Is Model A Valid?

[marooned]

My Retelling/Sum Up/Regergitation (sp) of Model A/Soc. Model of the Psyche:

Fct 1, Leading fct, base program, accepting fct: It's "on" most of the time, it's like your operating system, everything else must "serve" it and fulfill its "agenda." Defines the ego and person in a way. Has the highest stamina. Largely defines your perception of reality, and your use of the other fcts will be colored by its perception (by its take on things).

Fct 2, Creative fct: Flickers "on" and "off" like a dying light bulb (only it never dies). Does a lot of work for Fct 1 in that it interacts with the outside world, helps the leading fct transmit and receive information to/from the outside world. Is somewhat limiting, in that it tries to "regulate" how much use of the IM element in it is "appropriate" or "reasonable." Has good stamina, but not as good as Fct 1. You tend to help others with it (though you do that with Fct 1 as well).

Fct 3, role-function: Limited use, limited desire to use. It conflicts with Fct 1. Whenever it's "on" Fct 1 will have to be "off" or at a low residual energy level. Hence the individual often isn't fond of using the role-fct. Takes a great deal of concentration to use it. It is difficult, possibly "painful," and an overall chore. Poor stamina. Often shows up as a slight background awareness, at a very low level of energy.

Fct 4, PoLR (point of least resistance), vulnerable fct: Even less use/stamina than Fct 3. Fct 2 has to be "off" or downplayed for Fct 4 to be "on." Is often a blind spot, flat out fails to pick up information, control over its use is poor and awkward. Often ignored or seen as irrelevant (that is whatever IM element is in it), it produces "duh" moments, or "what was I thinking?!?" moments, since you tend to ignore its information and then get blind-sided.

Fct 5, Suggestive Fct, Primary dual-seeking fct: Weakest point in a way. Also most sought after point. If Fct 1 is like the Sun, Fct 5 is like the moon. It's the hidden other half, complimentary to Fct 1. It lives in your mind, in your subconscious... you often imagine or see its presence within you, but it's hard to see it from outside of you. It emeges in random/infrequent spurts (in your outside activity) and then mysteriously dissipates again as though it were never present. It isn't painful to use, but sometimes its hard to summon it up to the surface, as though your activity is often sapped of its presence (like you can't find its energy/don't have the energy). Hence you seek it in others at times.

Contrasting it with Fct 3... it's almost like use of Fct 3 is draining, so you don't want to use it very often... The IM element in Fct 5 is wanted, but you find yourself generally drained of it... energy needs to be fed into it in order for you *to* use it. And you don't know where that energy comes from. It's like the inverse sort of situation to what goes on with Fct 3.

Fct 6, Mobilizing Fct, Hidden Agenda: Something you feel inclined to always keep track of/tabs on (which you sort of do with Fct 5 as well). It's not your strong suite, and you don't have a great deal of stamina with it, but it's something that is important to you on some level, so your subconscious mind keeps tabs on it, pointing out to you when something seems amiss with the information it's collecting. Not really difficult or painful to use, just you may not be as adept at it as with Fcts 1 and 2. You like to be "helped" with it sometimes, but you can actually manage it on your own pretty well.

Fct 7, Ignoring Fct: It's like the back-up to Fct 1. It's there and it's strong, and you have quite a bit of stamina for it, but it remains in your subconscious working behind the scenes of Fct 1. It's said you tend to use it a lot when alone (or in your hobbies). You find it tedious when others "misuse" it, and if others try to "help" you with it that can also be tiresome since you already get it--you just didn't express it. You're a natural at it, but not necessarily a natural at expressing it to the outside world. You rely heavily on it though: it works in tandem with Fct 1.

Fct 8, forget what it's called... perhaps Demonstrative Fct: I don't really get this one. Supposedly you make little quips about it showing how Fct 2 is better than it? I have no awareness of doing that. Anyway, you're also really good at it, have stamina with it, and it's subconscious, blah.

My Thoughts about this...

This is the problem I do have with Socionics. I mean we can divide reality up into 8 aspects if we like, it's totally arbitrary, which is why I'm fine with it. It just provides a language to work with, or one point of view to work with (which is needed, so great).

But the Socionics model of the psyche... this is what's fishy to me... yes, I can introspect and start seeing some of this stuff, but I can rewrite my brain to see a lot of things if I try, so that doesn't really mean anything about it being true. Supposedly it's based on some of Jung's work and he seemed to think he was being empirical... Or you could see if you can agree with others on it, but even if you all manage to "see" it that also doesn't mean it's true... just that you all aligned your minds to see it (which can be done if it's true or not). You can in part try to apply logic to confirm or deny it, but I think that falls short as well...

To make it worse, this is the concept behind typing people. It's like playing mix and match with the 8 IM elements and the 8 functions, and maybe if enough of us feel we "see" it or agree, then it seems to work, or at least be partially true.

Though still with any IM element, you could write a brief description of it, and every human on the planet would relate to it, because these are things all of us do. (Differing degrees aside).

Information metabolism... how strong of a metabolism is it? How easily obscured is it by other things? Does it even exist in this way? I generally just see it as a tool, its usefulness trumping whether or not it's true/has merit.

This is where the whole theory becomes very fuzzy to me. This is where it seems like a pseudo-science. This is where I use my imagination as a sort of dummy variable, and say "let's just suppose that this is what it is," or "for the sake of argument, I'll assume that Model A is the way my psyche is organized," so on. But deep down I feel that Model A is just as arbitrary if not more so than the IM elements/IM aspects. And if they're both arbitrary, that leaves me feeling quite uncertain about the reality of any of it.

Thoughts?

[hellothere]

What I've been wondering is how reconcile varying degrees of preference (e.g. one person might 'value' Ne/Si over Se/Ni more than another person, even though they both may value the former more than the latter), and varying degrees of strength in dealing with the IM elements, with Model A, which requires discrete preferences/strengths - what happens as your preferences approach 0 (e.g. value Ne/Si and Se/Ni equally) and your strengths equalise (e.g. equally strong in Se and Ne)? Is there some magic point at which the ordering of the functions in Model A switch around and you become a different type?

Sorry if this is kind of off topic (I'm not sure if it is), but its something that's been bugging me for a while. I hope people do respond to your topic though, because I share your doubts

[aestrivex]

model A is much less important than information preferences.

[Joy]

Fct 7, Ignoring Fct: It's like the back-up to Fct 1. It's there and it's strong, and you have quite a bit of stamina for it, but it remains in your subconscious working behind the scenes of Fct 1. It's said you tend to use it a lot when alone (or in your hobbies). You find it tedious when others "misuse" it, and if others try to "help" you with it that can also be tiresome since you already get it--you just didn't express it. You're a natural at it, but not necessarily a natural at expressing it to the outside world. You rely heavily on it though: it works in tandem with Fct 1.

This may be the best description of the 7th function that I've seen. Where did this description come from?

[marooned]

^It's a regergitation out of my brain... at some point I read the Model A description on Wikisocion... and I've read people's posts on the forum... It's introspection.

[Joy]

My Retelling/Sum Up/Regergitation (sp) of Model A/Soc. Model of the Psyche:



My Thoughts about this...

This is the problem I do have with Socionics. I mean we can divide reality up into 8 aspects if we like, it's totally arbitrary, which is why I'm fine with it. It just provides a language to work with, or one point of view to work with (which is needed, so great).

But the Socionics model of the psyche... this is what's fishy to me... yes, I can introspect and start seeing some of this stuff, but I can rewrite my brain to see a lot of things if I try, so that doesn't really mean anything about it being true. Supposedly it's based on some of Jung's work and he seemed to think he was being empirical... Or you could see if you can agree with others on it, but even if you all manage to "see" it that also doesn't mean it's true... just that you all aligned your minds to see it (which can be done if it's true or not). You can in part try to apply logic to confirm or deny it, but I think that falls short as well...

To make it worse, this is the concept behind typing people. It's like playing mix and match with the 8 IM elements and the 8 functions, and maybe if enough of us feel we "see" it or agree, then it seems to work, or at least be partially true.

Though still with any IM element, you could write a brief description of it, and every human on the planet would relate to it, because these are things all of us do. (Differing degrees aside).

Information metabolism... how strong of a metabolism is it? How easily obscured is it by other things? Does it even exist in this way? I generally just see it as a tool, its usefulness trumping whether or not it's true/has merit.

This is where the whole theory becomes very fuzzy to me. This is where it seems like a pseudo-science. This is where I use my imagination as a sort of dummy variable, and say "let's just suppose that this is what it is," or "for the sake of argument, I'll assume that Model A is the way my psyche is organized," so on. But deep down I feel that Model A is just as arbitrary if not more so than the IM elements/IM aspects. And if they're both arbitrary, that leaves me feeling quite uncertain about the reality of any of it.

Thoughts?

I used to wonder this as well, but once I began to understand the meanings of information aspects/elements (internal vs. external, etc.) the idea of axes began to make a whole lot of sense, and since then I've been thinking about the Socion more so in terms of 8 dual pairs than 16 types. (Only half of our functions are conscious, after all.)

I wrote a little bit about model A with this idea in mind in this thread.

[hellothere]

I used to wonder this as well, but once I began to understand the meanings of information aspects/elements (internal vs. external, etc.) the idea of axes began to make a whole lot of sense, and since then I've been thinking about the Socion more so in terms of 8 dual pairs than 16 types. (Only half of our functions are conscious, after all.)

Could you explain or refer me to what you mean by "the idea of axes"?

[Joy]

One of the axes (plural of axis), for example:

Te: external dynamics of objects
Fi: internal statics of fields

They seek to balance each other out, so they're always found together when it comes to which information elements are valued by an individual and which are not.

The axes are Te/Fi, Fe/Ti, Ne/Si, and Se/Ni. Everyone values one of rational axis and one irrational axis. There are four possible combinations: Fe/Ti + Ne/Si (Alpha), Fe/Ti + Se/Ni (Beta), Te/Fi + Se/Ni (Gamma), and Te/Fi + Ne/Si (Delta).

And each quadra is made up of two dual pairs, one rational and one irrational.

[hellothere]

The axes are Te/Fi, Fe/Ti, Ne/Si, and Se/Ni.

So is an example of an axis one with Te at one end and Fi at the other, OR one with Te/Fi at one end and Fe/Ti at the other?

[Joy]

Te at one end and Fi at the other

[Joy]

Sometimes I visualize it like one of those old scales. They seek each other because they need to be balanced out.

[hellothere]

hmm okay cool. So can you say that a single person may be at any point along each of the axes? Like two people might both be on the 'Fi' side, but one is closer to the Te side that the other? And the person who is closer to the Te side is less in need of someone who is strong in Te?

Or am I taking the concept completely the wrong way?

[Joy]

It sounds like you're thinking of it as being something of a continuum. While there could be some amount of that due to subtypes and environment and I don't even know what else, the main idea is that a Te/Fi person is either Te or Fi, and if they're Fi, they need Te from another person.

[hellothere]

It sounds like you're thinking of it as being something of a continuum. While there could be some amount of that due to subtypes and environment and I don't even know what else, the main idea is that a Te/Fi person is either Te or Fi, and if they're Fi, they need Te from another person.

okay thanks, this is what I was trying to clarify. When you said "axis" I automatically associated it with "continuum"

[Jonathan]

My Retelling/Sum Up/Regergitation (sp) of Model A/Soc. Model of the Psyche:...
Thoughts?

Very good post! You summed up most of the functions pretty nicely. I suspect 8 is different in different people. One thing I have heard is that some people may find it something they like to do every now and then, like a hobby, and then they go back to their usual state. (As to it being "subconscious"...I would take that word with a grain of salt. I think perhaps that the "subconscious" functions are truly subconscious when one is focusing on the ego block, but that doesn't mean one can't use them consciously if one wants to.)

You questioning is also well-warranted; I think Model A is supposed to be empirical...it's not as much from Jung though as from Augusta & co., I believe. Some parts, such as the idea that the ego and super-id block are complementary, are also based on theory, not just observations.

The thing with Socionics is that it's based on individual observations rather than large-scale studies, and of course all the research is in Russian. There's a lot of opportunity to do quantitative research on this stuff, of course.

Overally, Model A really seems to be a lot of what Socionics *is*. But it's just an approximation and may not apply perfectly to every individual.

Some people, like Smilex for one, think that people are much "freer" to "move about" than Model A seems to predict. However, I think Model A, if understood properly, does imply a certain degree of freedom. Nevertheless, I do think that people sometimes, or even often, use functions together that aren't even in the same block.

[marooned]

I think maybe part of what led to the 8th fct not making sense.... is, for instance, how can you use as a hobby or in a hobby?

[tcaudilllg]

From introspection and analysis, I've determined the 8th function to be a function of instinct relation. Everyone has instincts, and our awareness of instinct comes by means of the 7th function. We are aware of our own instincts, because they are ours, but not of others'. We use the 8th function to project our own instincts onto others, seeing their instinctual expressions as akin to our own. (often leading us to a misattribution of others motives as "nefarious, wrong", and hence, politics.) The 8th function considers all of the instincts of which we have become aware at once, and asks what they mean. If they are competing, then we must fight. If they are compatible, then there can be peace. It is the function of conflict and resolution, depending on the situation.