Troubleshooting typing flaws

[Wittmont]

I am stumped when it comes to typing a friend of mine. So now I need some methods or ideas to help me troubleshoot the typing process. The problem in this case is that the functions of this person, when it comes to weaknesses and strengths, do not fully or accurately match the type descriptions. If you made a new socionics description for this person it would be a mix of a few different types.

How do you guys go about typing someone? Do you have a specific method? Is there some area(s) you concentrate on, like in trying to define the PoLR or base function for example?

If you wrote a a short and specific step by step guide to typing for someone already familiar with the socionics basics, what would it look like?

What do you do when you have typed someone as accurately as you can, but that type description on wikisocion, Filatova etc. is not very accurate or convincing, but still the best match out of all the type descriptions?

[UDP]

This isn't a direct answer, per se, but it's what came to mind:

What really affects typing is experience with different kinds of people. Over time, you realize how people interact with you, in terms of your own functional values and their functional values. That's what really is going on.

You eventually develop your own model of understanding functional values and interactions, and what different temperments look like to you. And you realize more and more over time how people vary in terms of type; meeting multiple people of the same type helps with this a great deal.

Over time, you can recognize people merely by appearance - though it has to do with many things like posture, presence, and so on. I particularly find someone's voice to be very telling and very revealing --- I can hear unvalued Si, Fe, Te, and the like. But those things come with experience.

[UDP]

How do you guys go about typing someone? Do you have a specific method? Is there some area(s) you concentrate on, like in trying to define the PoLR or base function for example?

I don't think its useful to 'try' to look at something specifically, but what seems to happen in reality is something will be particularly noticeable. Do they respond well to Fe? What is there energy level, and what affects their energy level? Start from the most glaring things about the person and then go from there. Eliminate what is most unlikely, and you get closer and closer to the type.

If you wrote a a short and specific step by step guide to typing for someone already familiar with the socionics basics, what would it look like?

Study socionics, think about it over time, gain experience. And really, really check yourself, especially at first, to make sure your understanding of the functions is right. Eventually, you see more and more consistency, and people's types become more and more clear. Also, put more focus on real life experience than anything here on the forum or you've read in terms of profiles or functional explanations. You have to figure out what "Se leading" really means to you in your own terms first, and then you'll understand more what articles about it/other things really mean.

What do you do when you have typed someone as accurately as you can, but that type description on wikisocion, Filatova etc. is not very accurate or convincing, but still the best match out of all the type descriptions?

Heh, I didn't even see this question when I wrote the above.

The descriptions are people's attempts at reality. You will be able to comprehend types and the socionics system yourself, but you must develop that understanding in reality, and not based off of 'reading'. You can't really learn how to ride a bike or dance only from reading a book, you have to practice and 'feel' what its like.

As your own understanding grows, using profiles and other outside sources is less needed (although that doesn't imply that I think they are "needed" in the first place). They can be useful in explaining or offering insight, but that depends on how good they are, and how much your interpretation of the words that were written actually match with the authors intent, and more fundamental than that is the author's actual amount of understanding. So you have to keep all that in mind. For example, the author might be writing something "properly", but, because they are a different type or quadra than you, and you have different experiences and connotations, it might not convey the correct meaning. So there's a lot of trouble wrapped up in all of that.


Mmm... Socionics is a tool that helps you by giving you terminology for things that already exist without socionics being there. It's useful to keep that in mind. You have to find out what those things really are, before applying socionics terminology to them. Theories and assumptions and ideas made when there is no real understanding of what those things are - such is generally useless and misleading, as they are derived from untruth. (This is the same problem you will come across in many fields of study).

[Jarno]

dichotomies
relationship
main function
compare with others

stay away from things like, what is his polr, or his hidden agenda function etc. that's about the same as trying to VI someone by looking at his elbow. Focus on the important parts. (as noted here above)

[stevENTj]

Nothing ever fits exactly. It was a bear to try and type me. Most people here were convinced and even had me convinced that I was an ENTj, but I'm really an INTp at the core. Just an INTp that can emulate a good ENTj for awhile.

A big help was identifying the PoLR function. I couldn't relate at all to the PoLR or Hidden Agenda function for an ENTj. PoLR I was clearly , which narrowed it down to either ISTp or INTp. Always strong N, so INTp it is. I could pass for an ISTp at times, along with an ENTj. Sometimes the critical knowledge to type someone can only come deep from within themselves, as they're the only ones who truly know how they think and how their brains operate. I had an in-depth discussion and comparison on this once with Expat where he described how his EJ mind operates and then I how I operate, and finally realized I was truly IP temperament, but just pretty good at being an EJ also. Most of the time I'm IP, but when I need to I can freely go into kick-ass EJ mode without too many problems and be comfortable doing so.

The person you're trying to type also has to be TRUE to themselves. If they're in any sort of stressful situation, forget it. Typing yourself or others while under any sort of stress just leads to wildly inaccurate thoughts and conclusions. Whatever you think you might be while under stress is pretty much a guarantee that that's NOT what you are. In a very stressful situation I once thought I was an INFp. HA HA! Not hardly, but the stressful situation was forcing me to try to use which INTps absolutely suck at - it's their PoLR - which just happened to be the cause of the stress!

[Jarno]

Sometimes the critical knowledge to type someone can only come deep from within themselves, as they're the only ones who truly know how they think and how their brains operate.

This is where my opinion is different. Introspection is known to be unreliable. Looking inside yourself to 'find' the process of functions is not as good as simply looking at the outside how you behave. If you look at people's behaviour it's more obvious which type they are, then when trying to look at which functions they have on 'the inside'. Theoretically it sounds better, but in practice it doesn't work. Just my experience...

[crazedrat]

some people seem more aware of subtle unconscious ques which help them to penetrate a persons internal frame of mind.. like what Ryu describes. Others seem more action oriented and behavior oriented. I prefer the first method. I dont see a clear correlation between this and valued functions

[Trevor]

Great post, ryu.

[Joy]

I think the two most common errors/difficulties in typing people are:

1.) Incorrectly identifying quadra values do to incorrectly typed benchmarks, especially oneself.
2.) Assuming that a person's most apparent functions are in their ego block.

[stanprollyright]

Another big flaw is typing people based on how comfortable you think your relationship is. Firstly: you have to be completely positive of your type before you can determine theirs based on relationship. Secondly: interpersonal relationships are complicated and involve a lot of different factors that have nothing to do with type. Just because you are good friends with them doesn't mean they are in your quadra, and just because you dislike them doesn't make them the opposite quadra. There are certain calls you can make, however. Your best friend who you love to do all sorts of different activities with and shares your opinions about everything probably isn't your conflictor.

[stanprollyright]

This is where my opinion is different. Introspection is known to be unreliable. Looking inside yourself to 'find' the process of functions is not as good as simply looking at the outside how you behave. If you look at people's behaviour it's more obvious which type they are, then when trying to look at which functions they have on 'the inside'. Theoretically it sounds better, but in practice it doesn't work. Just my experience...

There are four parts to the psyche: the part that everyone knows, the part that you know but others don't, the part that others can see but you don't know about, and the part that no one sees or knows about. Socionics is about taking information from the first three and uncovering the last one. Basically, both introspection and behavioral observations are required for a sound typing.

[Jonathan]

I think some of the biggest flaws in typing come from:
* Superficial visual stereotypes like thick glasses = NT, nice skin = Si, nice hair = Fe, etc.
* Ignoring simpler, more obvious evidence in favor of some more obscure evidence where there might be a case if all other paths are ruled out, but where people sometimes jump on the more obscure theory too easily....e.g., thinking without enough evidence that a given person's most prominent and strongly expressed function is the dual-seeking one, or judging by some Reinin dichotomy without first looking at the more basic evidence.
* Putting together bits of information without a sound strategy...e.g., taking a little bit of resemblence to a phrase from Filatova here, something Augusta said there, the fact that the person reminds you of so-and-so, something someone on the forum said....and these may all come from different perspectives and not add up to a sound argument.
* Typing the profession or interest rather than the person. E.g., he's into math, must be LII.
* Assuming that a person's best friends must be duals with that person.
* In the case of self-typing, typing based on qualities you admire or like to see yourself as, or typing based on some mode that you're in at the moment.

In any case, another factor is what is being typed. One view that I think is helpful is the idea (which I heard from Rick) that you type mainly public behavior; internally you could think yourself to be anything, but what things you show to others is a clue to what you're most comfortable with...what your niche is. (Of course not everyone will agree with this, but so that leads to the next point.)

There is of course the complication that there are different schools...for example on this forum there's a lot of emphasis on typing by quadra values. Another school is that one should try to find what the base function by understanding what the person is "about." These are different viewpoints. Every difference in definitions or techniques is bound to lead to some different views about various people's types.

[smilodon]

This is by no means perfect, but I have a reasonable amount of success with it. I would also only try this if I have interacted with someon a decent amount. I tend to try and go by temperament and club, I find this a little easier for NF and ST. For some reason when it comes to SF, particularly female, I have difficulty.

[Krig the Viking]

The typing method I've cobbled together focuses mainly on what sort of things the subject talks about, what words he uses, and how he says things. I reference this and this as my primary sources when typing, primarily the former (the latter can get you off track if you focus too much on individual words and not the overall impression).

[stevENTj]

This is where my opinion is different. Introspection is known to be unreliable. Looking inside yourself to 'find' the process of functions is not as good as simply looking at the outside how you behave. If you look at people's behaviour it's more obvious which type they are, then when trying to look at which functions they have on 'the inside'. Theoretically it sounds better, but in practice it doesn't work. Just my experience...

If you're not looking at the whole picture as completely and as honestly as you can you're not going to be as accurate. I might behave outwardly more as an EJ, yet I'm really an IP. And only I could know that since I'm the only one that has access to my inner thought patterns and process. My wife would appear more as an EJ to most, yet is really an IJ.

[717495]

Yes introspection has been very important to me. It is primarily how I make decisions anyway. Behaviors have more alternative reasons behind them, and sure it makes sense to look at them secondarily.

[Waddlesworth]

I am stumped when it comes to typing a friend of mine. So now I need some methods or ideas to help me troubleshoot the typing process. The problem in this case is that the functions of this person, when it comes to weaknesses and strengths, do not fully or accurately match the type descriptions. If you made a new socionics description for this person it would be a mix of a few different types.

How do you guys go about typing someone? Do you have a specific method? Is there some area(s) you concentrate on, like in trying to define the PoLR or base function for example?

If you wrote a a short and specific step by step guide to typing for someone already familiar with the socionics basics, what would it look like?

What do you do when you have typed someone as accurately as you can, but that type description on wikisocion, Filatova etc. is not very accurate or convincing, but still the best match out of all the type descriptions?

The problem is that there are many different methods of typing which all inevitably lead to contradictory results.

What is type? Is type based upon a test? Someone else's supposed expertise?

Alright, if it is based upon a test, what type of test? There are different kinds of tests. You can give a person 10 different types of test and they could easily yield more than one result, though all of these results will claim to be sociotype. So which is it?

Well, then you stroll on round the corner and ask an 'expert'... but then you want a second opinion, so you go to another expert and they do indeed give you a second opinion, so then what?

And then often we think we know someone's type, but then we change our minds and think they may be another type. Problem here is that our understanding of type in one person is interdependent with our understanding of type in another person. So we have congnitive dissonance about type in others/ourselves, since admitting we are wrong about one person means we are likely wrong about someone else. We tend to be conservative with changing our minds(for many reasons) and that makes us therefore less likely to abandon socionics for the unscientific, self-limiting, judgement-based system that it is.

If you are unsure about a person's type it means that you do not understand socionics. If you understood socionics you would not have trouble typing people.

Not worth asking people for help on this, because none of them can prove socionics/type is real, either. If someone can prove type/the validity of socionics I would like to see them demonstrate this.

Fact is no one here can and everyone is just lying and pretending.

[stevENTj]

Yes introspection has been very important to me. It is primarily how I make decisions anyway. Behaviors have more alternative reasons behind them, and sure it makes sense to look at them secondarily.

Yes.

And this is where Socionics is a bit counter-intuitive and the American MBTI system can actually start to make a little more sense. In MBTI if you behave outwardly as an extrovert then you're defined as an extrovert. In Socionics you can behave outwardly as an extrovert, yet if your true primary function is introverted, you're an introvert despite the fact that you might behave outwardly or appear as an extrovert to most! Problem with MBTI is that if you really start to dig down deep things get jumbled and confused because their way of doing things is not true to Jung and things get inconsistent. It does make more sense at a superficial level though. Socionics makes less sense on the surface, but is far superior to and much more accurate and useful than MBTI if you really want to dig deep and explore personality theory and especially inter-type relationships. The sacrifice that MBTI makes for allowing it to be more intuitive to understand on the surface comes at the expense of going to rubbish if you really want to dig deeply on something.

[Jarno]

I think the two most common errors/difficulties in typing people are:


2.) Assuming that a person's most apparent functions are in their ego block.

haha. why is it fun to say something obviously contradicting. Ego block ARE the most apparent functions.

[Jarno]

In MBTI if you behave outwardly as an extrovert then you're defined as an extrovert. In Socionics you can behave outwardly as an extrovert, yet if your true primary function is introverted, you're an introvert despite the fact that you might behave outwardly or appear as an extrovert to most!

just for the record, what I meant by behaviour is his/her manners. Just as females behave femalish and males behave in a male way. For that, I don't have to see their inner mind, what kind of function he's using at that moment etc. We've also concluded in a recent discussion that all functions work at the same time. So I rather look at types, instead of information elements like polr's, ha's, ds's etc.

I guess it's rather comparing whether someoone looks and behaves like a certain type of which you've made some kind of (stereotyped) model in your mind.

[Joy]

haha. why is it fun to say something obviously contradicting. Ego block ARE the most apparent functions.

In well adjusted people who have had their ego block rewarded, yes. Such is not always the case though. Sometimes the most apparent function is the role or PoLR, for example. It's not a "proper" use of these information elements, but it's still what jumps out at you.

[stanprollyright]

femalish

I believe the word you're searching for is feminine.

[Creepy-male]

In well adjusted people who have had their ego block rewarded, yes. Such is not always the case though. Sometimes the most apparent function is the role or PoLR, for example. It's not a "proper" use of these information elements, but it's still what jumps out at you.

This is true. I think most people thought my first posts were laden with Ti, but now Glamourama and Carla at least notice that I'm a horrible, unabashed Fi spammer.

Sorry, Carla >:

With that in mind, I think the Role function is also a side-effect of being strong in the same domain, just with a different focus. EIIs then have many of the same problems as LIIs with what Brilliand calls "nihilism", or getting stuck balancing IJ sorts of things--in my case, principles (and I feel really cheesy saying that, but I do have an almost cancerous super-ego), my sentiments, the correct course of action (I will confess to get stuck just deliberating endlessly and not feeling comfortable actually doing the doing part ); for LIIs, their logical lego bricks (and probably a lot more. LIIs, please fill this in!) IOW, XIIs are both influenced by a more general "IJ" + Ne sort of thing, it's just that EIIs will tend towards the human element, and LIIs to the information side. I hope I managed to make that make sense.

On a related note, I notice that LSEs tend to have a lot of outward emotional energy, or that ILEs can be really motivated and focused on achievement (hence why I keep wanting to retype my ILE friend ESTx).

Random tangential conclusion: temperament is probably more apparent, then you can narrow that down to a base function based on what ideas they deal with. Does that make me LII?

But yeah, I think that one can present their role more comfortably than their base at first as well, especially if that's what's been taught. Case-in-point, being trained by school to structure my thinking and my writing, which comes through in my posts (and a lot less in real life, where I find it easier to just do a tangled epic dump, just like what Errant said about having all his thoughts in a big tangled mess of string (though my analogy was "juggling onions". Same diff!))

That said, while your Role is your trained social face, any PoLR usage is probably blustering. I can't help but wonder if this is related to Expat's "pathetic HA"--I see parallels with trying to persuade yourself that you can do your PoLR. Or, rather, I suppose, that your Creative is far more flexible and confident than it actually is. I think this is what labcoat referred to as being "robust"... the Creative is just a showy bastard, since he's the guy who interacts with the world outside. The boss dude chilling in the back--the one who *knows* he's in charge and doesn't need to show off--is your base.

I don't expect this post to make much sense

[Joy]

Random tangential conclusion: temperament is probably more apparent, then you can narrow that down to a base function based on what ideas they deal with. Does that make me LII?

No. It's what I've been doing with people in this group I'm in. We interview each other about our personal and professional interests and goals, and upon mentioning Socionics, people always ask what it is. Upon describing it, they always ask what type I think they are. I usually start with temperament and then narrow it down from there.

It's much easier with some than with others though.

[stevENTj]

We've also concluded in a recent discussion that all functions work at the same time. So I rather look at types, instead of information elements like polr's, ha's, ds's etc.

I dunno about that. Guess I'd have to read the thread to see the whole context. In my case knowing my PoLR and HA was key, and these aren't things that are really outwardly expressed that others could pick up on. They're inner feelings and desires.