Feeling. The psychological function that evaluates or judges what something or someone is worth. (Compare thinking.)
A feeling is as indisputable a reality as the existence of an idea. ["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 531.]
The feeling function is the basis for "fight or
flight" decisions. As a
subjective process, it may be quite independent of
external stimuli. In
Jung's view it is a rational function, like thinking,
in that it is
decisively influenced not by perception (as are the
functions of sensation
and intuition) but by reflection. A person whose
overall attitude is
oriented by the feeling function is called a feeling
type.
In
everyday usage, feeling is often confused with
emotion. The latter, more
appropriately called affect, is the result of an
activated complex.
Feeling not contaminated by affect can be quite
cold.
Feeling is distinguished from affect by the fact that it produces no perceptible physical innervations, i.e., neither more nor less than an ordinary thinking process. ["Definitions," CW 6, par. 725.]