I'd say you're making a mistake that's common among people whose knowledge of Jung and the MBTI mostly comes from internet forums and SuperDuperDave and other shining stars of the internet firmament — rather than from reading Jung or Myers or Keirsey or Berens or Thomson or other mainstream MBTI sources.
Even if you think there's something more basic about the eight cognitive functions than the four dichotomies — which wasn't really Myers' view and isn't the official MBTI perspective (and isn't my view, either) — it still makes no sense to say:
INFP = Fi-Ne-Si-Te.
Instead, you should say this:
INFP = Fi-Ne-Si-Te + common I + common N + common F + common P.
(Not to mention common IN, common NF and other combinations that have some significant tendency to correlate with noteworthy personality characteristics.)
By common I, common N, etc., I mean the characteristics that
all introverts,
all intuitives, and so on, share. The official MBTI instrument itself, like most MBTI tests, is based exclusively on those common characteristics — rather than on characteristics specific to the eight cognitive functions.
Jung spent far more of
Psychological Types discussing the characteristics that
all introverts and
all extraverts have in common than he did talking about all eight of the functions put together — and, in the Foreword to a late edition of the book, he explained that he'd stuck the eight functions descriptions at the back (in Chapter X) for a reason.
If you want to create a portrait of an ENFP (for example) and the only F-related characteristics you include are the ones you find in typical descriptions of Fi — that is, if you leave out the common F characteristics (particularly the people/relationship-orientation) that are typical of all F's (whether Fi or Fe) — you'll end up with a very impoverished portrait. Even MBTI theorists who stress the centrality of the cognitive functions know better than to make that mistake. (Well, I mean the respectable ones. I'm not vouching for SuperDuperDave.) If you read Lenore Thomson's
Personality Type, for example, you'll find that she devotes half a chapter to the common F and common T characteristics, concluding with a list of common F characteristics that includes "an interest in how people feel," "a commitment to social obligation, empathy, and responsibility to others," "the ability to anticipate people's needs and reactions" and "an interest in human relationships and the values they illustrate" — all characteristics that you'll find in her ENFP portrait,
in addition to the characteristics Thomson attributes to the ENFP's auxiliary Fi function. As Thomson puts it, "Whether they're running a halfway house, teaching a class, mobilizing a task force, or waiting in line at the grocery store, ENFPs have a warm, empathetic approach to others, and they establish immediate affective connections. They have implicit faith in their ability to identify with people, and are often sought out by coworkers and acquaintances who have a problem to solve or need to confide in someone." As the official MBTI Manual puts it, "The ENFP's feeling preference shows in a concern for people. They are skillful in handling people and often have remarkable insight into the possibilities and development of others." Those qualities basically reflect the ENFP's common F characteristics (first and foremost, the people/relationship-orientation) — not to mention the ENFP's general
extraverted approach to the world.
I think the most frequently-linked-to cognitive functions test on the internet may be
Nardi's test, and the results that INTJs (for example) typically get on that test (based on the results posted at INTJforum) are significantly
inconsistent with the Ni-Te-Fi-Se pattern. If you're interested in more analysis by me of the nature of the discreptancies, and whether the problem is with the test or that cognitive functions model, you could take a look at two long posts I made on the subject —
one and
two — at INTJforum. For purposes of this discussion, the main thing to note is that, instead of getting high Ni and Te scores and low Ne and Ti scores on Nardi's test, INTJs typically get high Ni
and Ne scores (with Ni not significantly favored over Ne) and high Te
and Ti scores (with Te not significantly favored over Ti). It may be that, if you take the test, you'll find that your results are more along the lines of high Fi
and Fe scores, rather than a high Fi score and a low Fe score — although, as I've noted elsewhere, I think some of Nardi's Fe items are written in a way that makes them significantly more likely to appeal to extraverts than introverts.
In any case, the main point I'm trying to make is that, the next time you find yourself focusing on some F-ish aspect of your own personality and saying, "Gee, this seems more like Fe than Fi" (or some N-ish thing and pondering Ne and Ni), you should consider that it may be something more aptly characterized as a
common F (or common N, as applicable) aspect of your personality.
As a final note, I'd be curious to hear whether you come out pretty clearly INFP when you take a typical
dichotomy-based MBTI test or whether you tend to get a different result on dichotomy-based tests and typed yourself as an INFP based on some kind of cognitive functions analysis (or test).
