Socionics

Socionics provides a means of predicting the character of relations and degree of business compatibility, information sharing and psychological compatibility of people before their joining in one collective group, i.e. to solve the "inverse task" of sociometry. According to Aleksandr Bukalov and Betty Lou Leaver, socionics uses Jungian typology, informational model of psyche, and theory of information metabolism for political and sociological analysis. According to J. Horwood, and A. Maw, socionics is a science developed by in the 1970s. and her colleagues worked with Carl Jung's personality typologies to develop personality-based relationship profiles. It was found that the nature and development of interpersonal relationships (both professional and personal) are far from random. Instead, they are based on how well suited each individual's psychological profiles are to one another, allowing to develop 16 'socionic types' predicting and describing the interpersonal relationships between any combination of Jung's personality types. Philosopher E. Pletuhina defines socionics as the study about the information interaction of the human psyche with the outside world, between people. She also defines it as the doctrine of psychological types of people and the relationships between them, as well as notes that the particular quality of socionics is that it considers the innate qualities of the human psyche, including the personality type, which cannot be arbitrarily changed without prejudice to the mental and physical health. ==History==

The basic structure of socionics was established in the 1960s and 1970s by , along with a group of enthusiasts who met in Vilnius, Lithuania. What resulted from their discussions and 's personal investigations was an information model of the psyche and of interpersonal interaction based on Jung's typology but with eight psychic functions rather than four. 's first works on socionics were published between 1978 and 1980. Socionics as an academic discipline Through the work of the International Institute of Socionics and other schools of socionics, there are four scientific peer-reviewed journals (on the practical application of the methods of socionics in management, consulting, psychology, pedagogy, education, psychotherapy, and humanities) and an annual International conference on socionics. The Institute gives "popularization and proliferation of socionic knowledge" as one of its goals. Svetlana V. Ivanova claims that socionics is taught in more than 150 universities in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS and European Union countries. Areas of research include educational socionics, sociological socionics, aviation socionics, library socionics, technical socionics, linguistic socionics, penitentiary socionics, and socionics in other subject areas. Socionics is used in education, not only as a tool for teachers to manage the learning process, but also as a basis for the development and improvement of education and training. Bogdanova claim that a teacher holding socionic knowledge and technologies can consciously collaborate with others and improve professional efficiency. Targeted use of intertype relations helps intensify the didactic process, increase the motivation of students. Socionics is also used to assess the individual psychological and personal qualities to forecast the success of employee career. Izmailova and Kiseleva found socionics interesting to be applied in advertising and marketing, because it allows you to explain the reasons for the behavior of consumers. Socionics is a tool for the study of personality and creativity of the writer, the typology of the characters in his works. The method of linguistic-socionic modeling proposed by L. M. Komissarova, used for analysis of individual lexicon of language personality. A translation of socionic characteristics in verbal ones is called the "method of linguistic-socionic modeling" and widely used. Socionic methods have been proposed for the modeling of information processes in the "human-machine" systems, and practically used to model systems "aircraft operator" in pilots' training, Bukalov believes that the concept of information metabolism, cybernetic modeling and general systems theory extends beyond of psychology and sociology, and consider the relationship of technical information devices, and the types of information human interactions as operator with various technical and electronic management systems of major industries, including chemical, nuclear power stations, complex computer complexes with adaptive tunable to a specific operator interfaces. Pletuhina noted that the parent, trainer or teacher, who knows the theory of socionics, who also understands an idea of the "image of a socionics type" and who can determine the child's personality type with a sufficient degree of probability can use those opportunities of the individual approaches that socionics provides to raise and educate a child. It is also a base for development and improving the educational system and for preparing staff. Teachers armed with socionics technology can consciously establish relationships with other people and increase efficiency of their pedagogical skills. Rational implementation of intertype relationships can push educational process to become more intensive and increase students' motivation. Socionics is also researched practical methods and techniques dedicated to evaluation person's individual psychological values to prognoses professional success. Keneva, Marchenko, and Minaev argue that socionics might become a theoretical base for personal-oriented educational technologies. ==Information metabolism elements ==

In socionics, Jung's cognitive functions are always either introverted (focused on refining quality) or extroverted (focused on increasing quantity), and are referred to as information metabolism elements (IM Elements). These are said to process information aspects. To understand what an information aspect is, it is necessary to understand information metabolism as Augustinavičiūtė understood it. states that the human mind uses eight elements of information metabolism (mental functions) to perceive the world, and each of these eight elements reflect one particular aspect of objective reality. In her works she describes aspects of the world based on physical quantities such as potential and kinetic energy, space, time, and their properties. Often, other socionists have equated these information elements with their definition and according to fundamental physical concepts as well (Matter-Time-Energy-Space).). Matter is compared to Thinking, Energy to Feeling, Space to Sensing, and Time to Intuition. Given the division of aspects of the absolute between Extroverted ("black") and Introverted ("white"), being four times two, their number is eight. The 8 socionics symbols ( ) were introduced by while working with Jung's typology or Myers-Briggs notation (Te, Fe, Se, Ne, Ti, Fi, Si, and Ni, respectively). ==The 16 types==

usually used names like sensory-logical introvert (SLI) to refer to the types. In SLI the leading function is introverted sensation and the creative function is extraverted logic. She also introduced the practice of referring to types by the name of a famous person of the type (although types of these persons are not universally agreed upon, with the old name Napoleon for the SEE being replaced by Caesar after being deemed an inaccurate type assignment). For example, she called the SLI Gabin and the SEI Dumas. Also sometimes names such as Craftsman or Mediator are used to express the social role of the type—a convention introduced by socionist Viktor Gulenko in 1995. Given the formal similarities present between Socionics and the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) abbreviations frequently used in English, some prefer to distinguish socionic type names from Myers–Briggs' names by writing the last letter (J or P) in lower case (for example, ENTp, ESFj)—a practice introduced by Sergei Ganin. This is because the relationship between socionics and Myers–Briggs and Keirseyan types is controversial. Dmitri Lytov and Marianna Lytova state that "main spheres of application of socionics are almost the same as for the Myers–Briggs Type Theory", and that observed differences in correlation "represent characteristic stereotypes of the socionics and the Keirsey typology. Others state that MBTI and socionics "correlate in roughly 30% of cases," and that "there are many subtle differences". J and P in Socionics and Myers–Briggs are completely different: in Myers–Briggs, J and P stands for the first extraverted function (J—extraverted thinking or feeling, P—extraverted sensing or intuition); in Socionics, J and P stands for the first function (J—rational (thinking and feeling), P—irrational (sensing and intuition)). This formal conversion is carried out in accordance with the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. In dividing the socion according to the four Jungian dichotomies, from this is formed 16 socionic types. The following tables provide a list of types with the names most commonly used in socionics: The second concept is the functional dimensions. It was introduced by Aleksandr Bukalov. He defined the first dimension as the personal experience (Ex), the second dimension as social norms (Nr), the third dimension as the current situation (St), and the fourth dimension as the globality, or time perspective (Tm). This concept is useful because it best illustrates the difference in cognitive power (imagine measuring capability of 2D v. 3D measuring tool) and roughly describes abilities of each function to process and generate information. Still, definitions of dimensions require further research and clarification. For example, the vulnerable function tends to lose knowledge which have not been used. == Criticism ==

Psychophysiologist Sergey Bogomaz says there is no reason for considering socionics as a separate science. He considers socionic typology to be a Russian version of post-Jung typology, similar to the Myers-Briggs typology, but distinguished by a greater number of typological features and the formulation of prerequisites for the study of intertype relationships. Bogomaz considers the construction of the theory of intertype relationships to be an undoubted contribution of to the development of Jung typology, but criticized it by stating that there is little experimental data in socionics, there is no empirical verification of many claims, and by having many unsystematic pseudoscientific publications. Philosopher L. M. Monastirsky identified the use of speculative categories as the first shortcoming of socionics. Secondly, he stated that it lacks clearly defined typing method and each socionics school defines methods of their own. At the same time Monastirsky, recognizing the potential of socionics, proposed to turn to the concept of a socionic type for carrying out some research in the field of the methodology of science. In the early 2000s, socionic analysts tried to develop more rigorous approaches to type diagnosis. ==See also==