Section 8. Nebykova’s Neosocionics
Socionics has long outgrown the short trousers of preliminary searching and irresponsible intuitive insights. It is high time the authors of socionics books answered — before the socionics community, before methodology, and before the trusting reader — for what they offer. It is high time to rely on scientific methodology, rather than to take as truth everything that, for whatever reason, appears on one’s inner screen, or that one is able to pronounce using the unique possibilities of the Russian language. (From the reflections of Pfafik the dog)
Svetlana Ivanovna NEBYKOVA Candidate of Philological Sciences, psychologist, socionist. Has practiced socionics since 1992. Her research interests are the development of an original theoretical concept, born of twenty years of experience working in secondary schools, as well as the modeling of human psychological manifestations and the effective application of socionics to conflict resolution, personnel selection, and career choice.
Editor: While giving due credit to the professional education of the author of the book Neosocionics, and presuming in advance the author’s competence in her field of professional interest, the editor — having thoroughly acquainted himself with the book’s contents — expresses his extreme astonishment at the factual mismatch between the supposed theoretical results and the book’s pretentious title. The book is 95% a muddled retelling of what has long been known in socionics, and 5% hypotheses to the effect that the socionic type — the TIM — “in reality” (whatever that means) consists of two TIMs. The author formulates this differently, saying that the type consists of two models, thereby identifying the type with its model. From a methodological standpoint this is entirely unforgivable, and it instantly turns the supposed scientific text into science fiction — which, of course, can also be interesting. But then, so as not to mislead the inexperienced reader, one should say so outright. The author, however, is apparently unfamiliar with the methodological requirement to state precisely the status of what one intends to do. It would have been perfectly fine had the author declared that she was proposing a new hypothesis and offered a justification for it. Yet nowhere in the text is there any sign that she harbours even the slightest doubt about the infallibility of her intuitive revelations.
Evidently the author also fails to understand that by releasing into the world, under the stamp of absolute truth, results that are not in fact true, she compromises socionics: should her book be read by a professional psychologist, sociologist, or philosopher, he will be outraged by the author’s low level of psychological and methodological culture. And he will say — and I have heard it more than once — “all sorts of people write these things.” Freedom of speech guarantees the author the opportunity to publish her works; but that same freedom of speech allows the editor to say everything he thinks about the author’s work. Unfortunately, everything in the author’s book that is true is banal — a retelling, needed by no one, of what has long been known — while everything that is not banal turns out, on inspection, to be untrue. Still, let me note the author’s positive traits: she is industrious and observant — her tenacious eye catches many external typological features — but, regrettably, this part of her work has remained a half-finished product.
Frankly, one could have declined to react to this work at all, since it contains almost no positive results. But I have spent many years editing books and analyzing the content of socionics works from a methodological standpoint, and I am simply interested in figuring out how the author constructs her thought, and then telling others about it, so that they may take note of the methodological defects of the author’s work and take them into account in their own research. This is especially useful for young scholars who may not suspect the existence of methodological requirements for scientific research and are already prepared to present the world with the results of their own insights. The fact is that socionic concepts strike many beginners as exceptionally simple, and new generations of socionists joyfully — sometimes “with great fanfare” — rush to bless the world with their discoveries, without troubling to learn what their predecessors did, and which rakes they stepped on.
I am therefore, after all, grateful to the author for the opportunity she has given me to analyze her intuitive revelations and what she apparently considers something like arguments.
I acquired Nebykova’s book last of all — on 23 September 2009, at the 25th socionics conference — which is why I placed the article on Neosocionics closer to the end, in order of the material’s arrival; though perhaps it would have looked more striking nearer the beginning. On reflection, however, I decided to leave it where it landed. Let readers first become acquainted with milder variants of assessment of research texts, since most of those texts are, after all, written from positions of a higher level of familiarity with methodology, and in each work I try to preserve the “rational kernel” and find as much of the positive as possible. Unfortunately, in this work I was unable to find even a minimum of useful information, apart from certain physiognomic observations — and even those somewhat fragmentary. Therefore, offering the author every possible apology, I place below an exceptionally harsh commentary — above all as a lesson to future researchers, and, as a certain well-known literary hero would say, “not for gain, but solely par la grandecha de la terra.” And, I will add from myself: for the greatness of SOCIONICS. Nothing personal…
Advertising blurb: This book will prove unusual and will even astonish many readers, for it proposes a new paradigm of socionic knowledge based on the original idea of the duality of type. The author offers an original and productive approach to socionics, viewing the personality type as a structure consisting of two psychological models: the basic and the programmatic. The manifestation of these models correlates with temperament types and is reflected in a person’s appearance and behavior. As a result, the informational portrait of the personality becomes richer, more detailed, more dynamic, and intertype relations are supplemented with curious nuances.
Editor: Indeed, this book differs greatly from everything I have had occasion to read before. It astonished me with its exceptional virginity with respect to methodology — and this after twenty years during which the journal Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology published a multitude of articles on methodological matters. Apparently all of them passed the author by. Perhaps for that reason — or perhaps for others — the author’s central idea, that the socionic type consists of two socionic types, is presented as a truth requiring almost no argumentation. And yet all that was needed was the merest trifle: to declare her idea as a hypothesis, gather statistics, and provide the reader with a base of arguments.
Of course, the first question is: “Why NEO?” It would be easy to understand had the author titled her book Sketches Toward a Portrait of Socionics or, better still, How I Understand Socionics — but Neosocionics? Is it really so utterly NEO? For that, there must be weighty grounds. Still, let us take things in order…
Yes, there are correct passages in Nebykova’s book — mostly copied from others, it is true — but even they are so diluted with poorly substantiated claims that the book’s value is reduced to zero, and the author’s undertaking turns out not to exceed the bounds of graphomania. A beginner in socionics will only be misled by this book; to an experienced socionist it is simply of no use.
What follows is the editor’s correspondence dialogue with the author.
Author: Psychological modeling is the next step in the development of typology.
Editor: And what, pray, was socionics doing before Nebykova? What kind of modeling? Was it not psychological? Does the author truly believe she has discovered a new kind of modeling in socionics, and that what she is about to offer the socionics community therefore deserves the epithet NEO? Note also that the author gives no definition of the concept of “psychological modeling” as she understands it, so this self-designation is unserious and pretentious. Moreover, psychology used modeling as a general scientific method even before socionics. So what kind of modeling was psychology engaged in?
Author: The book examines the human type as a structure consisting of two psychological models: the basic and the programmatic. They are connected with the individual’s external appearance and behavioral characteristics. Manifestations of the basic and programmatic models correlate with temperament types. The temperament type of the basic model may coincide with that of the programmatic model, in which case the individual is perceived as the bearer of a single, vividly expressed temperament. When they do not coincide, one of the temperaments predominates in different periods of life; the second temperament is, as it were, muted, though the overall picture is mixed — or rather, integrated.
Editor: This passage, perfectly normal in literary terms, raises a whole series of methodological questions. If a person has a type, what — from the author’s point of view — does modeling it mean? If the author considers a model to be a depiction of the structure of psychic functions, then is not such a model, however complex, still something unified — namely a model, say, “N” (for Nebykova)? Just a model consisting of two parts… Why must a type be modeled by two models? And if two, why not three, four, and so on? Of course, anyone who knows socionics can guess, or at least suppose, that the two socionic Model-A’s are meant. The author is confident that she has discovered what escaped the attention of socionics’ discoverer, Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. That is entirely possible — but weighty proofs are needed.
In that case Nebykova would have to admit that the socionic type of a person rests not on 8 generalized functions but on 16, since each socionic model involves 8 functions. It has by now been proven [UChK] that there exist exactly 8 generalized psychic functions, and the socionic type represents their differing accentuation.
But let us not rush ahead…
Note also that the author gives no definition of “type,” apparently considering the concept self-evident. Yet if the author lays claim to NEO, such clarifications matter — the more so since it is precisely the type that is the object of the author’s innovations. The author begins with the phrase: “The book examines the human type as a structure consisting of two psychological models: the basic and the programmatic.” That is, what matters to the author is only that the type must consist of two psychological models. Does the author realize the jargon-like quality of this expression — the semantic carelessness in the use of words and concepts? Does the author appreciate that she is identifying type with model? Alas, the difference between these concepts is the same as between an object and the word that designates it. Type has ontological status; a model, informational status. A type is what the researcher discovers in reality; a model is what the researcher uses to reconstruct the type in thought. Does the author know that psychologists now have more than three hundred typologies at their disposal? Which one is she talking about? One can guess, of course, that the socionic typology is meant — but how can one speak of models before saying which types one intends to model? Thus the author’s claim that a type consists of two psychological models may be understood to mean that the psychological type considered in socionics consists of two socionic types. The logical incorrectness of such a claim is obvious. It is equally obvious that the author does not grasp certain semantic shades of the concepts she uses. And this casts a shadow of distrust over all her ideas, conclusions, and results. But let us continue examining the author’s text.
Author: The proposed approach makes it possible, when determining a specific person’s type, to take into account the range of his real capabilities in professional activity and in communication.
Editor: Does Model A not take into account the range of a person’s real capabilities in professional activity and communication? If the author believes it does not, that should have been substantiated. What can the author do with her model that Model A cannot? A point-by-point list would be in order.
Author: On the basis of psychological modeling, a detailed and profound analysis has been carried out of the activities of enterprises, firms, and agencies working in the service sector. The results of the analysis are presented in tables reflecting the typological composition of specific firms.
Editor: So the author thinks of her work — but does it correspond to reality? I note in passing that when, as an editor, I encounter word combinations like “detailed and profound analysis,” I suggest the author strike one of the “epithets,” since here they coincide in meaning. Can an analysis be profound but not detailed, or detailed but not profound? Fine, one may class this among minor quibbles — but trifles of this sort cast a shadow on the character of the author’s thinking, and consequently on the reliability of her text.
Author: The appendix presents 184 photographs illustrating the manifestation of typological characteristics in the appearance of bearers of various psychological models. The main features of appearance are compiled into a table, which is also given in the appendix.
Editor: Apparently the author believes that in the photographs presented, everyone will be able to see the signs of the two socionic models she speaks of. Well then, we shall see…
Author: Socionics studies the socion — all of humanity. Its task is to describe 16 personality types and 16 types of relations between them.
Editor: Here is an example of a most frivolous phrase: simultaneously banal and wrong. Aušra never identified the socion with all of humanity. Nebykova’s statement must therefore be counted an innovation — in which case proofs are required. Or else it testifies to the author’s poor acquaintance with the works of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, in which case her statement must be classed as a gross error — which once again casts a shadow over all of Nebykova’s further reasoning.
The second half of the quotation likewise demonstrates the author’s idiosyncratic understanding of socionics — at the very least an exceedingly simplified one, not to say primitive. Can Nebykova really be unacquainted with the history of socionics, not knowing that socionics models the structure of the psyche, and only then, having completed that task and theoretically constructed the complete set of 16 models, does it describe those models according to definite rules and discover the existence of relations between the types?
Author: In C. G. Jung’s book “Psychological Types” 8 personality types are described. Jung based this division on 8 psychic functions: extraverted thinking, introverted thinking, feeling (extraverted and introverted), sensation (extraverted and introverted), and two intuitive functions, extraverted and introverted. To these eight functions correspond eight personality types with the same names: the extraverted thinking type, the introverted thinking type, the extraverted feeling type, the introverted feeling type, the extraverted sensation type, the introverted sensation type, the extraverted intuitive type, the introverted intuitive type.
Editor: Here the author briefly and impermissibly simplistically describes what, in her opinion, Jung did. This description in no way helps the reader; rather, it misleads him. Jung spoke not of eight functions but of only four. Eight functions are Aušra’s discovery. The extraverted and introverted attitudes, in Jung’s scheme, do not double the number of functions, since they pertain to the type as a whole, not to the functions. So here we are dealing with the author’s conjectures — which likewise cannot be counted among the book’s merits or its cognitive novelty.
Author: It is important here to stress the terms “extraverted” and “introverted”: for Jung the main thing is the extraverted or introverted attitude of consciousness.
Editor: That is how the author understands Jung. For Jung, however, all the concepts underlying his typology were important — though of course he assigned an equally important role in describing the type to extraversion and introversion. What matters is that this was his discovery: before him no one had distinguished these concepts, and certainly no one had used these terms for the purpose. But to claim that extraversion and introversion are the “main” concepts for describing the type is, at the very least, a misunderstanding.
Author: With the extraverted attitude of consciousness the individual’s attention is directed toward objective circumstances; with the introverted attitude it is directed not toward the object but toward subjective factors.
Editor: Does the author really think that introverts do not “direct their attention” toward objective circumstances and toward the object? And that extraverts, correspondingly, ignore subjective factors? This is nothing more than a widely circulated myth arising from a distortion of what Jung actually said on the matter (see the section on Jung). The author, however, accepts it as self-evident. What does “the individual’s attention is directed toward objective circumstances” mean? For example: putting on a raincoat and taking an umbrella because it is raining outside; preparing for winter because it will be cold; renovating because plaster is falling from the walls and ceiling; planting a vegetable garden because vegetables have become expensive; tidying the apartment because guests are coming; cooking borscht because the necessary ingredients are at hand. Can all this — and, of course, not only this — not fall within the sphere of interest of both extraverts and introverts? But perhaps the author means something else entirely? Then it should be described explicitly.
And what are “subjective factors”? For example: I don’t like short dresses; I want to become an actress; in the mornings I exercise in the wushu style; I cannot help writing poetry; I prefer the company of cultivated people; I love my husband; I hate bureaucrats. Here too it is hard to imagine any — let alone large — differences of principle between the types in question.
Author: Such an understanding of extraversion diverges from the practice, accepted in contemporary psychology, of testing these characteristics with a predominant orientation toward the subject’s degree of sociability.
Editor: Yes, they diverge, and this has been described repeatedly and comprehensively in the socionics literature. What new thing does the author wish to say about it? In socionics it is known that version (extraversion/introversion) is one of the differentiating features, and in importance it is on a par with all the others. If someone has come to a different conclusion, it must be proven logically, not accepted as self-evident. It is high time for authors in socionics to be demonstrative rather than dwelling at the level of brilliant guesses.
Author: If these two approaches to extraversion and introversion are represented as intersecting logical circles, a significant part of the circles will turn out to be shared, but 20–25% will be non-coincidences. The non-coincidences mean that not all sociable people are extraverts and not all reserved individuals are introverts.
Editor: This question has been discussed many times in socionics, and socionists know — though not fully — how the true understanding of extraversion and introversion, restored in socionics, differs from the several understandings of these terms in official psychology. But let us return to the author’s logical circles. What is she talking about? Approaches, it seems. But what does an intersection of approaches mean? It means that in some respects they coincide and in others they do not. The first approach, as the author has framed it, proceeds from the TIM-bearer’s orientation toward objective circumstances or subjective factors, while the second assesses the difference between these types, as the author writes, by degree of sociability. Ponder the definitions offered here. These are two different approaches between which, in the terms proposed, no intersection can be found. This means that the “logical circles” the author speaks of do not intersect. I hardly know what one could object here, but let me try to “play for the author.” Perhaps she slipped, intuitively, from comparing approaches to comparing the results each of them might yield. Then, comparing the sets of people selected according to each approach, we might find that the TIMs of the people in those sets partly coincide and partly do not. There our circles could indeed do their work — but that, from the standpoint of logic, is an entirely different situation. The author, unnoticed by herself, substituted the thesis, thereby violating the very first axiom of logic — the axiom of identity. And, of course, behind the estimate of 20–25% there ought to stand statistical research, but the author gives no indication of any. In private conversation such errors might somehow be compensated; in a text claiming scientific status and theoretical discoveries they are impermissible.
For some psychologists (Eysenck, for example) extraverts coincide entirely with the sociable and introverts with the reserved — but there, after all, this is not the only criterion used.
Author: The situation here is more complex and deeper, although it is true that most extraverts are sociable, whereas most introverts strive to limit their communication in time and in the number of participants. Nevertheless, there are reserved extraverts and sociable introverts. They can be distinguished only by the attitude of consciousness toward objective circumstances or subjective factors.
Editor: The situation here is indeed “more complex and deeper” (a pleonasm again — the joint use of words close in contextual meaning), since the author continues to insist that extraversion and introversion “can be distinguished only by the attitude of consciousness toward objective circumstances or subjective factors.” This is as much an exaggeration as the unambiguous linkage of version with sociability and reserve. Had the author remembered her intersecting circles, she would not have been so categorical.
Having constructed the intersecting circles, she would have seen that both extraverts and introverts are interested in both objective circumstances and subjective factors. Let us note that this is yet another sign of the author’s insufficiently deep understanding of the basic categories of socionics. The author would unquestionably do well to work through a logic textbook and stop committing logical errors.
Author: Naturally, Jung had in mind only the predominance in the individual of the extraverted or introverted attitude: both the extravert and the introvert may, in certain circumstances, behave contrary to their characteristic attitude of consciousness.
Editor: When the author writes “naturally,” it looks like a gentle pat on the great psychologist’s shoulder. It is as if the author has so thoroughly inhabited Jung’s mode of thought that she can decide on his behalf how exactly he regarded the concept of version. Naturally, this cannot “go without saying.” What is required here is a precise reference to the corresponding passage in Jung’s works.
Both the theory and the practice of socionics, however, indicate that version, while having two poles, characterizes the personality as a whole and not its individual acts. Therefore an extravert is always an extravert, whatever acts he performs — for every personality performs any act in its own way. Both extraverts and introverts can be heroes and cowards, law-abiding citizens and swindlers; they can keep faith and betray, suffer and rejoice, be closed and open, swear like troopers or be exquisitely polite, and so on. Version characterizes the personality as a whole, not its individual aspects. Recall the principle of the integrity of personality, so vividly presented in the works of Adler.
Author: The significance of Jung’s typology can hardly be overestimated: at the beginning of the 20th century he arrived at the processes of energy distribution across a person’s psychic functions, which determine his leading mode of perceiving information about the surrounding world.
Editor: Banal praise of Jung from an under-qualified author looks rather vulgar. But the motivation of this praise — that “he arrived at the processes of energy distribution across a person’s psychic functions” — is yet another invention of the author’s, unfounded and only misleading to the reader. In science, the question of the energetic side of psychic processes was first posed by Freud; he was also the first to identify such blocks of personality structure as ego, id, and superego — and he did so at the beginning of that same 20th century. Thus the author once again demonstrates the incompetence, imprecision, and groundlessness of her reasoning.
It is equally untrue that Jung “arrived at… the leading mode of perceiving information about the surrounding world,” since Jung did not use the concept of “information” as a scientific category in his typology. Nor is it clear where the author gets the notion that “the processes of energy distribution across a person’s psychic functions determine his leading mode of perceiving information about the surrounding world.” Jung said nothing of the kind, and the causal connection of energy with information, from the standpoint of their mutual transformation, has never been seriously investigated by anyone. The concept of information first came to be considered in cybernetics after the works of Shannon and Wiener — but there information was always opposed to energy and matter.
Author: It is no accident that E. Medtner, editor of the Russian edition of C. G. Jung’s “Psychological Types,” writes that Jung’s theory embraces the psychic domain from various sides but is subordinated to “a single intention (the self-regulation of the psyche as an energetic phenomenon)” [Jung, p. 12].
Editor: The point is not at all whether the editor of the Russian edition of Jung said something by accident or not, but that Jung was by no means the first to attempt to solve problems connected with the energetic side of the psyche. In scientific psychology these problems were first formulated by Freud. In fairness, let us note that to Freud’s concept of libido as sexual energy Jung — criticizing Freud — opposed his own understanding of libido as a universal energy capable of realization in any human manifestation. Let us add too that Freud’s “energetic ideas” were criticized by many other psychologists as well.
Author: A. Augustinavičiūtė took the next step — from eight psychological types to 16, supplementing C. G. Jung’s classification with the concepts of rationality/irrationality.
Editor: Read that statement closely — “took the next step”… Aušra transformed Jung’s typology, unfolding its potential; she by no means confined herself to adding a supplementary differentiating feature! Aušra opened a new scientific direction, though she of course relied on Jung’s typology in doing so.
Author: A. Augustinavičiūtė’s greatest discovery is her graphical model, which makes it possible to see through which psychic function a person of a given socionic type receives information about the surrounding world, through which function he realizes himself in accordance with the information received, which function is leading in his communication, which is the point of pain, through which function he is most suggestible, and so on — 8 positions in all, 4 of which enter the mental ring (conditionally conscious) and 4 the vital ring (conditionally unconscious). The place of each function in the graphical model determines its energy supply.
Editor: One can fully agree with the author that the model of the psyche created by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė is a very great discovery; however, the explication that follows this solemn declaration shows how peculiarly the author understands Model A. It is not a coherent conception of the model of the psyche but a collection of “vivid” yet unsubstantiated details, seen with “the fresh gaze of a child.” Yet this gaze is not only “freshly naïve” — it is also inaccurate: in this description one senses a simplified understanding of the functioning of the psyche. The author evidently does not grasp the problem of the semantics of the psychic functions.
Author: The main differences between people are determined by rationality/irrationality.
Editor: A few paragraphs earlier Nebykova considered extraversion/introversion the main distinction; now it is rationality/irrationality — evidently not understanding that all the Augustinavičiūtė–Reinin differentiating features are equally important. And again this style of searching for the “main” feature…
Author: A classical description of the rational and irrational types of appearance was given by A. P. Chekhov in the story “The Beauties.”
Editor: It is unclear why Chekhov’s description should be called classical — because he belongs to the classics? Or because his description conforms to some socionic canon known to Nebykova? Let us pass over the non-typological details and see what Nebykova draws attention to.
Chekhov: “…Sitting down at the table, I glanced at the face of the girl who handed me a glass, and suddenly felt as though a breeze had swept through my soul and blown away all the day’s impressions with their tedium and dust. I saw the enchanting features of the most beautiful of the faces I had ever met in waking life or dreamed of in sleep. Before me stood a beauty, and I understood it at first sight, as one understands lightning. The little Armenian girl’s beauty an artist would have called classical and severe. It was precisely that beauty whose contemplation, God knows whence, instills in you the certainty that you are seeing regular features; that the hair, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, bosom, and all the movements of the young body have merged together into a single, whole, harmonious chord in which nature has not erred by the smallest line; it seems to you somehow that an ideally beautiful woman must have precisely such a nose as Masha’s, straight with a slight arch, such large dark eyes, such long lashes, such a languid gaze; that her black hair and brows suit the tender white color of her forehead and neck as green reeds suit a quiet stream; Masha’s white neck and her young bosom are weakly developed, but to sculpt them, it seems to you, one would need an immense creative talent.”
Editor: Well, what can one say about the literary merits of the great writer? They are universally known. Chekhov impeccably conveys his impression of what he saw, and in the passage quoted he uses the word “classical” in relation to beauty. But note that he readdresses this epithet to an artist, and of course he does not have in mind rationality or irrationality — which Nebykova tries to see in this description. What, then, is the inexperienced reader supposed to take away? Presumably, that if beauty is classical, it is rational. But alas, this does not correspond to reality. Both rationals and irrationals can be “classically” beautiful. There are no grounds for discriminating against any type whatsoever in regard to beauty.
Author: The girl Chekhov met in the steppe was, by the type of her appearance, a rational.
Editor: The author invites you to accept the great writer’s description as the classical standard of a rational’s appearance. But what grounds are there for this? Earlier Nebykova wrote: “Externally, rationality manifests itself in greater regularity of facial features and in lesser mobility of the face, as well as in lesser fluidity (a certain discreteness) of movements.” Clearly, such claims must be proven, not served up as laws of nature of unknown provenance. What does “greater regularity of facial features” mean? Compared to what? To an irrational? Where are the methods for measuring regularity? Where are the statistics? Why does the author not say these are her suppositions?
Chekhov: “…She was still a young girl of seventeen or eighteen, dressed in Russian costume, bareheaded, with a little mantle thrown carelessly over one shoulder… Before I could give myself an account of what I was seeing, I was suddenly seized by the feeling I had once experienced in the Armenian village. The girl was a remarkable beauty, and neither I nor those who were looking at her with me had any doubt of it. If one were to describe her appearance piece by piece, as is customary, the only truly lovely thing about her was her thick, wavy fair hair, loosed and tied on her head with a black ribbon; everything else was either irregular or very ordinary. Whether from a particular manner of coquetry or from short-sightedness, her eyes were narrowed, her nose was irresolutely upturned, her mouth was small, her profile weakly and flaccidly drawn, her shoulders narrow for her years — and yet the girl gave the impression of a real beauty, and looking at her I could convince myself that a Russian face, in order to seem lovely, has no need of strict regularity of features; more than that — had the girl’s upturned nose been replaced by another, regular and plastically impeccable like the little Armenian’s, it seems her face would have lost all its charm…
It was a butterfly beauty, which suits waltzing, flitting about the garden, laughter and gaiety, and which does not accord with serious thought, sorrow, and repose; and it seems that one need only let a good wind run along the platform, or the rain fall, for the fragile body suddenly to fade and the capricious beauty to scatter like pollen from a flower.”
Author: In this example we see the description of the appearance of a girl belonging to the irrational type.
Editor: Such is the author’s opinion, and she invites the reader to take on faith that everything stands exactly as it appears to the author. But this is a very irrational position — it is hard even to imagine how one can normatively use a fictional excerpt, however beautiful the literary text, as a theoretical construct. Note that Chekhov assigns the second girl, too, to the class of beauties — though, as follows from Nebykova’s hints, as an irrational she ought not to qualify.
Author: Extraverts have a more confident gaze than introverts; they radiate energy and usually do not slouch.
Editor: Reader! Now you will effortlessly distinguish an extravert from an introvert. Look at a person, and if you notice that his gaze is “more” confident — not simply confident, but “more confident” — and moreover he “radiates energy,” and moreover he usually does not slouch, then he is an extravert. If even one feature fails to match this set, he is an introvert. Where do such recommendations come from? From the author’s description one can at least draw the unambiguous conclusion that all introverts, without exception, are round-shouldered.
Author: Rationality is connected, as Jung already noted, with the psychic functions of thinking and feeling.
Editor: It is astonishing how carelessly and approximately the author builds her thought. First, Jung did not “note” this at all — his intellectual process here was different. His understanding of rationality proceeds from the semantic closeness of the concept of thinking and rational behavior. Indeed, one can find semantic shades bringing together reasonableness and rationality; strictly speaking, the second word may be regarded as a translation of the first into Latin. And since feeling, in Jung’s view, is used by the subject to process information alongside thinking, both these functions fall into the category of rationality.
In the sentence under consideration, moreover, the particle “already” is used out of place. Here it shifts the emphasis from a simple statement of fact about Jung’s completed scientific research to a temporal marker that is inessential in this case.
But the especially unpleasant moment in this utterance is the incorrect attribution of the concept of rationality as a particular parameter of the psychic functions of thinking and feeling. By all appearances, the author does not understand that rationality is not a separate aspect of these functions but their abstract generalization.
Author: A. Augustinavičiūtė gave them other names: logic and ethics. These functions can be extraverted and introverted.
Editor: Unquestionably, Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s renaming of Jung’s terms proved an unfortunate idea, but we must be understanding toward the difficulties of the theoretical work Aušra had to perform: she had to travel unbeaten paths, where it was not so easy to avoid certain imprecisions. The author does not dwell on this, apparently failing to catch the semantic defect in such a replacement. But the fact that these functions can be extraverted and introverted — that was not in Jung; that was Aušra’s discovery, and it should have been noted.
Author: Extraverted logic is denoted by an unshaded little square. Hence one of its names: white logic. Other names for this function: abstract, theoretical logic. Introverted logic is denoted by a shaded little square (…) — black logic, business logic, investigative logic.
Editor: Here we are most likely dealing with an authorial slip and an oversight by the publisher’s editor and proofreaders: it is exactly the other way around — introverted logic is denoted by the unshaded square, extraverted by the shaded one. Far worse, however, is that the author uncritically absorbs and accordingly retells to the reader an approximate semantics of the functions in question, remote from precision. Could someone explain to me, for instance, how theoretical logic differs from investigative logic? Yet many socionists think this way, misled by the not-always-successful elaborations of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s followers. Introverted thinking is what takes place inside the psyche, its result being an algorithm. Extraverted thinking is what is realized outwardly in the form of a technological process — what is done with one’s hands. Strange as it may seem, this understanding does not come easily to everyone. But Nebykova, after all, lays claim to NEO — so why does she so readily transmit a defective semantics without, apparently, realizing it?
And of course, the inclusion of the words “black” and “white” in scientific terms introduces semantic overtones inadequate in this case, associated with good and evil, as in the combinations “black” and “white” magic.
Author: Externally, logical types differ from ethical types by the relative development of the upper part of the face: their eyes have a more intelligent expression than those of ethical types, and their brows are often mobile. The lower part of the face is usually less developed; most logical types have a small mouth, in some cases also thin; in bearers of certain logical models it may be large but flabby, “unattractive.” Examples: V. Shukshin, I. Ledogorov, Peter I, M. Kuzmin.
Editor: “…their eyes have a more intelligent expression…” — what an expressive marker! Impossible to confuse with anything…
Author: Extraverted (“white”) ethics is denoted by an unshaded “little couch.” The accepted name of this function is communication. Introverted (“black”) ethics is denoted by a shaded “little couch” (L). In verbal designation these are the emotions.
Editor: Fine, the author mixed up the terms — it happens: she wrote “extraverted” instead of “introverted.” But to write that “the accepted name of this function is communication” is doubly wrong: neither “accepted” nor “communication,” but “relations” — which is, of course, not the same thing. Errors of this kind greatly reduce trust in the author’s text. Unless, of course, this is the author’s invention… but then arguments are required.
Author: The eyes of ethical types are emotionally expressive; the forehead is often low, sometimes narrow; the mouth is as a rule large, beautifully outlined, mobile.
Editor: This set of features, though incomplete, looks quite plausible. One senses that the author has decent powers of observation — so this work should be brought to a quality conclusion, not rushed into print as a half-finished product.
Author: The psychic function Jung called “sensation” received the name of sensorics. Extraverted sensorics is denoted by an unshaded little circle (O) and is called white sensorics, or the function of aesthetic interaction with the world of things. Introverted sensorics is black sensorics, or volitional mobilization (•).
Editor: Here we see that the author is convinced that extraverted functions are called white and introverted ones black. Gulenko held such a conviction at one time, and it is set down in his early texts. It is not impossible that Nebykova read those texts and remained forever with that conviction. But then what about the “NEO”?
Author: Model A (a reminder: this is “Aušra’s model,” as it is customarily called in socionics circles) can be represented as digits denoting position numbers:
1 2
4 3 — mental ring
6 5
7 8 — vital ring
where: 1 — reception of information about the surrounding world and the mode of processing it; 2 — the mode of self-realization in accordance with the information received and processed; 3 — the role position (mode of interaction with the social environment); 4 — the point of pain (place of least resistance); 5 — the suggestive (suggestible) position; 6 — the referent position (information from this position feeds into the first and “modulates” it); 7 and 8 — positions activated in stress situations.
Editor: Of course, not “Aušra’s model” — and if one is to name it after a person, then after Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. As for its being “customarily so called in socionics circles” — that is an odd turn of phrase. The model is so called because Aušra Augustinavičiūtė created it, not because it is “customary in socionics circles.” Still, this turn of phrase cannot be treated as an error; it is, rather, a marker of the author’s stock of knowledge — somewhat peculiar knowledge, homemade and home-grown, not the kind “customary in socionics circles.” And now it gradually becomes clear why the author considers her socionics NEO. It appears she does not fully understand classical socionics, and takes her own understanding, with all its imprecisions and distortions, for a discovery — because it is NOT LIKE classical socionics and therefore, in the author’s opinion, NEO.
The semantics of the functions is partly copied from Gulenko and partly badly distorted: function 1 is the programmatic function, not “reception of information about the surrounding world and the mode of processing it,” and function 2 is by no means “the mode of self-realization in accordance with the information received and processed” but the communicative-probing, or creative, function, etc.
Author: This scheme comprises 4 blocks: EGO (I) — “I know and can”; SUPEREGO (the social I) — “I must”; SUPERID (the social IT) — “I want”; ID (IT) — “I am able.”
Editor: Obviously the author borrowed this construct, so there is nothing “NEO” in it. But why SUPERID should be the social IT is nowhere explained — as though there had not been a hundred years of ego psychology from Freud to Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, as though all this were NEO. Evidently the author has no notion of the semantics of the functions and blocks, and does not understand that this semantics must be introduced with justification, not assigned by “intuitive-volitional” decision.
Author: The EGO and SUPEREGO blocks enter the mental ring (the ring of awareness — conditionally); the SUPERID and ID blocks enter the vital ring (unconscious — likewise conditionally: some processes in the vital blocks may be conscious, while some in the mental-ring blocks are not always conscious).
Editor: So far nothing new, apart from additions false at their root — that the mental ring is “the ring of awareness, conditionally,” and the vital ring “unconscious, also conditionally.” Where does the author get this information? Did she really establish these two facts in a laboratory experiment? In any case Freud, who at first held the ego to be fully conscious and the id unconscious, was later forced to conclude that the ego is not fully conscious and that a considerable part of it is rooted in the unconscious. He also at first held the superego to be fully unconscious, but later inclined to the view that something of the superego does reach consciousness. This reminder is meant to show that things are not so simple with “awareness,” and that consciousness itself was and remains a phenomenon inaccessible to scientific study. Hence the “assignments” the author makes as to what shall be conscious and what not look frivolous. As for the maximally generalized psychic functions, no presence of awareness is presupposed there at all. And in any case, drawing conclusions here about their degree of consciousness offhand, at the level of intuitive guesses, is unbecoming for a scholar. Some intellectual or experimental work must be done.
Author: Extraverted sensorics heightens the subject’s attention to the world of things. Thanks to his first function he is well oriented in the quality of things and their aesthetic value. Bearers of such models usually draw well and show aptitude for artistic crafts, for practical work in technology and in domestic affairs. Introverted sensorics determines the perception of people from the standpoint of their capacity for volitional mobilization. Situations not requiring displays of will may seem oppressively mundane and uninteresting to bearers of such models.
Editor: This paragraph is a vivid specimen of disinformation — from the standpoint of classical socionics, of course. One gets the impression that the author understands the word “sensorics” somehow differently from everyone else, differently from what is “customary in socionics circles.” Sensorics is the function of the subject’s perception of the object; it is the very perception of the world of things — and to say that it heightens attention, when at the level of maximal generalization this function is inseparably bound up with attention, is like saying something along the lines of “food increases appetite,” “association with people heightens attention to people,” “walking improves the ability to keep one’s balance,” and so on. This is not merely banality — it is obtrusive superfluity. It is the quintessence of graphomania.
Author: The question of terminology stands very acutely in socionics. The names of types by their leading psychic functions, accepted in the specialized socionics literature, are too cumbersome and not comprehensible to everyone. For example, the designation “ethical-sensory extravert” says nothing to the uninitiated.
Editor: Yes, the question of terminology in socionics is acute — but not because the functional terms are cumbersome and “incomprehensible to the uninitiated.” Socionics is a science, and for the “uninitiated” to find his way in it he must study it and become initiated. These names are meant to indicate with utmost precision the psychological essence of the given type. It is another matter that Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s replacement of Jung’s terms “thinking” and “feeling” with “logic” and “ethics,” though she gave her reasons, proved unfortunate. In making the substitution Aušra proceeded from the premise that the concept of “thinking” characterizes bearers of all types equally, whereas “logic” points to individual typological differences — “each has his own logic,” as it were. But in Jung the positioning of the functions presupposed a link above all with the type, not with character — character presupposing the acquisition of individual differences through learning, including the acquisition of logical and ethical knowledge and habits. Hence it is precisely the position of thinking and feeling in the structure of the psyche, and not acquired knowledge of the techniques of thinking (to which logic belongs), that determines typological differences.
Author: A. Augustinavičiūtė assigned the socionic types pseudonyms drawn from the names of famous historical figures, writers, poets, actors, and literary characters. But this system, for all its one indisputable merit — its effect on the consultee’s figurative perception of information — suffers from a whole series of shortcomings. Let us name a few: the influence on the conception of the socionic type of the individual traits of the person chosen as the pseudonym; disagreements among socionists in determining the socionic types of the pseudonyms themselves; the complexity of the psychic characteristics of well-known figures of politics, science, and art; the impossibility of selecting pseudonyms equally well known to representatives of different strata of the population (thus the pseudonym Dreiser, as a rule, means nothing to the young).
Editor: These questions have been discussed many times in the socionics literature, and no consensus was ever reached on them: representatives of different types held to their own arguments. Yet the author, touching on this theme, advances arguments already advanced by others; there is nothing new in her position. As for the use of eponymous terms in science, they are widely employed, though not perceived identically by everyone: recall newtons and megapascals. Incidentally, 1 pascal = 1 newton per square meter. An ethical sensibility may be jarred by this. Still, it is well known that regular practical use of eponymous terms removes possible emotional interference, turning them into habitual working instruments. That is exactly what happened in socionics. The overwhelming majority of people have no neurotic reactions to such names for their types as Napoleon, Robespierre, Stirlitz, and others. Amusing situations do sometimes arise in connection with the pseudonyms Aušra Augustinavičiūtė chose. Someone holds that F. Dostoevsky was not a Dostoevsky but a Hamlet, while the real Dostoevsky was Don Quixote. Others conclude that Napoleon Bonaparte was not a Napoleon but a Zhukov. Someone wants to replace the author’s pseudonyms proposed by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė with his own — say, Sherlock Holmes instead of Stirlitz, or Alexander of Macedon or Caesar instead of Napoleon. Clearly a wide field opens up here for individual creativity, and representatives of certain types will not miss such a splendid chance to distinguish themselves. Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s eponymous type names have stood the test of time. No negative consequences have ensued. These names have attained the level of terms and have fully justified their instrumental purpose. Their use adds motivation to the study and dissemination of socionics and has, of course, contributed to its popularization. As for names like Dreiser, of whom the young may not know — let the young raise their cultural level; and many young people promptly try to learn more about the remarkable American writer. This theme is discussed in more detail in [UChK].
Author: Names by leading character trait are also used. Thus the socionic type — the ethical-sensory extravert — was given the pseudonym Hugo. By leading character trait he received the names: Organizer (jocular variant: Master of Ceremonies), the Fervent One, the Enthusiast.
Editor: The author evidently does not understand that a leading character trait must be scientifically substantiated, not assigned on the basis of personal impressions. The very variants of “leading traits” she cites — Master of Ceremonies, the Fervent One, the Enthusiast — point to the ambiguity of the concept. As for “organizer” as a leading trait, that capacity is possessed at the very least by bearers of such types as Zhukov, Napoleon, and Stirlitz. The inadequacy of such a name is, in this case, obvious. A comparative table of type names was given above, and the reader can judge for himself their approximateness and scientific incorrectness.
Author: All 16 socionic types are divided into 4 quadras.
Editor: Nothing new so far — the author repeats what has long been known.
Author: Having constructed each of the 16 models (by the rules for constructing Model A) and correlated the psychic functions with their role in the given position, we obtain a fairly complete picture of each of the listed types; but before doing so I wish to introduce into the context of the description the concept of “role in the quadra.”
Editor: The concept of “role in the quadra” was introduced by Gulenko — so one should raise one’s cultural level and cite one’s predecessors. As for “a fairly complete picture of each of the listed types,” this expression contains a subtle defect that evidently escapes the author’s attention. The point is that socionics gives a complete, not a “fairly complete,” picture of each type, since all information about the type (about the type — not about the character or the person!) is contained in Model A; though of course one must know how to extract it — that is what socionic theory is for.
As for the “rules for constructing the model,” an author laying claim to NEO ought to have explained where they came from — but for that one must first realize that this needs explaining.
Author: I shall begin with a brief summary of a newspaper article, unfortunately lost by me in a sea of papers. It concerned the formation of an ancient cavalry force that did not yet have a clear structure. Nevertheless, in this force the mounted warriors were grouped in fours, and each of the four horsemen had his own role in the arena of military operations. First rode the Hero. His task was to charge the enemy without a thought for danger, drawing the others after him. Behind him rode the Ram. The Ram’s task was to protect the Hero’s back, to cover him, to guard him. Third came the Harlequin, or Distractor. His task was to tease the enemy, confuse him, throw him off balance. The Harlequin could overtake the Hero or fall behind, circle to the left or right. Witty, quick, on a light horse, he “wound up” the enemy, imposed his own rhythm, knocked him out of his stride. The fourth horseman was the Sensitive One, or Human Antenna.
Editor: Now you know the author’s key source of inspiration — the structure of an ancient cavalry unit with a Hero, a Harlequin, a Ram, and an Antenna. What words they knew in the ancient cavalry! — all from different cultural infrastructures, which probably never stood side by side even in the Italian comedy. No, the author relies not on the whole experience of human psychology standing behind the discoveries of Jung and Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, but on a newspaper article. Not a bad article — genuinely interesting. But if tomorrow an article appears about a brigade of four cooks — first the soup-man, second the meat-man (specialist in meat dishes), third the salad-man, fourth the pastry-man — there will be a new basis for revising the classical conceptions of socionics.
Author: This very system of interacting horsemen is a good image that can be used to describe the functional interrelations within a quadra. Naturally, the designations of the horsemen are ambiguous. I therefore replace them with participles: the Leading, the Guarding, the Interacting, and the Perceiving. (emphasis the editor’s)
Editor: The horsemen make a fine example. But it can have only an oblique relation to socionics. The horsemen’s roles are examples of sociotypes, and the correspondence between TIMs and sociotypes is not one-to-one: people of one TIM can be different sociotypes, and conversely, people of one sociotype can have different TIMs. Moreover, imposing military semantics on other kinds of social activity is a typical example of covert manipulation of consciousness. Why, for instance, replace or substitute the division of scientists into generators, selectors, developers, inspirers, implementers, etc., with heroes, rams, and harlequins? As a metaphor in a poetic comparison it will do, but at the level of organizational technology it seems pointless — though observations of this kind could be useful in developing the semantic spectra of sociotypes.
But let us look more closely at the semantics of the “participles” the author has chosen. Note at once that as soon as these participles are capitalized they turn into nouns, since they designate agents.
The Leading — this concept cannot be reduced merely to that of the Leader. A television presenter [“ведущий”], for example, lacks some of the Leader’s parameters. Close to the concept of the Leading are: Toastmaster, Boss, Commander, Ataman, Gang-boss, Guide, Seeing-eye, Manager, Pastor, Teacher, Pilot, Boatswain, Head, Elder, Sergeant-major, Chairman, Tour guide, Compère…
The Guarding — the Protecting, Guard, Overseer, Escort, Bodyguard, Physician…
The Interacting — Negotiator, Diplomat, Politician.
The Perceiving — Pupil, Listener, Watcher, Scout, Scholar…
Surveying the semantic fields of the roles Nebykova has chosen, one can see that they do not cover the whole set of social roles, which makes the author’s chosen set of roles, at the very least, limited. This means the author will have to make numerous stretches to maintain the logical coherence of her reasoning.
Author: Naturally, any person is capable of being the Leading, the Guarding, the Interacting, and the Perceiving; but here we are speaking of the principal trait of each of the four, corresponding to his functional role in the quadra.
Editor: It does not go without saying. Not everyone can be a leader, and so on. At the very least this would have to be proven. In science there is almost nothing that goes without saying.
Author: It is easy to notice that these 4 roles correspond to the four temperament types: the Leading is the choleric, the Guarding the phlegmatic, the Interacting the sanguine, and the Perceiving the melancholic.
Editor: An example of a stretch — no such one-to-one correspondence exists. And the author’s offhand claim that it is easy to notice does not correspond to reality.
Author: What does the change of terminology give us? The point is that the psychological terms denoting temperament type are oriented toward the person as an object of study, observation, psychological diagnosis. By changing the terminology we lend the description of the temperaments functionality: attention shifts from the question “what kind?” to the question “what for?”
Editor: Here we are dealing with an error which, judging by what has already been written above, is characteristic of the author. The attempt to bind temperament rigidly to sociotype may be assigned to the “childhood disease of hasty identification.” A thought flashes through the author’s mind, and without troubling herself with serious research she at once takes it for final truth. The same happens with the attempt to bind the TIM to the sociotype. Temperament is broader than any sociotype, since it is a basic, biological characteristic of individuality. It is connected with the evolutionary adaptation of the species Homo sapiens, whereas the sociotype appears much later — within the framework of the individual’s socialization.
Author: Classical descriptions of the types consider the positive and negative features of each temperament. The sanguine temperament is recognized as the best, since it rests on a strong type of nervous activity and a balance of the processes of excitation and inhibition.
Editor: Apples and oranges… What classical descriptions of types is the author talking about? Socionic ones? Then what do temperaments have to do with it? In psychology, evaluations of “better or worse” are not applied to types. The classical temperaments are the result of natural selection, and each has advantages and disadvantages relative to the others — which is why all the temperaments have survived in the human population.
Author: By changing the terminology we thereby come to understand what each temperament type is for. But that is not all: we now look at bearers of the different temperaments not as dwelling in isolation but as participants in interaction. Under this approach the bearer of each temperament type is, on his own, incredibly vulnerable: the choleric does not reckon with danger and does not catch the subtlest signals that allow the future to be foreseen; the phlegmatic, for all his reliability, is late to react; the sanguine is changeable and loves to be the center of attention; the melancholic is anxious, weak, and timorous. But together they complement one another, and each is of great value to the rest.
Editor: This excerpt might have been considered a development of the temperament theme, an attempt at an activity-based profiling of it — but superficial observations are not enough for that; and besides, the interrelations of the temperaments have been investigated and described in the psychological literature in fair detail. The author, however, starts from zero, as on a desert island — as though there had been no I. P. Pavlov, no Teplov–Nebylitsyn institute, no research by Simonov, no classical works by Strelau and many others. And so the author has decided to change the terminology. If I understand rightly, we must now call cholerics “the Leading,” and so on down the list. Yes, when a dilettante-graphomaniac takes up a matter, expect surprises.
Author: Let us transfer this approach to the contemporary situation of business partnership. Suppose several people decide to found a firm. Among them there must be a Leading one, possessing great drive and able to overcome obstacles. For the newly created firm to fit legally and financially into the existing business world, it needs a Guarding one. For external contacts an Interacting one will be required. Without a Perceiving one the firm may prove vulnerable both in observing the law and in defending itself against racketeers, unscrupulous officials, and the like. Moreover, it is the Perceiving one who will be the first to sense changes in market and other trends.
Editor: The structure of the small group has been researched in psychology none too badly, and to replace well-founded and established concepts one needs weighty grounds. Alas, the author performs her “transfer” quite superficially. It is also rather strange that the author entrusts defense against racketeers to the Perceiving one rather than the Guarding one. She would have done well to supply semantic specifications when introducing the quadral roles.
Author: In socionics there exist other terms for the partners in a quadra: programmer, implementer, coordinator, and accumulator. These terms — and the realities behind them — do not contradict my approach: they are based on taking into account the quadra’s supreme values. What matters to me, however, is the functional structure of the quadra: the quadra partners in interaction.
Editor: Are the programmer, implementer, coordinator, and accumulator not a functional structure? And they are certainly not “based” on the quadra’s values — after all, each quadra has its own values, whereas the roles proposed by Gulenko are invariant across all quadras. Here too, incidentally, we have an insufficiently grounded transfer of concepts from one subject area — sociology — into another — psychology.
Author: I have studied the management structures of factories and travel agencies, observed the administrations of schools, universities, and education departments. According to my data, it is precisely those whom I have designated by the term “Leading” who as a rule occupy the top rung of the hierarchical ladder; the Guarding are most often deputies and finance directors; the Interacting — PR people, directors-general for public relations, advertising people; while the Perceiving usually get the posts of personal assistants, client-relations managers, guide-interpreters, and the like.
Editor: Here is an example of a person who studied management structure and then for some reason decided that LEADER should be replaced by LEADING. And the author’s semantics of the GUARDING corresponds more to a GUARD than to a DEPUTY — which is a quite different set of meanings. All because the author wants to squeeze business structures into the structure of a cavalry detachment.
Singling out the INTERACTING one immediately suggests that all the others interact with nothing and no one. This is a serious semantic miscalculation in the choice of term — all the more unforgivable when proposed by a philologist.
The same can be said of the PERCEIVING one: it comes out that all the others perceive nothing. Whatever reservations the author makes, the terminology she has chosen is not merely unfortunate in form — it distorts reality in substance.
Author: One must also bear in mind that terms are always conventional: in granting a word the status of a term, we agree not to notice the full range of its meanings.
Editor: The author senses the defects of her terminology and tries to neutralize its negative impression on the reader by proposing that we “not notice the full range of the terms’ meanings.”
Author: The choice of participles to designate the quadral roles is not accidental: participles, unlike nouns, are more neutral emotionally and semantically.
Editor: Can the author, holder of a philology degree, really not understand that by choosing participles as terms she has thereby nominalized them — that is, converted them, as linguists say, into nouns — and that they now denote agents?
Author: At present socionists have practically abandoned the use of pseudonyms drawn from the names of famous figures of science and art or literary characters. However, these names can be found in the socionics literature already published, which is why I have given them above.
Editor: Socionists have not abandoned the pseudonyms — Aušra introduced them, and that is her author’s right. It is another matter that there is no unanimity among socionists about the pseudonyms and the legitimacy of their use. But then, socionists have no unanimity on almost any socionic problem. Neosocionics is one example of a “special opinion.” A weighty argument for the legitimacy of pseudonyms is the wide use of the practice throughout science: ohms, volts, amperes, joules, newtons per square meter (which equals one pascal), and even megapascals. But, in accordance with socionic concepts, people of different types may have different preferences — and if someone does not like it, let him not use it.
As for functionally motivated names, they impose on a person a program of self-identification to a far greater degree than the eponymous pseudonyms — the very thing the author campaigns against.
Author: The most widespread today are names of socionic types by leading character trait. They are not yet unified or homogeneous: in some cases character traits are taken as the basis, in others rather the professional orientation of the type’s bearer. I choose designations characterizing each type by its professional orientation.
Comparison of roles in the quadra (Table Neb.01)
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gulenko-1 | Culminator | Gatekeeper | Financier | Stabilizer |
| Gulenko-2 | Leader | Implementer | Stabilizer | Corrector |
| Bukalov | Programmer | Coordinator | Implementer | Accumulator |
| Nebykova | Leading | Guarding | Interacting | Perceiving |
| Tarot | Knight | Queen | King | Page |
Distribution of roles in the quadras (per Nebykova) (Table Neb.02) — Leading / Guarding / Interacting / Perceiving: α — Hugo, Dumas, Quixote, Robespierre; β — Zhukov, Gorky [Maxim], Hamlet, Yesenin; γ — Napoleon, Dreiser, London [Jack], Balzac; δ — Stirlitz, Gabin, Huxley, Dostoevsky.
In each of the 4 quadras there are its own Leading, Guarding, Interacting, and Perceiving. We shall discuss the differences of these roles across the quadras later.
Commentary: Yes, in assigning the quadral roles the author has indeed attained the level of innovation — though the innovations have a certain prison-camp tint. The Leading is the escort guard, the Guarding is self-explanatory, the Interacting is the provocateur, and the Perceiving is the informer. A rather flippant set, all told. This is what comes of wanting to invent something of one’s own without going too deeply into scientific methodology — one of the leading marks of graphomania.
To discover the role semantics of the quadra’s TIMs, one must first establish that all quadras are strictly ordered and that no permutations are possible. Since the theorem on the strict ordering of the socion has been proven, the strict order of TIMs within the quadras is thereby predetermined. Remarkably, Aušra Augustinavičiūtė guessed it intuitively, allowing only one error: in the 4th quadra the dyad Huxley–Gabin stands first, and the dyad Stirlitz–Dostoevsky second.
Strictly ordered arrangement of TIMs in the quadras (Table Neb.03)
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| α | ILE | SEI | ESE | LII |
| β | EIE | LSI | SLE | IEI |
| γ | LIE | ESI | SEE | ILI |
| δ | IEE | SLI | LSE | EII |
where 1 = the Forward-Looker, 2 = the Harmonizer, 3 = the Consolidator, 4 = the Justifier.
It is now clear that those standing first share intuition and extraversion — and it is by this that the semantics of the quadral role must be determined. The Don Quixotes discover laws that may be used in future technologies. The Hamlets create the emotional image of the future. The Jacks create promising technologies. The Huxleys shape future life values. Generalizing the listed programs of the first TIMs, one may propose something like the role of FORWARD-LOOKER.
Those standing second share sensorics and introversion. The Dumas create intimacy and coziness. The Maxims create local orderliness. The Dreisers set the local ethical tone. The Gabins harmonize the local living environment. Generalizing these programs, one may propose something like the role of HARMONIZER.
Those standing third share sensorics and extraversion — two categories equivalent to power. The corresponding quadral role might be called, say, LEADER, ORGANIZER, or CONSOLIDATOR. The last name is the most neutral: the CONSOLIDATOR may not be a LEADER or ORGANIZER, but he binds the group together — like a toastmaster.
Those standing fourth share intuition and introversion. The Robespierres materialize the ideas of the Don Quixotes. The Yesenins fill the activity of the other quadra members with value. The Balzacs make effective use of, and perfect, the results of the quadra’s activity. The Dostoevskys create the ethical justification of the quadra’s life-activity. The corresponding role might be called, say, SPIRIT OF THE QUADRA or JUSTIFIER. All this is very approximate, and to find precise — or at least more precise — terms, a great deal of semantic work must be done. But as a first approximation these names may be accepted. Then Table Neb.01 can be supplemented, as in Table Neb.04.
Comparison of roles in the quadra (Table Neb.04)
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gulenko-1 | Culminator | Gatekeeper | Financier | Stabilizer |
| Gulenko-2 | Leader | Implementer | Stabilizer | Corrector |
| Bukalov | Programmer | Coordinator | Implementer | Accumulator |
| Nebykova | Interacting | Guarding | Leading | Perceiving |
| Tarot | Knight | Queen | King | Page |
| Churyumov | Forward-Looker | Harmonizer | Consolidator | Justifier |
Note that the names in the last row map most closely onto the semantics of the Tarot row. And indeed: the King stands at the very center of society and consolidates it around himself. The Queens harmonize society. The Knight looks in all directions so as to warn of danger in time. And Pages are dependent people — they accept the conduct of their elders as the only possible one, reconcile themselves to it, and thereby already justify it. These are simplified considerations, of course, but as a first approximation they are plausible. Nevertheless, all these are sociotypes, and hence their superimposition on the TIM must be regarded as conventional, approximate, non-obligatory.
Glancing at Table Neb.02, you will understand that the author assigned the roles to the TIMs rather than deriving them from the models. She mechanically transferred roles from the very concrete activity of a cavalry detachment onto the maximally generalized roles of the members of a virtual social unit — the quadra. If one bears in mind that “the Leading” is simply another name for “leader,” a translation from English into Russian, it becomes clear that all the so-called “interacting” ones, in suitable conditions, can perfectly well be leaders too — that is, “the Leading,” in the author’s terminology, or simply “chiefs.”
Author: Each quadra performs its own role in the socion. Hence the roles of the Leading, the Guarding, the Interacting, and the Perceiving acquire their own shades in each quadra.
Editor: In light of the foregoing, this can be understood to mean that each quadra builds its own concentration camp.
It will be a matter for regret if the terminology proposed by the author is introduced into the theory and practice of psychological counseling.
Comparative table of functionally motivated TIM names (Table Neb.03 [sic])
| Keirsey | Gulenko | Bukalov | Shulman | Nebykova | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quixote (ILE) | Inventor | Seeker | Seeker | Generator | Theorist |
| Dumas (SEI) | Artist | Mediator | Mediator | House-spirit | Mediator |
| Hugo (ESE) | Trader | Enthusiast | Enthusiast | Fervent | Organizer |
| Robespierre (LII) | Researcher | Analyst | Analyst | Prospector | Analyst |
| Hamlet (EIE) | Pedagogue | Mentor | Mentor | Ideologue | Mentor |
| Gorky (LSI) | Guardian | Inspector | Inspector | Master of the House | Master of the House |
| Zhukov (SLE) | Entrepreneur | Marshal | Marshal | Commander | Marshal |
| Yesenin (IEI) | Romantic | Lyricist | Lyricist | Idealist | Lyricist |
| London (LIE) | Field Marshal | Entrepreneur | Entrepreneur | Seeker | Entrepreneur |
| Dreiser (ESI) | Keeper | Keeper | Keeper | Canon | Keeper |
| Napoleon (SEE) | Toastmaster | Politician | Politician | Sovereign | Politician |
| Balzac (ILI) | Architect | Critic | Critic | Erudite | Researcher |
| Huxley (IEE) | Journalist | Adviser | Counselor | Enthusiast | Journalist |
| Gabin (SLI) | Craftsman | Craftsman | Craftsman | Artisan | Craftsman |
| Stirlitz (LSE) | Administrator | Administrator | Steward | Arranger | Administrator |
| Dostoevsky (EII) | Foreteller | Humanist | Humanist | Humanist | Humanist |
Editor: Looking at the table “Comparison of functionally motivated type names” (which does not even include all the authors of “improved” names), one begins to understand what passions have flared up in socionics over these names. Fine — with Keirsey all is clear: over there in America typology remained at the level of the beginning of the last century; what can one expect. And it is clear that these name-labels look like tags: each type may lay claim only to the social role prescribed for it — the ESE (Hugo) can only be a salesman, the ILI (Balzacs) only architects, and so on. Yet the socionists fell for Keirsey’s provocation. Of course, socionists, thanks to Model A, have a better feel for the types, yet they still fail to see that they are trying to substitute the sociotype — the type of social functioning and self-realization — for the socionic type. I hold that in order to use a sociotype in place of the TIM one must prove that the model of the sociotype is isomorphic to the model of the TIM. Until such work is done, designating a TIM by a sociotype will remain incorrect.
As for Nebykova’s contribution to this “sociotypological bacchanalia,” it is very modest, not to say paltry. She “dubbed” Don Quixote the THEORIST and found it possible to rename Balzac the RESEARCHER — as though Don Quixotes cannot be researchers and Balzacs theorists. Alas, no statistics exist on the basis of which these two TIMs could be sorted into these two professions. All the remaining names Nebykova borrowed from other authors. So here too the NEO turns out very paltry indeed.
Author: The first quadra is designed for scientific-research activity.
Editor: In a scientific context one cannot assert such a thing without sufficient grounds. Designed by whom? In science, anthropomorphism must be used with care. This would have to be derived from the TIM models and the quadral values, but the author plays the Delphic oracle and simply confronts the reader with her assignment. No quadra is “destined” for any specific activity. Its possible activity is determined by generalized parameters which in socionics received the name of quadral values. These values are determined by the four information aspects from the EGO blocks of all four types of the quadra. For the 1st quadra (Aušra Augustinavičiūtė named the quadras by the first Greek letters) these are I, l, E, s. The most general concepts summarizing these aspects are COGNITION (I, l) and CONSUMPTION (s, E). Cognition here has an ultimate character: its ideal is objectivity (l), and it strives to discover the most general laws of nature and society. Newton, Mendeleev, Einstein, and Karl Marx are vivid examples of this orientation. The ideal of consumption in this quadra is naturalness and comfort (s, E). In particular, provision is made here for turning discovered laws into everyday technologies that emancipate man and turn his life into a holiday. Hence this quadra is good in science, in project work, and in consumer services; among other things, everyday-services business goes well for this quadra.
Author: (on Hugo) We see that S — volitional mobilization — occupies the eighth position (the ID block) in Model A. This means that in everyday communication the Leading one of Quadra I does not exert strong volitional influence on those around him; his will is mobilized in stress situations. Instead he realizes himself through white sensorics — aesthetic interaction with the world of things. This function in a strong position, namely the position of realization, is important for directing scientific-research institutions (research institutes, laboratories, etc.), academies, universities, faculties, and so on.
Editor: Here is a vivid example of systematic errors in interpreting Model A resulting from a misunderstanding of its structure and the semantics of its functions. The position of an aspect in function 8 — the realization-technological function (RTF) — indicates the ultimate product of the TIM’s bearer, and not at all behavior in stress situations, but in the flow of everyday life. For Hugo this means that bearers of this type are capable of exercising power functions in society and do so in the most humane manner (7e, 8S) — that is, this type, like all others, realizes itself maximally precisely through the RTF. Through function 2 — the communicative-probing function (CPF), or creative function — Hugo merely demonstrates his orientation toward consumption, comfort, and aesthetics (s), which makes him attractive both to his immediate circle and to the broad masses. A good example here is the president of Belarus, Lukashenko. He did not succumb to the destructive programs of the Western intelligence services and managed to preserve the industrial and agricultural infrastructure — something neither the Russian Yeltsin (a Jack) nor the Ukrainian Kravchuk (a Napoleon) managed to do. But on no account should a Hugo be allowed to head scientific institutions — there will be nepotism, bribes, embezzlement on an especially large scale. The best director of a scientific institute would be a Don Quixote, a Jack, or a Robespierre, while a Hugo would do well as vice-rector for facilities. He will procure everything for the institute — though of course he will not forget himself either. And only oversight by a Don Quixote or a Robespierre will be able to keep him within the bounds of decency.
Author: To manage scientists and university lecturers, strong and constant volitional mobilization is not required, whereas white sensorics is necessary for organizing the work of a research institute or university, and scientific conferences.
Editor: To manage scientists and university lecturers requires, as in all other cases of management, a strong but at the same time reasonable hand. What is needed is a person capable of assessing the prospects of a given piece of research. A Don Quixote or a Jack fits well here, but they must be supplied with “social” information: who is in what relations with whom, what the moods and the balance of forces are, and so on. Hugo and Dumas cope well with this in the case of a Don Quixote; Dreiser and Napoleon, in the case of a Jack — though in science both must be helped and kept under control. If bearers of these types end up in any managerial role whatsoever, they may begin to exploit their subordinates — though this depends heavily on the moral atmosphere both in the collective and in the state.
Author: The Leading ones of Quadra I work easily and precisely with documentation and finances, know how to establish superficial contacts, are open, radiate energy, and willingly join in solving minor everyday problems connected with housing conference participants, organizing meals, publishing abstracts and papers, and the like.
Editor: The author wants to justify her claim that the 1st quadra is destined for scientific activity, plainly engaging in special pleading. For everything said here can equally be said of the TIMs of the 3rd quadra. Dreisers “work easily and precisely with documentation and finances, know how to establish superficial contacts”; Napoleons are “open, radiate energy, willingly join in solving minor everyday problems connected with housing conference participants, organizing meals, publishing abstracts” — and so on down the text. The 3rd quadra is perfectly capable of doing science: it contains two TIMs from the scientists’ club, and two socials who, just as in the 1st quadra, can cope splendidly with clerical work and with the cultural and material support of scientific conferences. After all, one of the greatest scientists of all time, Newton, was from the 3rd quadra — an LIE. There is, of course, some potential difference in the scientific profile of scholars from the 1st and 3rd quadras.
Author: In stress situations the Organizer engages the functions of communication and will. Communication in bearers of this model is in the limiting position, which allows the extraverted Organizer to restrain his emotional impulses somewhat. The Organizer’s function of will is frequently exploited: directing a research institute or university, organizing conferences, and the like require volitional mobilization at certain moments.
Editor: From where does the author derive the connection of the stress situation with the functions of communication and will in Hugo’s model — that is, 7e (the intuitive-temporal function, ITF) and 8S (the realization-technological function, RTF)? From the fact that stress situations require will? But these functions answer not for stress but, respectively, for concentration and for the ultimate socially significant product. For Hugo that is power. Evidently the author does not understand that each function of Model A has two semantic fields: positional and aspectual. The first answers the question “What does the function do?” — and this determines the situations in which the aspectual semantics is activated. In all types without exception, stress situations are the province of function 3, the adaptation-load function (ALF). In Hugo it holds L (extraverted logic), responsible for performing technological work. This means that in tense situations Hugo plunges into physical labor, which is what helps him cope with the difficult situation. The author’s failure to understand the semantics of the model’s functions leads to systematic errors. What is instructive here is that the author is capable of constructing, upon a wrongly understood model, coherent texts adapted to socionic terminology and life situations — while remaining fully confident of her rightness and capable of instilling that confidence in the reader, client, or listener.
Author: (on Stirlitz) As we see from the analysis of his graphical model, the Administrator is not a harsh manager, since his volitional mobilization is located in the ID block and is activated in situations where volitional actions are necessary. As a rule, bearers of this model are short of stature. Their distinguishing feature is an innate “military bearing”: a straight back, the head and back on a single line.
Editor: Here we see an example of a simplified understanding of the model and an obscure mechanism of interpreting it. Where does this “as a rule, bearers of this model are short of stature” come from? Personal observations? Among Stirlitzes there are any number of tall, sturdily built people inclined, for all their correctness, to considerable toughness. All this follows from the fact that among extraverts, people of above-average height predominate. Introverted sensorics in the position of the communicative-probing (creative) function ensures a neat and solid appearance and, combined with rationality, induces correctness in social intercourse. Extraverted sensorics in the position of the realization-technological function (the 8th) gives people of this type the capacity to be as imperious and tough as you please. A vivid example is one of the presidents of France, Charles de Gaulle. Extraverted logic in the position of the program-potential function makes them athletic, to which rational dynamics adds drive.
The approximateness of the description in the quoted excerpt significantly lowers one’s trust in the rest of the description as well. For example, it is entirely unclear how one can derive from the Stirlitz model that “People of this type usually have close-set eyes (a small distance between the eyes). The eyes are often dark brown, round in shape. The nose is thin, slightly elongated. The lower lip protrudes somewhat, the upper being noticeably thinner than the lower.”
Look at the portraits given here of several representatives of the LSE type. Do you see close-set round eyes and thin noses? The accentuated description of the lips is not confirmed either.
Just as approximate are all the other type descriptions the author gives in the book. Note also the terminological turn “bearers of this model” — here the model is identified with the type. In belles-lettres such a metaphor might look “fresh,” but in a scientific text the substitution of concepts contradicts the methodological requirement of the univocality of terms. Still, let us ask: how far are these concepts identical, and in what does their difference consist within the subject area of psychology? First, definitions. A psychological type unites a set of characters in which psychological traits selected by a pre-specified criterion are present. The model of a psychological type fixes, in symbolic form, the structural and/or semantic parameters of the type. The type is the object of study; the model is the instrument of study. The model is a mental construct, whereas the type is something discovered in reality.
Incidentally, the author has assigned to LSE (Stirlitz) even Jung — whom the majority of socionists class as an LII. Beside this is printed the portrait of Jung as placed in Neosocionics, so that you may see for yourselves how the author pictures a Stirlitz.
Author: Relations between bearers of Models A are influenced by the position of the psychic functions.
Editor: For anyone familiar with socionics this phrase is not only banal — it is approximate and erroneous. It is unspecific and sounds as though someone had said that the position of letters influences the meaning of a word. That phrase, though banal, is at least true. Nebykova’s phrase is both banal and untrue. For the position of the functions in each model is fixed, whereas relations — more precisely, the type of relation — is determined by which functions come into contact. If any mental-ring function comes into contact with any vital-ring function, the relations will be synergetic: the partners’ efforts will combine and support each other. If, in the partners’ relations, mental functions interact separately with mental and vital separately with vital, the relations will be antagonistic: opposition arises between the partners; they fail to understand, and extinguish, each other.
Nebykova’s phrase looks as though she had heard something with half an ear and were trying to convey in her own words what she managed to understand. The uninitiated reader will be misled by it.
Author: The Organizer and the Analyst are both rationals. This creates heightened comfort in communication, since it is precisely divergences in degree of rationality that are the source of most conflicts.
Editor: Yet another example of imprecision and even carelessness. And what will the author say about the relations of activation and quasi-identity? Does she really not know that the type of relation is determined not by “-ality” but by the particular functions that interact when the partners communicate?
Author: The Organizer is an extravert, an ethical type, a sensory type; the Analyst a logical type, an intuitive. This creates the basis for good interaction and mutual support along their weak functions.
Editor: And what about conflicters? Dreiser is an introvert, ethical, sensory; Don Quixote an extravert, logical, intuitive. But alas, it is not this that determines the type of relation — it is the interacting functions.
Author: Duals perceive each other’s appearance positively and are disposed not toward criticism but toward mutual support.
Editor: This is a retelling of a truth copied from book to book, formulated by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. Aušra did not pluck this truth from the ceiling, nor copy it from other books: she derived it from the scheme of the relations. According to that scheme, in dual relations the program functions of both partners come into contact with the suggestive functions of the other. From this it is easy to conclude that each partner receives the other’s programs with trust. Nowadays, however, one can use the full-format model of the relation [see UChK], which coincides completely with the TIM model except that symbols of functional semantics are added to the aspect symbols. The figure shows the model of duality, which corresponds to the Dumas model; the symbol in parentheses corresponds to the second partner. The first function here is interpreted thus: the programs, ideals, and potential possibilities (I) of one partner are perceived by the other as a resource (s). The second function: the communicative acts (l) of one partner are received by the other with emotional uplift (E). From these two interpretations alone the semantics of the relation becomes clear: the people trust each other and delight in mutual communication.
Author: Such relations create a feeling of simplicity, of ordinariness, and are as a rule recognized only in joint activity, which is why there are not so many married couples with dual relations between the spouses.
Editor: How is one to understand this phrase? Why are there “not so many couples with dual relations between the spouses”? Because they “create a feeling of simplicity, of ordinariness, and are as a rule recognized in joint activity”? The book contains many such absurdities.
Author: Conflict relations, as is clear from their very name, are unfavorable: the partners strike each other’s points of pain with their first functions. Let us consider these relations on the example of the models of the Organizer and the Researcher (the Perceiving one of Quadra III).
Editor: Here the author again appeals to the semantics of the name — which itself, after all, must be derived from the model. It is true that the conflict relation belongs to the group of relations of active antagonism and is the most tense within that group. But again, this is only the type; in life, socionic conflicters may interact not only, and not necessarily, at the level of scandal, squabbling, and rigid confrontation. Their relations can be constructive and productive, and of course love between them is possible too. That people of any types can fall in love with one another is an empirical fact. Here is the interpretation of the first two functions of the conflict model. First function: the programs, ideals, and potential possibilities (I) of one partner are perceived by the other critically, unkindly (e). Second function: the communicative acts (l) of one partner are met by the other from a position of volitional confrontation (S). That suffices to understand the basis of the conflict relation. And no need for any muddled and hard-to-remember rules like “These models coincide neither in rationality/irrationality, nor in extraversion/introversion, nor in any of the remaining functions.”
From what has been said one may conclude that only interaction with bearers of all 16 models is the condition for the harmonious development of the personality — naturally, while keeping close distance with one’s quadra-mates and the appropriate distances with representatives of the other quadras.
Author: Relations between bearers of the socionic models can be represented by the following scheme. Legend: D — dual relations; A — relations of mutual creative activation; T — identity relations; ZR — mirror relations; PD — semi-dual relations; Ro — kindred relations; De — business relations; KT — quasi-identity relations; SE — superego relations; M — mirage relations; PP — relations of complete opposition; KF — conflict relations; Z — relations of order-giving [request]; PZ — relations of order-receiving; R — relations of supervision [revision]; PR — relations of being supervised.
Editor: The scheme the author gives is strikingly reminiscent of Fig. 4.18 from [UChK], page 109, previously published in SMiPL [the journal Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology]. There it is called “Representation of Model A as an aggregate of sixteen radicals expressing the relations of the given TIM.” It is hard to believe the author is unacquainted with this material. In the source indicated, the scheme appears as the result of a theoretical elaboration showing the possibilities of transforming Model A. Thanks to this, Model A ceases to be perceived as something frozen and appears instead as a graphical symbol capable of transformations that enrich it with new meanings and generate new useful interpretations — corresponding to the transformation of mathematical formulas. In the author’s version, the scheme has no theoretical foundation resting on the principle of the duality of TIM and intertype relations. Without such a foundation it looks like “a devil popping out of a snuffbox.” For example, one might ask the author: “On what basis does she replace the TIM radicals forming the 16 blocks of Model A with the names of relations?” To this the author has no answer — yet this cannot be done “just so”; it must be preceded by at least some justification. In any case one must cite one’s predecessors — that is an ordinary ethical norm.
For the author this is no more than a mnemonic scheme for memorizing the relations between TIMs. She writes: “Substituting the socionic functions of Model A for the digits, we obtain the system of interrelations of the bearer of this model with the bearers of all 16 models.” Does the author understand what the concept “the system of relations of a specific TIM with all the others” means? A system of relations is not merely “little arrows and digits drawn on paper.” Such words must not be uttered by inertia — they must be apt and meaningful. Moreover, using such a scheme for memorizing the relations is, despite the author’s assurances, considerably harder than consulting a table of relations: one must memorize not one scheme for one TIM, but all 16. Meanwhile there exists a genuinely effective way to see all the relations at once. For this one should use the “Churyumov square,” in which the positions of all the types are fixed and every relation has a unique “picture” easily fixed in memory through visual perception. Thus lines drawn inside the square give the picture of conflict: visualizing that picture on your inner screen, you will easily see that the types joined by any of the diagonal lines are in conflict.
It is easy to notice that in each quadra the duals are arranged according to the scheme aabb; the activators, abab; and the mirrors, abba. Experienced socionists no longer need this, but for novices it will be a good aid. By drawing in this square, as a light exercise, the connecting lines for each relation, the novice will obtain a good training device for easy and convenient memorization of the relations between the types.
Author: From the foregoing it is clear that socionics has come very close to the regularities of human interaction based on typology.
Editor: Socionics has not merely “come close to the regularities of human interaction” — it has discovered many of those regularities, previously unknown to psychology at that, and, more than this, has given them a functional explanation. The author’s phrase understates the real value of socionics. Evidently the author is preparing the reader for her revelations — for that very NEO announced in the title of her book, which we have so far failed to discover.
Author: …socionics has not reached the frontiers it might have counted on. As several decades ago, it resembles an art, the great craft of initiates, more than a science.
Editor: This is the opinion of a person who, as is clear from the preceding text, knows socionics only by hearsay, yet apparently wishes to offer socionics something thanks to which it will reach frontiers where it will cease to remind the author of an art. But does the author know what exactly it will then have to remind her of? Socionics is in a process of development. This development has a wild character, corresponding to a “period of primitive accumulation.” Many authors believe that everything in socionics is clear to them, and — without burdening themselves with methodological requirements, often without even suspecting their existence — compose their models and their semantics “with extraordinary lightness.” Yet its problems have been formulated and are gradually being solved.
Author: Moreover, over the past 10–15 years socionics has not only failed to win new positions but has, in my view, taken a step backward.
Editor: There are different authors in socionics: those who destroy and compromise it, distorting the classical concepts introduced by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, and those who develop its classical heritage. The former neglect scientific methodology, simply do not know it or do not understand it; they do not follow the literature and offer the socionics community their own revelations, which often turn out to be the latest home-grown absurdity. The latter rely on methodology — which of course does not guarantee the univocal truth of their results either, but does make it possible to compare the results of different authors. Unfortunately the author, as is clear from the text, belongs to the first group.
Author: I shall dwell on two points. The first is the year-by-year deepening rupture of ties with the basic tenets of psychology. I have in mind here the absence of correlation between temperament types and socionic types. In the publications of leading socionists this aspect is usually not considered.
Editor: Socionists master psychology more and more with every year — many of them were extremely weak in it at first, but socionics forced them to catch up. It turns out, however, that the author means “correlations between temperament types and socionic types.” Evidently the author does not remember the history of socionics. There have been plenty of attempts to sort out this very correlation. Someone, in the grip of the childhood disease of hasty identification, simply “decreed” that, say, Don Quixotes are cholerics and Yesenins melancholics — as well as Cancers and Pigs by the European and Eastern horoscopes. There were other variants of dividing the TIMs among the temperaments. The deepest result was obtained by Gulenko. At first he too identified groups of TIMs with the temperaments, but then came to the conclusion that the link of TIM with temperament is more complex. The temperament groups merely resemble the Hippocratic temperaments; they are named (this is Gulenko’s merit) and specified differently. Thus, for example, the linear-assertive are not the same as cholerics. Moreover, it is an empirical fact that possessors of any TIM can have any temperament, though statistical predominances exist.
Author: An exception is the work of V. Gulenko. In the book “Management of a Well-Coordinated Team” the author asserts: “To divide the socion into four temperaments, two scales suffice. One scale is known to all psychologists — ‘extraversion–introversion.’ As the second let us take ‘rationality–irrationality,’ because it characterizes the flexibility of the type’s nervous system. The scales ‘rationality–irrationality’ and ‘extraversion–introversion’ produce, by intersection, four groups of socionic temperaments” [Gulenko, p. 159]. Gulenko then gives the corresponding scheme of socionic characteristics and temperament types (see Fig. Neb.02). Meanwhile the basis of temperament theory is the strength and weakness of the processes of excitation and inhibition, the strength or weakness of the type of nervous system. Among the Jungian psychic functions this corresponds to the dichotomies extraversion/introversion and sensorics/intuition. In relation to the types of higher nervous activity the characteristics of rationality/irrationality are neutral; they can only promote a greater or lesser manifestation of temperament. (underlinings throughout are the editor’s — S.Ch.)
Editor: This is an example of the author’s critical attitude toward the elaborations of other theorists. However, in analyzing Gulenko’s construct the author uses incorrect assertions. At the base of the official theory of temperament lie three parameters — strength, mobility, balance — not strength–weakness alone. By using the assertion quoted above, the author sharply reduces the persuasiveness of her reasoning. So when the author claims that the strength or weakness of the nervous system is determined by the dichotomies extraversion/introversion and sensorics/intuition, it does not convince. The only point on which I agree with the author and disagree with Gulenko is that rationality/irrationality has no relation to the classical temperaments — at any rate, it has not been proven. A sufficient counterexample here is that among people with the TIMs of Yesenin (irrational) and Dostoevsky (rational) one quite often meets melancholics.
But let us recall the well-known scheme of Eysenck (see Fig. Neb.03), who was in his day one of the best connoisseurs of human character. It is not hard to see the dependence of Gulenko’s scheme on Eysenck’s, though there were no corresponding references in Gulenko’s book.
Comparing the schemes of Eysenck and Gulenko, one may conclude that the latter found it possible to use, in place of the pair Stability–Instability, the pair rationality–irrationality, with corresponding adjustments to the scheme. This happened because Gulenko identified the classical temperaments of Hippocrates with one of the regular Reinin tetrads.
If one performs a logical inversion of Eysenck’s scheme (Fig. Neb.04), it becomes clear that the explanatory categories he uses can themselves be expressed through the categories being explained — which makes both the one and the other mere recombinations of the same archetypes, whose nature remains unknown, whereas one must rely on primary ontological entities.
Nebykova, trying to refute Gulenko, proposes her own scheme (Fig. Neb.05). Yet one and the same claim can be laid against all three schemes: all of them are intuitive-speculative recombinations of archetypal meanings. Hence the very attempt to express the classical temperaments through socionic invariants is incorrect. The point is that, as ontological entities, the classical temperaments are the common biological foundation of man and the higher animals, whereas the TIMs are purely human temperaments, being innate and representing results of the evolutionary adaptation of the species Homo sapiens. Because of the functional closeness of the general-animal and the purely human temperaments, a superficial approach to the subject creates the illusion that the former are expressible through the latter — and, along the way, a confusion arises that is hard to control.
Author: Why is precisely the sensorics/intuition dichotomy important for determining temperament? First, this scale is closest to the scale “stability–instability of the nervous system” included in temperament tests. Second, sensorics in the strong positions of Model A (the EGO and ID blocks) means a capacity for volitional mobilization. Combined with extraversion this yields the choleric, or leader, temperament; combined with introversion, the phlegmatic, or bodyguard, temperament. Intuition in the EGO and ID blocks is connected with creative potential, with the flexibility of the bearers of intuitive models. Combined with extraversion, intuition yields the sanguine, or jester, temperament; with introversion, the melancholic, or sensitive, temperament.
Editor: There exists no proof that the sensorics/intuition dichotomy is closest to the scale “stability–instability of the nervous system.” It is a speculative supposition. The remaining arguments have been given above.
It is unclear on what basis the author calls the sanguine temperament “jester-like.” Here is the official description of the sanguine: adapts quickly to new conditions, quickly warms to people, sociable; feelings arise and change easily; facial expression rich, mobile, expressive. How can jesterhood be derived from this — to a greater degree than from the descriptions of the other temperaments? If we take as the standard of the jester the circus clown and the stage-and-screen comedian, we shall find among the latter representatives of all TIMs. Recall at least the famous trio Morgunov (choleric), Nikulin (phlegmatic), Vitsin (melancholic), and you will at once see the groundlessness of the author’s arguments.
Author: Sergei Yesenin, Yuri Gagarin, Jack London, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pippi Longstocking (the Entrepreneur model).
Editor: I do not know whether by mistake or “in all seriousness” the author has enrolled S. Yesenin and Yu. Gagarin among the Jacks, whereas the majority of socionists have unanimously assigned them to the Yesenin type. So the author’s ability to diagnose TIMs correctly can also be called into question.
Author: In the book “Structural-Functional Socionics” V. Gulenko replaces the terms denoting temperament types with “linear-assertive” (choleric), “flexibly-maneuverable” (sanguine), “balanced-stable” (phlegmatic), and “receptively-adaptive” (melancholic) [pp. 162–167]. The change of terminology seems to emphasize the rational/irrational component in the characterization of the temperament types, but in essence changes nothing: the Entrepreneur, despite his rationality, may perfectly well be called flexibly-maneuverable, and the Marshal, despite his irrationality, linear-assertive.
Editor: Here the author criticizes Gulenko. Gulenko found a temperament group in the socion which is a subgroup of the group of human temperaments, that is, of TIMs. This means, in particular, that Gulenko’s temperaments are not identical with the classical ones — and, to his credit, he came to realize this in time. Nebykova evidently does not know this and “in all seriousness” tries to explain the general-animal temperaments through socionic invariants.
Comparison of the temperament systems of Gulenko and Nebykova (Table Neb.05)
| Gulenko | L-A | F-M | B-S | R-A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hugo, Hamlet, London, Stirlitz | Quixote, Zhukov, Napoleon, Huxley | Robespierre, Gorky, Dreiser, Dostoevsky | Dumas, Yesenin, Balzac, Gabin | |
| Nebykova | Cholerics | Sanguines | Phlegmatics | Melancholics |
| Hugo, Zhukov, Napoleon, Stirlitz | Quixote, Hamlet, London, Huxley | Dumas, Gorky, Dreiser, Gabin | Robespierre, Yesenin, Balzac, Dostoevsky |
where L-A = linear-assertive, F-M = flexibly-maneuverable, B-S = balanced-stable, R-A = receptively-adaptive.
Trying to refute Gulenko, the author proposes her own variant of identifying TIMs with temperaments. Let us tabulate Gulenko’s and Nebykova’s results (Table Neb.04 [sic]).
What is the difference here? Gulenko made a real discovery. He found a temperament group in the socion and understood that these temperaments are not identical with the Hippocratic ones — and he found quite adequate concepts and names for them. Nebykova has not risen above the level of the childhood disease of hasty identification. And her understanding of the quadral roles is too approximate; it will be a matter for regret if some trusting reader puts them into circulation.
Author: It is characteristic that V. Gulenko does not use the description of temperament types in the socionics context as an instrument in typing…
Editor: Evidently the author is not up to date. Gulenko regards the determination of membership in a socionic temperament group as a convenient typing instrument: it suffices to determine the temperament, and the circle of “suspects” narrows to four TIMs.
Author: It is obvious that the separation of socionic types from temperament types takes socionics outside the bounds of the basic psychological regularities.
Editor: An all-too-grandiloquent phrase — and all from a superficial assessment of the situation. The author is simply unaware that the theme “Socionics and the temperaments” has long received the attention of socionists and has its own history, which one must know if one takes up the subject. The grandiloquence shows in the author’s speaking in the name of “the bounds of the basic psychological regularities.” A little more modesty is in order.
Author: …determination of temperament type can serve as a reliable framework in the typing process.
Editor: This hypothesis has been advanced more than once by several socionists, but it turned out not to be as simple as it seems at first glance. And it appears the author is happily stepping on rakes already trodden by other socionists.
Author: The choleric temperament characterizes the Leading one and permits the assumption that the individual has the model of the Organizer, Marshal, Politician, or Administrator. The phlegmatic temperament correlates with the model of the Guarding one (Mediator, Master of the House, Keeper, or Craftsman). The sanguine temperament correlates with the model of the Interacting one (Theorist, Mentor, Entrepreneur, or Journalist), the melancholic with the model of the Perceiving one (Analyst, Lyricist, Researcher, or Humanist).
Editor: From the very start the author bound temperament unambiguously to the quadral roles she herself assigned, and fell into the trap of hasty identification. She is completely sure of her rightness and seems incapable of understanding where her error lies.
Author: It is precisely the temperamental characteristics, being basic to the personality, that are determined most easily. Tradition helps here, as do psychological tests approved and corrected by long practice of use.
Editor: Psychologists long ago concluded that pure temperaments are rare, and proposed a formula for combined temperament summing the percentage shares of each: T = Ch% + S% + Ph% + M%, where the letters correspond to the first letters of the temperaments’ names. So the author’s optimism about the ease of diagnosing the TIM via temperament lacks sufficient grounds. Nevertheless, Gulenko’s result is quite effective.
Author: Thus the parallels drawn by socionists between temperament types and socionic types do not allow continuity to be established between psychology and socionics, hindering dialogue between representatives of these sciences.
Editor: The author apparently believes that before her all socionists erred in establishing this or that correspondence between TIMs and temperaments, and that she alone has found the truth here. So far, however, she has presented no sufficiently weighty arguments for it.
The author does not understand the relation between socionics and psychology. Socionics is a science, since it possesses a generalizing theory, whereas psychology, for some 200 years now, still remains a collection of empirically found recipes — in most cases, admittedly, very effective ones. Psychologists to this day cannot agree among themselves on the justification of the classical temperaments. Suffice it to recall the promising experimental research of I. P. Pavlov, who never managed fully to think through the possible conclusions from the three parameters of the nervous system he discovered: strength, mobility, stability. For if these three parameters are independent, there should be 8 temperaments, not 4. It appears he fitted his conclusions to a pre-set number. Eight temperaments were discovered by Dutch researchers, though on a different theoretical basis. The most reliable at present is the physiological justification of the nature of the temperaments carried out by Simonov. But the question remains: who, after all, is right — and what is Truth in psychology?
Author: On the interconnection of external and psychological characteristics C. G. Jung wrote: “The inexplicable unity of the living being is the reason why a physical feature is not merely physical and a mental one not merely mental, for the continuity of nature knows nothing of those incompatibilities and ruptures which the human mind is forced to overcome in order to know anything at all. The separation of body from soul is an artificial operation, a discrimination which undoubtedly rests more on the peculiarity of the cognizing mind than on the essence of things. In reality the mutual penetration of bodily and mental features is so deep that from the properties of the body we can not only draw far-reaching conclusions about the qualities of the soul, but from mental peculiarities we can also judge the corresponding bodily forms… The safer path is the one from outer to inner, from the known to the unknown, from the body to the soul” [Jung, pp. 11–12].
Editor: This is a good quotation from Jung. It shows that the great Jung understood the complexity of the problem and proposed no “obvious” solutions. And, however strange it may seem to inexperienced psychologists, the hint is offered by philosophical elaborations in methodology. In dialectical philosophy it has long been known that the higher forms of the motion of matter are not reducible to the lower. Hence the long-established conclusion that psychic phenomena are not reducible to physiological ones, however close the connection between them. As for the continuity of nature, here Jung is mistaken: nature contains leaps, quantum transitions from some states to others. Body and soul are different entities: the soul is not reducible to the body.
But when the great psychologist says that “from the properties of the body we can not only draw far-reaching conclusions about the qualities of the soul, but from mental peculiarities we can also judge the corresponding bodily forms,” he comes right up to informational processes — though in his time the concept of information was not yet a scientific category. The theory of informational metabolism makes it possible to understand that the correspondence between the physiological and the psychological is informational in nature. The informational modulations circulating in the substrate of the soul leave their traces on the physical body. They are, however, not isomorphic but only homeomorphic to the processes of the soul. A good analogy here is the footprints a person leaves on the ground: these prints are connected with the person and can tell much about him, but they are not identical with him. Analogously, psychic processes leave their traces in the parameters of the body: the qualities of the musculoskeletal system, speed of reactions, facial expression, physiognomy, plasticity of movement, gesticulation, timbre of voice, and so on.
Author: At the current level, genetic research allows conclusions to be drawn about the psychological, behavioral, and bodily particularities of a specific person. However, such research demands great material and time expenditure. In the geneticists’ opinion, the reverse path — from external data to behavioral and psychological, including typological, data — is no less productive and far more practical. This is because the deep particularities of the personality are reflected regularly and systemically in the individual’s external appearance.
Editor: This is a rare case in which I agree with the author completely.
Author: There have been attempts among some socionists to rely on features of appearance: in particular, V. V. Meged in her time made many fine and precise observations on the external manifestations of the socionic functions.
Editor: Of course one must also recall Vaisband, and Filatova, and Filimonov with Maslyaev, and Menshova, and Tsypin, and… As for Meged, for all her linguistic and combinatorial inventiveness, substantial methodological deficiencies turned into theoretical eclecticism — something like a hodgepodge of numerous uncritically absorbed sources.
Author: In the socionics literature of the past several years references to external features are occasionally met, but on the whole a tendency is noticeable not to consider them significant for diagnosis.
Editor: There is no such tendency. There are individual socionists who hold differing opinions on the matter.
Author: I quote from A. V. Bukalov’s paper at the VI Moscow scientific conference on socionics (2002): “There exists a point of view that the physiognomic similarity of people is connected with their belonging to one and the same type. Our long practice shows this is not so. The external similarity even of blood relatives does not guarantee their typological identity… Thus the type of informational metabolism cannot be exhaustively determined either from a person’s physical or from his emotional manifestations” [Bukalov, pp. 28–29].
Editor: Bukalov’s position is easy to understand: he is against hasty identifications of physiognomic and other external features with the TIM. We know — we’ve been through it. Many hapless novices have proposed all manner of things, but deep research is needed here. That is why I treat the author’s purely empirical observations with great caution. Considerably more is required.
Author: (on Filatova) At the same time, on p. 55, where portraits of Keepers are given, the faces in the middle horizontal row do indeed have the features of ethical types and introverts, yet they can hardly be assigned to the sensory types. Their membership among pronounced rationals is also in doubt.
Editor: The author criticizes a colleague’s opinion — but what can she set against it? Alas, only an opinion…
Author: As a result, the absence of reliance, in determining the socionic type, on temperament type and on features of appearance, including physiognomic ones, turns typing into a rather subjective process. Socionists note this when discussing typing methods: it is held that every socionist looks at the person being typed from the position of his own type, and that to avoid subjectivity at least three socionists must take part in determining the type. Meanwhile an experiment conducted in 1999 in Dnepropetrovsk showed a lack of convergence in the results of different socionists’ determination of one and the same person’s type.
Editor: The problem of typing still remains the most sensitive in socionics. Here one can agree with the author. And the author’s proposals to strengthen the role of temperament and physiognomic particularities should hardly raise objections — but, first, many socionists have always had this in mind, and second, what is needed is not words but stubborn, extensive work. As for subjectivity in typing, it cannot be avoided in the way the author indicates: any number of people can err jointly. Thus, for example, Aušra once judged Pushkin a Napoleon, and ever since, most socionists have held to that opinion. But recently T. N. Prokofieva adduced a considerable number of arguments for Pushkin being a Huxley — which is far more plausible, though not everyone agrees.
Author: When I first encountered socionics at a lecture by A. Tsarkova (1992), a double feeling arose in me: on one hand, a sense of a brilliant discovery, of the incredible prospects of a young science; on the other, doubt: can humanity be squeezed into the Procrustean bed of 16 types?
Editor: Many socionists have passed through this feeling; at its base lies intellectual inertia, which demands that the new resemble the known. In the present case the author evidently does not understand that no one intends to squeeze humanity anywhere — but if the existence of 16 types is scientifically substantiated, this must be reckoned with. If you can prove that 17 types exist and that humanity can accordingly be squeezed into them — prove it, instead of confining yourself to emotional exclamations.
Author: Using socionic methods in work with schoolchildren (career choice, family relationships, conflicts with teachers), I encountered the unreliability of these methods on the principle “it works — it doesn’t work.”
Editor: It is reasonable to ask here whether the author really commanded socionics to a degree sufficient for her attempts to apply socionic methods to be adequate to school problems. Though of course the author may also have invented something of her own that suited her — which by no means proves the truth of such inventions.
Author: Determining the psychological types of schoolchildren (grades 1 through 11), I came to the conclusion that, on one hand, the 16 socionic types are a reality; on the other, that this reality is not complete.
Editor: Of course 16 types cannot be the complete reality — for besides types, this world contains many other things: the sun, the sky, the earth, after all. And of course the author may have made many remarkable observations in her practice. And of course doubt about their truth may always remain.
Author: The first thing I noticed: socionics works more accurately when I determine the socionic types of younger schoolchildren.
Editor: Here we are dealing with the author’s subjective assessment of her own ability to determine how accurately socionics works — and, of course, with how accurately the author determined the socionic types of the younger schoolchildren, and then of the older ones. That her diagnostic abilities may be doubted was shown above.
Author: Beginning with the seventh and eighth grades accuracy falls; by the graduating class it becomes minimal.
Editor: This observation would be of considerable interest if it corresponded to reality; however, it is not confirmed by the practice of other socionists and pedagogues who use socionics in their teaching.
Author: Intrigued by these data, I noticed that the schoolchildren whom I had so easily identified in the lower grades changed by the upper ones. These changes concerned both external manifestations and behavioral ones.
Editor: That schoolchildren changed with age is beyond doubt; but there are no grounds for holding that their type changed. Unfortunately the author supplies no protocol data that other socionists could verify, so her statements should at best be regarded as hypotheses.
Author: Trying to understand the causes of these changes, I sensed in the upper-graders the presence of what seemed a second socionic type, which grew more distinct with each year. Supposing that a specific person is constituted by two models rather than one, I turned to photographs of various people taken at different periods of their lives.
Editor: The author is apparently an intuitive — she senses something, and the moment she does, absolute certainty of her rightness arises in her, and it does not occur to her that her suppositions still need to be verified.
Author: Thus I arrived at the idea that a person’s psychological type includes two models, the first of which I called basic, the second programmatic. Both models are laid down in the individual’s psyche and are manifested in appearance and behavior from the start, but in the first years of life the basic one predominates. In most people, at 12–14, a strengthening of the programmatic model occurs. The basic model is thereby gradually pushed into the background, but its bearer is always able to use it in situations where it is “more advantageous” than the programmatic one.
Editor: We have already seen that the author identifies type and model — which is impermissible, since the type is the object of scientific research, discovered in reality, while the model is the symbolic representation of the structure and semantics of the object we have designated as the type. The author should therefore be saying that “a person’s type includes two types,” not two models. This terminological substitution masks a conceptual tautology. For if the type consists of two types, we must return again to the definition of type and pose the problem of its existence, its uniqueness, and its diversity within the TIM.
Author: Children of primary school age are almost entirely within the framework of the basic model; but, having learned to determine both models in upper-graders, I began to distinguish them in pupils of grades one through five as well.
Editor: Unfortunately, these are merely intuitive impressions.
Author: Under this approach one gets 256 psychological types; counting submodels, about a thousand.
Editor: So the author has come to the conclusion that humanity can be “squeezed” first into 256 and then into roughly 1,000 types.
Author: It is with this reality that we deal when interacting with various people.
Editor: How easily the author wields the word “reality”! Evidently the author still does not understand that reality is reality, and not some limited number of types — even if there are 1,000 of them.
Author: The child receives at his disposal the basic model, in which each function occupies a fixed place, has a fixed energy supply, and performs a definite role. Thanks to this he is able to perceive the world, react to its signals, receive feedback, and correct his behavior in accordance with the basic model.
Editor: Unfortunately, these are merely intuitive impressions.
Author: In the small child the basic model determines appearance and behavior by about 80 percent. Gradually he begins to master the second model and learns to use it in the appropriate situations. But the transition from the basic model to the programmatic one usually occurs by a leap — in most people during the so-called adolescent crisis, either intensifying that crisis or perhaps determining it altogether. The programmatic model, once adopted, substantially broadens the person’s possibilities, making him more many-sided. If a person does not pass to the programmatic model, then in the eyes of those around him he seems not to develop, not to change. The absence of such a transition makes him more successful in his chosen field, but also more limited.
Editor: It is entirely unclear why the development of the child, and then of the adult, cannot fit within a single model. However, from this point on I begin to guess where the author’s idea of “two models” came from. One may suppose that in early childhood the child’s SUPERID predominates, containing the demands the person makes on the world. In adolescence a strengthening of the EGO block begins, with its program-potential (PPF) and communicative-probing (CPF) functions. The TIM, of course, remains the same, but the shift of accent toward greater independence and self-assertion leads to the actualization of new elements of behavior. It appears that precisely this shift of accent from SUPERID to EGO was perceived by Nebykova as a change of TIM.
Author: Children from 7 to 11 are typologically transparent; they are more harmonious, since they proceed mainly along the basic model. (Only in rare cases of great trouble in the family may a child lose harmony and integrity.) In this period all 8 functions constituting the basic model are distinctly manifested in him. In the upper grades the programmatic model begins to “shine through” the basic one; the basic model continues to determine the adolescent’s appearance by 60–70%, but his behavior falls increasingly under the influence of the programmatic model.
Editor: If the guess expressed in the previous comment about the shift of accents from SUPERID to EGO is correct, then the author’s observation described above acquires a completely different meaning and becomes valuable empirical evidence of that transition from childhood programs to adult ones.
Author: The presence of precisely two models in a person’s psychic structure is confirmed not only by changes in appearance and behavior: the coincidence of any features in both models sharply intensifies those qualities, while non-coincidence makes both appearance and behavior smoother.
Editor: Regular age-related changes in appearance and behavior are not, purely logically, obliged to entail a change of TIM — otherwise any change of appearance, such as the transition from nursery age to kindergarten age, from kindergarten to school, and so on, as well as gain or loss of weight, illness, or muscle growth from athletic training, would have to entail a change of TIM. On the other hand a change of TIM, purely logically, must entail a change of appearance and behavior, since the TIM embraces all spheres of individual phenomenology, including physiognomy, facial expression, plasticity, and kinesics. If this is right, then in the process of maturation the TIM would have to change first, and this would entail the change of appearance and behavior. From a theoretical standpoint, this is an exceptionally interesting problem: how, in the course of evolution, could such a mechanism have formed? Why can a person not have one TIM throughout his life — or, conversely, why must a person have only one TIM? How many TIMs can a person have in all? If a person can have several TIMs, can they be present simultaneously, or only successively in different age or biographical periods? The simultaneous action of two TIMs — would that not be a variant of schizophrenia? These questions are considered in more detail in [UChK, ch. 5]. But if everything is explained by a change of programmatic accents within a single TIM, the hypothesis of two types within one becomes unnecessary.
Author: If both of a child’s models, basic and programmatic, are rational, he is a “rational squared.” He has a sharp, geometrically regular profile; his face is not very mobile. He may be hyper-responsible; various fears connected with the school regime may appear in him. Thus one first-grade girl nearly drove her stepfather, who walked her to school in the mornings, out of the house: she woke him before the alarm clock, hurried him through washing, shaving, and breakfast, and so on. Only after a talk with a psychologist, during which all possible lateness scenarios were carried to absurdity and excuses were turned into comic sketches, did the child manage to bring her sense of responsibility into line with life’s realities.
Editor: It by no means follows from this example that the girl had two TIMs — though that is what the author has in mind. But is one TIM not enough to provide the phenomenology the author describes? One might speak here of accentuation — but not at all of two TIMs. Moreover, socionists have proposed several other sources of diversity within a TIM: socionic accentuations, communicative models, masks, the overlay of other typologies.
A sign that the example may concern accentuation is the change in the girl’s behavior after psychotherapeutic conversations.
Author: Other manifestations of hyper-rationality: sitting over homework until late at night, rewriting assignments because of a small blot, inability to understand new material during its explanation in class, and so on.
Editor: The phenomenology described does not exceed the bounds of minor accentuations and does not require invoking the hypothesis of two TIMs.
Author: If a child is irrational in both models, it is genuinely hard for him to leave margins in his notebook, keep to the lines, write to the bottom of a page — he wants to leave the lower space empty and jump to the next. There may be problems with writing down homework, with doing it on time, with the daily regime. Such a child tires during classroom questioning — hearing the same thing ten times over is unbearable to him.
Editor: This example, too, does not require the hypothesis of two TIMs.
Author: Double extraversion, especially combined with double irrationality, can — at the slightest deviations in the state of the nervous system — lead to hyperactivity. Teachers know such pupils well: they disrupt lessons, wind up the whole class, cannot concentrate on anything. They have two powerful needs: to socialize and to be the center of attention.
Editor: This example, too, does not require the hypothesis of two TIMs.
Author: Double introversion, i.e. introversion in both models, can make a child’s presence at school a torment for him: such a child freezes at the blackboard, forgetting all he knew, and beyond a “dumb” repetition of “But I studied” or lost silence the teacher can get nothing out of him. He does not know how to behave at recess and shies away from his classmates. In an unfavorable home situation matters may reach the point of autization.
Editor: This example, too, does not require the hypothesis of two TIMs. And the mention of “autization” points, rather, to a mild degree of accentuation than to a second TIM.
Author: The “ethical squared” understands other people well and knows how to get along with them. His problem is mathematics, physics, chemistry, grammar rules. Not that he is incapable of understanding and mastering all this — it is simply uninteresting to him, first; and the methods of teaching these subjects were created by logical types, i.e. they do not correspond to his mode of perceiving information, second.
Editor: Why must one be an “ethical squared” to understand other people well and get along with them? “Mere” ethics will suffice.
Author: Double logic allows a child to succeed in his studies, but building relations with classmates is hard for him. Under certain conditions (teachers’ praise, absence of other children in the family, etc.) such a child may turn into a “nerd” and either withdraw into himself or cease to succeed, sliding down to C-grades.
Editor: This example, too, does not require the hypothesis of two TIMs. And a child of any TIM can, of course, succeed in his studies. Insisting on privileges regarding school success in strict dependence on TIM is typological discrimination. The very concept of success the author leaves without context — that is, she speaks of success in general, which likewise requires clarification. Among top pupils one meets children of all types, though their motivation may differ. In intuitives a purely cognitive motivation may operate — but that does not mean cognitive motivation cannot occur in sensory children, and so on.
Author: Furthermore, those who are logical in both the basic and programmatic models may have problems in literature classes. Thus one tenth-grader, a candidate for the gold medal, complained to me that she could not remember “War and Peace,” though she had already read the novel three times.
Editor: A strange example. A tenth-grader, if you please, cannot remember War and Peace. By heart, is it? Only prodigies are capable of that. If she remembers the scenes, events, and characters of the novel insufficiently to write essays on the relevant themes, the causes may be various: personal circumstances, unconscious complexes, fatigue, or simple lack of mnemonic technique — which the teacher should have taught.
Author: Double sensorics makes a child especially sensitive to what is happening at the given moment: he perceives events not as a process but as that which yields a result now. Hence sensory types are prone to all manner of “showdowns”: arguments with teachers over grades, sorting things out with schoolmates over lent books or belongings, and so on.
Editor: What has “double sensorics” to do with it? If the author writes that sensory types are prone to all manner of “showdowns,” she means all sensory types, not only the “double” ones. As for sensitivity to what is happening at the given moment — are intuitives really indifferent to what is going on in the classroom at the moment? The author’s use of blurry concepts sharply reduces the informativeness of her reasoning. One would like to believe the author “has varied feelings” about what she observed in class, but one must also be able to make sense of those feelings. The impression arises, however, that the author — neglecting Occam’s logical advice “not to multiply entities beyond necessity” — resorts, for the explanation of standard school situations perfectly explicable by means already available in psychology, to the invention of an insufficiently grounded construct in the form of a double TIM.
At the same time it is clear that one and the same person belongs simultaneously to different types from different typologies, and the aggregate phenomenology may be quite complex. That is precisely what should be investigated, instead of trying to explain everything by socionic regularities alone. Like all other sciences, socionics has its domain of application, and one must know that its boundaries exist.
Further on in the book the author gives a large number of examples which, in her opinion, should confirm the hypothesis of the coexistence of two TIMs in one individual — but all of them are easily explained without that hypothesis. The absence of real statistics and their analysis transfers the author’s text from the category of scientific research to the category of a schoolteacher’s memoirs — which is not without interest either.
Author: An intuitive in both models will feel out of place amid historical and geographical realia. Sometimes penetrating to the very heart of a question, he may get lost trying to put into words what he has understood. Teachers may be outraged by his absent-mindedness and inability to keep within set bounds in the material studied.
Editor: Why does the author neglect to consider the socionic relations between pupil and teacher? Perhaps the whole point is that these indignant teachers turned out to be the hapless intuitive’s socionic supervisors.
Author: The bearer of two dual models possesses a whole series of merits. First, as already mentioned, he is harmonious, provided with a complete set of psychic functions, balanced in version. But the main thing is that he in no way suppresses his own development, since he accepts with a plus sign his manifestations in both models. The consequence is high, adequate self-esteem and an equally high level of independence from society.
Editor: It is not clear whence it follows that the bearer of a single TIM cannot be harmonious. The same applies to the author’s other exaggerations about “double activation,” “double mirror,” “double order,” and so on. Nevertheless, the author’s observations may be phenomenologically correct — but they can be explained otherwise. Heightened activity, for example, can be explained by accentuation. From this point of view socionists would do well to look into the author’s observations, but to find the true causes of the phenomenology she observed — the phenomenology the author tries to explain by the “double model.”
Author: The presence in a specific person of two principal models is confirmed by the following facts: 1. Changes in the behavior of schoolchildren at the transition from the primary to the middle level, and in the behavior and — often — the appearance of upper-graders. 2. Better-quality typing results under the two-model approach; a higher percentage of acceptance of results by the typed persons themselves. 3. The temporal “unfolding,” i.e. changes in an individual’s appearance, behavior, and temperamental characteristics in different periods of his life. See the photographs and portraits. 4. The coincidence of both the basic and the programmatic models in doubles not linked by blood. See Appendix 9. 5. Correlation with the data of criminalists working with photofits: no more than a thousand reliably distinguishable types of appearance (in the criminalists’ opinion); 992 socionic types counting submodels (by combinatorics: 32 models, counting submodels, squared gives 1024; from this we subtract 32, since one socionic type cannot contain two identical models). 6. Expansion of socionics’ possibilities in explaining various psychological phenomena: the causes of doubles not linked by blood; the sources of adolescent accentuations (hysteroid, schizoid, epileptoid, etc.); the psychological causes of age crises; explanation of changes in one and the same person’s type of appearance, temperament, and behavior on reaching a certain age, etc. 7. Prediction of success in career choice. 8. Explanation of the particulars of interaction in small groups, when a dual pair, for example, becomes dual-conflictual, or conversely conflicters hardly conflict, etc. 9. Explanation of an individual’s inner harmony or contradictoriness. 10. Refinement of temperament theory; explanation of why two or more temperament types combine in one person.
Editor: The changes in schoolchildren’s behavior at the transition from primary to middle school, and in the behavior and often the appearance of upper-graders, are explained far more effectively and plausibly by the shift from the childhood predominance of SUPERID programs to the youthful and adult programs of the EGO, aimed at self-assertion and self-realization.
Talk of “better-quality typing results under the two-model approach” is of little reliability owing to the absence of scientifically drawn-up protocols. The same applies to clients’ self-typing.
Changes in an individual’s appearance, behavior, and temperamental characteristics in different periods of his life should, if one adopts the author’s position, testify to a far greater number of “types within the type” than two. Yet such phenomenology is adequately explained by the change of programmatic accents.
“The coincidence of both the basic and the programmatic models in doubles not linked by blood” needs protocol-based and statistical confirmation.
The fifth point has no relation whatsoever to the “two-model hypothesis,” being simply a matter of multiplying numbers — which may pertain not to types but to characters.
“The expansion of socionics’ possibilities in explaining various psychological phenomena” can proceed, and does proceed, along many other lines, without any “two-modelness.”
If the author means her own predictions, then without the corresponding protocols this is of little reliability, resting as it does on the author’s subjective confidence.
The phenomenon the author cites has an entirely different explanation. The author evidently does not understand that a socionic relation specifies only the type of the relation, while its character can vary within wide limits. Duality, for example, can be comfortable — and also tense, tedious, disappointing, and so on.
An individual’s inner harmony or contradictoriness pertains not to the type but to the character.
The tenth point in this list is the most dubious, since no “refinement of temperament theory” in the author’s rendition can be spoken of: the author has demonstrated extreme incompetence on the problem.
Author: Why do precisely two models constitute a specific individual’s TIM? Any person can have more models, if one counts acquired workings. But acquired workings are purely behavioral models, arising either as psychic contagion (under one person’s strong influence on another) or as survival models (in the family, in the professional sphere, etc.). Acquired workings can exist a long time — several decades, say — but can also be very short-lived (several days or even hours). They are not organic, do not enter the structure of the personality, and are not reflected in appearance.
Editor: In this quotation the author’s theoretical notions are fully laid bare. It now turns out that she confuses not only the concepts of type and model but along with them the concepts of type and character. Evidently the author does not understand that acquired workings are carried out within the framework of the type. And a behavioral model here is identical with a behavioral program.
Author: My hypothesis: the first model — if one grants the existence of reincarnation — comes from the preceding life; it has been worked through (to different degrees in different people) and gives the child the foundation of his perception of the world and interaction with other people. The second model is almost unmanifested in small children, which is why they are perceived as very harmonious and self-sufficient (under normal conditions).
Editor: Here the author has gone off into domains at present inaccessible to verification, so her reasoning passes beyond the bounds of scientific meaning.
Author: Gradually the second model begins to manifest. If the two models are close (for example, Craftsman and Mediator), the transition proceeds easily and calmly. With distant models (for example, Craftsman and Mentor) the mastering of the second model proceeds with more difficulty. In bearers of the Craftsman and Mentor models irrationality changes to rationality, introversion to extraversion, logic to ethics, and sensorics to intuition. Such an individual is inwardly contradictory (inner conflict), but on the other hand is “provided for” in all life situations by all functions in strong positions.
Editor: Another example of unreliable reasoning.
Author: The second model is needed as preparation for the next incarnation. The first model I called basic, the secondary one programmatic.
Editor: Naming the author knows how to do — but what is needed is not words but proofs.
Author: Possibly the first incarnation takes place in one model. In the second incarnation it becomes the first, and the second joins it.
Editor: And possibly it is altogether otherwise.
Author: In the final incarnation the individual again comes to Earth in a single model: the second is not needed, since he need not prepare for a next incarnation. His model can be determined relying almost exclusively on features of appearance: having mastered all 16 models, i.e. the entire socion, such a person is behaviorally minimally dependent on his socionic structure.
Editor: There are people on whom such reasoning may make an impression…
Author: Figuratively these processes can be pictured as a lantern: its shape, size, color, and the thickness of the glass are the socionic structure of the personality, while the flame is the personality itself. The higher the level of incarnation, the less significant the socionic characteristics, the brighter the flame, which outshines the texture of the lantern. And conversely: the lower the incarnation, the more distinctly socionic regularities are manifested in the individual’s behavior.
Editor: There exist various kinds of proof — ad absurdum, ad hominem, and so on. Here we are dealing with proof “from the lantern” [i.e., out of thin air].
Author: In determining the socionic type it is important to form in the subject a general idea of the socionic functions and types. This may be a brief account of the modes of receiving information about the surrounding world, of realization according to the information received, of role interaction with communication partners, and so on. The amount of information provided and the form of its presentation depend on the subject’s readiness to receive it, but in any case it is better to use a personal approach, inviting the subject to “try on” everything that is discussed. The “trying on” should be double: oneself in childhood (I usually say: “How was it before age 10?”) and oneself today. This device was suggested to me by the Kiev socionist G. A. Shulman.
Editor: Of course, if before the interview and self-typing the author programs her unprepared listeners, explaining to them that they have two types and must find both in themselves, the results are beyond doubt.
Author: Let us recall the rules for constructing graphical models and build the basic model. In childhood this person was a rational; consequently the first position will hold either logic or ethics. Since in childhood he was an extravert and an ethical type, the socionic function of the first position is introverted ethics (as we remember, extraversion or introversion is determined by the second function; if the first function is introverted, the second is extraverted; or, put differently: in an extravert the first position of his model is occupied by an introverted function).
Editor: Did you understand anything? I did not.
Author: Looking further: in childhood he is a sensory type. Thus we have found the first two functions. Let us denote them graphically: Es. We know this is the Leading one of Quadra I — the Organizer. Performing the same operations with the second column (“I today”), we obtain the first two functions of the programmatic model: lI. This is the graphical designation of the Perceiving one of Quadra I, namely the Analyst.
Editor: Had the author divided the sheet into, say, 4 columns and managed to obtain answers for “I in infancy,” “I as an adolescent,” “I in youth,” and “I in old age,” she would have gotten 4 types — and how variously they would interact among themselves! For example, identical–dual–activator–mirror (a quadral type), or Don Quixote–Maxim–Napoleon–Dostoevsky (quadruply supervising–quadruply supervised–doubly superego!). How beautifully that would fit the observed phenomenology… How many pathological shades could be explained… But that would already be “NeoNeoSocionics”… And if the sheet were divided into 16 columns… or 32…
Incidentally, the Kiev socionist Teplov holds, and confidently proves, that each type contains four types. So Nebykova has room to grow…
Author: There have been attempts to use psychological tests in socionics, but as a rule they are ineffective. The cause of their ineffectiveness is the one-model approach and the absence of correspondences between the basic psychological concepts and their representation in socionics. Having adopted the conception of two models constituting the socionic type, one can use the most varied psychological tests, including in the instructions for subjects the request to give two answers to each question: “I in childhood” and “I today.”
Editor: The use of psychological tests in socionics can be effective or ineffective, but that depends not on socionics but on one’s knowledge of psychology and socionics. The accusation against “one-model” socionics of “the absence of correspondences between the basic psychological concepts and their representation in socionics” is unsubstantiated and looks arrogant. And of course it is entirely unclear from the author’s bald assertion why in “one-model” socionics one cannot “use the most varied psychological tests, including in the instructions for subjects the request to give two answers to each question: ‘I in childhood’ and ‘I today’” — while in “two-model” socionics one can.
Author: In first place here I would put tests for determining temperament type, above all two tests by H. Eysenck: the “Test of the ratio of extraversion and introversion” and the “Test of the ratio of emotional stability and instability” [Eysenck, pp. 95–110]. These tests embody a deeper understanding of extraversion and introversion than the more popular ones, where extraversion correlates with sociability and introversion with reserve.
Editor: It is not so at all! It is known of Eysenck that, being a profound and principled scientist, he attempted to give an explicit definition of extraversion–introversion through a series of more concrete concepts subordinated to them hierarchically and representing their semantic spectrum. As a result he matched extraversion with the following series of more concrete concepts subordinate to it: sociability, liveliness, activity, persistence, and striving for success. Hence in his questionnaire one meets such items as “Do you consider yourself a cheerful person?”, “Are you a talkative person?”, or “Are you able to give free rein to your feelings and have a rollicking good time in noisy company?” Accordingly, a positive answer to these questions is supposed to mean you are an extravert, a negative one that you are an introvert. Socionics operates with a conceptual toolkit that makes strictly grounded descriptions of personality types possible. True, this does not mean all the type descriptions found in socionics books are accurate — those are the growing pains of a new science. Nevertheless there exists an invariant of the descriptions, concentrated in the socionic models, and it gives grounds to disagree with Eysenck’s understanding of extraversion–introversion. Thus, for example, all the ethical introverts — Dumas, Yesenin, Dreiser, Dostoevsky — are talkative enough to answer the relevant question positively. Dumas, by definition the sensory-ethical introvert, is certainly cheerful, whatever blurry meaning is put into that word. Dumas, “introvert though he is,” is sociable and lively. People of this type are able “to have a rollicking good time in noisy company.” And again one may say that all ethical introverts are sociable, though in some extreme sense not all of them can be characterized as cheerful. But to the same degree, some extraverts cannot be characterized as especially cheerful either — for example the logical-sensory extravert Stirlitz (Ls), Zhukov (Sl), or Don Quixote (Il). Here, in fact, the logical blurriness of the concept of cheerfulness becomes visible. So there is no getting by without careful explication of psychological concepts. And to deny socionic introverts a striving for success — the tongue simply refuses; though success must not be understood, say, merely as a career in business. Yet it is quite probable that just such a meaning is predominantly invested in the concept of success by the logical-sensory extravert Eysenck. Did not such sensory-ethical introverts as the greatest novelist of all time Alexandre Dumas père (a Dumas), the brilliant Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir (a Dumas), or the unique comic actor Oleg Tabakov (a Dumas) attain the highest summits of success? Of course, individual examples, however vivid, cannot be regarded as proof in such questions — but they demand a precise theoretical answer. Assessing Eysenck’s understanding of extraversion–introversion, one may say that, in making them more comprehensible — bringing them, so to speak, “closer to the people” — he at the same time lowered their factorial dimensionality, since these categories are originally factors of a higher order than the sum of the blurry categories he proposed.
From what has been said it is clear that Nebykova misleads her listeners about Eysenck’s understanding of extraversion–introversion — it is precisely in him that “extraversion correlates with sociability and introversion with reserve.”
Author: According to my data, these tests give fairly reliable results.
Editor: Here is an example of subjective confidence — no protocols, no statistics, yet the results are fairly (?) reliable. What does “fairly” mean? What does it look like in percentages? 50, 60, 70, 80, 90?
Author: Quadra III is little suited to business structures, with the exception of the Entrepreneur, who prefers independent business (a small enterprise of his own).
Editor: A weighty conclusion — but unfortunately it contradicts results previously attained in socionics.
Author: For ethical reasons the names of organizations and the surnames of leading managers are not given here, since the analysis was conducted on materials from newspaper and magazine publications (texts, characterizations of working style, photographs), and the question of publishing the results was not discussed with the heads of the enterprises and firms.
Editor: Analysis based on newspaper and magazine publications requires a high methodological culture. Otherwise it risks sliding into superficial amateurism — certain signs of which we find in the text of Neosocionics.
Author: Adopting the conception of two models constituting a person’s socionic type makes typing simpler. Under this approach we come as close as possible to reality and can rely both on the achievements of psychology and on the particulars of a specific person’s appearance and behavior.
Editor: The conclusion that typing is simplified with two models is not clear. It is not clear what reality the author has in mind, or which reality proves inaccessible to socionics “with one model.” It is not clear why “mono-socionics” cannot rely on the achievements of psychology, or why the latter are opposed to “the particulars of a specific person’s appearance and behavior.” Do those very particulars not belong to the achievements of psychology?
Author: …psychological modeling is taking only its first steps. At its base lies the theoretically grounded, brilliant discovery of two great scientists — Carl Gustav Jung and Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. Practical socionics, however, has reached a dead end. All attempts to squeeze humanity into the framework of sixteen types have proved unsuccessful. Typing has turned into a combination of arbitrary interpretations and guesses — sometimes very deep and deserving attention, but not permitting the process to be objectivized, to turn socionics into a science.
Editor: So the author lays claim to the discovery of a new direction in psychology — psychological modeling. From this the indirect conclusion should follow that socionics is not psychological modeling, whereas the author’s muddled, inarticulate text, with its large number of psychological misunderstandings, is a specimen of psychological modeling. And does the author really think that her subjective self-assurance in the correctness of her theoretical constructions “permits the typing process to be objectivized and socionics to be turned into a science”? It comes out rather strangely.
Author: The approach to the individual as the bearer of two socionic models needs further research. The final goal of this research is the creation of an atlas of socionic types. Such an atlas should contain a description of the characteristics of each combination of models and artist-executed portraits of each socionic type, created on the basis of photographs of specific people — bearers of identical models. The atlas should consist of roughly a thousand portraits abstracted from the individual particulars of specific people — leaving age out of account, naturally. Ideally there should be no fewer than three such atlases: portraits of children and adolescents from 7 to 17, of young people from 18 to 30, and of people of middle age from 30 to 50. Children under seven or eight are not always sufficiently distinctly manifested socionically, while the elderly and the aged often lose the individual particulars of their appearance.
Editor: These are plans for the future. Possibly the author cannot be dissuaded of her erroneous theory, and then in due course we shall see a grandiose work founded on misunderstandings.
Author: …two socionic models constituting the type is not the whole truth. Beginning at 13–14, and sometimes earlier, we create additional models which can to some degree modify our psychological and behavioral characteristics.
Editor: Apparently, somewhere in her subconscious the author understands that her whole text is not the whole truth. I would even say: everything in it that is true is known to everyone anyway, and everything in it that is NEO is untrue. The author plainly confuses the TIM with concrete behavioral models — that is the very cause of the misunderstanding about the “two models.”
Author: …as of today, determining a specific person’s socionic type is almost an art and requires not only deep knowledge of psychology and socionics but also great practical experience of typing.
Editor: Unquestionably, determining the socionic type requires deep knowledge of psychology and socionics and great practical experience of typing. Apparently the author lacks something of the above.
Author: …having adopted the conception of two models constituting a specific person’s socionic type, one can work not with the entire complex socionic reality but take his leading model as the basis. Such an approach is quite justified and permits conclusions sufficient for business interaction. The second model is not written off; one simply need not give it serious attention: sometimes it is enough to catch whether it belongs, say, to the sensory or the intuitive models.
Editor: So the author quite allows the effectiveness of working with “one model.” It turns out the second model “simply need not be given serious attention.” It is enough to catch something or other… And what, then, about objectivity — about turning socionics into a science?
Author: Neosocionics is humanity’s path to self-knowledge.
Editor: Alas, from the preceding analysis it is obvious that “Neosocionics” has not come off, and humanity will now have to lay its path to self-knowledge relying on the classical socionics of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė.
The author’s observations, presented in tables, are unquestionably of interest — but more as preliminary material for a large research effort. One simply must not hurry and publish a half-finished product. The tables contain obvious discrepancies with real facts: to say of the LSE, for instance, that they are short of stature is wrong. To refute a universal affirmative judgment one counterexample suffices — and among LSEs there are many tall people.
Back at the Vilnius conference in 1991 I advanced the hypothesis that every TIM contains the radicals of all 16 TIMs. This is directly visible in Model A if one attends to all the pairs of adjacent functions forming blocks. But does this entitle us to say that in a specific person’s behavior each of the 16 TIMs can manifest at full scale? By no means. Each of the 16 radicals stands in a strictly fixed position in Model A, and that position deforms the radical to such a degree that in its place it remains strictly subordinated to the whole structure of the model, to the integral functioning of the TIM expressed by the radical of the EGO block. Hence the TIM always functions “as this one,” and never as another. An extravert never behaves like an introvert — though an inexperienced or unprofessional observer may on occasion see features of introversion in his behavior. This is because these two socionic categories, exactly like all the rest, are understood by many socionists too straightforwardly and simplistically. A logical type never behaves like an ethical one, and vice versa. An intuitive never behaves like a sensory type, and vice versa. An irrational never behaves like a rational, and vice versa. And so on. Not everyone can accept such assertions — but only because not everyone fully understands the principle of the wholeness and unity of the personality.
Incidentally, this principle was first formulated, and consistently applied in his work, by Adler — never understood by Freud. One and the same act, identical in form, is performed by each person strictly individually; but the outside observer is not given to trace all the nuances of such an act. Of course, besides typological parameters it contains many others. But even the purely typological side of an act is by no means as unambiguous as it may seem at a superficial glance. This is because behind every socionic category stands an archetype — an entity at once basic and virtual, and only with difficulty, and never fully, yielding to description in words.
And here it is fitting to recall Wittgenstein’s enigmatic words: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Shhh…
Literature
- Nebykova, S., Neosocionics, “Chornaya Belka,” Moscow, 2009.