Merry and serious

From Wikisocion

Merry / Serious is one of the 15 Reinin dichotomies.

[edit] Merry and serious types

• Merry types are all Alpha and Beta types, namely, LII, ESE, SEI, ILE, LSI, EIE, IEI, SLE.
• Serious types are all Gamma and Delta types, namely, ESI, LIE, ILI, SEE, EII, LSE, SLI, IEE.

[edit] Theoretical properties of merry and serious types

• Merry types have     and     as quadra values, hence Alpha or Beta.
• Serious types have     and     as quadra values, hence Gamma or Delta.

[edit] Typical characteristics

[edit] Merry

Represented here as "cheerful" and "subjectivist"

1. Cheerful are very good at noticing the general emotional background that accompanies contact with people (For example: enthusiasm, fun, stress and so on). Fun (And probably every other emotional experience) for them is allocated into a separate aspect of an activity (They can, for example, to a question on what they were doing answer: "We had fun" – the emotional aspect of the action is allocated)

2. Cheerful does not perceive "getting to know somebody" as a special kind of activity (in contrast to the serious, for which it is a form of ritual). They know/realize very well why they are getting acquainted (the purpose of this acquaintance – interest, business and so on). In contrast to the serious they do not divide the process of acquainting into consecutive stages. They can immediately establish/determine emotional distance in contact and adapt/regulate it. They overcome boundaries between them and strangers by emotional incandescence (It can either bring them together or move them apart). The "name" behind the person is of secondary relevance, interest is on the person, relations are paramount and so on – therefore they do not count formality as a necessary part of acquaintance.

3. The subjectivist, in contrast to the objectivist, is not inclined to deduce/derive "objectively accurate" laws and regularities (Summarizing/generalizing for this purpose their experiences and those of other people). Instead assumes that other people have different criteria, different views, therefore defines/treats another's actions as either accurate or incorrect, necessarily doing it with a "subjective" determining factors – evaluates in accordance to a personal system, "their system", actions, intentions and so on. Subjectivist are inclined to propose (Or to impose) not the "correct way" or some other way to do things – but general concepts on how to perform actions i.e. they do not say "Do it this way!" they say "Look at it this way!". They do not consider, in contrast to the objectivist, that in every situation there exists only one "objectively correct/true" way of doing something – in any situation, in their opinion, there are many ways one can act, approach/view the situation. When they feel something was done in an inappropriate manner they will most likely ask: "What is this?" (In contrast to the objectivist who will most likely ask "Who did this?"). When they speak of optimality they speak of optimality within a framework of the concept, they use a subjective approach (Form the point of view of being more optimal compared to what). Therefore they attempt to contrast other people's views to their own and to explain their position (To verify concepts): "If it is like that them we shall do this, it is different – we'll do something else"

4. "Verification of concepts" - the general (common) phenomenon for subjectivists, it concerns not only the different was of acting/doing, but also concepts, terminology and so on. Subjectivists are in greater degree "adjusted" to the fact that different people have different meanings/understandings for same concepts, words and so on. The perceive the terminology (As well as actions of people) as a part of the subjective concept of different people – an extenuation of personal opinions, occupied positions, personal intention etc.: "So we have agreed that we shall name it this way". In contrast to he objectivist, who receives terminology as "objective", subjectivists understand the differences of terminologies (This concerns even well established terms) and they attempt to contrast them ("Well you say it is like that but I disagree")

5. Lexicon: when discussing actions and joint activities they use expressions like "Let me present my point of view" "According to my understanding" "personal criteria" "it matches accepted beliefs" "I have concluded" "they insisted" and so on. They in detail describe verbal communication – especially their part in it, their "interventions" in the conversations and what they were (Or were not).

[edit] Serious

Represented here as "serious" and "objectivist"

1. Serious are very bad at noticing the underlining emotional background, they do not perceive the emotional aspect of concepts/actions (for example "fun") separate from the concept/action itself and substitute them with their interpretations, concepts/words that have no direct emotional elements (Instead of the word "fun" they may use "entertainment", "leisure", "pleasure" and so on). They do not perceive the emotional exchange as a separate occurrence, they are inclined to mix it with other matters (They can have fun while working, when they are engaged in serious affairs, "just having fun")

2. For the serious acquainting with new people is represented by a special ritual necessary for rapprochement with them (If this ritual was not carried out them the serious does not consider themselves acquainted, for example: "We did not introduce ourselves"). In situations of acquaintance for the serious it is easier if the affinity of contact (Emotional distance) is set externally i.e. the degree of emotional distance will be set by some sort of "mediator" (Whether this be a person, situation or something other) which allows to skip the first stage of establishing emotional distance and begin closer dialogue/contact. For overcoming boundaries between them and other people serious create (or they use already existing) "rules" or "rituals" for the step by step rapprochement. They are aware of all the stages of the process of acquainting (When the status changes from "strangers" to acquaintances). For the rapprochement for the serious it is important to know the name, title, any other thing that describes this new person – therefore formal representation is a very important stage of acquainting.

3. In objectivists there is an idea of "objectively known facts", regularities, laws in general (common) experience; they consider that there exist "true in general", "always correct" laws. They suppose that other people can have their views, hold their position, but at the same time do not consider that any action can be viewed true or false depending on their point of view (This allows the existence of "objectively accurate" actions). Therefore from the point of view of the objectivists, actions can be different – subjective, determined by personal preferences and motives, and objective (Where there is only one "correct", "best" way to do something). Objectivists define actions as correct or incorrect contrasting them to their representation of what is "objectively correct". When they think that there is only one optimal solution, they are inclined to propose (Or impose) ways to accomplish an activity (Not propositions on how to accomplish an action like the subjectivist) which they think are the best: "No – you will do it "the correct way"". When speaking of optimality, they speak of optimality in general – "objective optimality" (they consider that they know the "correct", "best" ways of doing something). In joint activities they offer the "most effective" way of doing something. In disagreement they first "verify" concepts used, check whether the other person knows the concepts and terms "correctly".

4. In contrast to the subjectivists, they are not inclined of "verification of concepts". They assume that the terms, concepts have only one unique interpretation ("correct", "accurate" one) – often they do not think about the fact that the other person may be interpreting them differently within the framework of other concepts. They operate with concepts like "objective reality" like unequivocal facts, in such cases they do not attempt to "verify the concepts": "It refers to this". Thus in those cases they consider that they know a thing correctly, how it "really is" (The view certain pictures of the world as uniquely true): "You say it's like this while in reality is like this".

5. In description of actions or in discussion of joint activities instead of "explanatory" lexicon they give mass of examples (All "correct" and "incorrect" actions are based on examples)