What Socionics has done for me

[consentingadult]

Every now and then someone starts a thread questioning the validity of Socionics. Even long time advocate Rick DeLong has denounced Socionics as an invalid theory (my stand on his position: he never understood Socionics in the first place, to which he admits).

I will not go over my arguments why I believe Socionics is a valid theory (I have written about that here). Instead, I would like to share what Socionics has done for me.

In the past 12 years, there have been two important things Socionics has brought me.

The first thing is that it has helped my understanding of social relations, especially from a perspective of intertype relations. When I meet new people, I am usually capabale of typing them instantly, at least at the quadra level. This helps me speed up the process of socializing: with Deltas I know I can open up quite fast, whereas with Betas I know how to keep a proper distance. Only occasionally this doesn't work, e.g. because someone has severe personality issues. That can even happen with Deltas, although with Deltas it easier to take them aside to set firm boundaries and make them toe the line. But even in healthy social situations I now how to prevent common pitfalls: e.g. when interacting with LSEs I usually make an effort to slow down a little bit, trying to avoid the impression that I typically make with LSEs: that I can take on a heavier load, which wears me out in the long run. Or interacting with female IEEs, that give me the impression that they are sexually or romantically interested in me, where in reality they are only testing the limits and have no intentions of 'taking things further' (and yes, I'm guilty as charged in this respect myself as well).

The second, and perhaps most important benefit Socionics has brought me, is the awareness of what is really important to me: Introverted Sensing. It is a thing that I have neglected for most of my 51-year life. The intellectual understanding of what Si is and what effect it should have on my life, over the years gradually grew into a more intuitive understanding. I have taught myself behaviors to get myself in that Si state where I feel existentially relaxed. I have developed a set of behaviors and attitudes that make me feel I am floating through life. I set my own path, the path that makes me feel good, balanced and, if I may be so humble, a life which is more in line with the life God (whatever that may be) has intended for me. Whenever I loose track, I quickly become aware of it and modify my behaviors, often this sensation of blissful light emptiness returning in a couple of hours. The only downside to this is that it has taken me way off the beaten path and am more disconnected from other people than I ever believed possible. Most other people I meet every day are not bad people, but they are living socially programmed lives that are incompatible with mine. Even a nice talk is no longer possible, because we no longer share the same references.

Obviously Socionics wasn't the only factor in this. Understanding of mainstream insights into social and behavioral sciences has helped a lot, as did experience with life in general did.

I wish you all the arrival at that point where it all comes together. Keep investing in Socionics, keep testing it against your real life experiences. It is worth the effort in the long run (the very long run I might add, it took me twelve years )

[Tigerfadder]

@consentingadult Where is Si in ur stack?

I learned from Socionics that even if people are fundamentally the same as each other we function different than each other on a deep level.

[timber]

Kept me further separated from reality, so there is that. And also given me more ammunition to dislike stuff, so there is also that.

[Spermatozoa]

There are three aspects of Socionics I have found useful.

Firstly, Model A. The blocks help me understand how I should target self improvement. The way my IEs are ordered provides me with suggestions for what to do with this knowledge, where to apply it (creative, HA and demonstrative), avoid expending energy (role and PoLR), and where to seek help from others (HA and suggestive). For example Se-HA might mean that I could advance to a higher state through physical dominance. Success will come if I am able to expand enough energy to realise my ideas. I will find this much easier to achieve if I can enlist a person who has Se in their ego block, hence the purpose of a relationship.

Secondly, The Erotic Styles (Aggressor, Victim etc). These form the most readily applied aspect of the theory. You can use the styles to help analyse your relationships with the opposite sex and figure out what you need to attract and maintain a partner's interest. I have spent a lot of time speculating about this over the last nine months, and as a result have a much clearer picture of who my target market is comprised of, as well as where they can be found.

Thirdly, The Quadra Values. These are related to the Erotic Styles in a way but have a far broader range of possible applications. I see many patterns in contemporary social movements which reflect these Values and agree with the (more speculative) theory that a society will naturally progress in a cyclical manner through the Quadras, much like an organism grows, lives and then dies and is replaced by another. I believe that ideas are subject to many of the same evolutionary pressures as genes, they are of course tied to the persistence of their creators' genes. Anyway I digress.

[Bertrand]

bravo I think that's a good post and feel similarly about what functions are good to prioritize for self development, what ones to let go, and what ones to seek help on. I think getting stuck in super ego is bad, and knowing what you really want is good. knowing your strengths and limitations helps when it comes to knowing when to ask for help, which I think people often fail to do to their own detriment. obviously seeking help on Fi is difficult if you dont have a supportive family. i think literature is really helpful to this end. authors you like I think hint that they support those functions, assuming its not work related. I think when people say stuff like "I found my second family in the library, or via such and such author or group" they're sort of hitting on this

[consentingadult]

Kept me further separated from reality, so there is that. And also given me more ammunition to dislike stuff, so there is also that.

That definitively is a possible effect of Socionics.

[Spermatozoa]

This is incorrect. You are supposed to use your role and vulnerable function, which your dual will recognize as being weak and subconsciously assist you in. You seek help in both the super-ego and super-id blocks.

Let us say that you are at a cocktail party, one of a group of twenty. Like any good Socionicist, I presume that you want to attract your dual and almost certainly there will be no more than two duals at most in this group, but most likely there will be one. You will have most likely a single approach and need to articulate a good sales pitch. Now he or she values information from your ego block and vice versa. You can attempt to convey information through your super-ego block, but this will soon start to feel unnatural and require a great effort to maintain over time. Also, your poor mastery of the functions involved means that you will send confusing messages, and fail to distinguish yourself. Attempts to "improve" PoLR in particular are a poor use of one's mental resources because the function is both unvalued and very weak.

All this being said, you are not "supposed" to "do" anything. Model A does not comprise a set of inviolable laws. It is just a theory, and it is open to revision and adaptation. Sadly all you have done here is regurgitate the theory without considering how it could be applied in practice.

I am not convinced this is true because Gamma has a similar role to Alpha in the creation of things.

What does this even mean?

[Singu]

Thirdly, The Quadra Values. These are related to the Erotic Styles in a way but have a far broader range of possible applications. I see many patterns in contemporary social movements which reflect these Values and agree with the (more speculative) theory that a society will naturally progress in a cyclical manner through the Quadras, much like an organism grows, lives and then dies and is replaced by another. I believe that ideas are subject to many of the same evolutionary pressures as genes, they are of course tied to the persistence of their creators' genes. Anyway I digress.

Well the problem is that Socionics is completely observational knowledge... and not conjectural knowledge. Which means that it won't and it can't tell you anything new.

So if we were to take a view from the perspective of a historical "primitive Alpha society", then it couldn't have possibly known that it would lead to Beta, then Gamma, then Delta, for the simple reason that those things haven't even happened yet.

If you say that "Alphas come up with ideas first, then Betas enforce it, then Gammas profit from it, and then Deltas perfect it", then that's only because that's something that actually happened. We only know that in hindsight. Since we can't know what's going to happen in the future, and so by definition to make sense out of the future unknowns, we'd have to invent new Quadras like Epsilon, Zeta, etc, with new types. They are not defined by Socionics yet.

Also what does it mean to reach the "perfect" stage of Deltas? There's no such thing as perfection. We'd have to keep improving things because you can't ever reach perfection. So the idea of the Delta quadra being the "end of Socion" is wrong, because there are always going to be things to improve. And if you say that it will return to Alpha, then well how would you know that it would repeat the same cycle of Alpha > Beta > Gamma > Delta? Those things are completely unknown. It will depend entirely on the new knowledge created by the people. And that is inherently unpredictable.

It's also wrong that things will somehow "start anew", because progress is progress, we will always progress from what preceded it, there is always a kind of an evolution, not a sudden violent revolution that starts everything from scratch (then progress would be impossible). Can the "Alphas" suddenly create something from nothing, ex nihilo? Well no, they'd always have to be based off on something previously known.

[Spermatozoa]

Interesting setup. Usually when people do these types of arguments they are blatant strawmans but your one decent and almost correct but still wrong.


This is wrong. Here is a counter-example. Warren Buffet is an SLI-Te subtype. His core competency is SiTe. He reads the 10K reports from firms (Si) and choses to invest in the most productive firms (Te).
Now here is the interesting part. When you listen to him speak about why he invested in firms, his response is NiFe. He really likes brand. The image consumers have in their mind about a company (Ni) and how it affects their decision to by (Fe). Here is an example of Buffet talking about Apple and other firms.....

To go a little off-topic here, the ego and id are the core competency blocks while the super-ego and super-id are calibration or control blocks.

....So without the super-ego block, Buffet wouldn't have the calibration to utilize his ego block.

You are semi-correct that the vulnerable function is a poor uses of one's mental resources BUT at a certain point, it becomes the best function to develop. I like to imagine the functions as a ship; 4D is the engine while 1D is the anchor. Yes, you want to focus primary on developing that engine but at a certain point, if the anchor hasn't been raised, it'll stop you dead in your tracks.


You don't have a choice between ego and super-ego blocks to use.

1. You can only access the conscious blocks well consciously.
2. The 2 conscious and unconscious blocks both carry one of 4 Jungian dichotomies (S/N & T/F)

Therefore if you are talking about a subject that's outside of your ego block then you have to use your super-ego block.
e.g. I am NeFi, my ego block handles intuition and ethics so if a conversation is about sensation or logic then I have to use my super-ego block to address the subject matter.

You are correct that your poor mastery of the functions means you will likely send confusing messages but you don't have a choice if the subject matter falls into those blocks.



In the cycle theory, Alphas do all the creating of new stuff. In reality, Gammas are the artists and engineers.


HAHA. I've done more research to improve Socionics than anyone on this board. And it's evident my understanding of this theory is at a higher level than yours. I would recommend not being so cocky and realizing other people might be more advanced than you.

I don't care how much research you have or haven't done. Time spent doesn't have a linear relationship with knowledge gained, and your qualifications, real or unreal, have no bearing on whether you are right or wrong.

Even if we have some access to all 8 functions, this does not mean that we value their input equally. Both the vulnerable and the PoLR functions are 1D, but unlike the PoLR function, input from the vulnerable function is highly sought after, because it dualizes with the individual's lead - the "engine" to use your analogy (although I would actually consider the creative function to be the engine, while the lead is the car, truck, plane or whatever else. The lead is the whole, your overarching purpose so to speak). I don't accept that Socionics suggests there are fixed "Ni subjects" or "Fe subjects", but I do of course accept that you will articulate and process a given topic based on your order of information elements, and as a result some topics will be more appealing to some types than others.

Neither of us know Warren Buffett's type so by bringing him up you've just raised more questions than you've answered.

I am not satisfied that you've answered my main point, which is that we can't be good at everything. Why is the super-ego the best block for someone to develop? If you want a satisfactory outcome, wouldn't it be better to try and develop the super-id (weak, valued) or even the id block (strong, unvalued)? For such an advanced mind, your suggestions are oddly incongruent with Socionics.

[silke]

It eased on my insomnia. Oh, wait, that was the enneagram.

[idontgiveaf]

Not only socionics, but the whole psychology theory as a whole.
It makes me understand people and you know when you understand people, you know how to react well and how to approach them.
It gives me a balance..

Because before i tend to avoid people i don't like.. Because i simply cannot understand em.. Which is lame.. Because it's like I'm missing out in life and asking myself what's wrong with me or with them?!!

With socionics, or psychology theory, my EQ is somehow increased.

[Tallmo]

I like to apply the general four stage pattern to Socionics.

1. You discover Socionics and get excited about it.
2. You dig deep into it. Practice typing. Getting confused and maybe identifying too much with your own type. Everything is about Socionics and people think you are too attached to this weird theory
3. Clarity is reached. You have sorted things out and you know what it's all about.
4. You bring Socionics into your life to the benefit of yourself and other people.

So I think it is important to move along this development line. You can't just get stuck at one point and stay there forever. If you already know enough, then you have to make it meaningful by putting it to use.

One might feel that 3 is the end point. But still there is a haunting feeling that something is missing.

The last stage can be difficult because it can mean that you have to detach yourself from the theory and the forum. Putting it to use requires action.

[Sol]

Seems I'll avoid relations with IEI women, which I find as feminine attractive. Without Socionics I had more chance to repeat tries of relations with them.
I'd prefer relations only with dual/semidual/activator women. I understand that it's not enough for good, pleasant and satisfing for both relations - they need a lot of your compromises, care and efforts anyway. At least, people of those IR understand the world closer to me and I need much what they may give me. This need stays forever, it will never be boring.

> Even long time advocate Rick DeLong has denounced Socionics as an invalid theory

It needs the correct typing and understanding that there are also other _factors_ which influence on the result.

I had communication issues with people having good IR too. And not bad surface communication with the ones having bad IR. But I liked in those people what I should according to the theory, so it worked correctly. Extreme cases were also like should according to IR theory - irrational best people for me were in good IR and worst in bad IR. It's my experience that it works. It it does not work at other ones - the reason is how they use it. There are limits for any tool and it needs good skills. Socionics is just a tool to help in finding potentially good marriage, jobs where you may be more efficient, etc.

> Or interacting with female IEEs, that give me the impression that they are sexually or romantically interested in me, where in reality they are only testing the limits and have no intentions of 'taking things further'

Mainly it's not your testing. Women flirt to be liked. This helps to get more from men. And to attract closer the one who mb good for them - this helps them to understand you better as potential pair. They also see this as a fan. Especially it's such about F types women. T types are more clear, while F can play with you.