I have more of a neuroscience background than a socionics background, so my criticisms and suggestions tend to address the beginning rather than the second (probably more interesting, in terms of this forum) half of your post.
Neuroscience
I've been mulling over the neuroscience people have proposed on this board for some time, and a lot of it disagrees with the (little) neuroscience I've been taught. So I'm going to try to explain my viewpoint here:
Since socionics is based on information
processing and not the acquisition of raw data, I'm pretty sure that the socionic functions are based in the cortex, most likely the neocortex. I would also tentatively suggest that they're mostly based in the frontal lobe. But neuroscience and psychology are messy sciences, so I'd be wary of naming brain regions and allocating specific processes to them.
The amygdala is involved in emotion, but it's only involved in
instinctive emotion. That is, things like seeing a bear and being frightened, or a baby crying when it's hungry and can't see its mother. It's also involved with conditioning - seeing icecream and being happy, or a rat pressing a bar to get a food pellet. Many animals have amygdalae.
I'd say that the amygdala is to emotion what the primary somatosensory area and primary visual cortex are to sensing. The primary somatosensory area lights up when you feel something, whether it be heat, pain or something mechanical (touching a surface). The primary visual cortex lets you see things. Neither of these areas really
interprets what you're sensing - it just lets you do it, to act as an interface to the outside physical world. It doesn't affect your use of it. It's like having legs and walking places - your legs let you walk, but they don't determine where you choose to walk.
On the other hand, socionics functions are far more complex.
, for instance, can involve identifying the emotional atmosphere of a situation and choosing a response which, from past experiences, will affect it. This kind of process is far more advanced than what the amygdala can do; it certainly involves high order cognitive functions, which are located in the cortex.
In my opinion, what determines your strength with functions (and therefore your type) is not specific
regions, but rather
neurological pathways in the cortex. This is based on
connections between regions in the brain.
To me, the most amazing thing about the human brain is its ability to adapt, or its
plasticity.
Wikipedia article on neuroplasticity says this rather well, so I'll copy-paste here:
A related concept is synaptic plasticity, which is
So in short, brain pathways change in strength due to use, sometimes with new neurons sprouting but more often simply in terms of long-term potentiation of synapses, to the point where one "mode" of thinking can be almost always activated in response to external inputs. That's my hypothesis about the neurological basis of socionic functions: for some reason (physical or merely psychological), one half of each dichotomy (e.g. N/S, i/e) is activated far more often than the opposing halves, and therefore is a "strong" function in comparison to the other one. (This is also why I think type change is definitely possible: if something as standard as
the location of somatosensory inputs can be altered, then something as diverse in humans as personality can surely change.)
(My neuroscience background is certainly not strong. If anyone can point out any factual errors in what I've said, please let me know!
)
Personality theory
I only know about Model A, so everything I say is based on that.
Your approach seems to be more in terms of continuums rather than dichotomies. My understanding is that socionics only operates in terms of dichotomies (whereas MBTI is very much based on continuums). Of course, like MBTI, socionics dichotomies could be based on relative weightings of the functions.
Have you considered making
/
/
/
and
/
/
/
add up to 100%? That's my understanding of socionic dichotomies and the placing of functions in Model A.
If anyone's read this far, thank you! I'm pretty sure this is my longest post, ever, and probably will be for some time.