Socionics Blog

December 2006

This blog is moving

This will be the last blog post in this location. From now on all blog entries will be at a separate location — http://socionist.blogspot.com/. This will allow for more blog activity and more productive discussion between blog readers.

Discerning the leading function's "point"

Recently I have begun using Google videos as a source of socionics-related observations about the famous people I have already typed. I have found them a tremendous source of insight and have been impressed to find many people to be pretty much exactly as I envisioned them to be without having seen any video materials. So far the videos have confirmed my typings and have produced many new arguments for people's types — except for one exception: Quentin Tarantino. A brief look at an interview of his showed clearly that he is not SLE as I had typed him previously. Anyways...

When people talk in interviews, often much of what they say carries no strong information message that can be unequivocally related to a certain function. However, in each interview people try to make certain points that are important to them and that best convey who they are to the interviewer and the audience. They want to be heard and to be judged accurately, and to place a certain emphasis on their life, achievements, and personality.

When the person being interviewed gets around to these "main points" that are central to his identity and being, he adopts a robust, earnest tone of voice. These are the things he feels strongly and confidently about, is not self-conscious about, and feels are most important for a proper understanding of the situation. This is the center of gravity of his psychic makeup. At these moments it is not difficult to tell which information element is being emphasized based on the semantics of the information elements.

The rest of the time, when people are talking about things that seem to be related to other information elements, their speaking style is calm and uninvolved, and they speak of the topic in a sort of offhand way, as if they are emphasizing its comparitive lack of importance. Often good interviewers with a biographical or psychological bent (especially IEEs, who seem most interested in getting people to display the entirety of their personality) look around for these "main points" that the interviewee is passionate about. Because these moments are naturally the most interesting to viewers (since the "quality" of information at these moments is the greatest).

Here are some notes on what different types are passionate about and talk about in a robust and forceful way:

SLE: their readiness to take on a challenge
IEE: their insights on people and social phenomena
SEI: their ability to find joy in life's simple things
ESE: their activities that bring them joy

Mutations in socionic typology

One of the difficulties of socionics is that one keeps encountering different "strains" of the typology. In the Russian speaking socionics world, one can get the impression that there is no consensus on how to define the types, and that everyone types as he or she pleases. This was my impression as well until I came across the celebrity benchmark project that convinced me of the existence of a socionics "mainstream," as well as the fact that I was securely in that mainstream myself, since I found I could agree with the vast majority of the types in the celebrity benchmark list. Until this moment I was not completely sure of my belonging to the "mainstream," since I had personally experienced a number of more peripheral groups and tried in vain to correct their mistakes, and had had less direct contact with mainstream socionists.

Mainstream socionics
Mainstream socionics stems from the works of Aushra Augusta and from the more popular and widely used socionics materials available on the Internet. Many or most of the widely recognized, publishing socionists belong to the mainstream and have similar ideas about what constitutes socionic type. They can provide argumentation regarding someone's type that will make sense to other members of the mainstream based on a more or less common understanding of functions, information elements, the socionic model, and anecdotal type traits that "everybody knows."

The typings of mainstream socionists have the greatest chance of providing a satisfying, accurate view of intertype relations, since the concepts used were developed with this end in mind. There is an understanding that typings that imply intertype relations that do not accurately reflect actual interpersonal dynamics must be questioned.

Socionic splinter groups
Adherents of socionic splinter groups usually do not recognize themselves as such, but think they are studying "standard" socionics. However, due to the fact that they see types differently than other groups, they tend to have more problems finding a common language with other socionics fans than those who have studied mainstream socionics. As a result, they tend to have serious socionics discussions only with people from their "splinter group."

These splinter groups usually focus on some specific layer of the personality or on some innovation implemented by the group founder (e.g. a specific visual identification method, a specific temperament system that relates types to different temparaments, etc.) to the detriment of the whole, resulting in a typology that is less able to accurately predict intertype interaction. When this is the case, the leader consistently gives less attention to relationships, and followers tend to see intertype relations as "flexible" or even irrelevant to the typology, or significantly revise their descriptions of the relations to better fit their typings.

Where splinter groups come from
Perhaps the most common source of splinter groups are charismatic individuals who have identified their own type incorrectly. In order to support their own self-concept — an integral part of which is their own incorrectly identified socionic type — they distort socionic concepts in numerous subtle ways. Almost invariably, in their instruction and formulations they no longer emphasize functions and information elements — the building blocks of socionics — but instead talk about general personality traits, creating a typological system based on type descriptions and type anecdotes specific to their school.

The other common source of splinter groups are charismatic socionists who create new theoretical constructions based not on people and interaction, but on the theoretical possibilities of the socionic model or their own hobby topics that they somehow manage to relate to socionics. In these cases, the socionists become convinced of the "truth" of their new theoretical innovation and bend reality to make it fit their ideas. This can involve anything from insisting on the equivalence of socionic and astrological typologies to adding subtype divisions or other complications to the original theory and giving them more emphasis than the type itself.

There are many people with strange ideas about socionics, but splinter groups only form where there is a charismatic leader who is able to make others accept his views on a large scale.

The state of socionics in the West
It is too early to speak of socionic splinter groups in the West. Some of the early sources of information in English actually reflected peripheral approaches or the personal inventions of their authors and have caused much confusion — until it eventually became clear that these writings were not reflective of "mainstream" socionics. I see my own role in helping to establish a viable, mainstream socionics community that understands and applies fundamental socionic concepts, generates typings that "work" (i.e. provide accurate, useful descriptions of interaction), and speaks the same theoretical language as the mainstream Russian-speaking socionics community.

I am consistently surprised to find people who have never spoken to socionists in real life, yet seem to have a completely accurate understanding of types and the central socionic theory. Somehow they managed to pick up on to the main ideas of socionics and successfully relate the information they found on the web to their real-life experience. The relationships they observe around them correlate well to the intertype relations of socionics. Whether they realize it or not, these people are part of the socionics mainstream and will have the fewest problems talking about socionics to people from across the globe whom they've never met before.

Extraverted and introverted ethics at the group level

I recently went on a three-day camping trip with a busload of people. The organizational aspects of our trip were not well elucidated, and most group members had little idea where we were going, what we would be doing there, how our time would be organized, etc. In short, information was subdued and not widely circulated on a group level. At the same time, group communication was full of — emotional, often loud joking behavior with voice modulations, active emotional involvement, fun-oriented drinking, and artistism. This seemed to be the main purpose of the entire trip. This state of mind implies the inclusion of most or all group members in large gatherings around the fire where everyone is involved in the fun group experience.

Early on the second day, a small group of three of us broke away from the late-rising and hung-over group to pursue a physically rigorous route through the mountains. As it happened, each of us was emotionally subdued and focused on the task itself, with hardly any emphasis on group expression. Our focus was highly practical and task oriented, with just a tiny bit of group emotion at dinner inside the tent. While hiking, we did not all stick together to chat and tell jokes all the time, but often walked in silence, focusing on the individual hiking experience. When we did talk while hiking, we mostly shared impressions of the beauty around us and our individual sensations. On the whole, our information focus seemed to be and , with subdued and — a sharp contrast to the rest of the group, which was by comparison oversized, hopelessly disorganized, and lacking in leadership, yet offering far more opportunities for emotional expression and emotional contact with other group members.

In the bus on the way home with the rest of the group, with no more tasks to perform, the information emphasis switched back again from logic to ethics. Since many participants had made new friends during the trip, many of them split up into small groups of 2-3 people to chat on more specialized topics of interest. The emphasis was beginning to grow. Also, the main instigator was fast asleep after having made the rounds through the bus with an improvised Orthodox "eucharist" involving spoonfuls of beet salad instead of bread and wine that he loudly and expressively fed to everyone on the bus.

At the back of the bus, where there was more open area, there was still a high concentration of group expression. As soon as someone would begin to talk about some individual topic that didn't involve the whole group, one or two other people would show disapproval and either leave or try to break up the conversation with things that would involve the whole group. As a representative of the world view, I found myself frequently irritated by the group communication pattern. I kept wanting to break up the group and somehow get rid of the people I disliked and talk only to those I shared common sentiments with. This is typical SEE and IEE behavior — they feel they have the right to break up groups as they see fit in order to create more cohesive groups with shared sentiments and interests.

on the group level
In groups with free circulation of , group members freely share their personal sentiments (personal likes and dislikes, personally meaningful experiences, etc.) and gravitate towards others who express similar sentiments. This results in the group frequently breaking up into small groups of 2-3 (more rarely 4) people that redissolve back into the greater group as soon as the small group discussion has taken its due course and reached a conclusion. Groups form and reform in different combinations again and again according to personal sentiment. People rarely laugh loudly, because that would unintentionally involve people from other small groups.

on the group level
In groups with free circulation of , participants rarely share their personal sentiments, but focus instead on externally visible expression such as telling funny stories, making loud comments, and trying to say everything in an emotionally expressive and creative manner. There is usually just one large group that people can join and leave as they see fit, and the group has the tendency to grow ever larger and include more and more people in its orbit by moving tables together, sharing food and drinks, and directing group attention at people hanging around the edges who might be feeling left out. Often these group sessions can last for hours and hours until the last diehards finally go to bed, thoroughly exhausted.