Socionics Personals
Female
Straight
16-25
Oceania
Libra
ENFj
Male
Straight
16-25
Middle East
Sagittarius
INTj
Male
Straight
26-35
North America
Pisces
INXj
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The Rapidly Evolving Identity of Socionics
[or: What I Did With My Saturday Night] by Jay Bop

As a reader and follower of both Myers-Briggs typology and Socionics, I have a definite thirst for answers. As any devotee of personality type theory can understand, I feel a strong, irrepressible need to organize my comrades by way of psychological function. And it is because ...
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Your Comments: 1+
C1 I agree that much more work can be done in this area; that’s what makes it so interesting. Isn’t pontificating insightful? I think that most people employ all aspects of introverted and extroverted N, S, T and F but in different proportions just as one uses both sides of the brain. When I try to describe how I see a function, I attempt to look at it in isolation, try to find the epitome. The same is true for MBTI and socionics type descriptions, which likely do not describe any one individual – well, maybe one. I test with very weak N and J preferences so that puts me somewhere to the right of the middle of the 16 stereotypes; who cares? SJs perhaps:-) Precise psychology is an oxymoron, and knowing where the electrons flow in my computer doesn’t improve my typing skills. -- I/O
C2 Good article! Could you possibly post a reference to the findings on EJ IP / EP IJ and brain hemispheres? -- Dr. Zoidberg
C3 Sure, check out "Personality Type: An Owner's Manual" by Lenore Thomson for an overview. She cites "How To Choose Your Best Sport and Play It" by Jonathan Niednagel as a reference. -- Jay Bop
C4 It has occurred to me that it would be useful for someone to explain exactly how "preferences" work. Each of the eight functions is used by each of the 16 personality types on a quotidian basis; it would be helpful for someone to map out how preferences take shape. For any given personality type, how often is each function used? How does the strength of each function affect the frequency of use? How exactly do our weak functions lead us astray- that is, why do we listen? Can functions "combine" in an individual in order to further diversify perception and judgment? Research into such questions would improve the understanding of each function, and perhaps would eventually provide an answer to the question "What exactly is a function?". -- Two-Tone Thomas
C5 Jay bop rules -- Mufasa
C6 Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!You put the thoughts in my head into words. especially the point that we still do not have a complete understanding and that both Myers-Brigg and socionics create a more complete picture. All types have an important function in life. There isn't one more important or better than another, it is how we can come togeather and use them all to make life an interesting and satisfying adventure! Can you imagine saying that your hand was more important than your eye? Thanks for the information about the left brain right brain. Tyhe test that I have take on left brain right brain say that I use them both equally. I am an INXP in socionics, i always say I lean toward INTP because I am not very emotional and I love logic but fit both types fairly evenly. Do you have any information to give on X. Thanks sharing your Saturday night! -- Firstlite
C7 Holy sh*t I've been thinking along the same lines and I wasn't sure if other people were too and I came across this (and I'm high btw) and this is a chain of epiphanies -- Anonymous
C8 I think you have a great point here! Sensates aren't stupid. Sure, we intuitives tend to think we're smarter than sensates. Maybe it's because we tend to cluster with other intuitives and start talking amongst ourselves about how great intuition is. (At least, the extraverted intuitives. Maybe the introverted intuitives just come to that conclusion on their own.) Don't get me wrong- I don't think that we're full of shit to be saying that intuition is great. Where I think intuitives tend to be full of shit is in saying that sensing isn't great. Seriously, intuitives, we need to realize that we have strengths and weaknesses just like sensates. Think of your reaction when a sensate says that you're just making things up, or that your head is in the clouds. (Yes, some of them actually say such things, I assure you.) Realize that it's not so different from when you think that sensates don't really understand things, or that they're always lost in details. -- Anonymous
C9 highly ambitious at the end, but it's probably justified - success feeds off it's drive etc and i liked that puzzle analogy alot! i think it holds truth, coinciding with that other article found [somewhere] about mbti being the perspective from others, and socionics being the perspective from the self -- Th
C10 Agreed that Socionics and Myers-Briggs are complementary. I think i know what you mean by combining the two, namely to regard each as informative in its own way. To clarify what you said though, and what I feel very strongly about, is the two need to be kept as separate distinct entities. what each focuses on is different-MBTI focuses on the preferences of the individual, Socionics focuses on information processing in relating to other things/people. Thus the definitions of the functions in Socionics, while using the same notation as MBTI(Ni, Ne, Fi, Fe, Ti, Te, Si, Se), have a different spin to them. I feel that many MBTI followers, when they discover socionics, fall into the trap of thinking along MBTI lines about the socionics functions and types, and that not only causes mass confusion, it also runs the risk of assimilating socionics into MBTI and/or diminishes the credibility of socionics (e.g. people think their conflictors are their duals and vice versa; or they are trying to convert their MBTI type to socionics by some formula and it's giving them inconsistent results, and in both cases they're like whoa socionics is BS, i've seen such comments repeatedly on the typologycentral forum). -- sjy
C11 C10 is ENFp? or INFj? -- Anonymous
C12 I think i'm ENFp, but there's a 5% chance i'm INFj. Good guess!! -- sjy
C13 Haha, this article is hilarious. As somebody who is much more interested in how my own brain works, I tend to just pick and choose from what I agree with in both systems. In that sense, I probably get more from MBTI, though socionics is interesting too and does help me see how others interact with each other. Neither system has all the answers, that's for sure, but both have many answers. -- Anonymous
C14 to A2 another link about functions and brain hemisperes is http://player2000gi.host-ed.net/jungian_functions.htm In a previous edition of this article they had: left hemisphere Si, Ni and T; right hemisphere Se, Ne and F -- piccolo_michel
C15 The problem with labeling personality type with brain hemispheres is that there has been scientific tests that determined that the left and right are used simultaneously without one being used more than the other. So it proves that preference for ways of thinking(personality types) have nothing to do with brain hemispheres. -- Anonymous
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