Anyone want to help make socionics scientific?

[Desert Financial]

... 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.

Building on this...

At best, Socionics suffers from the same shortcomings as nomothetic methods of research and idiographic methods of research in addition to its pseuo-scientific qualities. Nomothetic methods of research attempt to develop general rules for how things work and how things are. Since nomothetic methods devise generalized explanations for observations, and Socionics Model A has non-empirical terms, and the biology-psychology gap exists, Socionics researchers don't have empirical verification that their explanations really account for underlying causes of behavior. Generally, nomothetic research faces setbacks even under rigorous standards of scientific testing because various factors create uncertainty. For example, even when researchers arrive at statistically significant data, they don't know if their explanations for the data actually account for root causes. In the Asch conformity experiment, researchers observed that subjects had a tendency to toe the line with other participants, yielding statistically significant figures, yet the model, on its own, fails to explain exactly what governs the conformist behavior in empirical terms. Since the model fails to account for empirical causes, corresponding behavior doesn't necessarily repeat in the real world. Additionally, experiments run the risk of contamination due to confounding variables, skewing statistical models and creating even more uncertainty about the validity of nomothetic explanations. Unlike the Asch experiment, Socionics already has non-empirical terms, making it even less explainable within the scope of the scientific method. Socionics testing methods also suffer from shortcomings of idiography (ie. research focusing on individual characteristics, such as interviews and self assessments). For instance, the self assessments involved in idiographic techniques, such as those of Gulenko, Sociotype.com, and echidna fucker, rely on a subject's fallible self-awareness, which is constrained only to their own experiences, limiting their ability to accurately classify their abilities and values within the scope of general Socionics criteria. A person may think of themselves as "ethical" or "logical", but since they've never been anyone else, they have no basis for comparison and therefore no justifiable certainty. Moreover, how Socionists frequently fuse idiographic elements with nomothetic elements to test subjects tends to lead to faulty thinking. For example, using Model A as the sole criteria for personality during an idiographic test, as I have seen Socionists do on this website, tends to create further confusion about Socionics and subjects because concepts become conflated.

This is all underscored by the fact that Model A, its assessment of what makes one type more "sophisticated" in its processing of information than any other, and its limitation to 16 types, scientifically amount to conjecture.

To answer hotelambush's question: I think it's wishful thinking to think that the scientific community will revise the scientific method soon because logical/empirical positivism (ie. the view that only empirically verifiable evidence suffices to justify beliefs) generally prevails in the scientific community. This philosophy is practically hardwired in the scientific method because scientific observations ultimately have the final say in the body of knowledge produced by scientific inquiry. Furthermore, it's generally been the trend that psychology has moved from the more abstract (Freud, Jung, James) to the more concrete (neuroscience).