Socionics

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Socionics is a branch of psychology that is based on Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types, Freud's theory of the conscious and subconscious, and Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism. It was founded mainly by the Lithuanian researcher Aušra Augustinavičiūtė in the 1970s and is evolving rapidly.

Socionics is based upon the idea that a person's character acts like a set of blocks called "psychological functions". Different ways of combining and chaining these functions result in different ways of accepting and producing information, which in turn results in different behavior patterns and thus different character types. Socionics also includes an intertype relations theory, based on the interaction of these functions between personalities.

Some socionists emphasize physical type as well as psychological type, and consider them related. This is similar to the original form of the somatotypes system and physiognomy, neither of which has scientific support.

Jung's psychological types

Carl Jung describes four basic psychological functions that are capable of becoming conscious:

• Sensation - all perceptions by means of the sense organs
• Intuition - perception by way of the unconscious, or perception of unconscious events
• Thinking (Logic) - function of intellectual cognition and the forming of logical conclusions
• Feeling (Ethics) - function of subjective evaluation

Sensation and intuition are perceiving (i.e. non-rational) functions. Thinking and feeling are judging (i.e. rational) functions.

One function dominate consciousness and its opposite characterize unconsciousness. Generally there is auxiliary (i.e. secondary) function from other pair of functions.

It is common to refer to both dominant and auxiliary function, for example Intuitive-Thinking or Sensation-Feeling.

Attitude of consciousness is basic direction of conscious interests and energies flow. Two possible directions of flow are introversion (inward to subjective, psychological experience) or extroversion (outward to the environment of objects, other people and collective norms). Opposite attitude characterize unconsciousness.

So dominate function of consciousness can be introverted or extroverted. That gives as a result 8 different major psychological types. Mixed types includes also auxiliary function.

Combined Functions, Or: How to Create a Type

When the strongest sensing/intuition function and the strongest thinking/feeling functions are known, the psychological type can be established. For instance, if your two main functions are introverted sensing and extroverted thinking (In that order!), your type is SiTe, also known as SLI (Sensory-Logical Intratim). You are an Introvert who prefers Sensing and Thinking, with Sensing over Thinking. Because Sensing and Intuition are information-gathering functions, Perceiving functions, you, who prefer one of them over the decision-making, or Judging, Feeling and Thinking functions, is also a Perceiver. Your main function is Introverted, because Introverts keep their preferred function "inside": The inside world counts for more than the outside, and, hence, that is where you send your most trusted function. For an Extrovert, this is the other way around. In the more widespread MBTI system, this corresponds to the type ISTP, although not completely: A socionics ENTp could well be an MBTI ENTJ and vice versa, although this controversy is more regular in introverted types.

This gives a total of sixteen types:

• SiTe - SLI (Sensory-Logical Intratim) - ISTp
• SeTi - SLE (Sensory-Logical Extratim) - ESTp
• SiFe - SEI (Sensory-Ethical Intratim) - ISFp
• SeFi - SEE (Sensory-Ethical Extratim) - ESFp
• TiSe - LSI (Logical-Sensory Intratim) - ISTj
• TeSi - LSE (Logical-Sensory Extratim) - ESTj
• FiSe - ESI (Ethical-Sensory Intratim) - ISFj
• FeSi - ESE (Ethical-Sensory Extratim) - ESFj
• NiTe - ILI (Intuitive-Logical Intratim) - INTp
• NeTi - ILE (Intuitive-Logical Extratim) - ENTp
• NiFe - IEI (Intuitive-Ethical Intratim) - INFp
• NeFi - IEE (Intuitive-Ethical Extratim) - ENFp
• TiNe - LII (Logical-Intuitive Intratim) - INTj
• TeNi - LIE (Logical-Intuitive Extratim) - ENTj
• FiNe - EII (Ethical-Intuitive Intratim) - INFj
• FeNi - EIE (Ethical-Intuitive Extratim) - ENFj

(Please note that in socionics, the perceiving/judging preference in the MBTI-style system is left lower case.)

References

• Carl Jung (1968), Approaching the Unconscious (from Man and His Symbols), ISBN 0440351839.

External links

• http://www.socionics.us (English)
• http://www.socionics.info (links database, English, Russian)
• http://www.socioniko.net (multilingual - 28 languages)
• http://www.socionics.com (English)
• http://socion.info (English)
• http://www.the16types.info (English)
• http://www.socioniko.net/en/articles/lytovs-intro1.html (English - An excellent and very thorough introduction to Socionics)
• http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm Psychological Types by C.G. Jung (English)
• http://socionikabg.com (Bulgarian, under development)