@Andreas no I mean how are they deciding the type? Are they using dichotomies, small groups, Model A position, or a mix? How many observations is each person making before deciding the type, what is the error rate, and how do the people resolve conflicting information?
/ would you mind not collapsing your posts?
... It's pretty funny that you think you're holding my hand, when I'm holding your hand because you don't actually understand what I or even Feynman is saying.
I know what you're saying, you're saying, "Well Socionics is a theory too! Why is that a problem?".
Because what it's "theorizing" about is totally nonsensical. All it's saying is that... that the current observation of a phenomena, must be locked in and stay the same, and will stay the same in the foreseeable future and therefore that's how you "predict" things (like ITR).
You agree that types and ITR are static concepts, yes?
For example, since you seem to like "authority" so much, here's what "science" is telling us:
"You’re a completely different person at 14 and 77, the longest-running personality study ever has found" - https://qz.com/914002/youre-a-completely-different-person-at-14-and-77-the-longest-running-personality-study-ever-has-found/
So even if we could perform a "perfectly objective" test which shows us that what we're seeing in the present is completely accurate, what would be the point, if things will be different in the future?The longest personality study of all time, published in Psychology and Aging and recently highlighted by the British Psychological Society, suggests that over the course of a lifetime, just as your physical appearance changes and your cells are constantly replaced, your personality is also transformed beyond recognition.
Mhm ..... And the laws of physics are ... ???
I’m glad you put science in quotation marks since you can’t recognize what it is or isn’t.For example, since you seem to like "authority" so much, here's what "science" is telling us:
You are not analyzing this sensationalist article critically. Here’s what the article said about its methods."You’re a completely different person at 14 and 77, the longest-running personality study ever has found" - https://qz.com/914002/youre-a-completely-different-person-at-14-and-77-the-longest-running-personality-study-ever-has-found/
It first got 1950s teachers to rate the subjects as students from their third-person perspective, then in a completely different era in a different social climate, they asked completely different people (the subjects themselves and their friends) to describe the subjects. Is it really any surprise that the findings were completely different? Do you really think this necessarily represents personality change as a whole? They also only used those 5 traits amalgamated into just one trait. Most of these are not the typical overarching personality traits used like “extroversion/introversion” either.
By the way I bolded what is canonically accepted in psychology, which they also included in the article.
One article getting published doesn’t mean this will change the canon, and by the looks of this study it doesn’t look likely at all.
The study begins with data from a 1950 survey of 1,208 14-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers were asked to use six questionnaires to rate the teenagers on six personality traits: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of moods, conscientiousness, originality, and desire to learn. Together, the results from these questionnaires were amalgamated into a rating for one trait, which was defined as “dependability.” More than six decades later, researchers tracked down 635 of the participants, and 174 agreed to repeat testing. This time, aged 77 years old, the participants rated themselves on the six personality traits, and also nominated a close friend or relative to do the same. Overall, there was not much overlap from the questionnaires taken 63 years ago.I don’t need to take my own time out to teach you how to critically analyze articles and how this world works, so make the most out of it and hopefully don’t repeat a mistake like this again.The findings were a surprise to researchers because previous personality studies, over shorter periods of time, seemed to show consistency. Studies over several decades, focusing on participants from childhood to middle age, or from middle age to older age, showed stable personality traits.
The laws of physics are what's consistent in both space AND time. The laws of physics are the same everywhere in space, the past, the present, and the future. This is what makes it a "universally objective" theory.
ajsindri was correct in his assessment that we're all seeing things differently, and therefore we'll somehow need to find a way where everyone will be seeing the same thing. What he didn't consider was the future aspect, because the future is also a part of "reality".
It makes no difference what the article is saying, because the point is that you can't know things about the future just by looking at or analyzing the present or the past. The future will have to be "guessed". That's why the laws of physics are also "guessed".
We can't see everything with our own eyes. We can't be everywhere at once. We can't ever know about the future. And yet they're all part of "reality" that we're living in.
@Singu I knew you’d come around
Did he dispute that Socionics traits do not represent an individual's personality? As far as I can tell, his main contention was that Socionics in its current form had no explanatory power and was merely equivalent to individuals choosing which set of words they most relate to.
Improving your happiness and changing your personality for the better
Jungian theory is not grounded in empirical data (pdf file)
The case against type dynamics (pdf file)
Cautionary comments regarding the MBTI (pdf file)
Reinterpreting the MBTI via the five-factor model (pdf file)
Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? (pdf file)
The Big Five personality test outperformed the Jungian and Enneagram test in predicting life outcomes
Evidence of correlations between human partners based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traits
He doesn’t think empirical evidence and statistical analysis are valid basically, doesn’t acknowledge the point where they are valid and enough. He doesn’t value or understand gathering evidence.
His last post was the closest thing to understanding and acquiescence I’ve seen him demonstrate in this conversation though so I’ll take it.
If Socionics types could be shown to exist in the brain, I would be highly inclined to believe that the Socionics conjecture is meaningful. I don't dispute that there is such a thing as distinctive personality traits, but I am skeptical about what Socionics says about psycho-type relations.
Improving your happiness and changing your personality for the better
Jungian theory is not grounded in empirical data (pdf file)
The case against type dynamics (pdf file)
Cautionary comments regarding the MBTI (pdf file)
Reinterpreting the MBTI via the five-factor model (pdf file)
Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? (pdf file)
The Big Five personality test outperformed the Jungian and Enneagram test in predicting life outcomes
Evidence of correlations between human partners based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traits
Improving your happiness and changing your personality for the better
Jungian theory is not grounded in empirical data (pdf file)
The case against type dynamics (pdf file)
Cautionary comments regarding the MBTI (pdf file)
Reinterpreting the MBTI via the five-factor model (pdf file)
Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? (pdf file)
The Big Five personality test outperformed the Jungian and Enneagram test in predicting life outcomes
Evidence of correlations between human partners based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traits
I agree that neuroscience research would be great, but how could you study the socionic types if you couldn't define what they were? If there was a reliable test, you could use it to categorize people and then study the brains of the different groups. But we don't have a reliable way of determining type. We have to figure that out first.
I can't imagine neuroscience discovering socionic types from unguided empiricism, because information theory and neuroscience are opposite ends of the spectrum. Information theory is about the contents of consciousness, while neuroscience is the physical medium consciousness happens in. To bridge the gap, we would have had to solve the hard problem of what consciousness is. If neuroscience was ever so advanced it could simulate human consciousness and read thoughts, Model A would be obsolete.
So even if the end goal is to study the brain for more objective answers, the only path toward progress is to make a reliable application of socionics, and that means testing socionics in the absence of neuroscience (which for the record, is perfectly normal for psychological theories).
Socionics is special because it is a network of implications that describe the same thing from many different angles. We can test if those implications are real in practice, and if it turns out to be false, it would totally destroy Model A. I'm sure you know that the Ego block implies the Super-Ego, Super-Id and Id blocks. That is the basis of the intertype relations. For example, Duality is resonant because the focus on the base element blocks a focus on the suggestive element, which creates a space where it is possible to accept another person's input. If you undermine the function structure, you would undermine the concept of type and the intertype relations, making any residual concepts useless.
But these theoretical correlations might actually exist. If they did, that would validate socionics, even if we didn't understand the causal neurological mechanism - that research would have to come after we could define the groups to be studied. The only way to know is to do the test, and the only way to process the results and decide if these correlations exist is with the math I and other people am developing.
This math is very difficult, so I'm not surprised the professional socionist haven't solved it yet. I'm really fortunate that @thehotelambush discovered a parallel dichotomy space and shared it with this community because I'm pretty sure it is the key to making this work. In 50 years, he might be as famous as Reinin, who knows.
I really believe this is the best path forward. It doesn't matter what side you are on - if you are for or against socionics - this is the only fair test with definite results I can think of.
I appreciate proper criticism of socionics, because it is still developing, and without knowing the problems, we can't address them. But the purpose of criticism is to make things better. I'm done with people spreading negativity to make themselves feel intellectually superior to other people. Not everyone is like that, like I think @Nebula is honestly trying to learn more about herself with socionics, but is getting confused because she can't decide what type fits her, causing her distress. Not that it's my responsibility, but socionics is failing her, and I'd like to help fix it.
This math stuff is not for everyone, but I hope it serves as a litmus test that divides serious critics who want to make things better, from complainers who want to bully other people.
...No I don't. You're misunderstanding things that I didn't even say.
What I've been saying is that you can't *derive* conclusions from empirical evidence and statistical analysis alone, because the things that we're looking for, such as data in the future, don't even exist in the present.
*Theorizing* without having anything particular in basis, yes (as in "made up", "guessing"). *Testing* the theory by empirical evidence, yes (testing whether those "guesses" are true in reality or not). What is the problem?
Yes, you're exactly right. The goal of psychology is to bridge the Biology-Psychology gap. We can't derive any psychological explanations from biological explanations (such as how neurons work) because they're separate explanations located in different areas. Though I believe our psychology is the expression of what our biology is telling us (for example, is us consciously feeling angry, separate from when our biology tells us to be angry?). To do that, we must limit the explanations to the area of psychology alone. The goal of psychologists is to find the "laws of psychology" that are regularities and that must exist, in order to explain why must our psychology and consciousness even exist, and explain how they work.
I think some psychologists like Albert Bandura are already taking that approach, with his Social Cognitive Theory:
It's all still baby steps, so I believe what he's most focusing on right now is how certain beliefs lead to certain behaviors, and finding out the causality.
You'd easily understand this as soon as you abandon the misconceptions and the myths of Inductivism, Empiricism and Instrumentalism, and instead take the explanatory approach, which is what science has always been about. But alas, you still have not.
But I think that you're probably heading in the right direction. All I'm saying is that you and Socionics are taking the wrong approach and heading in the wrong direction. And all you have to do is change the direction. And if you'd understand what I'm saying, then it's just so obvious that it is, that one wonders how anyone can't see it.
Maybe at this point you’ve developed your understanding into this which you’ve put together just now, but don’t pretend this was what you’ve been arguing this entire time. This isn’t what you’ve been presenting to us, and you complain about and argue against ideas that are beside the point of these things constantly.
Well for starters there’s your intellectual shadiness in post #253 and #255 in this thread with how you used and described the article you posted.
I’m not going to bother looking right now when everyone remembers your stupidity clearly throughout various threads where your understanding was not as “developed”. Also I only use the forum on my phone and I have to leave.
So much for the importance of "gathering empirical evidence"...
That is not a settled debate, and I'm sure there are plenty of scientist that fall in any of those camps. If this is the root of our argument, I hope you can appreciate why it is frustrating to on the surface be debating socionics, while really the conflict is if you can assert that the explanatory approach is the only correct approach to socionics. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, and if you want to follow that philosophy, go for it. Just do not force it on me.
Well thanks.
Last edited by Lao Tzunami; 12-10-2018 at 11:13 PM.
Socionics is not scientific, in part, because its tests fail to meet the criteria for what makes a psychological test scientific. To be scientific, a test has to have validity and reliability. A test must be reliable in that it should be able to yield consistent results on the same subject. For example, if we took the Sociotypes.com test repeatedly over the span of several years, to be scientific, it should give each subject the same type every time. The Sociotypes.com test fails to pass muster in this respect. I have scored as a range of types using that test, including IEI, ILE, LII, and LSI. Furthermore, Visual Identification fails to pass muster because it tends to yield a variety of results for the same subjects over the course of experimentation. Since Socionics tests lack reliability, they also lack consistent validity in that they do not always measure what they claim to measure.
Last edited by Desert Financial; 12-11-2018 at 12:02 AM.
But that's not socionics, that is (I assume) an armature attempting to create a socionics test. Socionics is most taught as a model and applied in a diagnostic interview. Of course that training and practice is in Russian, so it is hard for English speakers to evaluate. Scientific evaluation should be directed at Model A.
Okay, so in an ideal world, where each individual always diagnoses the correct type, the chances are below 50% that the groups agree? Obviously not. So what number are you using for individual success, and what happens when, for example, in a group of 30 typist, 15 people agree on one type, and the 15 other people each think it is a different unique type. Is that a majority because 15:1 is greater than 70%, or is that a failure because 15/30 is less than 70%. Your simulation is only meaningful if you factored this kind of stuff in.
Even in Russia, typing methods have been observed as inconsistent among "experts", yielding mixed results: http://uralsocionics.ru/article/57
Why are there laws of physics, laws of chemistry, laws of biology? Arguably, what they have all in common is that they all stay the same over time.
But that's not to say that whatever that stays the same IS the law. Rather, these laws explain the mechanisms and the processes behind the things that do change over time. The laws of physics explain the change in position of matter that change over time. The laws of chemistry explain the change in molecular units that change over time. The laws of biology explain the change in biological organisms over time. And so on. All of these laws are explanations of something, not just something that somebody has happened to have randomly "found" or "stumbled upon".
So if there were to be "laws of psychology" in the same way, then these laws should explain how the psychological phenomena that do change over time, such as our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc., change.
And I'm sure that the aim of psychology is to eventually find these laws. But it's not going to be easy to find those laws, just as it wasn't easy for biology until Darwin came up with his Theory of Evolution, which became one of the laws that explained much of biological phenomena.
It's likely that we're going to have to come up with a completely different mode of explanation to come up with these laws, just as Darwin came up with a different mode of explanation with his theory of evolution. And I'm sure that once we do find it, it would seem so "obvious" that one wonders how no one could have seen it in hindsight. Just as evolution seems "obvious" to us now.
But on the other hand, it's also going to be some exciting times, because there's going to be another "Darwin" moment in history.
So if there were going to be a revolution in psychology, then that would be it. Somebody coming up with a legitimate "laws of psychology", that can help explain everything about human psychology. It would also mean the very beginning of a genuine psychological discovery, and not the end.
For anyone reading along, the tl;dr of the study was high error rate, but definite convergence.
@Karatos, this was done in 1999. Do you know of any more recent experiments? Two decades might be enough time to fix the problem.
I'm not blaming him, I'm just at best, pointing out the things that he hadn't considered yet. Which he can definitely consider now, if he chooses. Or he might dismiss it as something irrelevant. But then he wouldn't be considering the whole of "reality", which might as well be a dismissal of how reality works altogether.
It’s not just that, it’s that your stupidity remains constant over time. Unfortunately I can’t come up with a solid explanation for this yet. I can only guess.
I’m going to write an essay on your bs someday soon I hope. It will be so epic that it will break the laws of physics and prove Socionics empirically. You still wouldn’t acknowledge it though even if this happened.
Well that's getting old. So far, none could prove that what I'm saying is wrong.
It's because the whole problem is bigger than simply what I'm personally claiming. If what I'm saying is wrong, then the entire Popperian epistemology is called into question. And you might say that "Oh, but you're just misinterpreting it!". But it's like, no. It's simply that what Socionics is claiming is an impossibility. Also an absurdity.
It's an impossibility to make any claims about the future by simply analyzing the present. If you think that's possible, then I'd like to hear how. It's logically impossible and rationally untenable.
Socionics claims things about the future, even though it doesn't explain how it gets to that state, other than that types and functions staying the same over time (and if they do change, then it clearly becomes unpredictable. Unless you can explain how they change over time). And they're things like people's thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc. But how can they be a regularity, if they clearly change over time?
So essentially, Socionics is claiming that things don't change, people don't change, nothing changes. It's a state of total status and an absurdity.
So it's simply that people are asking the wrong question. The question isn't, "How do I know that what I'm observing is true? (And therefore the observation stays the same?)". The question is, "How is it possible that this is what will lead to that? (And hence explaining the underlining mechanism of how that happens?)"
It often comes down to same questions: Is there a "true" self or are we constantly changing and evolving? Jungianism always stops at what is observable in the now, with little emphasis on changes over time. The 'now' holds more weight than it should. I think observable behavior and tendencies over 30 years should hold more weight over what someone's one sentence response is, or the look in their eyes. Unfortunately it is not and we are left with typologists who aren't interested in an individual, but their own speed typing. It is a battle of egos by idiots.
... I literally just dumped 2 paragraphs into a response, hit "Go Advanced", and this janky forum just ate them up like a broken vending machine eats quarters.
I don't know of any particular study.
Reasons exist to retain doubt about testing methods. Since then, new theories like the DCNH have provided more reason to maintain skepticism about typing methods because DCNH type gives the base type a specific flavor associated with certain functions that fall outside of what's supposed to be conscious and valued, indicating that Model A isn't as accurate as it appears insofar as it corresponds to neurological activity. Dario Nardi's work and his failure to affirm function stackings exactly as they appear in MBTI also tells us that whatever's going on under the hood doesn't precisely correspond with MBTI's function sequence. I remember a user from another forum posting her results from Nardi's testing process and it said that her most conscious functions were Ti and Ni (both introverted orientation, meaning that if the neurological makeup responsible for MBTI Ti and Ni converges enough with that of Socionics Ti and Ni, then her results fly in the face of MBTI, Socionics, and Jungian models). So, evidence indicates that reality is messier than criteria used to test Jungian-based types, meaning that the criteria used to test types has basic flaws that make it unreliable and invalid as a basis for making testing instruments and methods.
Additionally, the body of Socionics has only become more complex since the 1999 study was produced; we now have more type criteria and more models, some of which contradict each other. Some criteria lack clear, logical explanations for how they are supposed to even build on function stackings (Reinin, Gulenko), meaning that they fail to amount to coherent testing criteria on the whole. Moreover, since Socionics has evolved, the number of criteria used to type people has increased, becoming less standardized and therefore less scientific because for a test to be valid it must test for something comprehensively (ie. it must know what the fuck it's looking for, generally speaking, which is made more convoluted by the Psychology-Biology gap). The scientific method repeats in cycles based on past observations; when a scientific hypothesis is developed it's meant to derive from previous empirical observation. Since previous empirical observation about Model A has never been established due to the Psychology-Biology gap, layers of uncertainty have always existed about this hobby. A paradigm shift is necessary to make Socionics scientific; either the scientific method must be revised to include subjective phenomena, or Socionics must be revised to include objective phenomena about the brain and the nervous system. I don't think it's realistic to expect revision in the scientific method at the present moment, so you need to simply treat Model A as a hypothesis and define it in terms that seem to correspond with objective factors. Ask yourself what you're looking for in the brain/nervous system and what you expect from an experiment under these terms.
Why not? It's clearly inadequate as far as the social sciences are concerned. Psychology research is in large part either completely obvious or obviously wrong - not to mention often impossible to reproduce, which is the opposite of what science (and truth) is supposed to be. Socionics is one of the actual insightful findings we have and it was done through purely qualitative observation. This idea that using numbers automatically makes something "more scientific" is just physics envy.
I would agree with that.
The only way to ever know that you have found an "objective" law or principles, is when that law can explain everything that it purports to explain. For example in Socionics, you might say that such laws are "The Law of 16 Types", where every single human beings could be fit into 16 types, and therefore every single human behavior can be explained by The Law of 16 Types.
But it's hardly possible that you can actually explain every single human behaviors by reducing people to 16 types alone, and that's why you have "NTR factors". Or even that you have typing disagreements, because if the behavior CAN be explained by "The Law of 16 Types", then it must also be easy to recognize and identify types, because the law would spell it out for us. The law would "speak for itself", and it would create all sorts of principles for what must make types possible. The law would automatically create sub-divisional laws for each individual types, and everything should come together and fit into place. It should all suddenly "make sense".
If a law can't explain everything that it purports to explain, then it's not a very good law, or even that the law is likely wrong and flawed.
I think one way scientific culture is changing for the better is acknowledging information along side matter and energy, due to our advancement in computer science and genetics. I agree that socionics is a great theory - that's why I am willing to put so much effort into it. Do you support trying to translate qualitative observations into quantitative data so we can quality control and test different methods?
Thanks [^u^] fingers crossed everything people here are working on make a positive difference.
I'm definitely not against it.
There are two main ways socionics can be quantified in the empirical sense:
1) Through neurological observations that correspond to type and information metabolism. This seems completely out of reach at the moment.
2) Through clinical study and statistical analysis: Likert-style or multiple-choice questionnaires, behavioral task analysis, surveys of relationship quality, etc. While it is more accessible, and it could be used to get "cred" in psychology circles, this seems like a lot of work for very little payoff (given that #1 hasn't been done yet and we don't have a 100% guaranteed way to type): at best it will tell me what I already know with less certainty than I already have, which is that Model A is valid. Given that the typings are valid it could tell us something interesting about relationships, I guess. The Soviets claim to have done studies like this but there is good reason to be skeptical of their claims, as mentioned above (the most obvious of which is that their interpretations of socionics are a bit wacky in the first place).
My point is just that socionics also deserves to be seen as a rational, metaphysical theory, and this aspect deserves to be fleshed out just as much as the empirical one.
Last edited by Exodus; 12-12-2018 at 06:23 AM.
These people still don't realize that "empirically proving" Socionics would only mean a completely static world-view, where people apparently keep doing the exact same thing in accordance to the previously observed data... And that's obviously not what happens in the real world.
Socionics is obviously data, and not a theory. When you come up with these statistics "proving" the existence of 16 types, then that's a data, not a theory. If you're going to explain how types change into something else in the future, then obviously that can't be extrapolated or derived from any present observational data. That's going to be explained by a theory, which is not going to be based on any data.
The explanations for the underlining mechanisms of how things work are abstract ideas that are not data or statistics of any kind. If you can't explain that, then the logical conclusion is that you'd only assume a static world-view, which is an absurdity.
@ajsindri By the way I wanted to ask:
What were the 5 Reinins you chose for your recent experiment, and why?
A theory explains the data, and what we're after are explaining, not deriving from data.
"principles that are timeless" are not based on any data, it's an explanation.
So you'd have to answer the question, where do you think explanations come from?
What exactly explanations are is a little difficult to explain, but it seems to be something like a link between two objects or ideas. And it's the effort of human creativity and imagination that allow us to create this link. We don't know exactly why humans have this ability to come up with explanations, but we can perhaps say that it's a uniquely human ability to come up with explanations that allow us to link between two objects, which also apparently allow us to explain how reality works.