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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 ... of this common need that personality type theory finds itself where it is today: a merging of paths, a point at which ambiguity fades and clarity ensues. But until we may reach that perfect point of complete understanding, there are a few messes that need to be cleaned up: namely, specifically, MBTI and Socionics need to unite. Each, it seems, has one half of the puzzle.
Myers-Briggs typology, with its focus on the individual, has reached a greater understanding of the individual functions. For example, researchers now know that Introverted Perception and Extraverted Judgment activate on the same side of the brain: the left side (hence the "J" designation- ever done any right brain/left brain tests?). Extraverted Perception and Introverted Judgment activate on the right side (the "P" designation). Also, it seems that MBTI has a much more comprehensive definition to offer when it comes down to the fundamental questions that every personality type junkie has asked at one point: What is the difference between Sensation and Intuition? Thinking and Feeling? What exactly *are* the functions, and what do they mean?
Socionics, on the other hand, has evolved from the highly valuable concept of the broad scale of personality type- society- and offered us a much needed set of relations between types. Thanks to Socionics, we can start to understand the way we relate, we can predict the outcome of relationships and we can augment our awareness of the world around us. No longer do we have to scream and scream at certain people to be heard (or, at least, we no longer expect a result). We can introduce decision and finality to our circumstances (for Perceiving types) and we can make room for understanding and awareness (for Judging types). Let's not forget about that invaluable tool of self-diagnosis, the Socionics Type Assistant, for which the author of this article will remain eternally grateful. But despite these miraculous breakthroughs in psychology, much is still left to be desired.
Ironically, the question "Who am I?", to which personality type owes its entire existence, has still been left unanswered for an eerily large amount of people. The question board is full of uncertainty, ambiguity, squabbling and difference of opinion. We don't seem to argue whether or not 2 + 2 = 4 (unless you're a philosophy student, in which case you probably aren't looking for *any* answers), so why do we argue what Extraverted Thinking is? What shape Extraverted Intuition takes? And, most importantly, why can't we Socionicists come up with a half-decent definition for the eight basic functions?
I direct the attention of the reader to Wikipedia's article on Socionics:
Extroverts
* Extroverted thinking is responsible for efficiency of actions, understanding of technological processes, the organization of work.
* Extroverted feeling is responsible for perception of an emotional condition of the person, expression of emotions, management of an emotional condition of people.
* Extroverted intuition is responsible for understanding of essence of the phenomena and processes, an estimation of potential opportunities of people and the phenomena, vision of variants of succession of events.
* Extroverted sensing is responsible for perception of space, appearance and the form of subjects, an estimation of an alignment of forces, strong-willed and power methods of achievement of the purpose.
Introverts
* Introverted thinking is responsible for understanding of logic communications and structures, classification, ordering, the analysis, logic explanations and proofs.
* Introverted ethics is responsible for understanding of mutual relations between people, skill to build attitudes, a moral and moral estimation, aspiration to humanism.
* Introverted intuition is responsible for an estimation of time, timeliness of actions, understanding of a course of processes in time, forecasting.
* Introverted sensing is responsible for perception of physical sensations, questions of comfort and a cosiness, pleasure.
So, if you're an Extraverted Intuiter, you're psychic. If you're an Introverted Sensate, you know how to make yourself comfortable. And if you're an Introverted Intuiter... you know how to tell time. Oh, and you can predict the future. How can anyone take this seriously? How can anyone claim this is a *science*? No wonder there's such a massive population of Intuitives on this website- we're being told we know *everything*! We should be ashamed of our inexcusable misrepresentation of Sensates. And I'm sure that a great deal of us already are.
Socionicists, step up to the dilemma. Take a note from Myers-Briggs and seek first to understand every perspective before dealing with stereotypes and generalizations. We are at a point in time where Socionics has the potential to be incredible. To help society ease conflict in practically every area of life. Perhaps, even, to take an evolutionary step in human understanding and rise above petty fighting once and for all. In my mind, that's a step worth taking.
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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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