8. Socionics

In Socionics, as in the MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®), there is a division into 16 types. Socionics is also confused or identified with MBTI®, due to some similarities that exist between these typologies. For example, letter names of individual types and some similar divisions. Both typologies are also based on Jung’s “Psychological Types”.

Socionics is a very extensive theory. For me personally, it is also one of the most difficult typologies to understand. On the other hand, however, Socionics for me was and is a very valuable source of inspiration. The amount of knowledge and interesting ideas that we can find in Socionics is really impressive.

One of the difficulties, which is making an approach to Socionics harder, it is its language. It means this language is very scientific. Personally, it is giving me a big headache. I am reading it, but I do not understand it. So, in this chapter, I am trying to learn Socionics more.

To make Socionics more accessible, I made many diagrams. I hope that over time it will help me and others to understand Socionics more and more.

At the moment, many Socionics’ definitions and descriptions in the below chapters, I just translated into English. I was not able yet to translate them into my more straightforward language. I hope I will do it later. So, if you will get a headache during reading, please forgive me.

But, anyway, as I mentioned above, Socionics is unique and incredible personality theory. It is really one of a kind.

Socionics created a Lithuanian Aušra Augustinavičiute. She based her typology primarily on:
— Jung’s “Psychological Types”, and based on Jung’s typology—MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®,
— and on the concept of information metabolism introduced by the Polish psychiatrist Antoni Kępiński.

In this chapter, I would like to introduce how the personality types that we can find in Socionics are arranged on the Mandala of Characters.

However, it is hard to do:
— without prior describing the elements of which Socionics is composed,
— and without presenting the divisions that Socionics contains.

So, let us show the main Socionics elements and divisions.

8.1. Information elements

There are 8 information elements in Socionics:

• Extratic (Extraverted) Intuition — Ne, or
  Intuition of potentialities (opportunities) — I


• Introtic (Introverted) Intuition — Ni, or
  Intuition of time — T


• Extratic Sensorics (Extraverted Sensation) — Se, or
  Force Sensorics (or volitional Sensorics) — F


• Introtic Sensorics (Introverted Sensation) — Si, or
  Perceptive Sensorics (Comfort Sensation) — S


• Extratic Logic (Extraverted Thinking) — Te, or
  Practical (business, pragmatic) Logic — P


• Introtic Logic (Introverted Thinking) — Ti, or
  Structural Logic — L


• Extratic Ethics (Extraverted Feeling) — Fe, or Emotional Ethics — E


• Introtic Ethics (Introverted Feeling) — Fi, or
  Ethics of relations — R

Information elements are also called—aspects.

Besides the above letter labels, the information elements (aspects) also have graphic symbols.

The above information elements are based, among others, on Jung’s typology. Therefore, above, we can see the following terms:

• Ethics,
• Logic,
• Sensorics, and
• Intuition.

The above terms are equivalent to the basic psychological functions that we have in Jung’s typology. In Socionics, however, the above psychological functions are called differently than in Jung’s theory. These differences in the name of the functions are as follows:

• Ethics—which Jung described as—Feeling,
• Logic—which Jung described as—Thinking,
• Sensorics—which Jung described as—Sensation, (in MBTI® we have—Sensing),
• Intuition—here we have the same mane as in Jung’s typology, that is, Intuition.

In Socionics above, Jung’s basic psychological functions are also treated as:
— information functions,
— main types of information,
— I think we can also say that these are the main sources of information.

As we can see in the table above, to every information function (main type or source of information), we can assign two information elements. For greater clarity, I show it in the next table.

I will also present the above table in the diagram.

Above, I have arranged the Extratic and Introtic Elements in a way that corresponds to the location of Extraversion and Introversion on the Mandala of Characters.

Then, let us apply the information elements (aspects) to the Mandala.

In Mandala of Characters, the information elements are smaller than in Socionics. This is because:
— Mandala of Characters is built on the foundation of Ancient Typology, where is distinguished 12 symbolic areas. These areas are represented by 12 main types of characters.
— in Socionics is distinguished 8 parts, that is, information elements (or aspects). These elements are, among others, divided into many kinds of dichotomies, and they can perform various functions.

Why it is like that, we can see in the two diagrams above. It means:
— On Mandala of Characters, the equivalents of basic psychological functions (that is, Intuition, Sensorics, Logic, and Ethics) occupy four separate areas. These are the areas where individual basic psychological functions have the greatest impact. Or in other words, they are in the areas where they are the greatest force.
— In Socionics, each functions contains two information elements (aspects).

The division of the Mandala into twelve parts results, in short, from the fact that it is based on three typologies. It means it is based on:
— Ancient Typology,
— Enneagram, and
— Jung’s “Psychological Types”.

The combination of these three typologies made Mandala divided into 12 parts. Parts, which are represented by 12 main types of characters.

Socionics, as I mentioned above, is mainly based on:
— Jung’s typology and based on Jung’s theory—MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®),
— and on the concept of information metabolism by Antoni Kępiński.

So, in short, Mandala of Characters and Socionics are built differently.

Coming back to Socionics and its information elements, these elements personally remind me of a kind of “building blocks”. “Building blocks” which in Socionics are arranged and considered in various possible ways.

The first way to consider Socionics’ information elements is to divide them into so-called dichotomies. That is, into two groups significantly different from each other. In other words, these are elements, which are opposite to each other, or we have polarities or contrary characters between them.

Among the dichotomies of information elements, we can distinguish the divisions into:

• dynamic and static elements,
• object-oriented and relation-oriented,
• rational and irrational.

So, let us present the above dichotomies one by one with the help of diagrams.