All Identical Twins have the Same Type?

[Creepy-Snaps]

Woah. Hardcore topic. Yes I'm starting it, I searched and didn't find any other thread on 16types already about this.

Do all identical twins have the same type?

Now, we all know there have been loads of 'tests', how twins can grow up with different personalities, different interests, different behaviors, preferences for things.................... BUT NONE OF THAT IS RELATED TO TYPE. This goes into the definition of socionics, the study of intertype relationships. People of the same personality type can look vastly different:

Although types often display similar values, life strategies, general behavior, and facial expressions, such traits such as IQ, musical talent, sports abilities, charisma, "personal power," etc. are little related to type. A review of how socionists have typed famous people will demonstrate this. No type is inherently "predisposed" for success or failure in life. A common error of socionics enthusiasts is to try to relate non-socionic traits to socionic types.

In addition, socionics does not view type structure as being so rigid that a person can change little in life. One's positive or negative thinking patterns, overall outlook on life, and emotional health are not tied to type and are quite flexible. Socionic type is one of the things — along with inborn physiological traits — that does not change, even if outward behavior, emotional states, and attitudes do. Socionic type describes psychic mechanisms so "deep" that they are difficult to gain a full awareness of, much less modify in some way (but then, why would you want to modify them??).

Intertype relations

The basic difference between socionics and other typologies is socionics' theory of intertype relations. Socionics is not a typology of personality, but a typology of perceptual traits that define one's relationships with others. Hence, we should not be surprised to see significant personality differences between individuals of the same socionic type — as long as we see that there is a similar pattern of intertype relations.

Intertype relations describe the nature of interaction and information interchange between two people at a close psychological distance by describing how partners' psychic functions interrelate. These socionic relationships range from very difficult and potentially harmful to one's self-realization to very beneficial and pleasant to the psyche. Intertype relations most influence one's informal relationships with others, where one chooses friends based on pleasure and mutual benefit (cooperation).

I like these couple paragraphs, because it describes TYPE as an inborn physiological thing... which would directly imply that of course, identical twins have the same personality type. Same genetics, same brain, etc.

The 2nd part that I underlined and bolded also acknowledges that identical twins' personalities can become vastly different, despite being the same type.

Moreover, if it's assumed that your base way of interacting with others, your type, is influenced mostly by your brain's predisposition... certainly twins would influence each other's growth, assuming their type is the same, in exactly the style you'd expect IDENTICAL relations to grow.

It'd be impossible for identical twins to be exactly alike. As Identicals, one would assume the teacher, one would assume the student, and they'd have a tendency to avoid each other in group settings, not just because they'd probably see their twin all the time, but because their identical twin doesn't have anything psychologically stimulating to provide. Avoidance in group settings means they naturally interact with different people, have a tendency to develop different friendships, and naturally grow their personalities in different directions.

So another question to ask is, of course identical twins can have DIFFERENT 'personalities' and interests, but how often do they actually have the SAME 'personalities'? Based upon their types being both Identicals.

Thoughts about any of this???

[Korpsy Knievel]

Do all identical twins have the same type?

No.

[krieger]

the two pairs of identical twins that i can remember did seem to have the same type.

[Jarno]

there has been lots of research on this topic. both by socionics and mbti.

too bad I can't remember most of it :-d

But I do remember that identical twins can have different types.

[Nowisthetime]

I think I know one identical twin pair where one is ESE and the other maybe LSI. But I have to check that again to be sure.

[rat1]

I think this may tragically break Maritsas spinal socionics.

[Korpsy Knievel]

In conversation, the twins are clearly distinct persons, with distinct likes and dislikes. Their preferences in food, clothing color, etc. differ. Some of their clothes are altered by their seamstress so that they have two separate necklines in order to emphasize their individuality. They will usually have separate meals, but sometimes will share a single meal for the sake of convenience (e.g., each takes a bite of the same hamburger). Abigail is better at mathematics and Brittany is better at writing.

The stereotype of identical twins is that they are exactly alike: they look alike, they dress in matching outfits, they share the same likes and disklikes. Parents of identical twins know differently, however. Despite their shared genetic component, identical multiples are unique individuals. Though they do share similarities, they also have many differences.




They faced some difficulties because of their conjoined nature. Since they had to study together, they needed to choose a common career path. Ladan wanted to be a lawyer, while Laleh wished to become a journalist; in the end, they settled on Ladan's choice. They studied law for four years at Tehran University. Most other personal decisions also had to meet each other's approval. For these and other reasons, they had wanted to be separated since they were children. Laleh hoped that she could then move to Tehran, the capital city of Iran, to study journalism, while her sister wanted to continue with graduate studies in law and then move to Shiraz.
In addition, the sisters had different hobbies. While Laleh liked to, among other things, play computer games, Ladan preferred computer programming. Ladan also described her sister as more introverted and herself quite talkative.

[Exodus]

I'm pretty sure this is not true. Though I don't know any identical twins super-well, I think I know an EIE/ESE pair. A study was mentioned in another thread that conclusively showed they aren't generally the same.

[Bluenoir]

I have seen a few claim sociotype is innate. How can this be if identical twins who share identical DNA, can have different sociotypes?

[krieger]

i imagine that among sets of identical twins, there is actually social pressure to emphasize individual differences (or even create them out of nowhere), because people have an inherent wish to be seen as unique individuals.

it's all a red herring, though. nobody is claiming there are no differences between identical twins.

[munenori2]

In my personal experience, no, all identical twins do not have the same type. This would seem to be what some would expect given a strict correlation between genetics and the cognitive processes grouped together in socionics, but I'm skeptical that the two are so directly intertwined. What I would argue for as a possibility of how human cognition develops is probably closest to Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar. In simple terms, I tend to view all IEs as hardwired on a visceral level and that personality type is something of a formative development. Basic aptitudes will certainly be the result of genetic determination, but further solidification into a particular type depends on numerous externalities and the subject's adaptive reactions towards or against them. Eventually this forms basic attitudes reinforced by training, habituation, and vicarious sources (the general atmosphere and specific contents of the subject's experience). The immediate conclusions to be drawn from this is that certain basic IE strengths predominate, but are further differentiated and refined by the context of an individual's formative years. Weak evidence for this can be gleaned from the phenomena of type shifting and how rare it is for someone to go from suspecting they are, say ENTp, then go to ISFj (but hey it's happened!). It's much more common to change to types that share relative strengths or attitudes with the old one, such as sticking to the same club or temperament, which I tend to view as resulting from the interplay between more finely developed aspects of one's personality and the less differentiated parts of the psyche.

Generally speaking from premises, socionics posits IEs as the fundamental categories of received and generable stimuli of human experience/cognition/whatever. Further speculation on the model will determine whether or not the foregoing hypothesis is amenable. That is to say, some make the claims that valued IEs are personally accessible to any given type, according to functional strength, but that non-valued IEs are merely interpreted in terms salient to the established values. There's nothing necessarily contradictory between my theory and that one, but it would require certain caveats, such as once a person reaches some threshold of individuation, IEs which are not complementary to the accepted or championed attitude become relativized and suppressed. However, these kinds of ad hoc patches would require some further steps, such as positing a physical mechanism for this kind of ossification of personality or simply supporting value-based relativism when it comes to cognitive processing.

I don't know. I'm just spitballing here.

[FDG]

My take: if there is a dichotomy which is strongly influenced by genetics, identical twins will generally share share such dichotomy (perhaps E-I, or temperament). Any dichotomy which is strongly evironmental won't necessarily be shared. I mostly agree with munenori's post - and perhaps wonder if those basic attitudes he's speaking about might be identified by EJ-IJ-IP-EP temperament.
On the other hand, I know two pairs of identical twins, and they clearly pertain to the same sociotype. Two is an extremely small number, so I can't derive any conclusion.

[krieger]

On the other hand, I know two pairs of identical twins, and they clearly pertain to the same sociotype. Two is an extremely small number, so I can't derive any conclusion.

if your typings are reliable it's already enough to pretty much disprove the notion that identical twinship doesn't affect type at all, i.e. that type is completely random between identical twins. the chance of two consecutive pairs of identicals under a random draw is 1/256.

since i've had the same experience, between us both the tally rises to 1/65535.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Sometimes I think that I've had a bad life because I was bullied, hurt and humiliated when all I wanted was love and somebody that really cared about me, but then I see siamese twins, and people on the internet that are fatter and uglier than me, and I start feeling better about myself and okay with my life again. I will always have some emotional losses, and Hollywood will always exploit that for their own amusement, but at least I can look at those people and know that I'm better then them, the same way Miley Cyrus looks at me.

Oh, the humanity!!!

[Suz]

Sometimes I think that I've had a bad life because I was bullied, hurt and humiliated when all I wanted was love and somebody that really cared about me, but then I see siamese twins, and people on the internet that are fatter and uglier than me, and I start feeling better about myself and okay with my life again. I will always have some emotional losses, and Hollywood will always exploit that for their own amusement, but at least I can look at those people and know that I'm better then them, the same way Miley Cyrus looks at me.

Oh, the humanity!!!

So basically your self-esteem is entirely dependent upon finding deficiencies in others. Sad, really.