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    Default What happens if you type yourself or others wrong?

    Socionics is so vaguely defined, so what if I type someone wrong, or what if I type myself wrong, or what if I type everyone right and something affects the relationship which is non socionic related?

    I think it's better just to try to get on with people, if I can't get on even just try to learn something from them, or at the least try to learn from the experience of not getting on with them.

    Is it really safe to try to box oneself into a type, or other people? Maybe if anything then just take the surface off socionics and not go too deeply, just leave it as it is and appreciate people for what they are.

    What do you think?

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    Learning about socionics (and personality theory in general) has actually helped me to be more understanding and tolerant of other peoples' differences. I understand better now, that every person is wired differently, that there are certain processes that often lead to certain behaviors, and people truly can't help thmselves much of the time. Not that we shouldn't all strive for personal growth and self-improvement, but it really is a lot harder-- at a physchological and physiological level-- than it seems. There's a reason why people don't just miraculously change overnight, no matter how much pressure is being put on them to do so.

    I don't find it necessary to box all my friends and family into specific types, though it has been helpful to at least narrow things down into quadras, or clubs, or temperaments. In a very few cases I have managed to narrow it down to type, but I'm not going out of my way to do so unless the individual seems particularly interested.

    Understanding my own type and my husband's type, and discussing things with him, has really helped us to understand each other better, and to further improve our relationship.

    So, I have found socionics to be rather more helpful. Though, I can see how it could become a bit dangerous, especially if one goes about boxing people into unconfirmed types and starts treating them a certain way based on an erroneous conclusion about their type. But for me, I do make an effort to make sure I'm not changing the way I treat people, but just my understanding of them-- which has improved, thanks to socionics.
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    I don't even bother trying to type a lot of my real life friends. Either I'll get along with someone naturally or I won't, and either we have a mutual interest in common which is where the friendship comes from or we don't. I never try to 'force' it if it's just not working. Sometimes you don't have a choice though (work related), in which case knowledge of Socionics can make a huge HUGE difference and be really helpful and beneficial.

    The only people I try to type are those I might be having some difficulty with and must interact with (typically work related), or if I'm just curious.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Words View Post
    Socionics is so vaguely defined, so what if I type someone wrong, or what if I type myself wrong, or what if I type everyone right and something affects the relationship which is non socionic related?

    I think it's better just to try to get on with people, if I can't get on even just try to learn something from them, or at the least try to learn from the experience of not getting on with them.

    Is it really safe to try to box oneself into a type, or other people? Maybe if anything then just take the surface off socionics and not go too deeply, just leave it as it is and appreciate people for what they are.

    What do you think?
    I have and do ask myself similar questions.

    Generally I don't try too hard to type people I know. Sometimes I do if their type jumps out at me, or if there's something about them that makes me curious, such as a weird relationship or off behavior from what I'd expect. I usually only rely on my socionics knowledge if I'm having a problem that isn't more easily solved through another avenue.

    It can come in useful, though. For example, I have a ISTj brother (I'm fairly certain he is, anyway), and it's helped me to realize he needs Fe and Ni to be healthy, and when I can't provide that or a close substitute for him I know at least what he needs and have the tools to point him in the right direction. Or, it helps to realize he needs to express a certain amount of Se and when he does that it's not him being an immature jerk but just... who he is, and then I make sure I'm not in the immediate vicinity.

    Anyway, right now I see socionics as an occasionally useful, sometimes interesting tool - another pair of glasses, among many, through which to see the world of people.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Words View Post
    Socionics is so vaguely defined, so what if I type someone wrong, or what if I type myself wrong, or what if I type everyone right and something affects the relationship which is non socionic related?

    I think it's better just to try to get on with people, if I can't get on even just try to learn something from them, or at the least try to learn from the experience of not getting on with them.

    Is it really safe to try to box oneself into a type, or other people? Maybe if anything then just take the surface off socionics and not go too deeply, just leave it as it is and appreciate people for what they are.

    What do you think?
    Well, first you say that socionics is so general that there is a lot of space for mistyping, but then you go on to say that we are boxing people in with the types. Thing is, the types are general to the extent that nobody is boxed in, but rather just described as being from a certain 'region'.

    Admittedly, there are some individuals who do box people in and take it too far; this can be seen when people are over systematizing something that's really just simple and general, or when people absolutely expect all behavior to be a result of one's type and not their circumstances outside their type.

    For the most part though, when socionics is applied it cannot really absolutely predict every possible outcome. Instead, all it really does it make it known to you the process going on inside another. After all, socionics cannot predict outside factors that affect decision making; just the process of making the decision.

    The best advice I can give is that you should look at types not as a measuring stick for predictions or possible outcomes of situations, but rather as a rough estimate of an independent individual. As for your 'types are ambiguous' dilemma, I can't respond so well because over time I have seen how different people fit into the types. My original problem was that I expected them to behave and fit the expectations of each type, and that if their intertype relations wasn't playing out exactly how it was supposed to, it would mean I'm doing something wrong; I was horribly wrong to do it this way, because each individual fits his or her description in a completely unique way, so each case is a new one. All SEIs have similarities, but no SEI is the same.

    ps imo socionics is not some weird tool that just gives you a different perspective. If that's all it's good for then it's not worth your time. No, socionics has some real application in the general regions it gives to each type, you just have to go out and see for yourself how the real world meets the descriptions and not how the descriptions meet the real world.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Words View Post
    Socionics is so vaguely defined, so what if I type someone wrong, or what if I type myself wrong, or what if I type everyone right and something affects the relationship which is non socionic related?

    I think it's better just to try to get on with people, if I can't get on even just try to learn something from them, or at the least try to learn from the experience of not getting on with them.

    Is it really safe to try to box oneself into a type, or other people? Maybe if anything then just take the surface off socionics and not go too deeply, just leave it as it is and appreciate people for what they are.

    What do you think?

    I COMPLETELY agree.

    You sort of know when you've found duality, as it's happening. It's hard to just look and spot a dual. Same with activity. (and flip side, same with conflict, superego, etc).
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    Quote Originally Posted by WorkaholicsAnon View Post
    I COMPLETELY agree.

    You sort of know when you've found duality, as it's happening. It's hard to just look and spot a dual. Same with activity. (and flip side, same with conflict, superego, etc).
    It depends... For some reason activity is one of the easiest ones for me to spot.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lobo View Post
    It depends... For some reason activity is one of the easiest ones for me to spot.
    Well yeah for me too, but i usually notice it as we're interacting because we just get so excited and interested talking to each other. It's like a very strong attractive force (i'm not talking romantic here).


    With duality, each of us usually has to somehow be put into each others' presence and need to work with each other before I'll actually see them and recognize the duality.
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    I feel like the guy who says "AND CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED!"

    but

    Socionics now has a very very very limited and specific role in how I view and see other people. I think it's great at what it does, but it is a specialized bit of theory, specialized tool. It is definitely not the end all to relations. But it does address certain things that are very intrinsic, very inherent, and very 'unchangeable'; things rooted deep within someone's make up as per what makes them function.

    I've found it frustrating to talk about to people who aren't familiar with it in a general sense, and even so here on the forum at times. I think it can be, or appear, so specific that it seems unreasonable, or unuseful.

    As far as incorrectly typing people, yeah, that happens a lot, especially at first. It's a big challenge to realize what a "type" is, because a type creates a certain "psychological lean", or lopsidedness if you will, that comes from certain IEs being valued over others.


    Is it really safe to try to box oneself into a type, or other people? Maybe if anything then just take the surface off socionics and not go too deeply, just leave it as it is and appreciate people for what they are.
    I'd say it was the opposite - people taking socionics TOO superficially and thinking it's just a matter of stuffing people in boxes and making decisions off of what socionics says, like it is some sort of fullproof relational calculus. Obviously it's not. I think people tend to over-glorify the use of socionics, here, at least. And in doing so socionics becomes belittled to this wanna-be MBTI sorting hat that will magically explain everything.

    Socionics, if anything, IMO, should help you appreciate people for how they are; you get to see some of why people are how they are, naturally. I've said before, socionics helps you provide a psychological (mental) skeleton for what a person is. The curves of the body, and how they move around, and even their instinctual or passionate side, the influence of their family and upbringing, those are all different matters. Socionics is just a framework for their decision making.


    PS: You could say, if Aushura was an ILE trying to deal with Fi matters, it would make sense that she tried to create something very Ti as a result; I see socionics as a chunk of , sort of. What resulted from efforts about trying to understand how people relate is a 'chunk' or system of data interpretation.

    PSS: I think a lot of how people go about trying to use socionics is very wrong, particularly because it is trying to make the theory do things it isn't supposed to do; as such it creates a sort of stretching and pleading of the theory. And then people get 'upset' that it isn't all that they wanted it to be. ...
    Posts I wrote in the past contain less nuance.
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    Out of curiosity, Ryu, how do you use Socionics, and in what ways does "the community" misuse/misapply it?

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    Also, I am beginning to question more the idea that you should only look for people based on what socionics says. I was in that camp for a while, but, now that I'm having a long term relationship with someone who isn't my dual, I don't think it's about our types.

    (I'd still highly recommend being in the same quadra, though...) but I think it comes down to knowing what YOU, personally, can and can't deal with from other people. Socionics addresses that somewhat. And the other big factors are life stuff, what the person is doing, where they are going, how they see things, etc.

    What socionics has done for me is help me realize one set of factors, or influencers, on a person. To me it's become useful to know "when this is a socionics-related issue" vs when it is not; and even that context or that awareness of multiple factors helps. It helps deal with the complexity of emotions and relationships and what triggers reactions in other people. Sometimes socionics is right on, because someone's valued IEs were trashed, and they got some odd POLR hits, so it's easy to see what caused that tension. Othertimes its not so clear-cut, not all about socionics.

    But yeah, I'd definitely rather have that knowledge of socionics so I can understand what influenced it, rather than being ignorant of socionics and trying to attribute it to something else -- example: LSI seeing delta NF as being too weak or too lazy, because the NF doesn't go about things in an Se way or reacts poorly to it; an alpha SF doesn't understand a delta STs aversion to certain Fe oriented remarks or situations. Etc.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Words View Post
    What do you think?
    My association with socionics has typically been to recognize it as a loose model for describing how people behave, and evaluating potential reasons for that behaviour through functions, function placements, and then types in a general sense. It's useful as a basis for self-reflection, and provides excellent insight into others' personalities.
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    people categorize their enviroment to be able to understand it, it's up to you if you want to categorize it through socionics or not - if you don't you're probably just going to start categorizing people depending what starsign they are or depending on their socio-economic status and so on.

    and socionics is nothing absolute, it's a color used in the painting but it wouldn't be intresting to look at if it wasn't for the other 100 shades of red, blue and green - so i think you could very well put different personality types on people without it being the most important thing about them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Words View Post
    Is it really safe to try to box oneself into a type, or other people? Maybe if anything then just take the surface off socionics and not go too deeply, just leave it as it is and appreciate people for what they are.

    What do you think?
    Sometimes a lot of anti-rationalists forget that the same thing happens empirically. If you had enough experience with people in the world, you would still box them into certain categories.

    Quote Originally Posted by protoss View Post
    people categorize their enviroment to be able to understand it, it's up to you if you want to categorize it through socionics or not - if you don't you're probably just going to start categorizing people depending what starsign they are or depending on their socio-economic status and so on.

    and socionics is nothing absolute, it's a color used in the painting but it wouldn't be intresting to look at if it wasn't for the other 100 shades of red, blue and green - so i think you could very well put different personality types on people without it being the most important thing about them.

    potejto potato
    Agreed.

    Quote Originally Posted by pianosinger View Post
    Learning about socionics (and personality theory in general) has actually helped me to be more understanding and tolerant of other peoples' differences. I understand better now, that every person is wired differently, that there are certain processes that often lead to certain behaviors, and people truly can't help thmselves much of the time. Not that we shouldn't all strive for personal growth and self-improvement, but it really is a lot harder-- at a physchological and physiological level-- than it seems. There's a reason why people don't just miraculously change overnight, no matter how much pressure is being put on them to do so.
    I totally agree. Without the knowledge, it would be much more difficult to learn the same thing based on experience. I think Socionics can save you from a ton of stress in this way.
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    Quote Originally Posted by EyeSeeCold View Post
    I totally agree. Without the knowledge, it would be much more difficult to learn the same thing based on experience. I think Socionics can save you from a ton of stress in this way.



    I use socionics to figure out why someone could be acting the way they do in ways I would have never thought of without the theory. I sure didn't know nearly as much about differences paradigms before getting into personality theories.

    But, I only type people I've known for years. This is because I suck at typing people. So putting people into boxes all the time is not a problem for me.

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    Well, first you say that socionics is so general that there is a lot of space for mistyping, but then you go on to say that we are boxing people in with the types. Thing is, the types are general to the extent that nobody is boxed in, but rather just described as being from a certain 'region'.
    I've met pushy aggressive ENFps and subdued agreeable ones. The pushy aggressive ones could well be ESFp, if one is associating pushyness with Se, whereas maybe it is just simply a character trait or a defense mechanism. You could even go further to say that the ESFp is ESTp due to appearing 'heartless' at times.

    The only reason I think they are ENFp is because they 'VI' as one - another subjective term , and keeping in mind the personality they present to the world.

    But you're right that you are exposing a contradiction to an extent in what i'm saying, which is just another paradox of applying the system imo.

    -
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    I think that one of the things this typology can say which is perhaps useful, is the basic things, like for instance, it's OK to be a quiet person (stereotypical introversion) that sort of stuff.

    At the same time, I do find myself trying to have a use for it. I agree that it can help to formulate the mind as 'archetypes' of people like for instance in a work environment. However I find that i'm better overall just not particularly classifying anyone, or at least when i'm away from this for a while that my attitude to things is more natural and free flowing. Hmmm maybe i'll have to think about this some more.

    To everyone who's responded so far, thank you for answering, i've enjoyed reading your thoughts on it. I haven't responded to them all, because, I can basically see where everyone is coming from and find myself agreeing!, so not sure what to say with a silent nod over the internet

    I thought i'd respond to the post I did as sort of was related to something on my mind, that is, in a way, how personality and functions seem to be different things in many cases which to me makes socionics an even vaguer tool, ie a pushy person may not be an Se type but it's easy to class them as such, a fun friendly person may still be Fe PoLR but is just trying to adapt coping mechanisms in life. It also crosses my mind that some people are maybe OK with the vagueness.

    Personally i'm more inclined to want... "does it work or not", and of course, "sometimes it works" can be applied to anything, but I think perhaps the final way to answer it is, "how to apply it to make it work in each situation", which is probably why we are all still here!, or at least one of the reasons.
    Last edited by Words; 11-02-2010 at 11:26 AM.

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    Words' post
    I feel like SEEs and IEEs can VI similarly and understand each other quite a bit. Same creative, same HA, both Fe demonstrative and Ti-POLR. And if they're Fi-subtype they will both seem sort of soft and gentle. I think an IEE is more clumsy and awkward than an SEE, and there will be more of an infantile vibe in the IEE versus an aggressor one in the SEE. I've also noticed that SEEs are more prone to intentionally sexualizing things than IEEs, who might accidentally use innuendo without really meaning to (also sort of an aggressor vs infantile difference).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Words View Post
    I've met pushy aggressive ENFps and subdued agreeable ones. The pushy aggressive ones could well be ESFp, if one is associating pushyness with Se, whereas maybe it is just simply a character trait or a defense mechanism. You could even go further to say that the ESFp is ESTp due to appearing 'heartless' at times.

    The only reason I think they are ENFp is because they 'VI' as one - another subjective term , and keeping in mind the personality they present to the world.

    But you're right that you are exposing a contradiction to an extent in what i'm saying, which is just another paradox of applying the system imo.

    -
    -
    -
    -
    -

    I think that one of the things this typology can say which is perhaps useful, is the basic things, like for instance, it's OK to be a quiet person (stereotypical introversion) that sort of stuff.

    At the same time, I do find myself trying to have a use for it. I agree that it can help to formulate the mind as 'archetypes' of people like for instance in a work environment. However I find that i'm better overall just not particularly classifying anyone, or at least when i'm away from this for a while that my attitude to things is more natural and free flowing. Hmmm maybe i'll have to think about this some more.

    To everyone who's responded so far, thank you for answering, i've enjoyed reading your thoughts on it. I haven't responded to them all, because, I can basically see where everyone is coming from and find myself agreeing!, so not sure what to say with a silent nod over the internet

    I thought i'd respond to the post I did as sort of was related to something on my mind, that is, in a way, how personality and functions seem to be different things in many cases which to me makes socionics an even vaguer tool, ie a pushy person may not be an Se type but it's easy to class them as such, a fun friendly person may still be Fe PoLR but is just trying to adapt coping mechanisms in life. It also crosses my mind that some people are maybe OK with the vagueness.

    Personally i'm more inclined to want... "does it work or not", and of course, "sometimes it works" can be applied to anything, but I think perhaps the final way to answer it is, "how to apply it to make it work in each situation", which is probably why we are all still here!, or at least one of the reasons.
    Definitely there's more to people than just socionics. Nobody is ever able to type 100% accurately, but if you always keep an open mind to new typings and ways of looking at the information elements, you'll gradually come to understand them better, and it will seem to "work better" too.

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