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    Default Rick's Schmystem of Schmubtypes

    I saw the post on subtypes and thought I'd put in my two cents, but it probably deserves a new thread.

    I personally don't "use" (i.e. don't think about) any of the existing subtype systems. Rather, what I generally apply as I get to know someone is this -- in addition to their socionic type:

    1. Are they an endomorph, mesomorph, or ectomorph?

    The personality and behavior differences between these three body types are significant enough to warrant making a mental note of it. An ectomorphic LII is different from an endomorphic one, simply by virtue of body type. The ectomorph will be more reserved and will internalize his emotional reactions more, whereas the endomorph will be more emotionally open. Call them " and subtypes," if you will, but I think the somatotypes are closer to the truth.

    2. Are they a physical, emotional, or mental person?

    Somewhat related to the above, but not entirely. Quite related to socionic type, but not entirely. For example, there are mental IEEs and then there are emotional ones. The emotional ones exert their energy more on people and getting to know them. The mental ones are more distant and focused on intellectual pursuits. Some SLEs are more physical than others. A thin SLE may seem more mental, maybe even ectomorphic, whereas a heavy-set one may seem more physically dominating.

    3. How intelligent are they?

    I look at the scale and universality of a person's interests, and what kinds of things they are drawn to and excited by. This affects intertype relations, because your "most real" conflictor, for instance, will be someone who's at a very different level than you. Your "most real" dual will be very close to your own level. Have you ever felt sucky in your own quadra because of intellectual differences? Then you know what I'm talking about.

    None of these "scales" is discrete, as opposed to socionic types. I prefer to keep what is meant to be discrete, discrete, and what is part of a continuum, continuous.

    ___________
    (added later)

    Another thing that may be very important as well is the degree of social domination.

    4. How much do they force themselves upon others?

    Two people of the same type may be very different if one of them always demands to be in the center of attention, while the other lets other people have attention and is calm about his place in the group or community. You might equate this scale to the psychological definitions of extraversion and introversion.
    Last edited by Rick; 11-14-2008 at 05:49 PM.
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    As an example, I know two SEEs who are quite different. One is a pronounced endomorph, highly emotional and physical, with underaverage intelligence. The other is mixed mesomorph and endomorph, about an even mixture of mental, emotional, and physical, and highly intelligent.

    The first is rude, loud, superstitious, materialistic, and gullible. The second is poised, charming, filled with a sense of purpose, and idealistic. Guess which one I have an easier time with?

    Among EIEs, for instance, I have an easier time with the more more mental ones. I have an EIE friend (ectomorphic, mental, highly intelligent) who is fascinating to me, sort of like Sigmund Freud. I know another EIE who is mesomorphic, emotional, and of average intelligence, and he really grates on me. Naturally, I would have problems with both EIEs if I were to live with them.
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    Hmmm, interesting... yes, I can see this.
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    schmakes schmore schmense

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    Rick, some of the things that you mentioned I think can be explained partially by Enneagram and instinct stackings. Not that that would capture everything you mentioned, but it's something.

    Although I do like the words "endomorph" and "ectomorph." They sound cool.

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    The body type correlates to my experiences with subtypes. Very interesting. I'm going to pay more attention to it.

    The intelligence level does not affect my relationships that heavy IME.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ms. Kensington View Post
    schmakes schmore schmense
    heehee
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    lol, this is a wonderful thread. It's useful too .

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    I really respect your work Rick, and I think these are interesting insights and I agree with parts, but they are a few parts I don't agree with.

    I believe that socionic type is an inborn thing that doesn't change (including sub-type) -- as you can see extroversion and introversion even in the facial expressions of babies and very small children. Look at your childhood pics and you'll see you even make the same expressions you do today -- I also buy into VI. I think the reason this is true, is that your brain and its genetic personality has an influence on your face, and the expressions that it makes. We can clearly see a look of introversion, someone who looks off into the distance, someone who looks within themselves, etc -- and this is a direct indication of what is going on in the person's brain.

    Your personality can evolve and change over time (how you act), but your in-born preferences stay the same. For example, it's like being left handed or right handed (in-born), and then learning to paint with that hand (a learned, changeable thing).

    However, your physical make up is a separate issue from VI and your personality type. Your body (at least the way it is built genetically) is not influenced by your brain's in-born personality type, except perhaps for the way it moves (this would be similar to VI, in that your brain's type literally "moves" your facial muscles in a predictable way, so it could move your body's muscles also). However, the physical structure of your body (size of your nose, width of your shoulders, etc) is a completely separate thing that is not influenced by socionics or the temperment of your personality.

    Just like intelligence. In the past, people believed you could judge intelligence by facial features like the size of a nose -- this was proven wrong of course, as we all know that you can't judge how someone's brain works based on their physical attributes. There was also a time people believe that minorities were stupid, based on their physical features -- obviously, we also know this is completely untrue today.

    The same way you can't know if a sensor will have a larger nose than an intuitive, you can't say a person of a certain build is more likely to be one type or another, or even on subtype vs. another subtype. I know some people in socionics do believe in physical characatures, but I've found this to be as false as believing you can judge intelligence by a person's race (hopefully no one here still believes that one).

    For example, I've know skinny ENTps, who do have buttons fall off, and I've known one 6'4" ENTp with a strong atheletic build, and other well built 6'7" basketball player ENTp -- their buttons never fell off. And I met another short, stalky ENTp.

    I really don't think that you can say one type, or sub-type will be more likely to be a different body type than another. I've typed hundreds of my family, friends and ex-boyfriends and I've seen a huge variety in physical appearance and build in every single type. I have a list of about ten INFps in my mind of completely different builds, and their sub types don't relate to that.

    Now, after knowing a person's type and subtype, I do agree that changing your body in a physical way does affect your hormones, which affects your behavior. You can see this in women who are given testosterone shots and grow beards and muscles. Having more muscle does give you more testosterone, and that can make men or women more aggressive (but hormones affect behavior, not the in-born foundation of a person's personality preference). Hormones are another layer on top of both type and sub-type.

    I also disagree that most scientists are the same, most artists are the same, etc. I've looked for these similarities when typing people, and find more differences than similarities. Especially when there are hundreds of different kinds of artists and scientists. Even in a narrow field, Mechanical Engineering, I've met ISTps (didn't surprise me), but also ENFps (did surprise me), an INFp (surprised me more). Plus, all of these guys were very different -- some loud and gregarious, others quiet, others almost girly. So I think a sweeping generalization like "most people of X type are the same" is not correct.

    I've also noticed within each type, and even within the same sub-type, there is a huge variety. But this variety is not based on just one factor (is someone fat, is someone smart?) but hundreds, thousands of factors that cannot be easily summed up in a Ti system. Within the category of type and sub-type, beyond that, is a person's true personality, which I don't think can be categorized by generalizations like "fat" and "thin" or "smart" or "dumb." I'm sure there are more categories to be discovered beyond type and sub-type that are in-born and predictable, but I think we need to be careful to separate those categories.




    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    I saw the post on subtypes and thought I'd put in my two cents, but it probably deserves a new thread.

    I personally don't "use" (i.e. don't think about) any of the existing subtype systems. Rather, what I generally apply as I get to know someone is this -- in addition to their socionic type:

    1. Are they an endomorph, mesomorph, or ectomorph?

    The personality and behavior differences between these three body types are significant enough to warrant making a mental note of it. An ectomorphic LII is different from an endomorphic one, simply by virtue of body type. The ectomorph will be more reserved and will internalize his emotional reactions more, whereas the endomorph will be more emotionally open. Call them " and subtypes," if you will, but I think the somatotypes are closer to the truth.

    2. Are they a physical, emotional, or mental person?

    Somewhat related to the above, but not entirely. Quite related to socionic type, but not entirely. For example, there are mental IEEs and then there are emotional ones. The emotional ones exert their energy more on people and getting to know them. The mental ones are more distant and focused on intellectual pursuits. Some SLEs are more physical than others. A thin SLE may seem more mental, maybe even ectomorphic, whereas a heavy-set one may seem more physically dominating.

    3. How intelligent are they?

    I look at the scale and universality of a person's interests, and what kinds of things they are drawn to and excited by. This affects intertype relations, because your "most real" conflictor, for instance, will be someone who's at a very different level than you. Your "most real" dual will be very close to your own level. Have you ever felt sucky in your own quadra because of intellectual differences? Then you know what I'm talking about.

    None of these "scales" is discrete, as opposed to socionic types. I prefer to keep what is meant to be discrete, discrete, and what is part of a continuum, continuous.

    ___________
    (added later)

    Another thing that may be very important as well is the degree of social domination.

    4. How much do they force themselves upon others?

    Two people of the same type may be very different if one of them always demands to be in the center of attention, while the other lets other people have attention and is calm about his place in the group or community. You might equate this scale to the psychological definitions of extraversion and introversion.
    Hi! I'm an ENFP. :-)

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    Quote Originally Posted by jewels View Post
    I've also noticed within each type, and even within the same sub-type, there is a huge variety. But this variety is not based on just one factor (is someone fat, is someone smart?) but hundreds, thousands of factors that cannot be easily summed up in a Ti system. Within the category of type and sub-type, beyond that, is a person's true personality, which I don't think can be categorized by generalizations like "fat" and "thin" or "smart" or "dumb." I'm sure there are more categories to be discovered beyond type and sub-type that are in-born and predictable, but I think we need to be careful to separate those categories.
    There's very little in your post that I would disagree with, so I think we're basically on the same page. Among all the variety with its thousands of factors, I think some are more and some are less important in characterizing the person's interaction with others. If there's no set of factors that is consistently more important than any others, then no type system can be proposed at all. I think most of us here can agree that the 16 types are important. Beyond that, it's all highly disputable. The factors I've mentioned here are ones that I've observed to be generally informative (though, interestingly, the most visual and concrete one -- somatotypes -- has drawn the most skepticism). Other people will give other answers.

    Basically, the point of my thread is to propose a non- approach to subtypes. At least here the debate is, "is or is not this factor important to personality and interaction?" At least my proposed factors can be disproven. With the -based subtype approach, there's no factor to discuss! It's just another set of descriptions without an underlying mechanism (explanation).
    It is easier for the eye of a camel to pass through a rich man than for a needle to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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    I'm bumping this thread because this is similar to the way I see subtypes. I'm thinking about this lately because I am actually making an effort to type people, which I really wasn't doing until recently.

    I notice a 'verbose' subtype or 'terse' subtype variable in forums. You get people who write 100,000 massive walls of text over a period of a couple months, while other people write a couple one-liners now and then, and they're the same type. It's not merely because one group of them is spending lots of time online and the other group isn't. Some people just want to talk or write in a lot more length and detail than others do.

    I'm not all that interested in deciding whether somebody's subtype emphasizes the base function or creative function more. I'm more concerned about knowing for sure whether I've gotten someone's type right in the first place! Somebody could seem like a subtype because they have been misidentified as completely the wrong type. So they struggle with trying to explain why their type behaves strangely, and they might divide it up into various subtypes.

    So I'm interested in 'subtypes' that are caused by other factors, non-socionic factors.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    1. Are they an endomorph, mesomorph, or ectomorph?
    What the heck, I don't see any mesomorph types of socionics types.

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