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Integral types


One fascinating application of socionics that was developed after Aushra Augusta formulated the basic principles of socionics is the concept of 'integral types' of groups, organizations, and nations. The idea is that stable groups of any size tend to take on distinct characteristics of socionic types:

  • certain aspects of reality are freely discussed in all their complexity, while others are avoided or carefully restricted
  • one information element becomes the dominant "common language" of the group; convincing arguments are phrased in this language and group members revert to this language when making contact with new group members or people they don't know within the group
  • the group takes on behavioral patterns typical of a certain socionic type with its inherent strengths and weaknesses

Stable groups with integral types — especially one's nationality, occupation, and practiced religion — powerfully affect individual self-identity and behavior, creating additional layers of complexity and unconscious mechanisms in people besides their own socionic type. One can come to an awareness of these layers within oneself only by stepping outside one's group and experiencing first-hand the complexity of alternate groups. When people contemplate alternate integral groups from within the sturdy walls of their own, they tend to simplify these other groups and find a multitude of ways their own group is inherently "better" than its competitors. Group identity exerts an incredible influence on individual identity, behavior, and decision-making, and socionics provides a prism to help see the main characteristics of these groups.

From outside such groups, it appears that members of the group all have common characteristics and that a certain information element is "accented" in each of them. In the case of national identity, this "accent" can be so great that people in a certain country all seem to have the same socionic type! It takes visitors several days or longer to tune in to this all-encompassing integral type and begin to recognize the same range of individual types and characteristics that exists in their own country.

Learn about ethnosocionics and the integral types of nations.