Split: Will Smith & Fe vs Fi Smiles

SeFi? hmmm... that's peculiar. I think that, if his signals were showing Fi, I'd probably need to rethink the signals themselves... since the signals are never meant to define psychology, but to point to the psychology already there. His psychology seems highly directive-Fe to me from every angle I look. What does his psychology itself strike you as, I wonder?

That said, I still see the whole range of Ti-Fe signals, beginning with stop-start articulation, technical speech, Fe emphasis/exerted-effort and social shepherding, etc. He has a very outward-focused view of human power. And though he almost seems militant in his philosophy, it's very different from Te logistics. It's a sort of aim for self-mastery, as I note in this thread.

I find that actual Te users never express so much exertion or drama in their struggle-for-greatness. For Fe users that are aiming for success, it's a very involved process with elements such as self-shaming, self-bashing, self-improving. Te remains rather detached to some degree from their own functional and logistical ability and they mainly refine their "method" externally, while the refinement of their "self" happens far more privately in Fi.

edit: But this thread is about feedback, so I'll digress! I don't mean to go off on a tangent.

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edit: get ready! here goes

Hmm, in the video you linked, Will Smith is used as an example of a warm, charismatic and authentic smile, and Nancy Pelosi is used to exemplify a "fake smile".

However, Nancy Pelosi is a definite Te-Fi by the CT signals. The video he breaks down actually shows nothing but Te-Fi tension, asymmetrical smiles, horizontal splitting and taut squares:





compare these images above to the examples of Te and Fi found in the book, such as:



the taut square causes a clenching of the jaw, as the jaw is tensed by the depressor anguli oris muscles. it creates that sort of "gimpy" effect that we see on the rightmost image of Nancy's first collage above, and the top-rightmost image of the 2nd collage.



And then here we see asymmetrical smiles in quick succession. The second collage of Nancy above was done by freeze-framing rather randomly within the span of a couple seconds, and we see these asymmetrical expressions everywhere. Her lip switches from pulling inward, to pulling outward, to pulling leftward, to pulling rightward, etc.

Now, if we see an actual video of her, I see the same sort of thing:



Note here that the interviewer is an actual Fe-user. I think it makes for a good contrast. When nancy articulates, it's almost as if her lips are far more loose than they need to be, and they flail about sometimes, or pull downward heavily. This is all part of Fi-Te's "uncoordinated" presentation.

Now, the signals this guy uses are:

Authentic smile:
- raise upper lip
- drop/loosen the jaw
- contract the obicularis oris (smile with the eyes)

Fake smile:
- smiling widely
- tense jaw
- no use of the obicularis oris

I don't think these signals are correct, nor do they synch up with CT at the advanced level. As I touch on the "On Vultology" chapter:



...Wideness of smiles is not a standalone indicator of Fe vs Fi. What tells apart one from another is never a static appearance, but a dynamic phenomenon. Take for example, SiTe Sean Hannity:



His smile is incredibly wide, but wholly asymmetrical (and inauthentic-looking to me). They pull the lip downard (middle bottom img), or slightly up to one side (top rightmost). His smiles are reminiscent of SiTe George Bush. Now, to me, Sean Hannity is snarling accidentally in these upward lifts of the lip, even if there's no obvious clash --- partly because his whole smile is so anatomically big and long.

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Now, as for Will Smith himself, I don't really see him make asymmetrical smiles or have any sort of uncoordinated presentation. If a person has a degree of upward tension but it's more of a static feature, while their presentation is altogether on-point, then CT would class this as Fe still. Take for example, FeNi Neil DeGrasse Tyson:



He's got a  very similar "snarling" smile, but there's a nuance to this which I can't explain. It looks - as with Will Smith's - Fe. I can quantify a few of the elements involved here:

- No clashing tension
- - - for example, the depressor anguli muscles are not competing in the smile and pulling it downward into a taut square.
- - - the bulges in his cheeks are not caused by the "splitting" that happens from a smile being pulled from a variety of directions.



Think of an Fi-Te mouth as one that has 4 pullies, with 2 attached to each lip-corner. One pulls up and one pulls down. As the person talks, these four pullies are not coordinated in the degree with which they pull.

Inversely, the Fe-Ti oscillation generally only has 2 pullies, one for each lip-corner. Furthermore, generally the two pullies are raised together at the same time --- except for when an obvious smug smirk is being used (which itself is meant to move social dynamics) or some other methodology of presentation.

This is the most essential difference.

Ah, debate! You, sir, drag me into messes.

Heh, you can drag the corners of the image to resize (er, at least in Firefox).

How so? ...I just clarified what an Fi/Te vs Fe/Ti signal is --- and his don't fit that definition. A static "snarl" of the upper lip, with no asymmetrical tension, no conflicting clashing in facial muscles, is not going to reveal an Fi consciousness.

But I think I know what you mean: I don't really disagree that Will Smith's static smile photos better fall in the Fi category, if nothing else were known of him, but his actual smile -- in its dynamic form, and how it involves him in it and the crowd -- isn't a display of Fi. This is also why I make careful mention in various places of the book that relying on static signals (especially above the person's psychology) is dangerous. It's very easy to get caught up in the details, or to overuse 1 signal to justify a whole function pair.

It isn't a perfect system, as much as my Ti would love it to be. I tried! There are outliers:



But I don't think that is truly a problem as much as it is an expected failing of any model approximating a natural system. If we make a habit to postpone judgment on a function pairing until all signals are seen, then we greatly increase the accuracy of our reads.

(I have to go to sleep for now, but will pick this back up tomorrow ^^)

I know.  I'm so sorry, hehehe

I really do want Will Smith on my FeNi team, because I adore the man, but now that I've seen that video I linked, which got me thinking, I can't unsee it.