Gulenko's Fifth Dimension

The mystery of the fifth dimension. 
From the experience of sociological diagnosis by interview.

V. Century Gulenko , Kiev, 24. 01. 1993.

Published: "Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology" , 1997, № 2.

1. What is the type?

It is equally difficult to explain what a type is like to strangers, people unfamiliar with socionics, and scientists, by virtue of their profession, engaged in classifications of various objects and phenomena. There is no doubt that the type is one of the highest ranks of this classification. Therefore, when you say that a sociotype is a category of people united by a community of any external or internal features, opponents agree: after all, we remain at a very, very abstract level, which does not directly affect our characterological qualities through comparison with other people.

When I narrow the definition, claiming that the type is a set of stable qualities of the human psyche, many people start to disagree, because they do not believe that there is something unchanging in a person. Those who are ignorant in typology generally do not admit that stable psychological types of people exist, while scientists demand an objective criterion for the identification of types. When they learn about Jung bipolar scales, they unanimously claim that these signs are not fixed and therefore there are no resistant types. Well, it is difficult to argue with them, but still try.

And the truth is, where exactly, in which shell are there the Jung signs “rationality-irrationality”, “logic-ethics”, “sensory-intuition”, “extra-introversion”, the combination of which forms the socionic type? I bet that the socionics themselves cannot imagine where.Fortunately, for theoretical developments this is not necessary, because these signs are the parameters for controlling mental processes, and not the direct properties of the processes themselves. Consequently, to search for their strict localization simply does not make sense. They permeate the entire central and peripheral nervous system of man. They are signs of signs and therefore difficult to capture.

Let us return, however, to the question of what typological signs materialize. Perhaps in a person's appearance? It is unlikely, since there are apparently very similar people with completely different sociotypes. A child resembles a father or a mother in terms of physique and shape of a face, but his type may not coincide with his parents. It follows that a type cannot be reliably determined in statics, for example, from a single photo. The statement “I have an acquaintance of the X type, who looks exactly the same” is a frivolous argument.

Maybe the type is in the nature of communication? This is a dynamic characteristic of the psychology of personality. Also not, because the type can manifest itself through any temperament. Moreover, the individual is usually endowed with several temperaments and, accordingly, has very different modes of communication one from another in society.

Then suppose that the sociotype is hidden in the very change in the dynamics of communication, that is, in what we usually call behavior. And again, you can not answer positively. If this were so, we could predict a person’s behavior, knowing his sociotype, with great precision. Practice shows that this is impossible. Human behavior is subject to his conscious will, and the type is, by definition, fixed and not subject to free change.

Where is the type encrypted, if not in the behavior itself? I think in the way of controlling the change of its change. The fact is that the parameter I have indicated is a function of such complexity that is no longer susceptible to awareness by the means of the psyche of an ordinary person, and therefore is not controlled by it.

2. Five dimensions of the psyche.

Let's go through this chain again. Man in statics, externally and internally, is the zero dimension. Such a state is almost impossible, just as there is in life, say, an ideal point, which has neither length nor width.

A person enters into communication: moving in space, exchanging information, showing emotions first dimension. Now the next step. A person's communicative states change his motor and emotional reactions speed up or slow down.

This is the second dimension.

A person is able to lead his communicative changes, that is, he "behaves" himself. We are talking about the behavior, the third, three-dimensional dimension of personality. The nature of human behavior also changes over time, which means that the way to control one’s behavior is still realized. This is the fourth dimension.

But from this point the feedback condition, without which it is impossible to control oneself, breaks off. Practically it can be argued that a person is not able to effectively track the change in the way he controls his behavior. The content of such recursive phrases is processed by the human psyche with great difficulty or is not absorbed at all. That is, for example, having reached the phrase “I think if he knows that I know that I know how his behavior changes,” you just lose the whole meaning of the message and work with it at best, as with a three-dimensional statement .

The psyche cannot process such complex meanings as a whole. Rather, she could if she could break out of this semantically four-dimensional phrase. Unfortunately, nature has not endowed man with such an ability. The fifth dimension remains closed to us. But we can judge it by the traces that it leaves in our native four-dimensional space. These traces are the facts on the basis of which we can and should judge the type of individual psyche.

In the literature on psychology, such phenomena are usually depicted as several times the profiles of a person nested in one another. To depict a sociotype, you need to put one profile into another profile five times. So, a type in socionics is a derivative of many functions, the formation of multiple nesting, which is ideal and exists as long as the person itself exists. To illustrate this idea more clearly, I will give an analogy of the RIVER. Compare the human psyche with the image of the natural flow. Any river, while it remains so, will have a surface of water that is in constant change from the most accidental causes; then the upper layer of water permeated by currents of different directions; then follow the lower layers, the movement of which is already insignificant; and, finally, the bottom is the hardest part of this natural complex.

How would you define the "type" of the river? The easiest way would be to go into the fifth dimension to observe the life of the river from the shore. From this point of view, it immediately becomes clear that the functional type of the river as a whole is not waves on its surface, not underwater currents, not the temperature of the lower layers, and not even bottom topography, but a way of coordinated existence of all these four components combined.

However, we must not forget that in reality we are not given to go to the shore of our psychological flow, thus becoming independent of it. Nevertheless, we have at least four possibilities for sociological diagnosis. The first in terms of emotional-speed features of human communication, the second in terms of human behavior, the third in controlling reactions to their behavior, and the fourth in matching all these parameters to each other.

The mythical nature of a sociotype, therefore, lies only in the fact that it exists in the fifth dimension of personal space.

3. Work on all channels.

The main conclusion I came to when trying to find reliable diagnostic methods was the need to use all the sensory channels that nature has endowed us with. As is known, representatives of many socionic schools are trying to do this purely verbally based on some questionnaires. The effectiveness of such attempts is very low. I think the unproductiveness of the verbal-semantic methods of identification is explained by quite understandable reasons, in particular:

• people, even if they speak the same language and it is native for them, often put different meanings into the words they use, because of which the same phenomenon or property is viewed from completely different angles of view,
• many, especially extroverts, very poorly know themselves and their capabilities, therefore, they find it difficult to express unequivocal judgments about their inner world,
• brightly irrational sociotypes, subject to strong fluctuations of mood and activity, do not understand the specifics of socionic identification; for them, any methods of firm classification of personality seem unacceptable in principle,
• people tend to change their behavior in the process of self-esteem: they unwittingly seek to expose themselves in the best possible way, and their ideas about what is better and what is worse are, again, subjective.

Already from childhood, each ethic is able to read the internal manifestations of the interlocutor's psyche by their external signs, facial expressions, gestures, intonations, breathing rhythm, complexion. The logician can do the same thing, but he will have to, of course, strain himself more. But the task, which he undertakes to solve in the course of diagnostics, is simpler.

It is not to penetrate the state of the human soul. Not. Logic simply needs to learn to reliably determine whether the question that he offered to the subject for an answer “went” or not. If the question is not resonated, that is, it has not found an internal response from the interlocutor, it must either be reformulated or replaced with another.

In addition to hearing, a person has a more powerful visual channel. Why does the socionic act as if he temporarily becomes blind: sees signs written on paper, but refuses to read bodily signs? If you really want to master the method of diagnostic interviews, I recommend that you rely more on your own, as NLP experts say, sensory experience.

Although one should not confuse this expression with the Jungian sensory function. Most likely, these abilities are related to the information aspect of ethics that function, which is still related to making judgments, and not just to perception.

Reinforcing diagnostics with sensitive observation of behavioral reactions does not mean simply detecting gestures, attitudes, intonations and movements of a person. It is necessary to learn to capture the process, not the state, that is, how these gestures, attitudes, intonations, etc., change, increase or decrease, appear or disappear.

True, this is only the third dimension, but according to our practice, it is already possible to more or less reliably judge the type of it. In this case, it is desirable that a person does not guess what exactly is determined in it. The ignorance of the subject in this case is your ally.

I am also convinced that sociological diagnostics can and should be carried out according to all differential features. Socionic typology is also successfully built on the signs discovered by Rainin [1], as well as on Jung's classical dichotomies. For example, we will get the same 16 types by combining such pairs of features as “evolution-involution”, “static-dynamics”, “resolution-discursiveness” and “aristocratic-democratism”.

So, individual socio-analysis is the analysis of the human psyche by pairs of polar signs. In other words, dismemberment, anatomy, the allocation of fundamental principles. Then, of course, these elements need to be reassembled, so that the original mechanism works in the same mode or even better.

Having undergone such a procedure, a person (if an experienced specialist works with him, of course) is aware of many of his hidden problems. And the correct awareness of the problem, as we know, is already fifty percent of its solution. Therefore, one should not be afraid of the mechanism of sociological analysis: it is impossible to debug the mechanism, even the thinnest, without understanding its structure.

However, I do not deny even irrational approaches in socionics, that is, those that do not engage in division into parts. Well, let the other side be heard. However, winning in speed, holistic irrational identification loses the powerful psychotherapeutic effect of the action itself.

At the end of the article I propose a definition of a sociotype, which forms the basis of my methodology. The socionic type is a system of directives according to which a person unconsciously controls the management of changes in his behavior.

Check the dimensionality: the first dimension behavior, the second dimension change behavior, the third dimension change control, the fourth dimension control control. Consequently, the system of directives for such control is in the fifth dimension. Everything is good.

At this one could put an end. But I can not ignore another fundamental fact. Individual sociotype does not exist in isolation! One should take into account the inevitable imposition on it of one or several integral types of micro and macrosocium. In socio-analysis, therefore, at least eight levels of a person’s psychological life are studied:

1. temperament, by which I understand the emotional-motor proportions of the communication process,
2. behavior, by which I understand the change of various communication modes,
3. nature, i.e., trends in behavior change in the process of adaptation,
4. upbringing, i.e. control of behavior changes,
5. individual sociotype itself,
6. integral type of informal group in which an individual is included (primarily family and circle of friends),
7. integral type of a formal group in which an individual’s public and professional activities take place,
8. the type of mentality of the nation in which the individual developed.

Do not be afraid of the seeming complexity of the approach. Thinking with four-dimensional concepts is a new frontier that we have to master on the fascinating way of knowing society through man and man through society. Yes, do not stay away from this intellectual holiday.

Literature

1. Augustinavichiute, A. Theory of signs of Reinin. 1985, manuscript.
2. Gulenko V.V., Molodtsov A.V. Introduction to Socionics. Method. recommendations. Kiev, VZUUP, 1991, p. 6
3. Mikhailov V.S. Theory of Management. Kiev, Vishcha school, 1988, p. 10-11.