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Thread: Sociotype response to stress

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    Default Sociotype response to stress

    How does your access to each information element respond to acute and chronic stress, if we make inferences from the theory?

    Under acute stress, your brain becomes somewhat polarized as the system is flooded with adrenaline. Often to allow a split-second decision. The theory as I understand it would then predict that you use your lead (and possibly demonstrative) functions for this purpose, as these are the most powerful and thus automatic, requiring the least expenditure to access. I imagine there are no adverse affects on access to the other functions; they would just be temporarily suppressed due to lower dimensionality. Note that this assumes each area of the brain is controlled by a specific aspect of the Model (e.g. Ego, accepting), rather than each function being ruling over a specific area of the brain regardless of position, or a more complicated scenario where all or at least some interact and can surface in different areas which would make the above scenario more difficult to predict.

    But let us just speculate for a moment.

    Under chronic stress, your brain starts to become unbalanced in its proportions of grey to white matter and executive function is impaired. We observe that each type is less able to advance its Ego program (often leading to mistypes - e.g. Logicals appear more emotive and vice versa) and this implies to me that the realms of these functions become more difficult to access due to the changes in chemistry.

    The question I want to ask is why Socionics assumes a fixed level of psychological health in its models. This not only greatly increases the probability of mistypes, it makes the underlying assumptions of the theory somewhat harder to justify.

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    I think socionics allows for masks to obscure the "true" type. socionics doesn't assume health, people, however, may erroneously assume the person they're typing (or in the case of self analysis--themselves) are free of such distortions...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bertrand View Post
    I think socionics allows for masks to obscure the "true" type. socionics doesn't assume health, people, however, may erroneously assume the person they're typing (or in the case of self analysis--themselves) are free of such distortions...
    The main reason I am more confident typing others in Enneagram than Socionics, is that the former acknowledges a type will present differently depending on the individual's psychological health (e.g. while a Level 2 and Level 7 type 8 have the same fundamental neuroses, they will not be articulated in the same manner). By being more flexible in its sub-categorizations, it accounts for a wider range of phenomena. It allows for some inherent uncertainty/unpredictability and thus prevents mistakes.

    For example: I have changed the order of the types my tritype, but my tritype itself has remained almost the same over time. Ditto with my instinctual stacking. Yet my Sociotype inevitably changes because no one ordered pattern of behaviour (or any set, however many) can ever fully explain my cognitive process, because at some point I'll change randomly, and that means the existing rules will lose their predictive power, requiring a new set to be invented.

    Hence the constant revision and addition of new concepts which we see in the Socionics community (like DCNH), none of which get anywhere because the underlying principles this structure is based upon are flawed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bertrand View Post
    I think socionics allows for masks to obscure the "true" type. socionics doesn't assume health, people, however, may erroneously assume the person they're typing (or in the case of self analysis--themselves) are free of such distortions...
    But this "mask" (the Role function, as I understand it) is a conscious choice.

    If my ideas have merit, under chronic stress (in Socionics terms, this situation would arise if the needs of one's Super-Id block go chronically unmet), the dimensionality of all IEs will go down, making the Role function less accessible. A desperate need for DS and HA functions leads to the person obsessively focusing in this area (imagine in your mind a "Maslow's hierarchy of needs" pyramid for each type, if you will, with their DS function at the bottom, then the HA, then the Lead, etc...). So paradoxically, the better your mental health, the less likely you would be to solely rely on the Ego block in social situations; your needs are being met so you don't need to articulate them.

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    Not to add more confusion to the topic but I think you can be under stress, even chronic stress, have needs chronically unmet and still remain or learn to have high self-efficacy, self-esteem, accept the situation and neediness in a healthy, growth-promoting way. On the other hand you can not be under (external) stress but can have low self-esteem and be mentally unhealthy in the way you think, interact with yourself and others etc. So that stress and mental health are not always the same thing.

    There is that stuff in one of the articles about types and stress, I remember it saying Iee/sli, Iei/sle can cope with stress, Lie/esi etc are trained by it, Lse/Eii do not cope well etc.

    Also not about socionics but I remember reading about a theory once I forget the name about things that thrive and grow under stress, they actually only thrive if given extreme conditions, it's some scientific word but it interested me.

    This isn't it but this article touches on how our culture trains us to be less stress resilient because everyone expects their needs to be met quickly and wants to give up when they aren't.

    http://andywhiteblog.com/2016/11/21/...-of-adversity/
    Last edited by Guillaine; 07-18-2018 at 06:40 AM.

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    Result + Rational = mobilized by stress (democratic)
    Result + Irrational = resistant to stress (aristocratic)
    Process + Rational = vulnerable to stress (aristocratic)
    Process + Irrational = stopped by stress (democratic)

    Source: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...stance-Gulenko
    The decisive thing is not the reality of the object, but the reality of the subjective factor, i.e. the primordial images, which in their totality represent a psychic mirror-world. It is a mirror, however, with the peculiar capacity of representing the present contents of consciousness not in their known and customary form but in a certain sense sub specie aeternitatis, somewhat as a million-year old consciousness might see them.

    (Jung on Si)

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    When things are thrown at people's head and they duck, all types are acting in an stimulus-response (ISTp-like?) way; the response is automatic even though initially it may have had to be learned. When people are under significant stress but coping, information processes don't seem to change although certain typical behaviours may amplify - one may become more aggressive, docile, talkative, withdrawn, etc. depending what's normal. When people are not coping, cognitive processes will often switch to a limited dual-like configuration and the stress does not have to be that high; there only needs to be a sub-conscious realization that one is in a situation where success may be at risk. A nervous INTj may become more chatty and animated while an ESFj might become quiet and reflective. And, I'm sure there's a point where cognition breaks down and anything is possible.....
    a.k.a I/O

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    When the psyche exhausts people limit the activity which they do not like - nonvalued regions, especially weak one. Also may limit weak valued as they are harder.

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    I either handle stress by becoming paralyzed mentally and physically, struggling to come up with a solution at all, or just go full out reckless Se and start doing without thinking beforehand.

    The common aspect to both is not being able to rationalize my actions, either do or don't do. Thinking only worsens my stress.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Spermatozoa
    How does your access to each information element respond to acute and chronic stress, if we make inferences from the theory?
    I see no reason why stress would change your access to psychic resources, any more than it would change the balance of your physical senses. Your type is what determines this balance in the first place so if it changed, it would amount to changing your type temporarily.

    Generally speaking our response to stress is related to how we relate to Si and Se. Si valuers tend to internalize conflict/pain while Se valuers tend to externalize it (eg by getting angry or assigning blame).

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    I do remember looking this up once and reading about it because I have had ptsd and I read on something that people can change somewhat resemble their mirror more, temporarily rely or their auxiliary more, under extreme stress, which I think happened in my case.

    As far as trying to do a maslow style piramid, I would have thought it would be the opposite of what you have put where the top rung, if you had to put something, would be dual seeking, and at the bottom would be developing your ego block. But even then I don't know if it is so linear as that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thehotelambush View Post
    I see no reason why stress would change your access to psychic resources, any more than it would change the balance of your physical senses. Your type is what determines this balance in the first place so if it changed, it would amount to changing your type temporarily.

    I am not trying to be an asshole here. But do you really believe that chronic stress has no effect on one's mental faculties?

    I shall read on...

    Quote Originally Posted by thehotelambush View Post
    IGenerally speaking our response to stress is related to how we relate to Si and Se. Si valuers tend to internalize conflict/pain while Se valuers tend to externalize it (eg by getting angry or assigning blame).
    Our response to stress could be related to a wide variety of factors, many of which are well beyond the ability of Socionics to predict at present. The brain undergoes structural changes under chronic stress (and the external/internal distinction is not relevant, because emotional pain is still pain), which impair our ability to process information. I have observed that in general, Logical types become less logical and Ethical types less ethical, which begs the question of why Socionics models all have a fixed hierarchy of IEs but also assume that we have access to all of them regardless of changes in mental state.

    Ironically, the MBTI model (which we all like to feel smart and sneer at) posits access to only one function at birth (our base/primary) then another, then another and so on as we become more mature (or healthy) and this is probably closer to the truth.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spermatozoa View Post
    I am not trying to be an asshole here. But do you really believe that chronic stress has no effect on one's mental faculties?
    That's not what I meant. Obviously stress will limit your abilities in general, but why should it make you better at your weaknesses or vice versa? I don't see any theoretical reason why that would be true, nor have I observed it. If you have observed something like that then ok. Maybe you could provide some examples to illustrate.

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    It would seem impossible to be able to have arrows like eneagram pointing to healthy and unhealthy like you become more like your activator or your benefactor etc. Maybe the signs of unhealth (not neccessarily stress) are related to not actually being able to use your own strengths to their potential and being stuck using unvalued functions. A very mild example me teaching- using Ne and Ti supported by Se, as opposed to me writing- Ne and Fi supported by Si, just makes more sense. It always seems a shame when you meet someone who is a type who is for example a practical caregiver and yet has no confidence in being able to do those things due to non socionics issues and is stuck trying to fulfill other roles for people that they are not as natural to them. etc.

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