Originally Posted by
tcaudilllg
For somewhere around a year and a half now, you've all heard me talk (perhaps it must seem incessantly) about crosstypes. What are these crosstypes, and why are they important? This is what I aim to answer in this thread.
80 years ago this year, Carl Jung introduced his "Psychological Types" essay. In years since then the descriptions contained within this essay have become the basis for most personality typology study. MBTI is based on it, and Ashura Augusta's information elements are derived from it. Jung discussed eight types of people in his essay, function types and attitude types. His descriptions are far ranging and broad; in the context of socionics it is difficult to ascribe the features of his types to any single function progression. When he talks about introverted feeling he may be talking about INFj, or about INFj. When he talks about introverted intuition he may be talking about INTp, or INFp. Moreover, he mentions that there are "normal" varieties of these types and "non-normal" varieties, suggesting that in some types the functions are more exaggerated than others. (as though there were a clear middle) He observes that the functions must hand off information between each other in a distinct order: rationality to irrationality, irrationality to rationality. He posits that rationality may never be followed by rationality, or irrationality to irrationality, because it would violate the principle of a function staying true to its own nature. Despite the observation of this law, he puzzlingly claims to have observed the existence of people who violate it, calling them "primitive minded" or "archaic".
These suggestions beg definition. There is much we do not know about the workings of the psyche. Model A gives us a model, but in our practical experience we find it sufficiently inapplicable as to seem irrelevant. The number of people who consistently argue with the , so much that open criticism his emerged against the MBTI not because of its systemic failures in comparison to socionics, but rather due to its limited scope. (a charge ) In practice it appears sufficiently inaccessible to intuition as to be perceived as a Fourier effect.
Socionics has great promise. In particular, the ability to penetrate another person's thinking mechanism is useful for building bridges with a person where otherwise there might not by any potential to do so. But when you sit a person down to take a test telling them that they will learn more about themselves taking it, and then end up with a function score which is at or near 50/50 between two opposites, then they are more than a little likely to question a theory that says they should clearly, decisively be on one side or the other. A test that does not have predictive validity is not a reliable measure of study.
If we have the option of seeking a system of understanding which offers us greater validity than we now possess, then we should take it. Clearly, that option lies in the mystery behind those 50/50 scores.
In my analysis of these people who score evenly between one or more functions, I have gained insight. Their speech habits and mannerisms are distinct from either of the types they border; intuitively, they appear as though synthesized between the two. Their speech defies the function order, and their thought is directed in unique ways. They have the common feature of exaggerated personal attractiveness in terms of intelligence, physical beauty, charisma, or all three. One's perception of reality seems to change markedly in their presence; the greater the exaggeration, the greater the change.
There are other considerations, as well. Although personality pathologies have been observed to be closely related to type, pure instances of a pathological state are rare; comorbidity is much more common. If one is faced with a person who clearly demonstrates obsessive-compulsive tendencies coupled with anti-social behaviors, then by logic one would need to conclude that their personality type is similarly muddled. Certainly it would be difficult for chronic and consistently manifest beliefs to emerge in the absence of a definite factor of information processing. (or so says Model A)
Finally, Augusta makes some broad claims about the applicability of her work. She posits that all of human history is the product of various manifestations of 16 relational patterns. This is more than can be believed. Certainly people exist who are naturally more likable than others, and certainly there are people who have contributed in ways vastly divergent from the norm. If a socion does exist, it must be more complicated than 16 types--and 16 relations--allow.
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