Good old T vs. F. The age old battle. Whatever positive properties we manage to squeeze into the concept of "Feeling", "Thinking" always seems to steal the thunder these days. Although it's certainly considered very good to be "in touch with ones emotions", rationality is still, more often than not, considered top dog.
Being governed by feelings, being too "emotional", is just not perceived as a good thing.
Some (according to Personality Hacker) would even go so far as to say that emotions are dangerous, comparing them to a wild animal - one of the big cats perhaps - a jaguar or a leopard or a tiger (no, not Cringer). But if emotions are to be thought of as a dangerous circus lion, shouldn't the "Feeling"-function be thought of as the tamer? Who's training the lions in the "Thinking"-circus?
It's clear we need some nuance here...
Feelings and Feeling Functions and Define your Terms you Bastards
What exactly do we mean by "Feeling" here? Are the cognitive functions with the same name equivalent to Emotion? Are they irrational? What would Jung say? According to Personality Hacker (and a random website I just googled), he would say this:
Feeling is distinguished from affect by the fact that it produces no perceptible physical innervations, i.e., neither more nor less than an ordinary thinking process. – Carl Jung, CW 6, par. 725
In other words, the Feeling functions of the MBTI system are not to be confused with the actual physical emotions coursing through our bodies. The Feeling functions are interpreters of emotional data and should be thought of more as rational decision makers basing decisions on emotional information, rather than as emotions in and of themselves.
Ok... so Feeling isn't feelings. Perhaps that came as a surprise to someone on team T who still needs the MBTI 101. I don't know. But we still need to define what we mean by "emotional" here.
Is it not being rational? Is it making decisions based on emotional information? Is it making the right decisions based on emotional information? Or the wrong ones? Is it showing lots of emotion (laughing, crying, changing color)? Is it feeling lots of emotions even though it doesn't show? Is it taming the terrifying lion of vehemence and riding it around town like a boss - or is it trying, and failing, to keep it in its cage?
Rationality
Thinking interprets data/logical information. Feeling interprets emotional information. For the purpose of decision-making. Both are rational processes, but differ in both grounds and goal.
Let's say you have a favorite chair. It smells bad. And a leg is broken. It tilts. Logic stipulates you get a new chair. Because it's broken. And the world gets all skewed when you sit in it. But the affectional bond is so strong you would cry yourself to sleep for the rest of your life if you got rid of it. Would exchanging the smelly chair for a new one be a rational decision? Probably not. Not if you understood your own emotions.
What we're saying is that understanding ourselves and others, and basing decisions off of this understanding, can sometimes lead to a much more rational decision than one based solely on individual logic (Ti) or "what-works" (Te).
From the perspective of T this might all seem like a truckload of flapdoodle. And, yeah, if the chair is literally falling apart and some kind of ant-mole hybrid has taken up lodging in the padding, then yes, logic (Ti)/"what-works"(Te) would trump F. It's kind of a trade-off... would the T-decision cause long term emotional damage for self and/or tribe? Would causing such damage be rational?
But T must have some kind of edge in the rationality department, right? Even if we deem both processes (T and F) to be rational, T sure as hell wouldn't accept being thrown into the same soup as F... because it's not the right kind of rational!
T prides itself on pure logic (Ti) or demonstrated appliance (Te) and screw all those squishy emotions anyway. F is fraternizing with the "enemy" for [insert deity here] sake! Even if the decisions made by F can be said to be rational in a sense, they're still based on emotional information. T is obviously less emotional, right?
Navigating the emotional space
Well, yes... as long as T can stay clear of emotions, and it's generally pretty good at this, it is less emotional. Because it's not dealing in emotions at all. It's actually in situations when it has to deal with emotions that shit really can hit the fan...
T sometimes hasn't had the opportunity to develop the emotional maturity that comes with the kind of close proximity/continuous exposure to emotions (characteristic to F) that's needed to ride out these emotional storms.
When dipped in emotion T will sometimes completely loose it. Let's take the INTJ - the archetype of cool deliberation - as an example. Not once, but on several occasions has this calm, composed strategist been sighted throwing toddler-style tantrums in response to whatever "chaos" physical reality has had the indecency to throw at them.
So, if we base our definition of "emotional" on perceptions of behavior, sometimes T might actually appear more emotional than F. A Thinker with heavy reliance on T, might not have spent enough time in F (and the emotional space by proxy) to build sufficient skill and will probably behave like a child if caught in a sudden wave of emotion.
Such a wave might not, as readily, throw off a seasoned Feeler. In the best of worlds the Feeler might actually ride it it out in style: calmly, maturely analyzing the emotional information carried within and deliberately basing decisions upon it. Both persons are governed by emotions, but the latter in a better and, in our honest opinion, less "emotional" way.
Personal Decisions
We've established both processes (T and F) to be rational, but acknowledged that F is the more "emotional" due to it spending more time in and around the emotional space and actually basing it's decisions off of emotional information.... except in the case when emotions are really running high and might overwhelm the unaware, emotionally immature T.
But even if there is no immediate tsunami of emotions threatening the cold, calculating castle of the Thinkdom, there's still the matter of regular, all day everyday personal decisions. And if you're oblivious to your own emotions, chances are you won't even see them sneak in when it's time to make them. It's like that movie. Inception. But with emotions. The decision has already been made, but T has been deceived into believing it's making it right now, using nothing but facts and logic and small pieces of Lego that was just lying on the floor anyway and no sense leaving them there for some innocent demon Se to step on...
And the same could be said about arguments. T-users have been observed protecting their helpless princesses of an F by ruthlessly logic-bashing the tribe into submission. It's probably not a conscious behavior and even if it might sometimes seem very rational from the outside, it's actually a quite obvious case of being governed by emotions (you're not allowed to cherry pick logic in the interest of your F). But, on the other hand, a T-user might also be very able to steer clear of emotions where a Feeler would get so entangled that objectivity would become all but impossible.
Summary
So... where the h*ll did this get us?
Cognitive functions are not irrational. Feelers spend more time in, and in close proximity to, emotions (this is a big one we think). Thinkers stay clear of the water, but when they fall in they nearly drown.
We were going to make a comparison between INFJ, INFJ Jumper and INTJ, but it got so ridiculously subjective that we just stopped.
Having Feeling higher up in the stack makes you more emotional. No doubt about it. Having demon Feeling or Feeling lower down in the stack makes you less emotional (spending less time in and in close proximity to emotions), but also somewhat more emotional (no "emotional gills").
Going further down the rabbit hole of OPS concepts such as Animals, Sexuals, Double activation etc would influence outcome and complicate matters... which is why we won't.
The INFJ would be the most emotional of the three, but, at the same time, the most emotionally mature. The INTJ would be the least emotional of the three, but, at the same time the most likely to loose it if caught in a wave. The INFJ Jumper would end up square in the middle, spending less time riding the emotional lion (compared to the INFJ), but also not being bitten quite as often as the INTJ when having to do so.
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