INFJ Jumper Origins

So... The INFJ jumper? What kind of crap is that? Did I make it up? Well, no, but the good folks over at Objective Personality did. OK, says you... so, what's that then? It's science. Or, at least, it aims to be. In short, OP is the only actor on the personality psychology stage brave enough to give the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator a chance at scientific acceptance. (I’ll assume, since you’re here, that you are familiar with MBTI. If not I recommend you take some time to get to know the model.) In striving for their goal of objective typing OP has applied new concepts to the MBTI system, ultimately arriving at 512 different personality types compared to the original 16 of MBTI.

But is it real? Some might argue that all this jumper business is just a fancy way of describing someone caught in a loop, i.e. skipping the auxiliary function, in favour of the tertiary function in order to stay in the orientation (extraverted or introverted depending on type) of the dominant function. And this might very well be the case. Whatever claims the folks over at OP might be making, they are not established science. At least not yet. 

So, why then did I choose to call this blog “INFJ Jumper” and not “INFJ Looper”? Perhaps this is just a way of justifying my own unhealthy behaviour? Perhaps I'm just not comfortable with being labeled a "feeler"? Perhaps I'm just a highly sensitive person (HSP), a neurotic or turbulent INFJ (INFJ-T), scared by people and the real world into a perpetual Ni-Ti loop? One might forgive the reader for wondering if this phenomenon really needs another name. And one does. And seeing as I was the one bringing the whole thing up I guess I will have to be the one making its case. 

A loop is an unwanted, dysfunctional state. A loop is something we get caught in from time to time and hopefully, eventually escape! If all you see when you look back upon your life is this endless loop of suboptimal functional preference, wouldn't it make sense to at least consider the possibility that it might not be a loop at all (personality hacker divides the loopers into three categories and this behaviour would probably fall into the "chronic mindset" category which I guess is the category that I am really questioning here)? Perhaps some of us, roughly half according to OP, systematically prefer our third function to our second and should be understood and respected accordingly? 

When it comes to functional preference order isn't everything. Presumably it is also a matter of respect (I'm dragging the lore of OP in to the ring again). Even though the auxiliary function technically is first in line when decision making is concerned, the tertiary function will always get the last word so long as it is the most respected. In the case of the INFJ this would mean respecting the tertiary function of introverted thinking at the expense of the auxiliary function of extraverted sensing when time comes to make the calls. 

But let’s take a step back. Before coming across this concept of jumpers I was already positive that I had my own type right. Most descriptions were spot on and I wouldn’t (and couldn't) trade the functions for the world. But still, something wasn’t right. Some descriptions just wouldn’t fit. I was supposed to have this burning desire to help people, to care for them. My career satisfaction, supposedly, depended on it! The INFJ type in general is often described in very favourable terms and, though flattered, I sometimes felt like an imposter. I knew that Fe (extraverted feeling) gave me an ability to adapt- and often forced me to conform to the tribe but I didn’t like it, I didn’t respect it, and avoided much contact as a result. Knowing that Fe might muddy my Ti-waters it just felt natural to keep new acquaintance-interactions to a minimum.

So, what did I find in this concept of jumpers that I couldn’t find before? Well, first off, more concepts. Bear with me here. Diving deeper into the theoretical treasury that is OP one quickly realises that jumping the stack comes with a number of implications. For one, to an INFJ, this means being self above tribe. Consider that for a moment. An INFJ. Self above tribe. Does not compute. It also means that the order of the OPs so called “animals” gets reversed, resulting in completely different behaviours on the part of the different types of INFJs. One, the jumper, leads with an animal called "sleep" (process known information) while the other leads with “blast” (communicating known information). While the first impulse of the former will be to analyse and synthesise in solitude, the latter would want to immediately seek out the tribe in hope of sharing. That's a big difference. Moreover, for the INFJ, favouring the first and third function (Ni-Ti) means favouring two introverted functions to one of each kind (introverted/extroverted). The INFJ jumper, thus, is a "double introvert", lacking the conventional balance of orientation provided by the Ni-Fe combination. That makes for a fairly private individual to say the least. But perhaps most striking of all is the implication this intriguing concept of jumping has on the dichotomies. The second and third letters of the four letter MBTI personality code signifies the preferred observer function and the preferred decider function of the type in question and one might argue that an INFJ that prefers her thinking decider to her feeling decider really should be thought of as an INTJ, albeit a different kind of INTJ (Ni, Ti, Fe, Se vs Ni, Te, Fi, Se). It’s a type hiding within a type! 

Stumbling upon these ideas was a major revelation. I felt like I'd finally found myself. I can't deny that possibly being a HSP,  undoubtedly being a nervous and turbulent INFJ and that being able to spend a lot of time on my own growing up might indeed have had a great impact on the way my personality turned out, but even then, even if this circumstance of functional preference is relegated to the realm of nurture, I'm still having a hard time reducing this persistent inclination to a temporary loop or shallow choice or something that a jumper such as myself must learn to "break out of". It is, and - for as long as I can remember - has been, who I am. Huzzah.