Socionics Blog

October 2006

Which criticism hurts

At some point lackluster definitions like the following need to be much better formulated (adapted from forum):

"Your role function never wants to stand out. You always try to go with the normal social behavior in this function, because you are unsure of it. You do not like criticism in this function therefore you won't give it."

"The place of least resistance is your weakest function. It makes you uncomfortable, and can be tied to certain personality problems you have. You won't make an issue about this function, in fact you try to avoid it. Criticism in this point is felt the worst."

What specifically about "it" is uncomfortable? Do you just go around feeling uncomfortable because your place of least resistance is showing? What if someone praises "it?" What if you are given a portion of information corresponding to your 4th function element that matches your own views?

What exactly is "criticism of a function?" People talk about these things as if everyone else intuitively knows what is meant. Take, for instance, the phrase "stop criticizing my ."

These things need to be carefully defined somewhere. For example: "Stop criticizing my " = "Stop criticizing the aspect of my being," etc. And then we need to know what exactly the " aspect of one's being" is (and definitely does not equal "the ability to be on time!"). The "Semantics of the Information Elements" provides the best starting point currently available.

Obviously, if other people attack or threaten any part of you, it will be unpleasant. Different kinds of threats will evoke different results, e.g. backing down, self-doubt, aggressive counter-attacks, etc. But the nature of the reaction changes with age, with life experience, and with the person's state of mind, so it cannot be reduced to type alone.

Situations where people's central qualities (as they perceive them) are misjudged and not given the right of expression generally provoke the most antagonistic responses. Perhaps ironically, this centers around the base function.

What to criticize:

If you want war, attack a person's base function, or, to be more precise, the person's most noteworthy and outstanding qualities. They will never withdraw from the battle unless they have won.

If you want to disable a person, wear them down, and make them self-conscious and unsure of themselves, attack their Super-Ego, or, to be more precise, any masks that they try to wear to meet what they think people expect of them.

If you want to wake a person up and get them to ask for your help and advice, criticize their Super-Id, or the aspects of themselves that they don't even try consciously to maintain (which are thus not particulary tied up in their self-identity).

Personality accentuations and type

There are many different kinds of psychopathology, or mental illness. I'm not at all an expert on any of them, but there is a definite relationship between personality accentuation and type. If you take the strongest qualities of an individual and allow them to engulf the person's life unhindered, you will get a mild form of mental illness called an accentuation (again, I'm not an expert, so my definitions here are not authoritative). The person's proper, "healthy" functioning will be disrupted, and they will experience psychological distress but will be mostly powerless to alleviate the situation.

For example, we see a tendency for types to slide into lives of gluttony, sexual conquest, and pathological materialism and conquest. We see a tendency for types to eternally be "on the road" to somewhere else and never settle down to build material assets of any kind. types are sometimes subject to narcissistic self-adoration and can become slaves to others' worshipful attitude of them. types have a tendency toward pathological self-sacrifice. types have a tendency to become slaves to self-enjoyment. types have a tendency to want to control everything around them and submit it to their ideas of correctness. These are the ones I have specifically observed.

You might say that if a person slides down his own "path of least resistance" without anyone or anything along the way to keep him in check, he can end up enslaved by a base function accentuation. Fun, huh? :-)