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Introduction into Socionics (draft): Part 1

Dmitri Lytov, Marianna Lytova, January 2005


First presented as Internet lectures to pedagogues and students
of the St. Kliment Okhridsky University (Sofia, Bulgaria).
Part 1Part 2Part 3
Dear readers,

we will much appreciate your feedback.


If you have any suggestions or remark concerning this text, please send your opinion
to the authors.

Socionics is a branch of psychology that studies relationships between psychological types. It is based on
somewhat modified system of psychological types described by C.G.Jung in his Psychological Types (1916, 1920
etc.) and Tavistock Lectures (1935).

You also know a different version of Jungian typology known as the Myers-Briggs Type Theory (MBTT). It is based
on the test called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It is well known in the US, and for the last years in Europe
as well.
The Myers-Briggs Type Theory is sometimes confused with socionics, although there are some differences
between these two theories. Let us describe them shortly:

1. Different methods of type evaluation. MBTT almost completely relies upon tests, while socionics from the beginning
developed alternative methods determining type by interviewing, observation, etc. Verbal testing is considered as a
secondary, not primary method, because it says nothing about the nature of types. This does not mean that tests are
not known in socionics. For example we the authors of this article developed the Socionic Multifactor Test, which we are
going to discuss below. In the last years socionics focuses on biological parameters of types.
2. Somewhat different definitions of the 4 basic type criteria. In MBTT, the type is defined as 4 basic choices:
extraversion (E) or introversion (I), sensing (S) or intuition (N), thinking (T) or feeling (F), judgment (J) or perception
(P). Socionics uses terms logic/ethic instead of thinking/feeling, and rationality/irrationality instead of
perception/judgment. However, more important is the contents of these definitions, they do not always coincide.
3. Intertype relationships. Although several representatives of MBTT proposed their own views on compatibility between
the Myers-Briggs types, a thorough theory of intertype relationships does not exist in MBTT. By contrast, Socionics, from
the very beginning, was created as a theory describing and explaining some regularities of relations between people.

On the other hand, there is also a lot in common between these two theories. Main fields of application are the
same: family and business consulting, education etc. When first publications about MBTT appeared in the former
USSR (a very short overview appeared in 1984, and several popular books were translated since 1994),
socionists found a lot of useful information there. We believe in fruitful cooperation between these two branches
of Jungian typology is possible; we should not forget about the differences, but we believe they can be resolved.

Origin of C.G.Jung's Typology.

Even those who never heard about Jung know the terms Extraversion and Introversion. However, Jung himself
for many years had doubts about their contents and semantics. He was only sure that the difference between
extraverts and introverts arose from the pre-determination of different people to different kinds of psychiatric
diseases.

Jung studied mentally ill people, for he was a psychiatrist. However, for the years of his studies he mentioned
that even mentally sound people are predetermined to different mental diseases. Most of people for their whole
lives have no opportunity to unleash this potential.
Let us look on this problem from the different viewpoint. When we consider negative and positive epithets used in
literature, we will notice that very often the same quality may be described as both positive and negative. And,
on the contrary, there exist mutually incompatible traits: one can develop one of them only at cost of the other.
Jung considered extraversion and introversion as such mutually incompatible characteristics. However, his
definition of this criterion was vague and contradictory: as focus on the outer world (extraversion) or inner

world (introversion). At that time (1910 1920) these terms were not accepted and/or understood by
psychologists.

He went on with studying other mutually incompatible traits. In 1920 he published his fundamental work called
Psychological Types. In this work he described 4 psychological types: two of them, Thinking and Feeling, he called
Rational (Judging); and the other two, Sensing and Intuitive, he called Irrational (Perceiving). Each of these 4
types could be extraverted or introverted.
Did you notice what has changed? Initially Jung wrote about the extraverted and introverted types. Later he
changed his mind, and began to consider extraversion and introversion as something like taste of the main
psychical functions.

For the next 15 years he extended his typology: he supposed that Rational types (thinking or feeling) can have
irrational "secondary function" (sensing or intuition), and vice versa. This meant that the types initially described
by him could be "decomposed" into binary criteria, which in turn could serve as basis for more profound typology.
He summarized his views in his Tavistock Lectures, where he finally described his 4 binary criteria of
psychological types:
- rationality (judgment, J) vs. irrationality (perception, P);
- thinking (T) vs. feeling (F);

- sensing (S) vs. intuition (N);

- extraversion (E) vs. introversion (I).

(the symbols J/P, T/F etc. were invented not by Jung but proposed later by Isabel Briggs Myers).
On this basis it was possible to describe 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 types.

However, then Jung seemed to forget his type theory! Very rarely, he made comments on it in his letters and
that was all! Why?
Jung was well aware of the fact that the definitions he gave to these 4 criteria were vague and unclear. And they
could not be improved at his time! It was impossible because of very little knowledge about the human nature,
about the nature of psychical functions. And Jung had negative attitudes towards those who wanted to popularize
his typology, to create tests on its basis.
Jung made some important observations and statements about his typology.

First, he wrote that these type must be inborn. They were not just attitudes, conscious models of behavior. For
any person, one half of the criterion (e.g. introversion) is natural, and the other (e.g. extraversion) is
unnatural, contradicts to his nature. A person may behave like an extravert, being a born introvert, and this
makes him feel depressed, frustrated.

Second, in Psychological Types (1920) he wrote about interaction between his types. He wrote about special
charm, influence at the level of the subconscious that have towards each other representatives of
complementary types. These complementary types should be both rational, or both irrational, and other criteria
should be different (for example, ES IN, or ET IF). Alas, this hypothesis was expressed only in brief phrases,
Jung did not develop it later.
People who worked together with Jung defined him as Intuitive, Introverted, Thinking.
Question:

In MBTT the main phenomenon to make study of are the personal types, aren't they. So in socionics theory were
the interpersonal relationships the staring point of research? I mean maybe in the beginning (maybe in Augusta's
works) the types were brought out as some determinants of the interpersonal relationship and not the opposite
the relationships as result of type's compatibility? My question is whether the need of studying the types was
determined by problems in understanding of some specific relationships phenomena or just the Jung's theory
needing improvement and expansion?

Right, Augusta started from relationships, not from types.

The Origin of Socionics.


Augusta was an economist by education and occupation (after graduation she worked at the Ministry of Finance of
the Soviet Lithuania), but later she became a sociologist. At that time (1960s) sociology was new in the Soviet
Union under Stalin it was considered as a bourgeois pseudo-science. Augusta studied family relations.
According to Marx, economy was the basis of everything including human relations. Augusta studied happy and
unhappy marriages, and initially she relied upon Marx she studied economic, social and cultural factors that
took place in these families. However, she quickly realized that they were not enough. There were families, quite
normal from the viewpoint of economic situation, cultural level etc., but unhappy anyway.

What was the reason of their unhappiness? Maybe sex? Augusta was not too shy in these matters (later she even
published some articles on sexology). She began to read books on psychoanalysis. In fact she was in better
situation than many other Soviet researchers, psychologists and sociologists, who lived in other republics.
Lithuania became a part of USSR only in 1940, and before this year, many books on psychoanalysis have been
published in Lithuanian language. In addition, many books from the West came to Lithuanian libraries at that
time. She started from Freud, and very soon came across C.J.Jung's typology.
But at first glance she did not understand it. She began to study other psychological typologies known at that
time these of Kretschmer, Gannushkin, Leonhard, Sheldon etc. Soon she understood that all these typologies
were somewhat chaotic. These scientists simply observed some typical cases and made them defined points
of their typologies. By contrast, Jung's typology was SYSTEMATIC, logical.
She came back to C.G.Jung's typology and tried to apply it to the families she had previously studied

Augusta was surprised by the fact that none of the above mentioned personality typologies considered the
problem of intertype relationships. She tried to consider families known to her from the viewpoint of different
typologies. However, all of them showed no regularities except the Jung's typology.

The first regularity was named quasi-identity.

Jung did not distinguish clearly rational types from irrational. For him, Thinking Extraverted type with secondary
Intuition (ENT rational) was almost the same as Intuitive Extraverted with secondary Thinking (ENT irrational).
Jung's adherents (M.L. von Franz, J. Hillman etc.), as a rule, ignored the rationality/irrationality criterion. The first
test of Jung's types (the Gray Wheelwright test, 1938) included only three of the four criteria.
However, Augusta's researches showed something differentit was a VERY IMPORTANT criterion. It worked like a
switch that sometimes changed positive into negative.

For example, she observed several families where one of spouses was an intuitive-logical extravert (ENT
irrational), and the second sensory-ethical introvert (ISF irrational). The relationship within this couple was
quite harmonious and good. However, it was opposite in the pair with ALL THE FOUR criteria different: e.g.
intuitive-logical extravert (ENT irrational), and ethical-sensory introvert (ISF rational). Compatibility between
partners in this couple was very bad, they often fell into conflicts. In general, the situation in the first pair could
be described as mutual support, distribution of tasks according to the partners' strong functions, while the
second pair could be described as "embarrassment", "frustration" and "disappointment".
Augusta used the term quasi-identity to describe the types with difference in the criterion
rationality/irrationality. At first glance, quasi-identical types seemed similar in many ways. But at close distance,
the difference became obvious. The quasi-identical types practiced usually same kinds of activities, but seemed to
evaluate them from different viewpoints. However, in quasi-identical pairs such difference very rarely resulted in
conflicts more often it resulted in lack of understanding or indifference to each other.
Question:

As I can understand socionics is chiefly an approach towards human relationships. Is that correct?

Correct. It studies the relationships between psychological types. The main idea of socionics is that the type
predetermines relations to certain extent.
However, socionics NEVER forgets about other factors (irrelevant to psychological types) that also influence
relations, such as economic level, age, sex, culture, corporate traditions, occupation etc.

And the type is considered IN DYNAMICS. This means that the relationship between two types, e.g. INT-rational
and ISF-rational, may have various options. This is probably its principal difference both from original Jung's
ideas and from MBTT: considering the type not as a list of traits, but rather as an algorithm of traits.
Question:

And is the notion "approach" adequate or we might use the definition "school" which brings us to something more
complicated than "approach".

Initially, when socionics was isolated from the official Soviet psychology, it was a school, or even a circle of
adherents. It was the only school that studied the dependence between human relations and human types. The
official Marxist psychology" said that everything is determined by the society: character, human development
and, finally, human relations. At that time socionics was even declared to be a new science :).

But starting from 1990s socionics more and more integrates into psychology, somewhere between the psychodiagnostics and the social psychology. So, for us it is unclear whether socionics today is a school or a method.
Both answers are acceptable.
Question:

Are human relationships the specific object of its scientific interest or there is something more beyond that?

The subject of socionics is the human relations in the broadest meaning: in family, between friends, colleagues,
in large workgroups, sport teams etc. Socionics wants to answer the question where are the limits of human
compatibility between people of different (or identical) types, how it is possible to help people to adapt to each
other, improve productivity of their co-working; sometimes, when conflicts at close distance seem to be insoluble,
socionics suggests to introduce a third party in order to resolve a conflict, or to regroup people, or simply to
redirect their attention.

Also, studying relations is impossible without studying profound mechanisms of human psyche. For example,
actually several socionists (Talanov in St. Petersburg, Prof. Bogomaz in Tomsk, Prof. Okladnikov in Irkutsk etc.)
study the problem how types are relevant to the brain activity. We both develop methods of experimental and
comparative studying of the types. And so, so on.
Question:

About the method: It seems that the achievements of Jung are the fundament and the starting point of socionics.
As far as I know, he pretends to demonstrate empirical disposition towards his objects of study (and often
remonstrated against the pure philosophical premises when doing science). But as we know and as you
mentioned his empirical work was mainly concerning mentally ill people who lived in a very different society (in
time and space) from the one Augusta faced in the former USSR. So to what extend is the Jungian method used
in socionics. What is the general methodological framework of socionics and its specific methods. If they are close
the Jungian one how relevant do you think it is to our contemporary situation?

Socionists believe (of course hoping to verify it experimentally) that:

1) The psychological type is a structure more or less stable during the whole life; a type is an algorithm with
various options (see above), but it cannot be reprogrammed;

2) The types are the same in all countries and in all times; at least, in our biographical studies we still have not
discovered something impossible to describe in terms of Jungian typology;

3) Jung himself wrote that THE SAME psychological types could be observed among mentally ill and mentally
sound people. Moreover, he wrote that people fall into neuroses when they cannot live according to their natural
types, for example, when an extraverted person in a collective overfilled with extraverts has to play a role of an
introverted person. In other words, mental illness, according to Jung, is often caused by the treason of one's
inborn type, when one attempts to be not what he psychically is.

The second regularity was called duality, or complementariness.

Above we have already described the regularity noticed by Jung unfortunately, he did not develop his
observations. Isabel B. Myers, the founder of MBTT, believed that the best case is when types complement each
other by all the 4 criteria for example, ENTP and ISFJ. However, her hypothesis was disproved by other
adherents of MBTT.

According to Augusta, the so-called DUAL PAIRS are the pairs of best compatibility at close distance, for example
in family. Here we will not discuss how she came to this conclusion, how she verified it it is a very long topic.
According to her, duality is the complementariness by 3 of the 4 criteria. The fourth (rationality/irrationality)
should, on the contrary, coincide.
For example, the pair INT irrational + ESF irrational is a dual pair.

Later this theory was confirmed by empiric data. Several years ago psychologists Boukalov, Karpenko, Chikirisova
from Ukraine researched a several plants in different cities. After putting together results of testing of the
personnel, they found, that many of them were married with each other. An additional research of the married
couples had shown that out of 16 possible intertype relationships, the greatest percentage of family relationships

(more than one third) belongs to dual relationships [3]. An independent statistical research of family pairs
performed by Filatova (St. Petersburg, 1999) has also shown very high percentage of dual pairs (17%) compared
to other relationships.
The main idea of socionics is that the type predetermines relations to certain extent.

However, socionics NEVER forgets about other factors (irrelevant to psychological types) that also influence
relations, such as economic level, age, sex, culture, corporate traditions, occupation etc.

And the type is considered IN DYNAMICS. This means that the relationship between two types, e.g. INT-rational
and ISF-rational, may have various options. This is probably its principal difference both from original Jung's
ideas and from MBTT: considering the type not as a list of traits, but rather as an algorithm of traits.

Initially, when socionics was isolated from the official Soviet psychology, it was a school, or even a circle of
adherents. It was the only school that studied the dependence between human relations and human types. The
official Marxist psychology" said that everything is determined by the society: character, human development
and, finally, human relations. At that time socionics was even declared to be a new science :).

But starting from 1990s socionics more and more integrates into psychology, somewhere between the psychodiagnostics and the social psychology. So, for us it is unclear whether socionics today is a school or a method.
Both answers are acceptable.
The subject of socionics is the human relations in the broadest meaning: in family, between friends, colleagues,
in large workgroups, sport teams etc. Socionics wants to answer the question where are the limits of human
compatibility between people of different (or identical) types, how it is possible to help people to adapt to each
other, improve productivity of their co-working; sometimes, when conflicts at close distance seem to be insoluble,
socionics suggests to introduce a third party in order to resolve a conflict, or to regroup people, or simply to
redirect their attention.
In his work Psychological Types Jung wrote about 8 basic functions, in Tavistock Lectures about 16 types. This
means, that each 2 types have the same basic function but different secondary functions.
RATIONAL (judging) types have dominant Thinking or Feeling function, secondary Sensing or Intuitive function.

IRRATIONAL (perceiving) types have dominant Sensing or Intuitive function, secondary Thinking or Feeling
function.
For example, the type INT-irrational has the following strong functions: Ni dominant, Te secondary.
The type INT-rational has the following strong functions: Ti dominant, Ne secondary.

Important: unlike Jung (and unlike socionics), in MBTT Rational is not the same as Judging, Irrational
is not the same as Perceiving. They use a different model.

The third regularity was called mirrorness.

The mirror pairs are those where the criteria N/S and T/F coincide, while two others are different.
Here are some examples of mirror pairs:
ENT-irrational + INT-rational;

ENF-rational + INF-irrational, etc.

Although different in appearance and behavior, they were found similar in their worldview, attitudes etc. MUCH
MORE similar than e.g. quasi-identical types.
For this reason, Augusta introduced graphical symbols for psychological functions. She proposed to describe
quasi-identical types by symbols of opposite color, and mirror types by symbols of the same color.
Here are the 8 functions (in details we will describe them in the next topic).
Socionic
function

C.G.Jung's
terminology

Description in socionics *

or E

Extraverted
feeling

Extraverted ethic or ethic of emotions: Lat.


emoveo I move (smb.)

or R

Introverted
feeling

Introverted ethic or ethic of relations: Lat.


relatio relation.

or P

Extraverted
thinking

Extraverted logic or practical logic: Lat.


profiteor I make useful actions.

or L

Introverted
thinking

Introverted logic or structural logic: Lat. lex


law, rule.

or S

Introverted
sensing

Introverted sensing or perception sensing:


Lat. sensus sensing.

or F

Extraverted
sensing

Extraverted sensing or force sensing: Lat.


factor I influence.

or T

Introverted
intuition

Introverted intuition or time intuition: Lat.


tempus time.

or I

Extraverted
intuition

Extraverted intuition or potential intuition:


Lat. intueor I look through.

Each extraverted type has an extraverted function dominant, introverted secondary.


Each introverted type has an introverted function dominant, extraverted secondary.
Each rational type has a rational function dominant, irrational secondary.

Each irrational type has an irrational function dominant, rational secondary.


Here are some examples of type formulas, according to socionics:
logical-sensory extravert;

sensory-logical introvert;

logical-sensory introvert.

Does socionics deal with mentally ill people? Answer: socionics is a part of psychology, not psychiatry. There ARE
some psychiatrists and clinical psychologists interested in socionics, which have published works on application of
socionic types in psychiatry. Among them, we should mention:
- Professor Sergey Alexandrovich Bogomaz, Tomsk Medical University, bogafrica@mail.ru
- Professor Vladislav
titov@ic.isu.ru

Ivanovich

Okladnikov,

Irkutsk

State

Medical

University,

titov@physdep.isu.ru

or

- Professor Mark Yevguenyevich Sandomirsky, Bashkir State Medical University (Ufa City), marks@ufanet.ru
and/or consulre3@mail.ru

If you need to know more about their researches, you can request them by these e-mail addresses. However, we
would suggest that you write to them in Russian they all belong to the generation (above 50 years old) that did
not study English.

As for us both, as well as for the most of socionists they deal with absolutely normal people, just like
adherents of the Myers-Briggs Type Theory do in the US. Belonging to different types is as normal and
natural as belonging to different temperaments and/or sexes.
OK, now let us discuss the nature of types and the definition of the type.

So, what is the TYPE in socionics? Yesterday we explained Jung's views on the nature of the types described by
him. Now we should tell about the actual status of researches. Knowing of the nature of type is very important for
correct diagnostics. If we do not know what it is, how dare we measure it?

The XX century was rich for psychological typologies of all kinds. A Ukrainian psychologist Tamara Blyumina
published a book where she collected typologies proposed by different researches ( ..
, , . .: 1996.). It altogether includes 108 typologies (with socionics and MyersBriggs typology, too). Out of these 108, approximately one half has been created in XX century. Blyumina also
compared fundamental methods of these typologies. These included: physical constitution, dynamics of reaction,
mental activity, inclinations to mental diseases etc., as well as some parameters having very vague relation to
psychology (e.g. blood groups). The methods of diagnostics of these types were also different: sometimes
testing, sometimes mere observation, some typologies were purely speculative, based on certain philosophical
principles but never proven in practice (e.g. Immanuel Kant's typology).
However, we could notice at least two trends in all of these typologies.

Some of them were purely psychiatric. They concerned only mentally ill people. Very often authors of these
typologies wrote that they described something abnormal, while normal people represent the golden mean.
However, another part of the authors of psychiatric typologies (and Jung was among them) wrote that most of
mental diseases arise from psychical predisposition to them; there are people more predisposed to e.g. maniacaldepressive psychosis, others are rather predisposed to schizophrenia. It does not mean that they are mentally ill
from the very moment of birththough, it means, that under certain combination of circumstances their
dreaming disease may be launched and turn from potential into real.
The psychiatric approach to personality typology was dominant in the former USSR: only abnormal people have
various accentuations, types, while normal people always strive to an ideal model of a Soviet person.

Another part of researches simply measured psychical parameters of different people, mostly sound, and tried to
describe their difference in various terms. Researches of monozygotic twins were really important they showed
that people have certain psychical predisposition, and even education and growth in different conditions only
gives shape to such predisposition, but does not change its basic contents. Even influence of medicines can cure
psychical diseases, but cannot change one's psychological type, NO MATTER WHAT TYPE WE MEAN according to
Jung, Sheldon, Eysenck etc.
However, the speed of development of psychological knowledge in XX century was dramatic. We would compare
this development with development of hardware and software technologies. Thus, in psychology things
discovered and described 20-30 years ago seem to be too naive and simplified.

The same is true concerning typologies. In most cases, psychologists or psychiatrists never knew the nature of
types observed and described by them. They simply thought: we observe it, so it exists. Only few (Kretschmer,
Sheldon, Eysenck) strived for finding scientific backgrounds for their typologies.

Carl Gustav Jung created his typology almost 100 years ago. At that time, he did not know what we actually
know about higher mental functions. However, his typology was constructed according to classical principle of
black box usually applied in exact sciences. The expression black box means describing something whose
nature is unknown, except for certain regularities. Description according to this methodology allows determining
direction for future searches, even when science in its actual status does not possess adequate means of
measuring this black box.
A classical example of a black box is the gravitation in physics. Although we still do not know its nature, we
nevertheless know some of its fundamental laws and can successfully use them in our calculations.
What are basic requirements of the black box methodology?

The requirement # 1 says: the field of application (research) should be strictly defined. Or, at least, we should
make delimitation between irrelevant and hypothetically relevant things.
The requirement # 2 says: the criteria of description of the black box should be applicable to its whole contents.
How did Jung manage to fulfill these requirements?

All the 4 Jung's dichotomies (i.e., binary criteria) fulfilled the same requirement: they were all equally applicable
to human psyche. Each person can be described in terms of BOTH poles of each of the dichotomies. Let us remind
them:
Extraversion/introversion
- Intuition/sensing

- Thinking/feeling (or: logic/ethic in socionics)

- Rationality/Irrationality (or: judgment/perception).

We will consider their definitions only tomorrow, but we can already mention, that EACH person both thinks and
feels, both has some imagination (intuition) and controls current situation (sensing), both plans (rationality) and
adapts to changing situation (irrationality), sometimes extends the circle of his/her acquaintances, interests,
initiatives (extraversion), and sometimes relaxes from excessive initiative and contacts (introversion).

Moreover, these criteria must have been applicable to the people of the past as well. At least, as we can imagine
them from literature, biographies etc. Some ancient people were described so clearly and vividly that we have
almost no doubts which Jungian type should be attributed to them, e.g., Trotsky and Hitler were probably ethicalintuitive extraverts, and Georgi Dimitrov an ethical-sensory extravert. Sometimes even people of ancient times,
such as Socrates, Aesop, Alexander of Macedonia, seem to be well identifiable with certain psychological types.
Jung himself determined Aristotle as a typical extravert, and Plato as a typical introvert.
We repeat again, Jung did not know the nature of these dichotomies. However, he described each of them as two
different processes, which interfere, collide with each other, when fulfillment of one process impedes fulfillment of
the other. Let us just briefly remind what he wrote in Tavistock Lectures (1935):

1. INTUITION/SENSING:

intuition implies abstract thinking, distraction from what is going on around, while sensing means, on the
contrary, focus on irritants, on what is going on around. As a proverb says, it is difficult to develop muscles and
mind together.

2. THINKING/FEELING:

thinking means impersonal, objective" evaluation of situation if we replace these people with others, what
will remain unchanged? Thus thinking" function is creative in inventing and/or learning methods, classifications,
rules, typologies. By contrast, "feeling" means personal evaluation of situation; even abstract knowledge is
learned personally, what it means to me?. Feeling people are more skillful in making impression on others, in
reacting to other people's emotions, and even in manipulating them, while thinking people do not always
understand emotions or even ignore them, trying to be objectively useful and objectively evaluating other
people, which is sometimes perceived by others as coldness or harshness.

These two criteria are well reflected in human CONSCIOUS ACTIVITY. At least, we can notice their development
and their productivity. We see that some people are more successful in some aspects, other people in other
aspects. Both in Myers-Briggs Type Theory and in Socionics these two criteria are considered as important for
career choice, professional application of human skills.
In our opinion, Thinking/Feeling and Intuition/Sensation are often (not always) identifiable even at a distance, at
first glance.

3. EXTRAVERSION/INTROVERSION:

extraversion means initiative, introversion means restraint. In many popular books, we can find a definition given
by Eysenck: extravert is sociable, introvert is close-mouthed. This is not exactly what Jung meant; moreover,
extraverts according to Eysenck are somewhat sensory-feeling, according to Jung; and introverts according to
Eysenck are somewhat intuitive-thinking, according to Jung. An intuitive-thinking extravert, or a sensory-ethical
introvert would be ambiverts according to Eysenck (in other words, something between extraverts and
introverts).
Jung gave several, somewhat contradictory definitions of extraversion and introversion. However, when he
considered this dichotomy on the examples of specific types (in Psychological Types), it was easy to notice that
extraversion meant energy-spending, introversion energy-saving in regard to the specific dominant function.
For example, introverts with dominant T (thinking) self-actualize in supporting and perfecting the existing order,
eliminating logical contradictions, systematization, i.e. in avoiding excessive thinking activity.

On the other hand, extraverts with dominant T (thinking) develop and apply various methods, they are rather
indifferent to classifications that impede practical activity, practice is a criterion of truth!; in other words, they
are not afraid of excessive activity, they even find pleasure in making still schemes more dynamic.

4. RATIONALITY/IRRATIONALITY:

this last dichotomy deals with adherence to principle (rationality) or spontaneity, flexibility (irrationality).
Psychology has an almost synonymous term: rigidity/lability.

These last two criteria describe DYNAMICS of human neural system. Very often, people do not even realize why
they do this way it's natural for me, that's all! Each person is sometimes active, sometimes quiet, sometimes
spontaneous, sometimes regular, but it is hard to ignore that some people are hyper-excitable even when they
try to be calm, others are rather steady, even-tempered.

These last two criteria, in our opinion, are adequately identifiable only at close distance, or (in case of
determining type in absence) through detailed studies of biography, facts etc. Even excitable people may
sometimes look calm, restrained (especially when they get tired by their own excitability), even shy people may
sometimes look aggressive (especially when they are really feared).

Many socionists believe that AT LEAST PARTLY these last two criteria are relevant to classical Hippocrates'
temperaments. What is their nature? Most probably they are relevant to hormonal regulation of the brain. There
were many researches in this field (Eysenck, Simonov, Khomskaya etc.), but their results only partly coincide,
and we are still far from understanding their nature.

We would suggest you to read V.Talanov's works (in Russian) that summarize all the hypotheses about neurophysiological nature of Jung's dichotomies. Look e.g.: .., - ..
. .: , .: , 2002. 928 .
Another neuro-physiological hypothesis about Jung's dichotomies is here (in English):
http://www.benziger.org/

If you need more details about Jung's own viewpoint, you can find C.G.Jung's texts in English here:
http://www.cgjungpage.org/

Question (Kalin Yanev):

Are these two dichotomies, T/F and S/N, independent? For to me they seem partly similar.

Jung himself in Tavistock Lectures mentioned complaints expressed by readers of his books: they said they
sometimes could not distinguish Feeling from Sensation, Thinking from Intuition.

This is a linguistic problem, not scientific. In many languages, including Russian, English, German, there are
many words describing intersections of Jung's criteria. For example, Russian word chuwstvo (sense, feeling)
is associated both with Feeling and with Sensing, in Jung's sense.
For this reason, in Socionics the criterion Thinking/Feeling was renamed into Logic/Ethic in order to mark up the
difference more clearly.

Intuition/Sensing deals with perception (this is why intuition or sensing is a dominant function for irrational
types), while Logic/Ethic deals with methods of argumentation, judgment, evaluation (this is why logic or ethic is
a dominant function for rational types).
In our real life, however, we deal NOT WITH ABSTRACT DICHOTOMIES, but with concrete human traits. These
traits, we would say, represent interaction of multiple criteriaincluding Jung's dichotomies.

For example, intuitive+logical types are often perceived by other people as intellectuals, while sensory+ethical
types as the most sensual. However, other two combinations of these criteria also make sense. Sensory+logical
types are often described as "practical, pragmatic, thrifty", while intuitive+ethical typesas "humanitarian,
idealistic".
In the next topic we will try to illustrate all Jung's dichotomies with practical examples. Also, we will try to answer
the following question:
Question (Kalin Yanev):

And my second question: As the types are social schemano matter what is the criterion of defining them,
maybe they are phenomenon related to the social perception? I mean if we perceive someone through some
predefined pattern 1. the info coming from and about him or her will be distorted in a way to match the pattern
and 2. he or she will tend to behave in the expected manner. So where is the difference between type and social
stereotype? How are the objective and relevant features of some type identified?

Continued: Part 2

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