We usually talk about the eight functions as if they live entirely inside people's heads: quiet mechanisms that shape how we see, feel and decide. But nobody has ever seen someone's Introverted Intuition. What other people see is behaviour.
In "Your Social World Explained" I gave each function a second name describing what it looks like from the outside. These are the attitude names used in the SLIDE System on this site. They're useful for one practical reason: you can observe them.
The eight attitudes at a glance
| Function | Outward attitude | What you notice |
|---|---|---|
| Introverted Sensing (Si) | Dynamic Stabilisation | Keeps things comfortable and notices when they drift |
| Extraverted Sensing (Se) | Tactical Action | Reads who holds power right now and acts on it |
| Introverted Intuition (Ni) | Reality Distillation | Senses where a situation is heading before it gets there |
| Extraverted Intuition (Ne) | Creative Thinking | Sees what something could become, not what it is |
| Introverted Ethics (Fi) | Ethical Harmony | Keeps a quiet map of who people are to each other |
| Extraverted Ethics (Fe) | Social Interest | Reads the mood of a room and changes it on purpose |
| Introverted Logic (Ti) | Academic Knowledge | Checks whether an argument holds together |
| Extraverted Logic (Te) | Practical Results | Checks whether something works and gets it done |
Sensing: comfort and force
Dynamic Stabilisation (Si) is the person who adjusts the heating before anyone complains, remembers how everyone takes their tea, and quietly brings a meeting back to a sensible pace. It isn't control. It's regulation: noticing when everyday experience drifts away from what feels settled, and nudging it back.
Tactical Action (Se) is the person who reads the room for who has power and what's actually happening, then moves. They cut through hesitation and push for a decision now rather than after another round of talk. It can look like dominance. Often it's just that action feels more real to them than discussion.
Intuition: where things lead and what they could be
Reality Distillation (Ni) is the person who is rarely surprised. They condense a messy situation into one line of where it must end up, often before anyone else has noticed it's moving. They can seem detached, but they're compressing experience into a forecast.
Creative Thinking (Ne) goes the other way. Where Ni narrows to one trajectory, Ne opens up many. This is the person who sees potential in people and ideas, jumps between possibilities and gets restless once something is settled. It's less about predicting and more about playing with what could be.
Ethics: inner ties and shared mood
Ethical Harmony (Fi) is the person who knows who's fallen out with whom, who can be trusted, and where they stand with everyone. It's not moralising. It's attunement to the private temperature between people, and it often shows as loyalty and keeping a careful distance.
Social Interest (Fe) is its expressive counterpart: the person who lifts or deflates the mood of a whole room. They express emotion openly and use it on purpose, to make an evening fun or a team feel united. It's how feeling becomes atmosphere.
Logic: structure and results
Academic Knowledge (Ti) is the person who stops a discussion to ask whether a claim is consistent with what was said ten minutes ago. They care about how things fit together more than whether anyone will use them. Logic as symmetry rather than utility.
Practical Results (Te) is the person who asks whether it works, how long it will take and what the evidence says. Where Ti asks "is it true?", Te asks "does it work?", and then organises the effort to get it done.
Why the outward view helps
Two things change when you look at functions this way.
First, the old argument about introverted functions being invisible goes away. Introverted functions work like internal calibration and extraverted ones like external engagement, but both show up in behaviour. They just move at different speeds.
Second, it makes people easier to read kindly. Someone strong in Tactical Action isn't necessarily trying to dominate; they may simply think best by doing. Someone strong in Reality Distillation isn't aloof; they're working out where this is going. The map lets you grant other people the benefit of a different tempo.
It's also the most practical way to start typing someone. You can't interview their unconscious, but you can watch which of these eight things they do without being asked. The functions guide goes into each one in depth, and the About page shows how the attitudes sit in the SLIDE System model.