions

In Carl Jung's theories of psychological type the cognitive functions (sometimes known as mental functions) are defined as different ways of perceiving and judging. They are defined as "thinking", "feeling", "sensation" and "intuition".

Extroversion: An attitude defining the self in accordance to the standard of the external world.

Introversion: An attitude defining the outer world in accordance to the standard of the self.

INtuition: Abstract perception of the environment.

Sensing: Concrete perception of the environment.

Thinking: Impersonal assessment.

Feeling: Person-centered assessment.

The model in which the four cognitive functions combine to form different psychological types was conceived by Jung in his pioneering work Psychological Types (1921, ISBN ). Jung also posited that the functions formed a hierarchy within a person's psychological dynamics—the most developed function is referred to as the "dominant", with the remaining three filling the roles as "auxiliary" and "inferior" functions.

Jung never meant for eight cognitive functions but four basic functions, thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. (Jung, C.G. [1921] (1971). Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN .)

A summary of Jung's ideas regarding functions and types is described in the following table.

The four psychological functions may be subjugated to the control of consciousness, which can take two attitudes:

The difference between extraversion and introversion comes from the source of the decisive factor in forming motivation and developing ideas, whether it is objective (i.e. the external environment) or subjective (the collective unconscious, or "processes inherent in the psyche"). When discussing function types, Jung ascribed movements of the libido in both directions for each function in each function type, but with one direction being that final judge.

The four basic psychological functions, thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition are "basic functions" that can be briefly defined as follows.

According to Jung, thinking is "that psychological function which, in accordance with its own laws, brings given presentations into conceptual connection." Jung also made distinction between active and passive thinking: "The term 'thinking' should, in my view, be confined to the linking up of representations by means of a concept, where, in other words, an act of judgment prevails, whether such act be the product of one’s intentions or not. The faculty of directed thinking, I term 'intellect'. The faculty of passive, or undirected, thinking, I term 'intellectual intuition'." The former, active thought, is what Jung considered a 'judging function'.

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