The Differentiation of the Psyche

The concept of differentiation of the psyche is at the foundation of socionics. It is an easily observable fact that different people's attention is consistently focused on different aspects of the world around us. The concept of information elements, or facets of reality, is an attempt to separate information about the world around us into different "streams." Different people focus on different streams of information in their thinking and communication with others. Some streams they keep track of on continuously and gather more information about than they need for personal use; thus, they are compelled to convey it to other people and help orient them in this particular information stream. Other streams they regularly ignore and gather information about only in times of crisis. In these areas they are dependent on others to supply them with the right kind of information at the right time to avert crises and remain competitive in the world around them.

Thus, we can say that each psyche has a vector — a particular direction or emphasis. A non-differentiated psyche would be like an amoeba; there would be no motivation to consistently pursue any social or behavioral niches or cooperation with specific individuals. People's behavior, relationships, and paths in life would be completely determined by behavioristic factors without any stable underlying preferences. However, we know that people differ widely in the strength of various needs, and that the priority of many of these needs changes little over a person's lifetime. Variation in the level of various needs ensures that individuals will seek out different societal niches to fill their differing needs, rather than all behaving identically.

Needs and perception

Needs are closely related to perception of various information streams. An unusually powerful need of some kind implies that one's awareness is constantly riveted to all things that might potentially be able to fill that need. One studies and thinks about these things more than most other people do.

Can all possible varieties of need structures and perceptual emphases be summarized in just 16 socionic types? Of course not. The patterns of needs and perception described by socionics are very general and abstract. The patterns described must be general enough to remain true throughout a person's entire lifespan, regardless of what choices a person makes in his lifetime. Otherwise, we would end up with a typology of temporary perceptual emphases.

Here's my attempt* to briefly summarize the very general needs that might be associated with the information elements:

	the need to increase one's potential
	the need to assert oneself territorially
	the need to produce
	the need to experience emotional contact with people
	the need to be a part of something meaningful
	the need for physical and psychological enjoyment
	the need to have one's place and belong
	the need to feel needed by others

*This list, while intriguing, is too abstract to be of practical use in typing people — so don't try. But do note its relation to the "spiritual type programs."

Each of these needs implies a certain kind of perception. Each person pays more attention to information that might help fill one's more prominent needs and less attention to information related to less important needs. For example, a type would pay lots of attention to information about new areas of knowledge, new opportunities, trends around him, and potentially useful contacts. A type would pay plenty of attention to any signals that could help him expand his territory. This could include signals about poorly managed territory around him, and any chances to take immediate action and sieze an important opportunity. And so on.

Socionics and comparative advantages

Observation reveals an interesting phenomenon. People gladly relinquish responsibility for filling their secondary needs as soon as someone else demonstrates the willingness to watch out for these needs for them. As soon as they are given the chance, people tend to devote themselves wholly to satisfying their primary need and to taking care of this need in other people. As soon as someone demonstrates a readiness to manage a type's -related needs, he devotes himself fully to serving his needs and the -related needs of those around him.

The "math" behind this phenomenon comes from the economics concept of comparative advantage, which demonstrates how two or more trading partners can generate more goods by specializing in the good they have a comparative advantage with and trading it for the other goods, than if each party produced the necessary amount of each good independently for their personal consumption. Essentially, each individual has a socionic comparative advantage in the production of a certain kind of psychological good. Each person is able to produce all psychological goods in limited amounts, but given the chance, he will gladly devote himself to producing just a few of these goods that he is best at.

Psychic lopsidedness and it's implications

Below is an attempt at a pictoral representation of an SLI's "psychic vector." More attention and development is given to the strong functions (to the right of the axis) — sensing and logic, while intuition and ethics (to the left) are directed at serving the strong functions. The "point," or agenda, of most things an SLI does and says is to achieve "pure " — essentially, to submit all other considerations to the need for physical and psychological enjoyment and comfort. Other people tune into the SLI's vector unconsciously over the course of the first few interactions and begin to respond to this person in different ways, largely depending on the role of -related needs in their own psychological structure. Some types may find themselves annoyed by the "points" the SLI keeps trying to make that are related to the idea of " above all else."

The context where an SLI tries to achieve his goal of "pure " for himself and for others is — everything production-related — basically all manner of goal-oriented actions and ways of doing things. In doing so he tries to limit the effect of and -related needs.

Creative and normative needs
Strong ("creative") needs require lots of elbow room. They tend to acquire a higher and higher level of complexity (and clarity) over time and demand freedom to satisfy these needs in creative ways. Weak ("normative") needs cease to trouble the individual when the satisfaction of these needs is turned into an automatic process. There are also significant differences in the socionics-related needs of the mental and vital tracks, but I won't go into that here. The important idea is to realize that in devoting its attention to one area of reality in order to fill one set of needs, the psyche strives to automate the satisfaction of other needs.

This principle is easy to see in ordinary life. Imagine wholly devoting yourself to intellectual pursuits. The natural desire would be to turn your physical needs over to someone else who would feed you and take care of you on schedule. Or imagine wholly devoting yourself to painting. In order to stop worrying about everything else and give yourself completely to your work, you would need to have someone else manage your external contacts, obtain materials for you, and sell your works. To devote yourself completely to production-related pursuits, you would need to have someone consistently take care of your emotional needs from day to day. And so forth. Such is the nature of creative and normative needs.

This is an important topic and I don't feel I've finished it yet ... 4/10/2006

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08/10/2006 UDP
GREAT ARTICLE, all of it. Tremendous food for thought. Can't wait to see the further progressions of it.