Socionics Blog

August 2006

Comments on Augusta's The Dual Nature of Man

Aushra Augusta's introductory works on socionics all have a certain naiveté to them. Perhaps Augusta's initial lack of appreciation for the complexities of human relationships is what enabled her to make her discoveries and articulate her typology in the first place.

In the beginning of The Dual Nature of Man Augusta talks about passionate, or "erotic" love as a stable phenomena, implying that it happens only between certain types of people. In actuality the phenomena she describes are more typical of the infatuation period of love than they are of psychologically "complementary" relationships, in my opinion. I think we can forgive this and many other half-correct assumptions she makes if we keep sight of the underlying principles she uncovers that are indeed ingenious.

In addition, Augusta often makes sloppy jumps of reasoning without explaining herself fully. For example:

Seeing that personality type differences are equivalent to differences in the interchange of information signals with one's surroundings, we shall call personality types "information metabolism types" — in short, IM types. [The Dual Nature of Man]

Augusta does not explain the first statement — how personality is connected to differences in "information interchange."

"Visual identification" distortion

I have written before (in an article and in the blog) on the potential dangers of relying too heavily on photographs to determine people's types — especially famous people, where there is a wealth of biographical and analytical information available that makes the task of identifying type easier. My next object of criticism is the "Vilnius School of Socionics," whose site can be viewed in English by using an online translator. I am not the first to criticize this school for straying far from the socionics mainstream, but after reviewing their forum I see a negative pattern similar to "the typologist," whom I have commented on here. Here is the pattern:

• Visual diagnosis is seen as being the most authoritative diagnosis method, yet no consensus is ever reached.
• Participants do not discuss their direct impressions of photographs, but skip immediately to discussing socionic types and dichotomies.
• People attach facial features to socionic traits.
• The methods, goals, personalities, or relationships of famous people are hardly taken into consideration in online typing. This removes the only existing "quality control criteria" in socionics.

This approach to a typology of information metabolism or relationships is a dead end. It leads very subtly to a whole different perception of socionics that goes something like this:

Socionic type is a hidden phenomenon that can be discovered only by using "special" hidden (mystical, intuitive, indirect, etc.) means.

This route leads away from the fundamental principles of socionics and puts a mystical twist (in the negative sense of the word) on socionics that detracts from its ability to describe people and relationships accurately. By severing the link of types to psychological and interpersonal facts (what I call the quality control criteria), the "visual only" approach to socionic type inevitably drifts in random directions as people's visual typing stereotypes perpetuate themselves together with any "typing holes" or mistakes the socionist may have had.

Intratype versus intertype variation

I'm sure each of us has had enough contact with dogs to notice that different breeds have noticeably different temperaments. Some breeds are "cute" and "adorable" while others are "aggressive" and "easily provoked." Nonetheless, research has shown that temperament and personality characteristics within each breed differ more widely than between breeds. In other words, dogs of one breed differ more among themselves in their personality characteristics than do the breeds themselves. To illustrate, look at the visual below.

Here we see that the standard variation of the data set at bottom is greater than that of the data on top. Sometimes this is startling to realize at first. This phenomenon, I am convinced, is nearly universal in the biological world and has interesting implications. Women differ considerably more among themselves in physical strength, math skills, frequency of crying, and cooking skills than do women as a whole differ from men in these areas. Italians differ more among themselves in their frequency of gesticulation than the average Italian differs from the average Finn. Likewise, people of a single socionic type vary more among themselves than do the "average" representatives of each socionic type.

Some semi-related philosophical reflections...

In the process of categorizing people by some qualitative criterion (such as gender, ethnicity, or socionic trait), we almost always overestimate their homogenuity (i.e. underestimate their diversity) and exaggerate the differences between different categories of people. This is the essence of stereotypes. By categorizing we economize on brain space and increase our reaction speed to stimuli from known categories. This is efficient when we are dealing with the subject from without. However, when you deal more closely with individuals — not groups of individuals — these categories can get in the way of establishing genuine person-to-person contact. This is a possible negative flipside of all personality typologies, including socionics.

When learning about socionics, one's understanding leaps ahead, but the ability to experience meaningful contact with people sometimes lags behind. The solution is to remain vigilant and cultivate your critical thinking skills (remember, critical thinking and cynicism are not the same thing) and a healthy skepticism rather than accept the typology as infallible doctrine. It's hard. You have to have some higher principle or interest than socionics to keep you from "succumbing" to socionics as a sole guiding ideology and end-in-itself. This higher interest will keep you open to new angles and new experience as you work your way through socionics. Even so, you will still find yourself oversimplifying people (well, at least for a while), and many enthusiasts are drawn to spend time more and more with other socionics fans like themselves and let other friendships weaken, often creating a sort of sect-like atmosphere of "those who speak our special jargon." Of course, the same is true and often much more true of the many other psychology, religious, and political ideologies out there. Alas, giving up our own "pure" perception to various idea systems which are at best simply approximations of reality, and letting them mold our perception is a basic fact of life.