The validity of Socionics

[Ephemeral]

Let's start with something. Something fairly big.

A friend pointed me to this site (and inherently, the theory) a while back. I had a read, self-typed myself as a few things before settling on SLI (though soon finding I felt some aspects of all 16 types were applicable to myself, though SLI just seemed the most) and calling that's that. However, after reading this forum a bit and further reading more about the nuances on the theory, I came to the VI part, which quite frankly made me laugh my socks off and simultaneously tossed out all validity Socionics has a whole.

I'm a skeptical person, sure. I always take things with a grain of salt and try to nail down the problems with something before I look at the rest and attempt to accept it. This however, is too much.

The first nail in the coffin was the VI aspect. The fact that you can actually claim to type somebody's personality and behavior traits through static shots of facial expressions is laughable beyond all comprehensible belief. This theory can join Hubbard and Scientology in the bullshit corner on that one. If you expect any reasonable person to accept such nonsense, you've got a few screws loose somewhere.

The second nail was the completely intra-personalized descriptions present on all of the sites I could find about the subject. All of them are marginally different from another, and none of them correlated between each other in the slightest. I found on one site I fitted best as an IEE, on another, an SLI, On another, a IEI. What? How does that make sense? I originally assumed it was a problem with me not being able to nail down certain aspects of my personality and behavior to paper, but as I read more and more sites concerning the subject it quickly became evident that it was not me who was the problem - it was the rampant bias this theory facilitates with it's highly personal characterizations written by individuals who likely have different views on what the separate personality traits represent.

The third nail was intuition. It came babbling along after the first two and promptly reminded me that you really cannot assign 16 types of personalty/reality interaction to every human being on this world properly without being discrepancies. Human interaction is too complex to be described by a mere 16 types, and even then, it's probably impossible to type a person to anything at all.

The fourth and final nail was this site. I read a sizable portion of recent threads on this forum and quickly saw a recurring theme - this theory acts as a 'filler' for people with prominent mental issues, further accredited to some two letter combination garbage that is applied by different people in different ways. "That's grade a Xx right there" is a prime example.

For me, this theory makes no sense. Infact, it's a load of garbage. I can't fathom why none of you here have looked into this more deeply and seen it. I wager a few people reading this post will even try and use the theory to affirm my behavior to one of the types. Quite frankly, I won't be surprised. This theory is the perfect escape for a person who can't approach the world and interact with it properly, by their own means. It acts as a dead-end stepping stone in a pool of acid. You'll jump on to it, float for a while, and realize as you get older just how far you've drifted away.

[Creepy-male]

Yup, that's grade-A Te right there.

[Ephemeral]

Yup, that's grade-A Te right there.

Sup

this is the friend in question btw

[Creepy-male]

That I am.

Wholly to blame with compulsively trying to type him every second of every day. I can see how it might wear thin.

Personally, I'd say IEE with repressed ego functions (since he falls into the self-dualizing pattern (and MAJOR RED FLAG WITH "I used to be an optimist")) or SLI (look at that demonstrative ! The entire OP was pretty much suggestive screaming MAKE IT CLEAR, at least imo (and we all know how new I am)).

[Ephemeral]

That I am.

Wholly to blame with compulsively trying to type him every second of every day. I can see how it might wear thin.

Personally, I'd say IEE with repressed ego functions (since he falls into the self-dualizing pattern (and MAJOR RED FLAG WITH "I used to be an optimist")) or SLI (look at that demonstrative ! The entire OP was pretty much suggestive screaming MAKE IT CLEAR, at least imo (and we all know how new I am)).

I am actually a purple rhombus with little cobalt blue polkadots

[Creepy-male]

I am actually a purple rhombus with little cobalt blue polkadots

I direct your attention here.

All should be made clear.

[Creepy-]

Hmm... some of what you've said is quite valid. Some is up for debate, which I'm sure someone else will address in a bit. In any event, you've typed a reasonably-long post, which makes me wonder whether you're skeptical but interested, or just registered to type it up because you were bored. Either way, welcome to the 16types forum.

[Creepy-male]

I don't disagree with the fact that this place is full of asocial individuals and SLEs.

Fixed.

[Steve]

The first nail in the coffin was the VI aspect. The fact that you can actually claim to type somebody's personality and behavior traits through static shots of facial expressions is laughable beyond all comprehensible belief. This theory can join Hubbard and Scientology in the bullshit corner on that one. If you expect any reasonable person to accept such nonsense, you've got a few screws loose somewhere.

Have you ever looked at a picture of someone and got a feeling of attraction or repulsion, like or dislike, or could even start to stereotype them in a certain way? Well that's kind of how VI works. The way you develop an abstract personal conception of a person based on the vibes they give off, is the same way you can look at a person and detect how similar they are to you and how your energy would mix with theirs, or how their energy would mix with other people you've typed. Through getting to know the theory and by typing enough people, you can develop a vibe for each type that you can intuitively pick up in a gestalt way.

[munenori2]

Have you ever looked at a picture of someone and got a feeling of attraction or repulsion, like or dislike, or could even start to stereotype them in a certain way? Well that's kind of how VI works. The way you develop an abstract personal conception of a person based on the vibes they give off, is the same way you can look at a person and detect how similar they are to you and how your energy would mix with theirs, or how their energy would mix with other people you've typed. Through getting to know the theory and by typing enough people, you can develop a vibe for each type that you can intuitively pick up in a gestalt way.

To be honest, descriptions like this probably won't add any credibility to the subject.

[Steve]

To be honest, descriptions like this probably won't add any credibility to the subject.

Well this isn't an empirical science, as there's no way to measure this stuff experimentally yet. So even the willingness to look into something like socionics requires a bit of an openness or leap of faith to begin with. The way things are discussed in socionics is abstract and based on internal phenomenon, so if Ephemeral is looking for concrete proof of the validity of this stuff, he ain't gonna find it. Establishing palpable criteria for typing people is for MBTI.

[munenori2]

I'm with you there on the empirical grounds. I was talking more about how your description is totally contained (at least in my opinion) to your own internal experience, which is fine for you VI'ing people but on the outside it seems difficult to relate or express anything meaningful to, say, someone questioning VI as a practical means of analysis. I can see what you're trying to say here, but for someone skeptical from the get go (and I'm only convinced of VI as a tool of particularly limited utility) talking about how the process feels on the inside to you probably won't pass muster. Not knocking how you go about it yourself, though I'll admit I've disagreed with a few of your conclusions before.

It just seems like it would be more effective, if you wanted to persuade him to be more open-minded of VI, to maybe allay some of the suspicions he appears to have about the specifics of VI and what it isn't, for example saying that the stuff about SEIs being short and rotund (I forget who added particular physical features to that one set of type descriptions, Ganin?) are bull shit, that it's not about particular tangible features being assigned type correlations, before moving on to more grounded and clear examples of how you might arrive at some guestimation or preliminary judgement of some intangible process going on under the surface of the physical data you're observing. Just a few thoughts.

[Steve]

I'm with you there on the empirical grounds. I was talking more about how your description is totally contained (at least in my opinion) to your own internal experience, which is fine for you VI'ing people but on the outside it seems difficult to relate or express anything meaningful to, say, someone questioning VI as a practical means of analysis. I can see what you're trying to say here, but for someone skeptical from the get go (and I'm only convinced of VI as a tool of particularly limited utility) talking about how the process feels on the inside to you probably won't pass muster. Not knocking how you go about it yourself, though I'll admit I've disagreed with a few of your conclusions before.

It just seems like it would be more effective, if you wanted to persuade him to be more open-minded of VI, to maybe allay some of the suspicions he appears to have about the specifics of VI and what it isn't, for example saying that the stuff about SEIs being short and rotund (I forget who added particular physical features to that one set of type descriptions, Ganin?) are bull shit, that it's not about particular tangible features being assigned type correlations, before moving on to more grounded and clear examples of how you might arrive at some guestimation or preliminary judgement of some intangible process going on under the surface of the physical data you're observing. Just a few thoughts.

Ah I understand, thanks. Good suggestions. It is hard for me to explain it from an "objective" perspective, now that I've gotten so immersed. It would've been easier a year ago lol. Let's see, maybe I can come up with something a bit less subjective.

[sigma]

The first nail in the coffin was the VI aspect. The fact that you can actually claim to type somebody's personality and behavior traits through static shots of facial expressions is laughable beyond all comprehensible belief. This theory can join Hubbard and Scientology in the bullshit corner on that one. If you expect any reasonable person to accept such nonsense, you've got a few screws loose somewhere.

Error is an integral part of the scientific effort. You try things, emit hypothesis and then you test them. Some hypothesis hold longer, some fail right away... but they are valuable because they expand the understanding.

I think that a person with enough socionics experience and with good VI skills CAN pinpoint the type of a person by observing the person (not interviewing). Seeing someone in dynamic provides a lot of clues.

Seeing a set of photos involves a lot of extrapolation. If the person is how you extrapolate, you CAN emit an educated guess, no more!

Now, you will have different people with different attitudes towards scientific understanding. And because of statistic pressure you will also have individual who will approach socionics as they approach religion... and if the holy book of this or that expert says VI is Valid Interpretation.... they will be willing to argue with your "limited beliefs"... and they will do this without any kind of understanding of what they are taking about.

How ever, just because someone is behaving silly... should everyone be treated as being silly? I think not! You should take the good, the proven and disregard the parts that you don't like.

For me, socionics is first a theory about the probability of social interactions. Statistically speaking I think it is valid and from my own experience... is also very useful because it can pinpoint to the vulnerabilities of various interactions.

[strrrng]

Within the western socionics community there are lots of different crackpots with their own, ahem... "unique" interpretations. You are of course free to let that color your perception of the theory as a whole.

I don't disagree with the fact that this place is full of asocial individuals and possibly even sociopaths.

lol

[xyz]

Let's start with something. Something fairly big.

A friend pointed me to this site (and inherently, the theory) a while back. I had a read, self-typed myself as a few things before settling on SLI (though soon finding I felt some aspects of all 16 types were applicable to myself, though SLI just seemed the most) and calling that's that. However, after reading this forum a bit and further reading more about the nuances on the theory, I came to the VI part, which quite frankly made me laugh my socks off and simultaneously tossed out all validity Socionics has a whole.

I'm a skeptical person, sure. I always take things with a grain of salt and try to nail down the problems with something before I look at the rest and attempt to accept it. This however, is too much.

The first nail in the coffin was the VI aspect. The fact that you can actually claim to type somebody's personality and behavior traits through static shots of facial expressions is laughable beyond all comprehensible belief. This theory can join Hubbard and Scientology in the bullshit corner on that one. If you expect any reasonable person to accept such nonsense, you've got a few screws loose somewhere.

The second nail was the completely intra-personalized descriptions present on all of the sites I could find about the subject. All of them are marginally different from another, and none of them correlated between each other in the slightest. I found on one site I fitted best as an IEE, on another, an SLI, On another, a IEI. What? How does that make sense? I originally assumed it was a problem with me not being able to nail down certain aspects of my personality and behavior to paper, but as I read more and more sites concerning the subject it quickly became evident that it was not me who was the problem - it was the rampant bias this theory facilitates with it's highly personal characterizations written by individuals who likely have different views on what the separate personality traits represent.

The third nail was intuition. It came babbling along after the first two and promptly reminded me that you really cannot assign 16 types of personalty/reality interaction to every human being on this world properly without being discrepancies. Human interaction is too complex to be described by a mere 16 types, and even then, it's probably impossible to type a person to anything at all.

The fourth and final nail was this site. I read a sizable portion of recent threads on this forum and quickly saw a recurring theme - this theory acts as a 'filler' for people with prominent mental issues, further accredited to some two letter combination garbage that is applied by different people in different ways. "That's grade a Xx right there" is a prime example.

For me, this theory makes no sense. Infact, it's a load of garbage. I can't fathom why none of you here have looked into this more deeply and seen it. I wager a few people reading this post will even try and use the theory to affirm my behavior to one of the types. Quite frankly, I won't be surprised. This theory is the perfect escape for a person who can't approach the world and interact with it properly, by their own means. It acts as a dead-end stepping stone in a pool of acid. You'll jump on to it, float for a while, and realize as you get older just how far you've drifted away.

I would quote you in my signature 50 times if I could do it. Very well put sir.I could have not said it better myself... or put as much effort into all the complaints I have. Let it be known, however,that you are not the first with these complaints.

Best first post ever.

I would really like to see these 'good' and 'valid' socionics sources.

[Gilly]

Nobody can provide scientific proof of Socionics for you; if you are looking for a bunch of well-cited academic documents, rigorous studies, and hard factual proof, leave now.

However, what I can tell you is that, over the last three or so years, I have successfully recognized the types, as proposed by others using methods other than VI, of probably over one hundred people by looking at their faces and, in some cases, watching brief video clips of them speaking. I don't get it every time, but it happens often enough that I think there might just be something to it.

Now, I'm not in any position to claim that Socionics is "real," that it has basis in neuroscience or can be in any way concretely qualified, but, apart from VI (which, I agree, is questionable), the way I prefer to think of Socionics is as a lens, a set of categories that can be used to describe and categorize people according to their behavioral patterns, motivations, and preferences. It doesn't have to be "real" to work.

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."

As far as VI goes, well, I've spent a good amount of time building up a "library" of faces, movement patterns, expressions, etc, and I can't deny that I DO see correlations between physical appearance or movement and personality traits or tendencies that I attribute to Socionics type. It's not 100%, or 90% or 80%, but it's significant enough that, more often than not, I can at least deduce something about a person by looking at his/her face.

Again, I'll say: if you are looking for concrete proof, scientific research, and hard evidence, Socionics is going to seem insipid and pointless to you. But, if you think studying people and their behaviors is interesting, and you don't mind some vaguery and guess work, Socionics is a pretty interesting, and, yes, ultimately useful way of understanding people.

[Ephemeral]

Just had to point this out:

http://www.wikisocion.org/en/index.p...d_in_Socionics

-snicker-

[Jarno]

I had a read, self-typed myself

Using wrong methods?

I came to the VI part, which quite frankly made me laugh my socks off and simultaneously tossed out all validity Socionics has a whole.

You are aware that every psychologist in the world will tell you that personality traits are often visible in a human body?

I'm a skeptical person

That's good

The fact that you can actually claim to type somebody's personality and behavior traits through static shots of facial expressions is laughable beyond all comprehensible belief.

You are aware that a lot of similarities exist between facial structures of the same type?

The second nail was the completely intra-personalized descriptions present on all of the sites I could find about the subject. All of them are marginally different from another, and none of them correlated between each other in the slightest.

Do you have concrete examples?

Human interaction is too complex to be described by a mere 16 types, and even then, it's probably impossible to type a person to anything at all.

Ever typed anyones bodytype as a man or a woman? Oh you do that all the time and it's easy too? Well learn personality typing, and maybe you'll get the hang of that too.

The fourth and final nail was this site. I read a sizable portion of recent threads on this forum and quickly saw a recurring theme - this theory acts as a 'filler' for people with prominent mental issues, further accredited to some two letter combination garbage that is applied by different people in different ways. "That's grade a Xx right there" is a prime example.

Yes this forum is not suited to learn from. Use real life experience please.

For me, this theory makes no sense.

For over 1000 psychologists and many smart people it does make much sense. Maybe you are just not one of them. Some people will never understand it. You can't teach math to a dog.

[Ephemeral]

Using wrong methods?


You are aware that every psychologist in the world will tell you that personality traits are often visible in a human body?


That's good


You are aware that a lot of similarities exist between facial structures of the same type?



Do you have concrete examples?




Ever typed anyones bodytype as a man or a woman? Oh you do that all the time and it's easy too? Well learn personality typing, and maybe you'll get the hang of that too.



Yes this forum is not suited to learn from. Use real life experience please.



For over 1000 psychologists and many smart people it does make much sense. Maybe you are just not one of them. Some people will never understand it. You can't teach math to a dog.

No. Read the post.

Yes.

No. Read the post. Inject 50oz of common sense and reread the OP.

Yes. Every socionics source I have read is completely different from every other one.

Irrelevant. Reread your post and reassess your points based on meaningful examples.

Real life experience was a vast contributor to this OP. Reread the post and inject 50oz of common sense.

It does not make sense to such people because it doesn't make sense. I am openly questioning and disputing the relative intelligence of anybody active enough to suggest to me that this theory does make sense. I will point to the VI aspect and that will be that. I will repeat this again, incase you didn't gleam it the first time:

You cannot gauge true personality from what a person looks like. You can correlate traits, sure - but you cannot type a person with these, as depending on the context and material viewed, the typing will be wrong and subject to extreme personal bias. Essentially - invalid.

[ZTCrawcrustle]

The theory does not rely on the VI aspect. At all. You can point out VI to anyone, anyone you want. If they bother to look at socionics, they will see it is not an integral part. The founder of socionics had a lot of interesting ideas, but not all of them are that clearly hashed out or were effectively transmitted into the West. Personally, I do not even know what to begin to look for in a profile of a face to VI someone.

However, you mentioned subjective bias one would get from photographs, which I would say is VI, in effect. Ever meet, just see a person and get the sense that you were not going to get along with them? To the question "was there anyone you thought you would not like just from looking at them," I actually had a college friend (SEI) point out a person we both knew in high school (LIE or EIE) even though he almost never even talked to him.

Earlier forays into facial trait psychology were marred by genetically inherited facial traits (such as "square jaw" = "criminal"). But looking at a still picture of a person, you get impulses, suggestions as to what type of person he is. Everyone does. You may disregard those impulses, but there is something to them. Are these impressions always accurate? No, but sometimes they are.

As I said before, no rookie can jump into socionics and start using VI. Most people do not consider it a useful tool, given the availability of other sources of information. Most people here would not even be able to tell you what to look for in VI (which for some reason does not stop them from using it).

As for the rest of your anxieties, categorization is a big part of the life you live in. I see no problem in categorizing people on certain traits present in every single individual, barring some extraordinary cases of mental disability. I see certain trends in science and psychology deny actual human characteristics (the propensity for force and, yes, violence being one), which then (illogically) are converted into public policy. Several years ago, they banned recess in my state claiming that it provoked dangerous activities and behaviors (sports and exercise, I guess). What I'm trying to say is that, aside from socionics, which gives everyone equal say, all other outlets for determining human behavior are biased, if not at heart, then at the questions and conclusions they are willing to consider.

[RSV3]

The theory does not rely on the VI aspect. At all. You can point out VI to anyone, anyone you want. If they bother to look at socionics, they will see it is not an integral part. The founder of socionics had a lot of interesting ideas, but not all of them are that clearly hashed out or were effectively transmitted into the West. Personally, I do not even know what to begin to look for in a profile of a face to VI someone.

However, you mentioned subjective bias one would get from photographs, which I would say is VI, in effect. Ever meet, just see a person and get the sense that you were not going to get along with them? To the question "was there anyone you thought you would not like just from looking at them," I actually had a college friend (SEI) point out a person we both knew in high school (LIE or EIE) even though he almost never even talked to him.

Earlier forays into facial trait psychology were marred by genetically inherited facial traits (such as "square jaw" = "criminal"). But looking at a still picture of a person, you get impulses, suggestions as to what type of person he is. Everyone does. You may disregard those impulses, but there is something to them. Are these impressions always accurate? No, but sometimes they are.

As I said before, no rookie can jump into socionics and start using VI. Most people do not consider it a useful tool, given the availability of other sources of information. Most people here would not even be able to tell you what to look for in VI (which for some reason does not stop them from using it).

As for the rest of your anxieties, categorization is a big part of the life you live in. I see no problem in categorizing people on certain traits present in every single individual, barring some extraordinary cases of mental disability. I see certain trends in science and psychology deny actual human characteristics (the propensity for force and, yes, violence being one), which then (illogically) are converted into public policy. Several years ago, they banned recess in my state claiming that it provoked dangerous activities and behaviors (sports and exercise, I guess). What I'm trying to say is that, aside from socionics, which gives everyone equal say, all other outlets for determining human behavior are biased, if not at heart, then at the questions and conclusions they are willing to consider.

Good points.

[munenori2]

ZTCrawcrustle, I like your style.

[Rick]

Ephemeral, I respect your points and agree with many of them. Better to encounter a set of ideas and decide they are BS than to entangle yourself with them for no clear reason. And, like you say, psychological systems such as socionics can be used to rationalize and perpetuate personal problems.

On the role of VI in socionics, you're basically simply wrong; it does not occupy an important part of the theory, though there is a certain "left wing" of socionics that promotes it. These people are not recognized in the Russian language publishing community. Furthermore, each proponent of VI has his own version, which makes it useless outside of a close circle of acquaintances. However, to assert that a person's personality has absolutely no correlation with any part of their external appearance is just as absurd as any extreme VI belief. My own practice is to pay attention to how people move, dress, express feelings on their face, express their internal states, etc. These things are an integral part of who a person is and can give clues to their psychological type even if no particular external trait correlates to any particular socionic category. Any time you look at a photo of someone and say, "she looks like someone I would like," you are doing the same kind of thing most socionists would do. The VI you mention is far off in left-field and has no credibility in socionics.

For me, the interest in socionics came from actual life experience living with many different people, which proved to me that different relationships arise with different people, regardless of any conscious effort or intention on my part. I needed an explanation for my experiences, and had none. When I learned of socionics, the light went on in my head. I know of no other explanations for the varieties of interpersonal interaction than socionics. Yes, socionics can be difficult, and there are vast amounts of basically superfluous theory within the community, but the questions it raises are fundamental. One may dismiss socionics as BS for a good number of reasons, but what of the phenomena of different varieties of relationships, different interaction patterns, and different kinds of perception?

Like Niffweed said, studying socionics leads you to understand better how other people think and perceive things, and it leaves you with a sense of wonder that people can be so profoundly different and that relationships can be so remarkably determined -- both by socionic and non-socionic factors.

[Gilly]

Yeah, what he said.

[Ephemeral]

Ephemeral, I respect your points and agree with many of them. Better to encounter a set of ideas and decide they are BS than to entangle yourself with them for no clear reason. And, like you say, psychological systems such as socionics can be used to rationalize and perpetuate personal problems.

On the role of VI in socionics, you're basically simply wrong; it does not occupy an important part of the theory, though there is a certain "left wing" of socionics that promotes it. These people are not recognized in the Russian language publishing community. Furthermore, each proponent of VI has his own version, which makes it useless outside of a close circle of acquaintances. However, to assert that a person's personality has absolutely no correlation with any part of their external appearance is just as absurd as any extreme VI belief. My own practice is to pay attention to how people move, dress, express feelings on their face, express their internal states, etc. These things are an integral part of who a person is and can give clues to their psychological type even if no particular external trait correlates to any particular socionic category. Any time you look at a photo of someone and say, "she looks like someone I would like," you are doing the same kind of thing most socionists would do. The VI you mention is far off in left-field and has no credibility in socionics.

For me, the interest in socionics came from actual life experience living with many different people, which proved to me that different relationships arise with different people, regardless of any conscious effort or intention on my part. I needed an explanation for my experiences, and had none. When I learned of socionics, the light went on in my head. I know of no other explanations for the varieties of interpersonal interaction than socionics. Yes, socionics can be difficult, and there are vast amounts of basically superfluous theory within the community, but the questions it raises are fundamental. One may dismiss socionics as BS for a good number of reasons, but what of the phenomena of different varieties of relationships, different interaction patterns, and different kinds of perception?

Like Niffweed said, studying socionics leads you to understand better how other people think and perceive things, and it leaves you with a sense of wonder that people can be so profoundly different and that relationships can be so remarkably determined -- both by socionic and non-socionic factors.

I was rash in saying that you cannot draw any aspect of a person's personality through their facial expressions, but these expressions are extremely situational and the individual 'aspect' of the person in question may not necessarily reflect their 'true' personality that is not hindered or emphasized by societal nuances.

What I am saying however, is that you cannot reasonably make a definite call on someone's personality based on static imagery. Perhaps with prolonged observation in several different environments. Perhaps.

I find the concept that there's 6.7 billion unique personalities out there which carry their own individual perception and reactions to interpersonal relationships far more enthralling than assigning a clockwork set of 16 types to said people.

Attempting to rationalize humanity is a rather strange way of approaching the world, don't you think?

[strrrng]

I was rash in saying that you cannot draw any aspect of a person's personality through their facial expressions, but these expressions are extremely situational and the individual 'aspect' of the person in question may not necessarily reflect their 'true' personality that is not hindered or emphasized by societal nuances.

First of all, we're not trying to see their past experiences, how sentimental they are, or any other bullshit by looking at them. Things like energy levels, eye expression and bodily posture can connote things like static/dynamic, temperament, and certain functions. IMO it's a reliable way of winnowing down the types; a lot of times you can tell a person is from a given quadra pretty easily, which is much more efficient than having to read some boring self-description. And don't forget that socionics isn't about individuality; if you want to argue that, awesome, but this is a forum designated to discussing information metabolism. My points is, you have to know what you're looking for, in order to understand the validity of VI.

What I am saying however, is that you cannot reasonably make a definite call on someone's personality based on static imagery. Perhaps with prolonged observation in several different environments. Perhaps.

Again, this isn't about their "personality," in the conventional sense. It's about their psychic lenses, what they're "seeing" in reality, as far as information goes. I agree that static imagery isn't the best, in comparison to video or real life interaction, but that doesn't mean it can't offer some insight. Also, functions aren't things that are learned from your environment or anything. Your self-expression may be modulated by said thing, but internal psychic processes are pretty self-contained, overall.

I find the concept that there's 6.7 billion unique personalities out there which carry their own individual perception and reactions to interpersonal relationships far more enthralling than assigning a clockwork set of 16 types to said people.

Yes, this is true. Christ. No one's arguing this. Look, learn the premises and implications of socionics before you make these presumptions. One can understand it without losing individuality. I'm not saying the two never get conflated, but that doesn't negate the value of the things socionics attempts to describe.

Attempting to rationalize humanity is a rather strange way of approaching the world, don't you think?

Yeah. Sure. How about this: go back to your oprah book club and preach your individuality shit. I've tried to be accommodating throughout this post, along with not responding to your earlier posts, which made the same presumptions, but this is annoying. If you want to go about appraising people in an intuitive, case-by-case way, that's fine. But don't go making these sweeping generalizations about a system which you clearly don't understand. This isn't about pigeon-holing; no one here would want that. It's about understanding more latent patterns underpinning cognition and interaction. If that's not for you, fine. But get your facts straight before you decry it.

[Jarno]

I find the concept that there's 6.7 billion unique personalities out there which carry their own individual perception and reactions to interpersonal relationships far more enthralling than assigning a clockwork set of 16 types to said people.

How many unique genders are there?

6.7 billion, or a clockwork of 2 different types?

You rely to much on believing and reasoning then on observing and experience.

[sigma]

I find the concept that there's 6.7 billion unique personalities out there which carry their own individual perception and reactions to interpersonal relationships far more enthralling than assigning a clockwork set of 16 types to said people.

Every person is unique but they do have common characteristics and so...
you do have billions upon billions of individuals but if you look from further apart you will discover that some can bare children some cannot and you will separate them in men and women.... some will have darker skin some white as milk...

You can speak about what some have in common...

In the case of socionics I see the commonality as being a tendencies that will manifest itself in the life of the individual due to the unaware nature of living... This tendencies will manifest through habits of thoughts. This habits will lead to action and the action will reinforce the habits shaping the tendencies of the person over the years...

As John Dryden put it... "We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."

[Ezra]

The first nail in the coffin was the VI aspect. The fact that you can actually claim to type somebody's personality and behavior traits through static shots of facial expressions is laughable beyond all comprehensible belief. This theory can join Hubbard and Scientology in the bullshit corner on that one. If you expect any reasonable person to accept such nonsense, you've got a few screws loose somewhere.

Not everyone accepts VI. Most of the people with their heads screwed on in this joint, and a lot of the people at socionics.ws don't take VI seriously. My advice is not to take serious anyone who claims VI is the be-all-and-end-all of socionics (stay away from socionics.com and Sergei Ganin).

The second nail was the completely intra-personalized descriptions present on all of the sites I could find about the subject. All of them are marginally different from another, and none of them correlated between each other in the slightest. I found on one site I fitted best as an IEE, on another, an SLI, On another, a IEI. What? How does that make sense? I originally assumed it was a problem with me not being able to nail down certain aspects of my personality and behavior to paper, but as I read more and more sites concerning the subject it quickly became evident that it was not me who was the problem - it was the rampant bias this theory facilitates with it's highly personal characterizations written by individuals who likely have different views on what the separate personality traits represent.

I'll admit, this is quite a difficult obstacle to overcome. There is a huge amount of shit out there that claims to be based on Augusta's original socionics theory, and it's not. My advice here would be to go with whatever makes sense to you based on the information given (for a Te type such as yourself, this should be quite simple). Ignore those "highly personal characterisations" that you're looking at and going "what the fuck? How does that fit in? Where does this come in? Why is that there? How is that related to this type?" at. They are clearly not objective, and they're written by someone who has no idea what they're talking about. A good resource (in my opinion) is wikisocion - probably the best, actually. It has everything there (besides utter - and I mean utter - trash), so you can make your own mind up about what fits best in your mind.

The third nail was intuition. It came babbling along after the first two and promptly reminded me that you really cannot assign 16 types of personalty/reality interaction to every human being on this world properly without being discrepancies. Human interaction is too complex to be described by a mere 16 types, and even then, it's probably impossible to type a person to anything at all.

Fair point, I can't really disagree with that. A lot of people on this site (and other socionics forums) have come to that conclusion about socionics. If it's not for you, fair enough. However, I find it an interesting model to study, with some relevance to interaction between human beings, as do - evidently - many others who continue to post here after many years of being involved in socionics.

The fourth and final nail was this site. I read a sizable portion of recent threads on this forum and quickly saw a recurring theme - this theory acts as a 'filler' for people with prominent mental issues, further accredited to some two letter combination garbage that is applied by different people in different ways. "That's grade a Xx right there" is a prime example.

Please don't attribute to the entire populace all the shit that gets churned out onto it; this is certainly not the case. Okay, you'll often have to wade through the sheer amount of crap to find an actual gem of wisdom amongst it all. But there is often a lot of good material that's posted here. Okay, you might not want to struggle to look for it. Maybe this site isn't for you. But just keep it in mind that not everyone here's mental health is poor.

For me, this theory makes no sense. Infact, it's a load of garbage. I can't fathom why none of you here have looked into this more deeply and seen it. I wager a few people reading this post will even try and use the theory to affirm my behavior to one of the types. Quite frankly, I won't be surprised. This theory is the perfect escape for a person who can't approach the world and interact with it properly, by their own means. It acts as a dead-end stepping stone in a pool of acid. You'll jump on to it, float for a while, and realize as you get older just how far you've drifted away.

I wouldn't be surprised if some people are offended by this. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if some of said people would actually secretly agree with you. A partially fair point.

[betterthan]

Hmm. I see your points. The first time I read about an IEI, I laughed and said that it was nothing like 'me'. I was comparing the IEI description to an Enneagram description. And I didn't find them to correlate. After I read both personality descriptions, I became less natural, I atopted what I thought I 'ought' to be. =/...

Also, on the Ennegram forum, I never ever liked you very much Ezra, sorry lol, I just didn't have any good feelings towards you and I was there for quite a while. But since coming here I find I like you a lot. Which is odd, because you aren't any different, I am not unhealthy any more, but you never changed. Which makes me think that maybe this personality/relation theory stuff is just a lens, which alters the reality which we see, and this filtering is the only relation it has to reality.

Some of my relationships have sucked, I guess I wanted to know why. But when I observe it all now, I see that when I had the energy and confidence, I didn't suck at all, in fact I was great at intereacting with people and people who had really pissed me off, I began to really like - but according to Socionics that wouldn't matter because our types would have determined if we got along, it wasn't something we couldm control. We know people in relationships whos types in theory clash...so whats up with that? These people aren't even at a far away physchological distance, they are married =/??

Also, I know 2 IEIs who are very different.

One is sweet, disorganised, speaks very quickly, very shy, lovely, friendly...

The other is bitchy, witty, biting, very playful and agressive, upfront, rude, friendly, not at all lazy...

[Creepy-male]

Some of my relationships have sucked, I guess I wanted to know why. But when I observe it all now, I see that when I had the energy and confidence, I didn't suck at all, in fact I was great at intereacting with people and people who had really pissed me off, I began to really like - but according to Socionics that wouldn't matter because our types would have determined if we got along, it wasn't something we couldm control. We know people in relationships whos types in theory clash...so whats up with that? These people aren't even at a far away physchological distance, they are married =/??

Also, I know 2 IEIs who are very different.

One is sweet, disorganised, speaks very quickly, very shy, lovely, friendly...

The other is bitchy, witty, biting, very playful and agressive, upfront, rude, friendly, not at all lazy...

You're putting too much into socionics, that's your problem.

[betterthan]

You're putting too much into socionics, that's your problem.

LOL. So you are saying that two conflictors getting married and me being a littlef about it, is putting too much into it? Dogmatic muchhh.

[Jarno]

Also, I know 2 IEIs who are very different.

One is sweet, disorganised, speaks very quickly, very shy, lovely, friendly...

The other is bitchy, witty, biting, very playful and agressive, upfront, rude, friendly, not at all lazy...

I know ENFJ's who are a bit different then ****** too!

Look, you have to take types and thus information elements in the right context. It's just what you focus on. This however doesn't say anything what goal you have in mind with that information.

Both IEI's focus on the same information, one uses it to help people, the other to bitch people.

I know two males, they are very different. Being a male doesn't mean you are the same as all the other males. You have to filter out, what is type related and what's not.