Sensing vs. Intuition: What Do "S" & "N" Mean In Myers-Briggs?

INTP, ENFJ, ISFP—you've probably seen or heard of the 16 different Myers-Briggs personality types. Perhaps you've even taken the test to find out which four-letter combo aligns with your personality.

Created by renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung and popularized since the 1940s, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) uses tailored questions to find your combination of four sets of opposing traits: introverted versus extroverted; sensing versus intuitive; thinking versus feeling; and perceiving versus judging.

If the second letter in your four-letter MBTI type is an S, that means you're a sensing person. S types place more emphasis on their physical reality and their five senses, as opposed to their intuition, and it's estimated S types make up about three-quarters of the population, far outnumbering intuitive types.

As psychologist Kristina Hallett, Ph.D., ABPP, explains, "I think of Sensing as information gathering through the here-and-now physical senses and generally more grounded in practicality."

If the second letter of your Myers-Briggs type is an "N," you would be considered intuitive rather than sensing. Where S types favor their senses and facts, N's are concerned with deeper meanings and patterns. They often have an abstract, roundabout way of thinking.

"Intuition is information gathering from a broader, more 'big picture' perspective," Hallett notes, "making links between patterns that may not be as easily seen from the specific in the moment view."

Like the other three pairs of opposing traits, sensing and intuition are more of a spectrum than a binary, meaning yes, you can absolutely be both. In fact, everyone will use both sensing and intuition at some points, but more often than not, you will use one much more than the other.

"Rarely are people just one clear 'type,'" Hallett adds. "We can certainly be a mix, although often there is a predominance one way or the other. Everyone spends some time sensing and some time using intuition."