Sep 8, 2007

Building Blocks of Socionics

Socionics is an unwieldy field with a huge number of categories, hypotheses, and stereotypes, as well as competing descriptions that either describe the same thing from different angles or simply contradict each other.

What are the most basic building blocks of socionics?

1. A couple general ideas which are basically self-evident to observant thinking people, but need to be assimilated all the same:

a) the "differentiation of the psyche" (see article at socionics.us) and the concept of aspects of information ("facets of reality")
b) the fact that there are factors that determine the nature of our psychological interaction with other people outside of our will

2. A couple complex logical systems and their correct formulations:

a) what each element of information metabolism means
- which aspects of reality each element perceives and processes
- behaviors and states of mind associated with each element
b) the socionic model of the psyche (i.e. Model A)
- attitudes and qualities associated with the IM elements in each position (function) of Model A
- how the element in each position responds to stimuli from other people in society
- relationships between different functions of Model A

Basically, all the rest of socionics can be derived from the systems in point 2, include type descriptions, intertype relations, dichotomies, quadras, clubs, etc.

The problem is that existing formulations of the above categories are almost always lacking -- missing some details and overemphasizing others. Also, they have not been gathered in one place and given a detailed "scrubbing." This is what we are trying to do at Wikisocion:

These tasks aren't yet finished, but are moving along well. I think the result will be quite exhaustive and authoritative. People will be able to study and compare the different descriptions to better understand the model and IM elements and how they play out in behavior and interaction. Many people do not realize that Model A has actually never been fully elucidated anywhere, and Model A is the backbone of all socionics! Hopefully, within a few months we will have a comprehensive presentation of the main building blocks of socionics.

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