Sensing Versus Intuitive Clients and Their Financial Decision-Making

In our last couple of articles, we began drilling down on the four continua of personality and psychological preferences that underlie the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

--Extraversion v. Introversion
--Sensing v. Intuition
--Thinking v. Feeling
--Judging v. Perceiving

An individual's personality will give us vital guidance into that client's psychological needs, behavioral patterns, and the way in which emotions interact with and interrupt financial decision-making.

Last month we reviewed the Extroversion vs. Introversion continua. We offered observations of both extroverts and introverts and uncovered some common biases and barriers they might encounter on the way to economically rational decision-making.

This month we take on the next leg of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and discuss the Sensing vs. Intuition preference. This overview will help you as an advisor to recognize which side of the ledger your clients occupy and give some ideas as to how you can best work with them and the specific behavioral and cognitive biases they may bring into their financial decision-making.

In previous articles we briefly outlined the "sensing" individual juxtaposed with the "intuitive" counterpart and gave a ten-thousand-foot view of their communication styles and tendencies toward certain economically irrational thought processes. Determining if a client is more aligned with the sensing or intuition preference gives advisors two huge pieces of information about how best to work with them. 

1) How do they learn?
2) How do they perceive the future?

Clients are mostly sensing or intuitive but are likely to still have traits of the other. So it would not be accurate to pigeonhole individuals into one classification. However, we will discuss them as two separate categories for purposes of contrast.