How NOT to type people

[ashlesha]

@Jack Oliver Aaron your reasoning and temperateness in the face of a lot of opposition on the forum make me think I haven't given you enough credit. I think the thing is, at least as far as I'm concerned, people are skeptical about the standardization and applicability of socionics based on years of experience seeing people being typed different things based on equally compelling information and analysis, debates about typings and concepts that go nowhere and seem to have nowhere to go, etc...so what you're advocating flies in the face of everything that is completely obvious to some people because we've seen it for ourselves with our own two eyes. essentially its a dubious promise about potential future prospects that contradicts all previous evidence.

even assuming there literally were such thing as a person's base function, and a standard idea of what functions consisted of, and everybody had a generally similar idea about typing methods (and we are a long ways from that), locating it would still require sifting through at least the following layers:

base function > thoughts/feelings/assumptions stemming from base function > cultural/external influences > reported self-perception and its accuracy > observed outward behavior (limited in scope) > observer's perception of outward behavior > observer's interpretation of the motivations behind outward behavior > observer's cultural/external influences and awareness of their influence > observer's bias about the subject and awareness of such > observer's inclination to believe subject's self-perception > (and I'm sure I'm leaving things out, including the influence of type related differences in perception, if applicable)

and then even just communicating all of these observations for the sake of shared understanding and application becomes tedious and confusing. for example, like earlier in the thread, a person reacting negatively to having their feelings dismissed vs. a person reactive negatively to being told to calm down their emotions. somebody could easily read that 'beta NFs react negatively to being told to calm down' and infer the following things: beta NFs react negatively to having their emotions ignored, non-beta NFs are fine with having their emotions ignored, if someone becomes stoic and impassive after being told to calm down they must not be beta NF, betas never tell others to calm down, etc., and all of these inferred assumptions could take on a life of their own and become propagated. also, what if the 'calm down' is implied in couched language, and two observers interpret the message differently? it seems like a huge hurdle just to be able to communicate these concepts to others (even assuming they were uniform to begin with) with the clarity and specificity needed to avoid confusion.

[Jack Oliver Aaron]

@Jack Oliver Aaron your reasoning and temperateness in the face of a lot of opposition on the forum make me think I haven't given you enough credit. I think the thing is, at least as far as I'm concerned, people are skeptical about the standardization and applicability of socionics based on years of experience seeing people being typed different things based on equally compelling information and analysis, debates about typings and concepts that go nowhere and seem to have nowhere to go, etc...so what you're advocating flies in the face of everything that is completely obvious to some people because we've seen it for ourselves with our own two eyes. essentially its a dubious promise about potential future prospects that contradicts all previous evidence.

even assuming there literally were such thing as a person's base function, and a standard idea of what functions consisted of, and everybody had a generally similar idea about typing methods (and we are a long ways from that), locating it would still require sifting through at least the following layers:

base function > thoughts/feelings/assumptions stemming from base function > cultural/external influences > reported self-perception and its accuracy > observed outward behavior (limited in scope) > observer's perception of outward behavior > observer's interpretation of the motivations behind outward behavior > observer's cultural/external influences and awareness of their influence > observer's bias about the subject and awareness of such > observer's inclination to believe subject's self-perception > (and I'm sure I'm leaving things out, including the influence of type related differences in perception, if applicable)

and then even just communicating all of these observations for the sake of shared understanding and application becomes tedious and confusing. for example, like earlier in the thread, a person reacting negatively to having their feelings dismissed vs. a person reactive negatively to being told to calm down their emotions. somebody could easily read that 'beta NFs react negatively to being told to calm down' and infer the following things: beta NFs react negatively to having their emotions ignored, non-beta NFs are fine with having their emotions ignored, if someone becomes stoic and impassive after being told to calm down they must not be beta NF, betas never tell others to calm down, etc., and all of these inferred assumptions could take on a life of their own and become propagated. also, what if the 'calm down' is implied in couched language, and two observers interpret the message differently? it seems like a huge hurdle just to be able to communicate these concepts to others (even assuming they were uniform to begin with) with the clarity and specificity needed to avoid confusion.

Thankyou for your points.

I do not recall seeing a lot of compelling information and analysis on people's types. On the contrary, I would say that I've seen a lack of it. I have looked at older posts with friends of mine, like Expat and thehotelambush, and even they were far less likely to express a rationale for their typings while active on here, and there seems to have been no pressure to have done so. They were also far less experienced then than they are now. Typing by subjective impression seems to be the dominant approach on here. However, my knowledge is limited. Looking at some of the articles on famous figures on the WSS blog, would you say that rationales of this quality used to be commonplace at some point in the16types history? if you find any, I want the authors on my team

I agree that some typings result in people at loggerheads, usually due to different interpretations. However, others can be discussed and debated with positive results. For instance, Expat has changed my mind on a large number of people. On a few occasions, I have changed his mind. Some people are more rational and less stubborn with their positions than others. In general, discussion of the facts leads to some sort of progress, even if that progress is simply knowing exactly where two people's opinions differ.

My first goal is to standardise based on clear definitions of what means what in the theory. This should be the easiest part of a difficult, but not impossible journey.

You bring up good points in regards to the application of a standardised understanding and the numerous pitfalls on the way. However, this is much to do with methodology, how we go about typing people and what checks and balances should be included to reduce error. It is a concern, but one that requires standardisation for it to be addressed, rather than being part of standardisation itself.