In what language will we negotiate? About overcoming the crisis in socionic diagnostics
V. Gulenko. In what language will we negotiate? About overcoming the crisis in socionic diagnostics
1. Works in different genres
First of all, I want to put the most burning question: is it at all legitimate to compare the results of little connected schools of different levels? Theoretically everything is possible. But the practical impact of such activities in the current environment is questionable. It is the same as comparing a prose novel with a poetic poem. If someonenevertheless decided to take on such a matter, then what goals does he (voluntarily or unwittingly) pursue? Let's see.
Although all socionics admit that there are 16 basic personality types, this is still very little for consistent practice. In a closer linking of a particular way of life of a person with his sociotype, at least two approaches have emerged.
The first revision option splits the sociotype into one or another number of subtypes. The second approach seeks to describe a person as a type system. At one time, I began to move in the first direction, but over time I became convinced of the limitations of its capabilities: the boundaries between the subtypes become more and more shaky. Therefore, at the spring Kiev conference in 1998, I called on socionics conducting active research to take a fundamentally new step - to proceed to the modeling of the psyche as an integral type system.
In order to ensure the comparability of the results of opposing methodologies and socionic schools, it is necessary to at least remove the strict restriction on attributing a person to only one type. I propose to build an experiment more flexibly: allow the experts to classify the test person into two types without specifying which one is the main and which one is additional.
Some people think that the assessment criterion can be a person’s agreement with one of the existing socionic descriptions of the type. This is a deep misconception. Even if you give a person to read a set of descriptions of different authors, it does not help to clarify. On the contrary, the matter is even more confused. Psychological portraits are written in different conceptual languages, often contradict one another.
I do not even mention that, apart from the type of Ego, a specific person has his own internal image, I, or I-concept, as psychologists say. In other words, the way a person is assessed by external observers and how he himself imagines himself from within is not the same thing. Few people have such a developed reflection that in any situation they will clearly distinguish their natural Ego from the artificially created Ego.
2. Lack of typological diversity
The circle of persons who will be selected by the organizers as subjects for the tournament is likely to be very narrow. I do not mean different types of occurrence depending on the area of residence, age category, social status, etc., although this will also affect the sample. As a rule, only intuitive types, more often extroverts, will volunteer for participation in exponential diagnostics.
I am sure that most diagnosticians will feel that there are many different types in front of them. But it will not. We will encounter approximately the same three or four Ego-types that have a wide variety of ideas about themselves (I-concepts). Experts will see a large number of intuitive extroverts who consider themselves introverts (the tendency of self-esteem, which I established long ago). Not only will there be male ethics, absolutely sure that they are logicians, etc.
Any more or less reliable method of distinguishing quantitative gradations of a function or attribute from their qualitative steps has not yet been created in any of the socionic schools I know. For example, one school uses a binary scale extroversion / introversion, while another resorts to a more complex quaternary scale: bright extrovert / moderate extrovert / moderate introvert / bright introvert.
What to do in this situation? It is impossible to reduce a more differentiated scale to a simpler one. Here, as in the translation of a complex work from one language to another, a significant amount of information will be lost. It remains to introduce something like nominations. It would be reasonable to at least separate the group of experts from the orthodox direction - those who do not recognize subtypes from the group of supporters of the modernized typology.
Therefore, the preliminary stage of selection of persons for open comparative diagnosis is no less, if not more important, than the process of determining the type. If we do not agree at the outset, the typological diversity of the selected respondents is at least 7–8 types, without specifying which ones, further progress will be impossible.
3. Who is more likely to succeed?
Let's not be mistaken about the scientific status of diagnostic tournaments. Any mass event, especially in our time, will become a show. This will further contribute to the youth audience. Such a turn in the development of socionics somewhat unnerves its veterans, but it fully corresponds to the spirit of our market time.
The results obtained in such a popular way cannot be recognized as scientifically reliable in principle. We are waiting for a clash of ambition, not scientific methods. On the other hand, the competitive and entertaining nature of the event will make socionics an advertisement, but not as a discipline focused on the search for neuropsychological roots of social phenomena, but as an exciting game. I, like many other socionics with many years of experience, obviously, are not interested in such a scenario.
The winner, given the well-known socionic laws, is not the school that will determine the sociotypes most fully and reliably, but the one that works best for the public. Effects of suggestion and acting skills will play a predominant role. Even if you do not set a special goal to identify the winner, the procedure of public comparison itself will lead to this. The appearance of public or secret tournament ratings will not slow down to shift the well-established equilibrium in the current market of socionic products in an easily predictable direction.
Until now, sociotypes set the tone at scientific conferences on socionics, firstly, with a research facility for the type of activity and, secondly, not belonging to the second quadra. It is very likely that in the case of the representative character of the conference expected in 1999, Dnepropetrovsk will be dominated by non-sentimental, but socially competitive sociotypes of the second quadra.
I do not want to say that it will be bad. It will just be a qualitatively different stage in the development of the socionic movement. Stage of centralization and regulation. If only he did not go further than the coordination of freely working socionic schools. Coming from the second quadra, centralism and authoritarianism have little to do with the fact that socionics proclaims its central task.
4. Comparative Studies in Socionics
Despite all the difficulties I have listed, I am sure that the locomotive of the current socionics, which is idle on the siding, will receive a good boost of energy as an informal flow of social thought. We need this shake-up, this cold shower in order to begin a more serious and responsible attitude to dialogue between schools.
No one can do without a common language. Otherwise, we will repeat the biblical story about the Tower of Babel. There is a need to develop a new section in socionics - comparative studies (lat. Comparativus - comparative). It is highly desirable to organize a meeting of working groups of different schools not just at the negotiating table - just as the conciliation commissions work in parliament. Compromise is not a matter. It is necessary that the joint interquadral group of experts create working documents, for example, prognostic descriptions of the behavior of a person of a particular type in standardized situations.
In this case, it is not a simple comparison of empirical results, but a thorough systematic comparison of socionic types with each other according to the maximum number of parameters. The comparative method assumes that a point-by-point standardized description of how each type of behavior differs from the 15 others is created. Moreover, the comparison should be made at all levels of communication - physical, psychological, social, intellectual.
A good example can be the solution of the problem of diagnostic languages by American scientists, who, jointly by specialists from various fields, have developed a handbook on diagnostic personality disorders DSM - IV, published in 1994. Within its framework, it was possible to create a unified diagnostic terminology that arranged for both practitioners and researchers.
We must finally realize that there is no real pure sociotype in nature - some kind of objective standard. It makes sense to adopt the concept of the German sociologist Max Weber on the ideal type, on the one hand, and the theory of personality traits (R. R. Kettel). It is these proven theory in the humanities theory, if synthesized based on the procedures of combinatorial and factor analysis, and form the skeleton of comparative studies in the future.
Having collectively developed system-comparative characteristics in their hands , practicing socionics will be able to independently make a more or less objective comparison of the behavior of people in standardized test situations. And socionic tournaments will go down in the history of socionics as an exciting youth method of popularizing typological knowledge about a person and society.
Literature
- Weber M. Selected Works. M .: 1990.
- L. Kjell, D. Zigler. Personality Theories (Fundamentals, Research and Application) .- SPb., Peter Press, 1997, p. 307-313.
- Oldham J., Morris L. Get to know yourself. Self portrait of your personality. - Per. from English .- M .: RIPOL CLASSIC, "Veche", 1997, p. 8 - 10.
- Psychology. Dictionary / Pod obshch. ed. A. V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. - M .: Politizdat, 1990, p. 475.
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