WHAT IS SOCIONICS?
Socionics is a psychological typology which is dividing people into 16 types depending on how they percept information from the world.
Socionics describes a way of perceiving information. Notice, it's not a type of behavior, character, set of beliefs, or habits, but specifically how a person perceives information. Some types of information are easily absorbed by us, while others are more challenging. From this comes the strengths and weaknesses of each sociotype.

Socionics was created in the 1970s by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, based on the empirical work of psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and the writings of Antoni Kępiński. It is not a theory because the sociotypes were not invented. Observation of people came first, and only then the description of their typological differences. For convenience, these differences were "packaged" into 16 types.

Socionics could be classified as a branch of differential psychology. That is, the branch of psychology that categorizes people into types based on certain characteristics.

A PERSON HAS MANY CHARACTERISTICS
SOCIOTYPE IS ONE OF THEM!
Meanwhile no typology is capable of describing a person from head to toes: all of his expressions, preferences, traits and actions. Otherwise, we would be robots and Capricorn-Director (sociotype)-Choleric Mike would not differ from Capricorn-Director-Choleric Bryan. But we know that the same people do not exist, besides individuality is a big deal. That is something no typology can describe - why are there almost 8 000 000 000 people on earth all of whom are different. How to understand what is a part of your sociotype and when you are just being a Capricorn? :)
SOCIOTYPE IS IN PERCEPTION
All information in the world can be divided into 8 types, corresponding to 8 lenses of perception: Time Intuition, Possibilities Intuition, Comfort Sensing, Willful Sensing, Structural Logic, Pragmatic Logic, Emotional Ethics, and Relationship Ethics. Their unique combination forms the 16 sociotypes.

Every person uses all 8 lenses. This means that within each of us exists both an introvert and an extrovert, an ethicist and a logician, and so on. However, it is impossible to be equally a logician and an ethicist—there is always a qualitative tilt in one direction.

Naturally and regularly, you perceive information through your two strongest lenses—these are the Base and Creative functions. Conversely, you perceive information weakest through your weak functions—the Painful and Suggestive functions.
SOCIOTYPE
A sociotype is a personality type with a unique way of perceiving the world. There are 16 sociotypes in total, each with its own innate tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, suitable and unsuitable professions.

Here are the names of these sociotypes: Robespierre (Analyst), Hugo (Enthusiast), Don Quixote (Innovator), Dumas (Diplomat), Yesenin (Idealist), Zhukov (Organizer), Hamlet (Ideologist), Gorky (Inspector), Balzac (Critic), Napoleon (Politician), Jack London (Entrepreneur), Dreiser (Guardian), Dostoevsky (Humanist), Stirlitz (Administrator), Huxley (Advisor), Gabin (Master).

These pseudonyms for sociotypes were proposed by the creator of socionics, Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. The definitions in parentheses are our own. A sociotype does not change over the course of life. Your character traits, occupation, habits, social circle, political views, interests, favorite movies may change… But you will still perceive all of this through the same lenses of perception.

A sociotype does not describe or define everything about a person. We cannot be fully described by a single typology. For example, according to the "male/female" typology, you are a woman. By temperament, you might be a sanguine. And by sociotype, you might be a Zhukov. All these are different typologies, and one does not contradict the other. Your personality is a combination of various characteristics. That’s why two people with the same sociotype will still have some differences.
  • CRITERIA FOR
    DETERMINATION
    - semantics of speech
    - functions
    - dichotomies
    - club
    - quadra values

    NEVER CHANGE
  • TENDENCIES OF
    MANIFESTATION
    - skills and abilities
    - habits and behavior
    - nature and tendencies
    - interests and desires
    - appearance and style

    CHANGE OVER A LIFETIME
In socionics, there are criteria for determining type — markers that reliably reflect your sociotype. There are also tendencies that arise from your type of perception — such as appearance, character, behavior, qualities, and skills that are often but not always associated with a particular sociotype. The criteria are strict, while the tendencies are flexible. During typing, a socionist does not take tendencies into account but focuses only on the criteria.

If we draw parallels with the "Male/Female" typology, the criteria for determining that you are a man would be sexual characteristics, hormones, and the set of chromosomes in your DNA. The tendencies of your masculinity would manifest in a masculine style of behavior, voice timbre, short haircut, appearance, and so on.
Development of some skills, behavior and traits can be influenced by lens of perception. But never ever we define the lens of perception on the basis of skills, behavior and traits!
Everything in the second column represents the tendencies of a sociotype's manifestation. As you can see, all of these tendencies are changeable — they are influenced by many factors. For example, today you might enjoy making lists and planning, but tomorrow you might not. Therefore, behavioral tendencies cannot be criteria for determining a sociotype. A socionist notices these tendencies after the fact, once a person's sociotype has already been determined based on the criteria from the first column. Each sociotype is associated with certain tendencies in appearance and behavior. However, a sociotype is never determined based on tendencies.

We determine a sociotype by analyzing speech semantics. Today, this is the most measurable method.

Each type of information and each function corresponds to its own speech semantics—these are the words, phrases, and semantic categories you use to describe the world. For example, describing a café through the lens of Emotional Ethics: "Wow, what a wonderful atmosphere here!" or through Comfort Sensing: "What a spicy aroma of freshly ground coffee!" or through Structural Logic: "Judging by the average bill, this café belongs to the high-end category."

Since a sociotype is determined by speech, the best way to gather it is through an interview. If during the interview the topics of conversation change, but the speech semantics and categories in which the person responds are consistently repeated, these repetitions determine their strong functions. And whatever the strong functions are, that determines the sociotype.

Through experience, we’ve found that, on average, 1.5 hours is sufficient for accurate typing. In the first 10-20 minutes, the socionist forms a preliminary working hypothesis of the sociotype. The remaining hour is spent testing this hypothesis and gathering supporting arguments. Strong functions will consistently repeat and resonate, while weak functions will not. This makes the method statistically measurable.

16 types in socionics (the abbreviation TIM can be found - Type of Information Metabolism - sociotype) are named after famous personalities. Jack London, Hugo, Zhukov, Huxley, etc. At one time, Aushra Augustinavichyute (the creator of socionics) chose such pseudonyms based on the sociotypes of their carriers. A whole video playlist is dedicated to these personalities on our YouTube channel "Socionics of the Elements". Below you can see photos of contemporaries who belong to 16 sociotypes. You can read their detailed descriptions here.

16 PERSONALITY TYPES
THEORISTS
ORGANIZERS
CREATIVES
PRACTITIONERS
Logician, Intuitive, Introvert, Rational
Ethicist, Sensor, Extravert, Rational
Intuitive, Logician, Extravert, Irrational
Sensor, Ethicist, Introvert, Irrational
Intuitive, Ethicist, Introvert, Irrational
Sensor, Logician, Extravert, Irrational
Ethicist, Intuitive, Extravert, Rational
Logician, Sensor, Introvert, Rational
Intuitive, Logician, Introvert, Irrational
Sensor, Ethicist, Extravert, Irrational
Logician, Intuitive, Extravert, Rational
Ethicist, Sensor, Introvert, Rational
Ethicist, Intuitive, Introvert, Rational
Logician, Sensor, Extravert, Rational
Intuitive, Ethicist, Extravert, Irrational
Sensor, Logician, Introvert, Irrational
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW YOUR TYPE?

WHAT SOCIONICS GIVES YOU


  • PROFORIENTATION
    Socionics helps you to choose a suitable profession where your strong sides will be in demand and in which you'll be able to develop rapidly and with a great interest. Knowing your own sociotype it will come clear what tasks to complete yourself and what better to delegate to others. Each of us is naturally an irreplaceable expert at something.
  • RELATIONSHIPS
    Your relationships with all of 16 sociotypes will differ. If you understand the specifics of other sociotype you will better understand the person and your common ground. This knowledge will also help to construct work teams allowing everyone to bring out the best of them according to their nature. Or to detect missing sociotypes in the company.

  • SELF-KNOWLEDGE
    Thanks to socionics you'll come to understand your nature, strengths and weaknesses and find your development zone. Besides, knowledge of your sociotype will make you understand roots of your reactions. You will realize your way of thinking and perceiving. Wings are not a development zone for a cat. If you understand what I'm talking about.

WHAT IS A SOCIOTYPE COMPOSED OF?

8 DICHOTOMIES

An extrovert is focused on perceiving the external environment. Their attention is multidirectional. Sociable
An introvert is focused on perceiving internal unity. Their attention is focused and unidirectional
An intuitive is a person of theories, abstractions, and the world of ideas, with a focus on "always and everywhere."
A sensor is a person of practicality, concreteness, and the world of things. Their focus is on the "here and now."
A logical person is someone who focuses on facts and patterns between objects. They are principled
An ethical person is someone who focuses on opinions and relationships between subjects; they are inclined towards compromise
A rational person is prudent, consistent, steady, and result-oriented
An irrational person is spontaneous, inconsistent, changeable, and process-oriented
8 FUNCTIONS
Structural logic
Technological logic
Ethics of emotions
Relationship ethics
Context intuition
Intuition of possibilities
Force sensory
Comfort sensory
  • 1. SEMANTICS OF SPEECH
    Your qualities and behavior change due to many factors, but your perception remains constant. Your perception is best reflected in your speech because human cognition and thinking are mediated by language. This is why we always conduct a 1.5-hour interview. It's important for us to hear how you think. Therefore, it's not a test or a questionnaire. You are asked questions without any "hidden agenda." We don't have questions designed to "identify introversion," "logic," or "Force sensory." The purpose of the questions we ask is that they are: a) on different topics; and b) all open-ended (requiring a detailed response).
  • 2. OBSERVATION AND STATISTICS
    We use a method of observation and statistics. During the interview, 4 out of 8 dichotomies and 2 out of 8 functions must: a) regularly and b) qualitatively appear in your speech. If you consistently talk about different topics using the same categories, this reveals your primary lenses of perception. For example, if you are a sensor-introvert, regardless of the dialogue's topic, you will describe everything through the categories of a sensor-introvert. Conversely, you will rarely express yourself as an intuitive-extrovert. It’s impossible to determine a sociotype in 5 minutes because sufficient statistical data on your responses will only accumulate after 1.5 hours. The goal is to understand which categories you use much more frequently and which you use less often.
  • 3. COMBINATION OF FACTORS
    For your sociotype to be accurately determined, a combination of factors must align. It's not enough to identify just a couple of dichotomies or functions that repeat in your speech. It's important that each of them occupies its dominant or deficient position (e.g., possibilities intuition / comfort sensing, time intuition / willful sensing, emotional ethics / structural logic, relationship ethics / pragmatic logic, as well as rationality / irrationality, extraversion / introversion).
  • 4. SAFETY SYSTEM
    The method itself includes a built-in safety system. A Chinese person can be happy, tired, rich or poor, truthful or deceitful. But even when lying, they will lie in Chinese. The task of the socionist is to determine which language the person is speaking, to distinguish Chinese from French. In this analogy, the Chinese and French are the sociotypes, and the languages they speak represent the unique semantics of their speech. This is why it’s impossible to prepare for a socionics interview. You can prepare answers to questions, but it's almost impossible to "learn Chinese" before the interview.
  • 5. EXAMPLE OF ANALYSIS
    For example, you might describe yourself as an introvert: "I’m quiet. I don’t like people. I need solitude." The socionist isn’t required to take your word for it. They don't focus on how you see yourself. Instead, the socionist listens to how often and deeply you reflect—this is the main indicator of introversion. So even if you describe yourself as an introvert in most of your answers, but fail to demonstrate reflection, the socionist won’t believe you and will still type you as an extrovert. The same applies to other functions and dichotomies. Believe me, it’s very difficult to speak Chinese for an hour and a half if you don’t know the language.
  • 6. OUR STANDARDS
    The interview always lasts an hour and a half. After the interview, a review is mandatory: the specialist replays the recording. Only after this is the result determined. Additionally, the interview is always recorded in audio/video format. This means that your speech can always be replayed and analyzed according to functions and dichotomies.
  • HOW DO WE NOT DETERMINE A SOCIONIC TYPE?
    - By how you describe yourself
    - By your appearance and gestures
    - By your character traits and behavior
    - By your actions and preferences
    - By your successes in different areas of life
    - By your date of birth and zodiac sign

F.A.Q.

- Does the type change throughout the life?
No. Experience, character traits, beliefs, social circle, and lifestyle may change, but a sociotype, like gender, is given for life. When our life changes, it can be difficult to track exactly what is undergoing change: mindset, sociotype, beliefs, or character traits.

To change a sociotype, it's not enough to replace one primary function or dichotomy with another. It's like a sliding puzzle: you can't move one piece without affecting the others. The same goes for functions: if you swap two functions, you have to change the position of all the others.

In practice, this means that a person who previously perceived and described the world through the lens of, for example, structural connections, would now "change their sociotype" and view the same things through the lens of emotional, sensory perception. Moreover, in such a case, their weak functions would have to switch places, and the person would stop noticing what they were previously focused on and "gain insight" into other areas of life. These changes would inevitably affect their speech as well: semantics (frequently used words and expressions) and dichotomies would have to change. Such fundamental changes have never been observed. So once you've been typed, you'll just have to stick with it for this life. ;)
- Can one person be several sociotypes at once?
No, they cannot. Certainly, some dichotomies and functions may be expressed less distinctly or be somewhat in the middle (e.g., 40% introversion / 60% extraversion), which might lead to a working hypothesis like "somewhere between Yesenin and Hamlet."

However, since determining a sociotype is the result of analyzing many factors, ambiguously expressed dichotomies are overshadowed by data on the positions of vulnerable and suggestive functions, stimulus groups, quadra values, and so on. In other words, typically, for every inconsistency, there are numerous other arguments based on different strong or weak socionic parameters.

It's important to pay attention to which lens of perception, semantics, and set of dichotomies a person uses most frequently, naturally, and effortlessly. In other words, which functions are in their primary toolkit and which they use secondarily and with less comfort. Therefore, in almost every case, it is possible to accurately determine the sociotype by observing the overall balance of socionic arguments tipping in one direction.
- Do socionic tests work?
They don't work. Tests can guess, but not determine your sociotype. Even if 10 tests indicate that you're a Yesenin, there's no guarantee that it's truly the case. Why don't tests work? Because they:

a) Are based on closed questions and do not analyze the semantics of speech, whereas what’s needed is the analysis of open, detailed responses;
b) Do not take into account what you personally mean by the words used in the questions, and this is critically important;
c) Analyze your behavior, preferences, self-description, and character traits, but all of these change over time and do not reflect your perception.

Theoretically, with the proper development of artificial intelligence, it might be possible to create a complex algorithm that analyzes the respondent's speech with a high probability of accurate results. But as of now, such methods have not yet been invented. So, whether it sounds encouraging or frustrating, in the field of psychology, a person still needs another person.
- At what age can a sociotype be determined?
Verifying the accuracy of typing in practice means analyzing how the result aligns with the method used for typing. To do this, you need to understand the method to some extent. In other words, the accuracy of a diagnosis can only be determined by the doctor, not the patient. If you’re not familiar with socionics, any socionist using terms you don't understand might seem knowledgeable. To truly gauge their competence, you need to become "a bit of a socionist" yourself. Therefore, it's important to choose a specialist based not on "charm" but on methodology.

If you’ve already familiarized yourself with the topic, when choosing a typologist, you should clarify:

1) **What parameters does the typologist consider when determining your sociotype?** Does the typing rely on their personal impressions, your appearance, and character traits? Or is it based on speech semantics, functions, and dichotomies?

2) **What verification methods does the typologist use?** Do they simply accept how you describe yourself? Or do they gather statistics: in which categories of functions and dichotomies do you most frequently think, regardless of the conversation topic?

3) **What exactly does the typologist mean by basic concepts like "sociotype," "introversion," "intuition of possibilities," and so on?**

4) **Does the typologist analyze your behavior, which is influenced by thousands of factors (behaviorism)? Or do they focus on your thinking style, i.e., your perception (cognitivism)?**

5) **What feedback does the typologist receive on social media? Are there people willing to recommend them?**

If the answers to these questions don’t raise any concerns for you, then either the socionist is truly skilled, or you may be too trusting.
- Is socionics related to Human Design, astrology, numerology, etc.?
No. Socionics is a branch of psychology. Information about a person's belonging to a particular sociotype is gathered during an interview or by observation. Human Design, astrology, numerology, on the other hand, base their data on the position of the stars and the date of birth, which eliminates the need for live contact with a person, as well as the possibility of checking the resulting portrait.

Basically, psychology is closer to science, but astrology and such to esotericism. You can verify or refute the sociotype, but you can't do that with the natal chart: either you accept its description, or you don't. The problem with esoteric typologies is also that they can be explained using the Barnum effect: it's not that the zodiacal description may not suit you, but rather that it suits almost everyone else. Same cannot be said about the good quality descriptions of sociotypes: the lens of perception and Psychologist's description do not correspond at all with the one of the Inspector, and even the mirroring types like the Diplomat and the Guardian have very tangible points of difference.

Therefore, one should not mix those systems of measuring personality as they are quite different at the core. The indications of socionics diverge from the indications of astrology, like degrees on a thermometer and kilograms on a scale.
- How to understand which sociotypes are suitable for my team at work?
Here, as in the choice of a romantic partner, there is no universal answer. It all depends on several factors:

1) Your sociotype - the most compatible candidates for the team will be selected according to it;
2) Sociotypes of existing team members - one must also take into account those who already make up the team;
3) Tasks the project/firm/company is facing - certain things require different sociotypes, not necessarily compatible with you and your team;
4) Qualifications, experience, age, gender, city of residence and other parameters that do not depend on socionics. Of course, between an experienced Psychologist programmer and a novice Critic, you will most likely choose Psychologist, although this is a very uncharacteristic profession for this sociotype. But, choosing between the Psychologist and the Critic with the same experience and level of competence, of course, the choice should be given in favor of the Critic. That is, to solve such issue, it is necessary to use an integrated approach and not be limited to the sociotype only.

FIND OUT YOUR TYPE!

Determine your personality type and you will find out:
  • Your inherent strengths and weaknesses
  • Professions that will reveal your talents
  • What Skills and Skills Should You Develop?
  • With whom in a relationship more perspectives and understanding
  • How does your perception work?
As result, you get a complete description of your personality type, as well as a list of suitable professions and recommendations for self-development
CUSTOMER REVIEWS
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