the most valuable concept of socionics

[electric sheep]

I think the most valuable concept, the "takeaway lesson" that everyone should learn from socionics is the idea of complementary traits. Everything else--dichotomies, quadras, temperaments, etc--those are all extraneous extraneous and they stray from the main point of socionics. I think that if you truly grasp the idea of complementary traits you should be able to figure out the rest of it on your own.

[silverchris9]

Well, all the rest is explication of that basic point about complementary functions. So yes, that's all you really need, and it is probably the core of the core of the core of the theory (meaning that it is the part most likely to be true of more people, as it is closer to the "reality"), but assuming the people who sort of drew other conclusions from that basic idea (which is sort of a refutation of Jung, who found that the primary "shadow" fell on the complementary function) know what they're doing, the explication is at least good food for thought, although, like everything in socionics, it should by no means be taken as gospel.

[Creepy-Pied Piper]

Removed at User Request

[Brilliand]

At least the antagonistic/conflicting traits are of the same importance as complementarity/compatibility.

I agree with this. The idea of complementarity is all over the place... Socionics also describes antagonistic traits, a concept which... is also all over the place. Perhaps Socionics' contribution is that it holds both views without contradicting itself.

[tcaudilllg]

As I see it, there isn't a "most valuable" concept in socionics. However, there are two concepts which lie at its core, which are equally valuable. One is the proposition that a person's nature affects how they see the world, and how they relate to it. The other is the proposition of a supreme categorical system by which all information may be apprehended intuitively by humans. The former is not respected enough by western culture, and the world at large is sorely ignorant of the second.