Reflections on Reinin Dichotomies

The Reinin dichotomies are subject to quite varied and controversial use in Socionics.  Different communities either have different definitions of them, use some more than others, or even scorn their use entirely.  Whole Socionics wrote a blogpost about this controversy in August, which I'll post my response to here (under each heading in the original blogpost) since there is quite a bit to discuss on this topic (I wrote most of this a while ago in a discussion on the 16types forum):

What are the Reinin dichotomies?

This introduction seems concise and unobjectionable to me.

Where's the beef?

I agree that the Reinin dichotomies aren't obviously meaningful, based on the operation used to produce them. The structure and scale of operation of the different Reinin dichotomies also needs to be freshly examined and not merely assumed. One difference I see with the Socionics dichotomies that can be used to produce Reinin dichotomies, as compared to something like "Men who eat ice cream, and women who don't", is that they are part of a highly abstract and general orientation system meant to illuminate properties of humans and reality with very fundamental principles, as compared to somewhat random attributes. E.g. In coordinate geometry, Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 3 in the usual two-dimensional coordinate plane, do actually have a lot in common (even though one is positive in both coordinates, and one is negative in both coordinates), so that operation does sometimes work in a meaningful way. However, I agree that it has to be examined critically and not just assumed, because the consequences of this logical grouping process in reality are not obvious from a priori categorizations. At the end of the day, we have to type with what we can see works, and see what other empirical patterns might tumble out of that, and then find their empirical meaning within the potential frameworks.

Gulenko doesn't seem to me to be behind the names of these dichotomies, and his interpretations are only sometimes influential. Mironov's study is where the unfortunate degree of influence is, and I agree with the majority of the blogpost's criticisms of it (probably Gulenko does to). Gulenko is quite critical of the modern use of Reinin dichotomies, including: their names, their semantic content, and their sometimes problematic derivation which the blogpost complains about with its ice cream example. So the claim that "It seems Gulenko's names are the ones that largely stuck, and have influenced how the dichotomies tend to be interpreted now" is unfounded. He has openly criticized the names of Process/Result, Asking/Declaring, Merry/Serious, Judicious/Decisive, warns about the pitfalls of the names of Positivist/Negativist and Aristocratic/Democratic, and doesn't use the "lesser signs" at all.

As for Grigory Reinin's attitude towards the Reinin dichotomies, it is true that he is skeptical of their semantic content. However, he has another important opinion from his 2011 interview:

What do you consider harmful and unacceptable for socionics?1) Intolerance in discussions between different areas. -Reinin

Therefore, while it is true that Reinin would not recommend "believing in the Reinin dichotomies", and neither would I, he would also most likely reject flippant intolerance in discussing them.

They remain controversial in the Eastern community: Dmitri Lytov did a survey and asked socionists to rate different concepts in socionics based on reliability, with 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. While IM elements, Model A, and quadra values all scored over 4, Reinin dichotomies scored a shabby average of 2.87, with the most common response being 2.

I read this survey by Lytov. It was very interesting, and the blogpost's report on it is mostly accurate. However, what the post says about Quadra values seems to be contradicted by the actual survey, and I find that suspicious given that the Socionics views of the author promote "Quadra values" far more than is generally agreed upon. It is important that we do not twist things in the direction of our favored ideology. In "reliability of diagnostic criteria", Quadra values scored a shabby "more unreliable than reliable", alongside the Reinin dichotomies. The survey also says:

On the top three with a minus (i.e., as insufficiently reliable methods), the participants rated Reinin’s signs and quadratic values, and the assessment of quadratic values ​​was very consistent, while according to Reinin’s signs there were positive and sharply negative opinions.

To me, that sounds like quadra values were rejected even more consistently than Reinin dichotomies (i.e. it is not even controversial to say that Quadra values are unreliable, whereas it is more controversial to say the same for Reinin dichotomies). In the areas where a rating from 1-5 was called for, Quadra values weren't listed, but the most reasonable assumption is that they are rated close to what Reinin dichotomies are. So Quadra values most assuredly did not score "over a 4", as this blogpost erroneously claims. This lazy trend of blatant factual errors from Whole Socionics is disappointing because the author actually does have interesting albeit controversial points in many areas. As for myself, I'd probably give Reinin dichotomies and Quadra values each a 3 out of 5. They can useful, but on the whole you have to be quite wary of them since you don't want to lose sight of more basic facts.

1. Lack of clarity

I think it could fairly be said that some attempted descriptions of Reinin dichotomies are "not even wrong". If we can't even apply a description in practice, then it probably isn't much good. However, we have to be wary of two things:

-Sometimes they aren't "not even wrong"; they are just wrong! A good example is the Questioner/Declarer dichotomy that is used in the post as an example. This isn't "not even wrong" mush; it's quite clear what it is saying, and it is just clearly wrong. It is more fruitful to be direct rather than ironic or clever in our rejection, if we can.

-The second thing we must be wary of is the possibility of subtle distinctions. Sometimes dichotomies or distinctions can be subtle, but that doesn't mean they aren't clear or significant. Granted, you'd have to see it to use it.

2. No theoretical basis

First of all, the most widely agreed upon theoretical basis from the Lytov survey is the Jungian foundation, not the strength and value function dichotomies (maybe strength then, but not value). Of course, mere consensus isn't the same thing as truth, so that doesn't mean that Quadra values are simply wrong or that the author's point of view isn't valuable. Considering the differences in what people use a basis for their Socionics system, we'll have to try to examine people's perspective from their point of view, rather than our own, to see what they are getting at and resolve disputes. In some cases, Reinin dichotomies are used inconsistently with foundational work, and that should be rejected. However, some people have been able to connect some Reinin dichotomies to a strong foundation such as Jung's, and they have also found emergent unexpected empirical patterns. These cannot be rejected by appealing to theory alone, since theory is answerable to experience and what works. We do have to make sure our theories connect. However, we also must acknowledge what raw empirical patterns exist, and build our theories after this, rather than deriving purely from theories; we can only reason effectively about experiences that we have already had.

Subtypes and Enneagram are separate matters. The enneagram is a separate system to Socionics, and the connection has not yet been rigorously explored. Subtypes are a matter of dispute, like many of the other things we are talking about. Some claim to have done real experiments on them, and have them working reasonably within their Socionics framework. Others don't like the idea as much, but that is a topic for another day.

3. Actual contradictions with the base theory

I agree with the post's comments about LSI and the mobilizing/launcher function. Mironov's Carefree description is not reliable for LSI in most Socionics paradigms. Aristocracy also applies much better to Beta Quadra than Delta Quadra. In general, my personal opinion is that the Central quadras fit Aristocracy (Beta) and Democracy (Gamma) in a more impactful, brighter way, especially in the case of Aristocracy. These dichotomies could possibly be made to work, but a better name and semantics would be desirable for them to fit Alpha and especially Delta better. Lastly, I agree that Ni leading types are better described as Strategists than Tacticians. There are certainly more holes that can be poked in these Mironov descriptions, as the author alludes to.

The Way Forward

For all the reasons above, there is no way to justify using the Reinin dichotomies practically at this time. They aren't useful (and are in fact harmful) for typing people, and mostly not even useful for explaining behavior after the fact. Could they be useful theoretically, in the future? Could they be given definitions that make sense, even if they aren't particularly visible in practice? I think so. I myself have attempted to come up with better definitions, and there are clues which indicate that they hold an important place in the structure of socionics. But the jury is still out on what they mean.

I somewhat agree and somewhat disagree. Certainly the Reinin dichotomies don't work well in typing paradigms such as those of Whole Socionics or World Socionics Society, and are thus harmful to it if you take a "one right way to describe or break down reality" or fundamentalist approach. But, with an attitude that sees the limits of Socionics perspectives at the present time, conditioned by our own habits, experiences, cognitive biases (we all have these issues and need to find ways to actively overcome them, myself included, so this is not an accusation towards the author specifically), more exploration and balancing between points of view is potentially fruitful. It is true that they are not widely agreed upon, but I and some others think that they have potential, and the author of the post I am responding to might be one of those others in his own way. However, we have to be cautious of excessive contrarianism or preclusive inflexibility, otherwise fruitful conversation becomes impossible. I disagree that anyone could even know something like "that there is no way to justify using the Reinin dichotomies practically at this time". There are literally infinite possible ways people could potentially justify this which we don't know. And what we don't know is more important than what we think we do know.  I understand of course why they don't use them in their model, and I think that not using Reinin dichotomies is also a valid starting point.

So, while thinking about Reinin dichotomies may be a fun exercise, I also don't consider it a productive research direction. Maybe thinking about the "other" IM element and function dichotomies would be a nearer goal. In any case, the greatest success will be found in refining and deepening the existing content of the theory, rather than trying to come up with something from scratch. If you put a building on a shaky foundation, it will surely fall down.

A building is likely to fall down on a shaky foundation, but it is just such a shaky foundation to assume that we already know where progress will come in Socionics! With that sort of attitude, Socionics would never have been discovered in the first place!  If research is treated more or less as a formality or justification of what we already think we know, then we have stopped being good epistemologists who "see first, think later, then test." To suggest that we already know where progress will come in an area so abstract and little-studied as Socionics requires an omniscience that we simply do not possess.  Vulnerabilities of our fragile minds such as overconfidence bias, the dunning-kruger effect, confirmation bias, status quo bias, and optimism bias prey upon such rose colored glasses. The important thing about such biases is that a large body of evidence has established that a defining characteristic of cognitive biases is that they manifest automatically and unconsciously over a wide range of human reasoning, so even those aware of the existence of the phenomenon are unable to detect, let alone mitigate, their manifestation via awareness only. Our subjective opinion is thus of limited value without checks and balances on it. That said, continuing to research things from his perspective is something the author is likely to do and this is for sensible reasons, so I hope something fruitful comes out of it. I will research in a different direction, and this is good because we are covering more ground this way, and mutually testing our assumptions which will help build stronger theories all around. Different research groups will research slightly different things, and this has a good effect on science as a whole. So, cheers to that.