Originally Posted by
The Greeter
Thanks to all who responded.
To the more theoretical side of things, I tend to associate social awareness of "belonging" to Fi, Fe, and Ni. I think it's quite obvious why Fi and Fe would be involved.
Fi has the ability to identify outsiders if majority of the members within the group displays dislike towards the individual (however subtle it may be), but if the Fi-ego happens to like the individual, it may be problematic for them to sense the group contempt towards the outsider. Conversely, if the Fi-ego dislikes the individual but the group does not, the involvement of the individual depends on non-socionical factors.
Fe would identify outsiders if they don't participate on an emotional level. The emotional expression needn't always be positive (it could be anything within the spectrum from positive and negative), but nevertheless they will be sensitive to the way the moods of individuals interact. Still, Fe-egos will attempt to integrate all individuals into the group; the extent that they would do this depends on non-socionical factors.
Finally, the most subtle one is Ni. While both intuitive functions have a tendency to abstraction, they do it differently. Ne tends to analyze entities down to its components and from there see what can be made out of it. Ni, on the other hand, is aware of how the symbolic representations of entities interact with each other and the “image” that arises from these interactions. If one of the entities creates a sort of “dissonance” in the overall image, the entity does not belong.
I should also state that the other functions, Si, Ne, Ti, Te and Se can also identify the “outsiders”, but the “outsider” for these functions are not judged on a social level. The reason I think Ni plays a role in this social phenomenon is because it functions on a symbolic level, and symbolism, in my opinion, is a sociological consequence. This, of course, is open to debate.