What causes subtypes

[pezzonovante]

I was reading some old posts and I came across this:

My philosophy(feel free to disagree) is that socionics describes information metabolism of a type. From that, you can make general descriptions of an "information metabolism type"(I will not use the words personality type here). Now you can go and then subdivide(without theory) the people of the same type, and possibly even put them in groups, making "subtypes". However with my philosophy, this is in the personality range, not the information metabolism range, as I have understood every subtype theory out there. Subtypes all seem to be based on the idea of another metric beyond the socionics model for determining what function to use. I feel this metric is learned, not inborn, or a byproduct of environment, while the nomenclature "subtype" doesn't seem to reflect this difference from information metabolism type, so I veer away from subtypes completely. I would certainly agree to discuss "personality subgroups" between "information metabolism types", but the current nomenclature of personality type and personality subtype seems misleading if you understand the theory of information metabolism.

Can anyone describe this in more depth, exactly how subtypes work and what determines what.

[Logos]

The bolded selection of the section seems to indicate that sub-types are almost advantageous coping/adaptive mechanisms in a given person brought about in their environment. Some people on this forum believe that a person's type never changes. If we follow this assumption that the core type of a person never changes, then sub-types can be seen as the mechanism that allows a person to fit better in a given setting of people. For example in the case of the INTj, if I was in a setting where was valued more highly than , I would probably begin to flex and use more in the manner of the INTj-Ne (researcher) sub-type.

I do like the idea of looking at subtypes more as a intratype range than a either/or case type. The categories should remain to give parameter to the range, but sometimes people may be too restrictive with subtyping.

[FDG]

My little theory:

subtype is given by the weight that the evironment places on the ROLE function.

If the environemnt places no emphasis on the role function, then you are going to be accepting subtype because that would be the natural inclination.

If, on the other hand, there is a need of development for the role function, then some energy that would have been spent developing the base goes to the role. This, in turn, leads to an apparent higher strenght of the creative - which is indeed relatively higher in comparison to the ratio creative/accepting of the base-subtype, but says nothing on its absolute value.

[Logos]

Yeah, basically what FDG was able to put more succinctly than I was.

[aestrivex]

My little theory:

subtype is given by the weight that the evironment places on the ROLE function.

If the environemnt places no emphasis on the role function, then you are going to be accepting subtype because that would be the natural inclination.

If, on the other hand, there is a need of development for the role function, then some energy that would have been spent developing the base goes to the role. This, in turn, leads to an apparent higher strenght of the creative - which is indeed relatively higher in comparison to the ratio creative/accepting of the base-subtype, but says nothing on its absolute value.

now that's interesting.