Limitations of Socionics

It is common for newcomers to socionics to quickly become enthralled with all the new information in socionics — theories, type and relationship descriptions, and news ways of looking at old subjects. It is normal to go through a period (from several months to several years) where you come to identify more and more with a certain type (hopefully your correct type!), reading all you can about the type and finding reflections of it in more and more areas of your external and internal life. During this stage people often apply socionics to everything imaginable, trying to see how far they can extend its limits. Luckily, socionics is not a cult, and socionics neophytes use this zeal as they see fit, eventually coming (hopefully!) to a mature understanding of people and relationships that includes but is not limited to socionics.

Limitations of Type

Socionic type is a description of the relative strength and role of different kinds of mental processes, or "functions." These functions process information coming from the outside world and from within the individual.

Each individual type model does not translate well into specific behavioral acts — for instance, how one ties one's shoes or what one says and does in response to certain offences. These things depends as much on upbringing, imitation, positive and negative reinforcement, and on family and community values, as they do on socionic type. Even so, there are moments when someone does or says something that exactly matches someone else you know of the same type, causing a sort of "eureka!" experience. However, if we base our understanding of socionic types on changeable outward behavior, we will never "get the picture," and will constantly be thrown off by people who are "supposed" to behave differently according to our ideas of their type.

The chart below gives an idea of the range of variables aside from socionic type that influence personality, behavior, and people's choice of path in life. It is not meant to be exhaustive.

When we look at those who have achieved a high level of mastery of any skill — whether physical, mental, verbal, or social — we find people of many different socionic types. This seems to be especially true of children and adolescents who are trained and monitored closely by adults. Later in life people tend to gravitate more to occupations that reflect their type mindset, but a mixture of different types is still present in any field of activity that you look at (see celebrity benchmark list).

I am not trying to discourage those seeking to discover and 'explain' themselves through socionics. I simply want to show that socionics is not the only thing that defines personality, skills, and behavior. It is normal to focus on socionic factors alone while studying socionics, but one should not forget about these other important areas and their influence on people's traits and behavior.

In addition to inborn traits, each person represents a conglomeration of different subcultures (family, relatives, occupation, religion, nationality, etc.), many of which have their own "integral type" structure. These groups strongly influence the behavior and values of their members. It can sometimes be difficult to separate group characteristics from individual traits. However, socionic type characteristics go deeper than group mentality and values, which helps in type identification.

Limitations of Intertype Relations

Socionic intertype relations describe the nature of information interchange between individuals. Because the socionic types respond differently to different kinds of information, one's relationships with different socionic types develop in different ways. The closer the psychological distance, the more evident intertype relations become. At the same time, once one is thoroughly "engulfed" in a relationship, it can be hard to objectively describe what is going on. My experience shows that usually by the fifth meeting (when people interact alone for at least 10 or 15 minutes) people "tune in" unconsciously to each other's socionic type, and their pattern of information interchange solidifies into a recognizable intertype relationship. From this point on the underlying information interchange changes little, even though the relationship continues to evolve and partners' outward behavior changes.

Just as there are many other factors affecting behavior, talents, and social roles besides socionic type, there are many factors that affect relationships besides intertype relationships:

• parent-child relationships: these relationships are for survival, nurturing, and upbringing and not so much for "psychological fulfillment," and there is a lot that goes on that has little to do with socionic types, though types definitely play a large role in these relationships.
• status in hierarchies: lines of command do not allow informal, spontaneous interaction to develop among people of different status in the hierarchy. For example, dual relations are not likely to develop completely if one partner is the other's boss.
• age differences: people who you might compete with socially if they were the same age as you can become 'teachers' or 'students' for you if they are significantly older or younger.
• shared interests and views: shared interests and views can make even the "worst" intertype relations interesting for a while — until you grow tired of the other person constantly emphasizing things that you don't care about and simply "acting strange." These same intertype relations could be disastrous if the other person had completely different views and values. Even duals who have completely different interests are largely indifferent to each other at first, because there is no way to connect to each other.
• social background: this factor is similar to shared interests and views. Athletes will relate better to other athletes and worse to people from vastly different subcultures. Different groups have different values and life philosophies. Relationships between individuals of different social backgrounds who have conflicting values can be especially difficult.
• inherent non-socionic psycho-physiological traits: innate non-socionic traits can influence intertype relations to a certain degree by making partners more or less attractive to each other.
• partners' current emotional and psychological state: people with emotional problems require ideal conditions to form healthy, stable relationships, while people who are emotionally balanced and "dualized" usually find the right psychological distance for each relationship.
• group-based relationships: strong group friendships tend to mask the role of intertype relations between group members. The common group language and traditions make it harder to distinguish between favorable and unfavorable intertype relations; interpersonal relationships seem to meld into a single group relationship. Even when two people from the group meet separately, they relate to each other through the group lens and not as distinct individuals (at least at first).
• love or infatuation: erotic feelings or infatuation powerfully affects brain chemistry, hiding many effects of intertype relations. Usually this period lasts a few months to a year (if it happens at all). During this period partners tend to project all sorts of complementary qualities onto each other. Dual couples are generally in the best position to avoid disillusionment further on because their projections are more or less accurate.

With all these "limiting factors," it might be surprising that relationships follow the intertype relation patterns at all! And yet they do to a very large extent, despite all the additional layers added by the factors listed above.

For a further discussion of compatibility and the traits that influence it, visit my article on complementary and resonatory traits in compatible relationships.