User:Mattie

Hey there, welcome to my page! I decided to put down in words my thoughts about Socionics in hope that a progressive method of sharing ideas to advance the subject, that is within reason considering our capabilities as an online community, can arise through peer review. As for some "biography" Socionics-wise, I became aware of Socionics and joined The 16 Types forum sometime in 2007 as TangoxOfxSin, then rejoined in June 2008 as look.to.the.sky. In July 2010, I decided to go by my real name, Mattie, and will for the rest of my days here. I have been NeFi ever since I have joined the community, have never switched my type, and have rarely been questioned about my self-typing. I do have rather particular stances when it comes to certain aspects of Socionics and will be listing them below, as well as a typing list of community members.

The rather ambitious size of this page is mostly in reaction to reading the English translation of Ekaterina Filatova's "Understand The People Around You: An Introduction To Socionics" and feeling rather disappointed with what I read. It made me realize that I've started to take Socionics in a direction that isn't canon in Russia, or at least, the Russians we have access to here in the English-speaking community; it seems like the line between Socionics and MBTI is very blurred, and they are such similar typologies that the notion of Socionics being closer to the complications of humans in reality is an illusion of the English-speaking Socionics community. All of this further strengthened my view that the Socionics practiced in the English (and all other languages actually) community is highly personalized and heavily influenced by everyone's own subjective understanding of Socionics.

So I invite everyone to look on my take (which isn't that much of a wild departure, but there are definitely differences in comparisons to the Russian canon of Socionics) of the field and encourage more people to make their own pages describing how they've come to understand Socionics and how it differs from the canon, which will inspire progressive conversation within the community.

My Views On Socionics

In General

My latest understanding of Socionics is heavily application based; the motive behind everything I look into is to eventually make Socionics realistically applicable. The first thing I recognize when it comes to Socionics is that is has not been (despite the claims in Filatova's book) empirically proven and most likely will never succeed as an all-encompassing theory. That said, there is relevance to looking into Socionics as a perspective, something that can be applied to receive insight about, but not claimed to be an actual part of reality. With this in mind, I still take the perspective of trying to craft my interpretation of Socionics that is as close to reality as possible; meaning that a lot of what is described in popular translations of Russian Socionics wouldn't work. With the claims Socionics makes, its portrayal of people is completely unrealistic, and I can easily see how MBTI has influenced Socionic's descriptions and typing. What is looked down upon in the English-speaking community (MBTI methodology using Socionics' terms) is practiced in Russia. Feeling rather dissatisfied with MBTI's involvement in Socionics (I think it's fine on its own), I want to remove what I see as the added on weight to all the term's definitions that are easily skewed through individual perception. I know that, in general, it's extremely difficult to get completely objective definitions and communication, but that's the aim of numerous social sciences that can't have a purely quantitative approach to their subject. I want to make the definitions particular to Socionics minimal and universal enough to apply to everyone equally, as everyone's thought processes are highly individualized, and making too many assumptions will box people into superficial qualities that don't lend enough credibility to the application.

Does this mean that people who practice Socionics close to what was described in Filatova's book are wrong? No, not really, because there is little wrong in something that doesn't have distinct truths to it. I'm personally dissatisfied with it because it seems unrealistic; it's just another pop personality psychology to be tossed in the large heap of other ones. My main gripe has to do with assigning Socionics as the origin of qualities and behaviors such as social adeptness, confidence, intellect, hobbies, etc. To be so deterministic about individual personality traits based on type is unrealistic, and whether this might seem like a "Duh" type of thing, a LOT of people use Socionics this way!

Socionics And MBTI

To say MBTI influences Socionics is a complete understatement, they are essentially (at least, in Russia) doing the same thing using slightly different terms. I personally want to remove MBTI methodology from Socionics practice to allow it a more cognitive psychology feel. MBTI uses the dichotomies, solely, to determine your type, with each side of the dichotomies representing surface personality traits that are easily observable and not abstract. People tend to know when they are social verses a loner, are hands on or theoretical, emotional or stoic, organized or laid-back. You can easily make a personality inventory of yourself and assign an MBTI type according to that. This is why there are a lot more successful MBTI tests than Socionics ones; it also explains how someone's MBTI may change over time, as an aspect of MBTI is that you're somewhere in the middle of dichotomy, and you can slide in a certain direction. This because there isn't any real claim as to what is "causing" your personality traits... MBTI is only assigning you a label. Socionics, on the other hand, makes a bunch of claims that affect the way you think and behave. There is a claim that there are Aspects of Information, and they all identify different things, then there is a certain process called Information Metabolism that goes on in your mind, and there is a blueprint for how you metabolize this information, and because of this, you're only capable of understanding the world natively in one out of sixteen ways. Just going through this, one would have to prove the existence of Information Aspects and Model whatever, which doesn't seem likely. Socionics isn't claiming just to label everyone, but actually explain how they receive, understand, and react off of information; Filatova's book goes as far as to say Socionics is genetic (which is a grand claim seeing that IAs and IMEs aren't proven yet). Using an MBTI methodology, therefore, wouldn't work for Socionics both because of of the casual nature of the IMEs and the inability to test via dichotomies for the correct type, seeing that the dichotomies (as well as the temperaments, clubs, etc) are based on surface personality traits. The way Filatova talks about and explains Socionics in the MBTI manner that the canon has employed makes Socionics sound like another quack, wannabe science.

So how can one reconcile the innate conflict that has been presented to the English speaking community? My opinion is to start from the basics and work your way up, keeping in mind the boundaries that reality presents to you. Starting from Information Aspects, the community can define the role each IME plays in the psyche without claiming causality to personality traits, and not even thought patterns, but a way we categorize our information. By creating definitions that require as little subjective understanding as possible, we can apply IMEs that are completely inclusive and allow room for a person to be a person not dictated by mysterious abstracts.

The dichotomies, overall, are useful in two ways: They help people grasp the rather abstract terms of subjects such as Information Aspects and Functions, as well as Jungian Functions and Attitudes. But they should be specifically known as learning tools and not what actually is; once they aren't needed anymore, they should be discarded from the working understanding of the terms being learned. Second, they provide an interesting hind-sight to a large amount of data, such as seeing the type distribution of a meeting and seeing which dichotomies were more represented and how that could have effected events. Otherwise, they seem more of a detriment than help. It's seems like typing with dichotomies relies on over-generalizations and leads to a faulty understanding of a type.

Subtypes And Other Typing Systems

Having a subtype is a popular notion, as well as integrating other typing systems (MBTI, Enneagram) into the understanding of someone's type. I am personally weary of all of this; this sort of practice tends to get abused for not typing well originally, and adds on minute differences at the risk of assigning the incorrect main type. There doesn't seem to be an encompassing enough subtypes to really make having subtypes affective, and really, why can't we just chalk up the rest to individual differences? It's like people combat feeling boxed into sixteen types by making more, but to give yourself a real shot, you'd have to make as many subtypes as there are people on this planet to include the differences that are commonly outlined in subtype descriptions. I also find it strange that people justify certain behaviors through one typing system to allow them to be a type that they originally saw themselves to be. This is bad practice in my opinion, as you should be the same type even though you didn't know about either typologies, the other systems don't fill in gaps to make sense of a bad typing.

Visual Identification

I do not like to put a lot of weight into VI, but I can't deny that there is SOMETHING about it. I get impressions from peoples' "vibes" or whatnot that clue me on into their type, but sometimes I wonder if it's a sensitivity to other information. Either way, I can understand why people want to develop this field, but it makes me entirely uncomfortable to type someone mostly on VI. I don't think anything good comes from it, and it's advocated as a method of ease... Rarely will I ever consent to ease over integrity. This also leads into the "database" method that various people use (some use it for VI, others with typing in general) which I find to be misleading. My main problem with this is you have to start from somewhere assuming that the start is correct, and then build off of that to start creating their own archetypes for each type, and fit other people into what they've observed. So if you have an incorrect base... your whole understanding of the types is completely flawed. And I don't question the validity or intelligence of the people who use them, but I almost feel like it's argumentum ad populum (in the sense that the fact that a group of people are similar in a certain manner, therefore it must be relevant), that you're taking an observation from many people to make a statement about a specific IME, rather than having an understanding of an IME to say something about the people.

Where I'd Like The Forum And Field To Go

Without wanting to just indoctrinate my opinion onto other people, I would personally like to have a more communal effort in establishing what Socionics is for US, the English-speaking community, and not what Socionics seems to be from translations. I think it would be helped to build up from a blank page what we've come to understanding after reading the translations and what we agree with and don't, and how we can see Socionics actually being used as opposed to what the Russian-speaking community has established. Because of all the ambiguity of the terms we work with on a daily basis (first they are abstract concepts, and second they are hard to decipher from translations), we should create an English lexicon of Socionics of sorts, seeing that the translation of Filatova's book provided us with words for popular terms that aren't the ones we use in discussion. The more objective the mechanics and processes of Socionics becomes, I believe the better it will become, especially when communicating between forum members. There seems to be little motivation for something like this, though.

Typing Methodology

When it comes to typing, I look only to identify IMEs; I try to eliminate all other information that is distracting and not casual to the IMEs as much as I can. I tend to notice the "strong" IMEs in an individual first (the majority of the time it's the creative IME) and then the "weak" counter-part to it. I usually spot these things when I'm not looking for it, they are just impressions in a VI-vibe type manner. So, for example, I will be with someone and something will seem like it's :Te:-creative to me, and I will 'tag' them with :Te:-creative until enough happens to either support or refute that they are a :Te:-creative type. If I'm on the right track, I'll start to notice the :Fi:-mobilizing to further confirm that they are indeed a :Te:-creative. If I'm not that certain, usually some sort of IA will stand out to me, and the VI-vibe like thing will give me no more than four types to decide on. I have the person "wear" one type, see how my experience with them fits and breaks what that type would be, then switch to another type to see if that more or less fits the person than the last.

The strongest evidence that cues me into a person's type is revealing as much of their thought processes through discussion and finding the matter or habits they have to identify what it is they are typically doing as opposed to an off day or deception. Because of this, I usually keep my typings open-ended at all times and work off what is my latest conclusion. Eventually I won't be able to see the person as any other type, so it's more like the typing will never switch to something else rather than it being engraved. Anything that can hint to the information metabolism that is going on in the way they craft their arguments and observations will be what most influences my typing.

As reinforcement, I try to see how these people interact with myself and others as a check to what I've already decided on type-wise. This isn't on a like/dislike basis, or opinions of one another, but how or why they (or we) have a conflict in argument construction and information observation that isn't related to non-type factors. I tend to type people the best when they are in some sort of discussion which involves purporting or refuting certain sides of an argument (which can be from a light-hearted, non-confrontational chat to a fight) and see what IMEs are in conflict with one another.

I am very reluctant to type by behavior, as I am aware that the person's, others', and myself's perception of behavior is subjective and up to interpretation. There seems to be too much of a disconnect from information metabolism to behavior to allow myself that jump to think behavior is a strong enough indicator. I believe it leads way to a lot of stereotyping and over-generalization.

My Descriptions

Information Aspects

Fi

Typings

16 Types Forum Members Typings

MEMBER	TYPING	ALTERNATES	COMMENTS
Aiss			What was most interesting when talking with Aiss is how she sometimes re-words what comes from -creatives to something easier for me to digest, and it was when has happening to became apparent to me how worked in both the leading and creative functions.
anndelise			I don't really interact (knowingly) with other , so it has been interesting to talk with Ann and see how identicals (at least, of our type) seem to trip over each other trying to say the same thing in a slightly different manner, trying to warn the other of a similar mistake they've made, or repeat "Yes yes, I know." We both seem to have similar focuses when it comes to Socionics and have similar argument styles.
Ashton			Our interaction has shown me a lot of difference between and ways of argument, or at least where the conflict may occur. At first it was frustrating and I thought there was just the air of knowing something without the actual knowledge, but upon becoming more aware of how and work together, I realized that I was asking for something he wasn't aware of to provide.
Erk	-creative		I still go back and forth between the two types and am not sure if I'll ever settle on one lol I am fairly certain of -creative given our conversations and how he handles how my manifests. I tend to lean towards for him, but it'll have to be concluded some other time.
Gilly		-Mobilizing	I disagree with typing Gilly as because I think the superficial characteristics of him being loud and in-your-face, among other factors, is what makes him seem like a (stereotypical) hysterical -lead. But I have found that -leads have a more consistent 'flow' of and don't really come in bursts out of no where, like it does with Gilly. I also feel in conversations we have a - vs -mobilizing issue that I notice with other .
silverchris6			silverchris was one of the first Betas (on the forums) that I had the chance to really get into a conversation to that didn't necessarily end in name-calling. I'm starting to find that the way we go about things have a perceivable difference, and it's interesting to experience because sometimes you just have to trudge through conflict to find the source and fix it.
Vero			We bounce off each other easily since we both see the world constructed in , and have been thankfully aware that we go about solving -related problems with opposing methods of categorization. Kindred types aware of this difference can easily maneuver around differences, I've only had light and pleasant conversations with Vero.