Extraverted Thinking (Te)

What does Lenore mean by extraverted thinking? (Often abbreviated "Te".)

Quasi-defining statements

p. 255: "The discernment of a standard, or principle, that can be pried apart from its context and applied to a new set of objects."

p. 254: "In the inner Perceptual world, we need not organize acquired facts or determine their relationship to each other. It's in the outer world that the left brain requires predictability. Confronted with multiple objects in a sensory context, the left brain has to decide where to place its focus. ... Extraverted Thinking is one way of creating [a systematic basis for concentrating our attention]--an impersonal way. It prompts us to notice the qualities that objects have in common, and to use those shared aspects as a standard of sequential order. Whenever we Think, we're relying on such standards--to organize multiple objects and to establish logical relationships between them."

p. 256: "[From the standpoint of Extraverted Thinking], the objects that illustrate our general principles are less important than the principles themselves. ... What's important is their relationship--the expectation that we retain."

p. 256: "As we move from one context to another, a throng of such ghosts [known causal relationships] come with us, and we assess their possibilities for tangible embodiment."

p. 257: "When we Think, we're either extracting a logical relationship from its material context, turning it into a portable ghost, or we're translating our familiar ghosts into form in some new context."

p. 265: "If you can't measure something, you can't predict its behavior, and hence it isn't real."

Sequential order (aka Cause and Effect)

What Lenore meant by "sequential order" might be illustrated by this sentence:

p. 255: "The relationship between act and result [dropped spoon and clang] is so utterly predictable that it suggests a fixed sequence of events--the idea that the same thing will occur with other kinds of objects."

A proposed definition

Hypothesis: Extraverted Thinking is the attitude of viewing the world through measurable criteria for choosing different responses. Both the criteria and the possible decisions are defined in advance of making the decision. In Extraverted Thinking, there is always a definite space of possibilities--all the possible measurements--and a defined cleavage of that space into regions that correspond to different responses.

For example, you might specify to a sporting-goods shop that your tennis racket be strung to a tension between 55 and 57 pounds. If you measure it and it's not within those parameters, you send it back; if it is within those parameters, you accept it and pay the amount specified in the contract. The "space" is string tension on the racket. It's cleaved into three regions that correspond to distinct responses: 55-57 lbs. maps to "accept"; less than 55 lbs. maps to "reject"; and more than 57 lbs. maps to "reject".

From the Te perspective, anything for which you can't give an operational definition in terms of measurement (an "objective test") doesn't exist. The decision criteria are defined not exactly in terms of the things: they're defined in terms of observations of a sort that anyone can do and get the same result. You put the totality of the real-world situation onto your scales, so that all causal factors come into play--both known and unknown. What's accessible to you is the reading on the scale: that and only that is the basis for your decision.

As a dominant function, Te typically leads one to pursue and collect reliable ways of making decisions to get predictable results. The repeatability of a process becomes one of the main criteria for finding it valuable. Repeatable processes are valuable from a Te perspective because they enable you to make agreements with other people, where there is no doubt as to whether each party has fulfilled its part of the agreement. Making and delivering on promises is often how a Te attitude leads one to understand ethics.

The statue of the blind woman holding a balance scale, to symbolize justice, might be one of the clearest symbols of the Te attitude.

Steven Covey is no doubt one of the leading exponents of the extraverted thinking attitude toward life, though partly leavened by an alternative viewpoint of introverted intuition.

In different positions

As a dominant function in : Integrity means sticking with it until it's done right, or quitting when those you are working with are interfering with your ability to do it right.

As a tertiary defense in ENFPs: Integrity means quiting when you can no longer add anything useful, or are hindering the smooth operation of those/that with which you are working.

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See Lowest-Common-Denominator Logic, other Function Attitudes, Thinking.

For an illustration of how Te sometimes manifests itself in conversation, see King on the Mountain.