| Primary Functions (Strengths and Motivations) | Shadow Functions (Sources of stress) |
| Ingrained: Introverted Thinking (Ti) | Extraverted Thinking (Te) |
| Associative: Extraverted Sensing (Se) | Introverted Sensing (Si) |
| Exploratory: Introverted Intuition (Ni) | Extraverted Intuition (Ne) |
| Regulatory: Extraverted Feeling (Fe) | Introverted Feeling (Fi) |
The ITS is always looking to gain a better understanding of the world and forming internal models that is consistent with the world he or she occupies. A fresh internal model is formed every time new information presents itself and then it is revisited often to make sure it is consistent with existing understanding.
New information is gathered by interacting with the world with the senses using associative Se. Hands on experiencing different facets of life is one of the most interesting activities for ITS as well as the most preferred way of interacting with the world. Combined with ingrained Ti, they seek to understand how various things work by hands on approach and seek to build that knowledge.
ITS’s exploratory is made up of introverted intuition, which tells the ITS what works and what doesn’t without much information on why that is so. Hence the ITS sticks to pretty much tried and tested strategies and steps out of them only when the odds are in their favour or they have detailed knowledge about it. They can spot if something is odd in a theory or object before figuring out what is different. They also seek things that are mysterious in nature due to it being their exploratory. Combined with associative Se and ingrained Ti, they generally have an appeal towards complex mechanical devices and physical systems, which they would like to understand and master.
Regulatory of ITS is made up of Fe, which is used to fine tune the other functions in a way that is admirable. Here Fe is not used as a function on its own, so doesn’t help in empathy or understanding people’s intentions, but works merely to tweak other functions in order to be more people oriented. They expect the world to have a positive opinion of them and if its found to be different they try to correct it using their Se or Ni. If over used, this can give a chameleon like nature to the ITS. The ITS would like to not change too much, hence there is often a tug of war internally between Fe and Ni that is responsible for most of the moral issues of the ITS.
Type codes in other systems: ISTP (MBTI), ISTj (Socionics)