Main Clusters of Negativism-Positivism

In neurophysiology, a distinction is made between neural networks associated with goal formation and approach towards it (positive stimuli, positivism) and neural networks associated with the detection of dangers, fixation of their features and location, and either their elimination or the execution of a task of maximal distancing from them (negative stimuli, negativism).

Moreover, it has been known (since as early as 1941) that neural networks of the positivist paradigm are built predominantly on structures of the cortex of the dominant left hemisphere, whereas those of the negativist paradigm are built on structures of the cortex of the subdominant right hemisphere. Thus, in lesions of the anterior cortex of the right hemisphere (with compensatory activation of the left cortex), a person’s behavior becomes careless; they cease to notice even the most blatant threats and shortcomings (both in themselves and around them—up to the point of refusing to recognize and see that their left arm is paralyzed). Conversely, in lesions of the anterior cortex of the left hemisphere (as a result of which the activity of the contralateral structures of the right hemisphere compensatorily increases), behavior becomes more anxious, picky, and focused on dangers, errors, and any potential shortcomings of objects and situations. In youth, functional hemispheric differences in positivism–negativism are maximal; with age, they become smoothed out. In men, the contrast of all hemispheric differences is more pronounced than in women; in women, it additionally depends on the phase of the cycle (becoming smoothed toward the middle of the cycle as estrogen concentrations increase). Empirically identified clusters of socionic negativism–positivism precisely confirm the symptomatology already known from neurophysiology and characteristic of functional interhemispheric asymmetry of the anterior cortex.

MARKERS OF PRIMARY ATTENTION TO DANGERS

1. Basically, I am a skeptic at heart; I always tune myself to be prepared for the worst. 0.93
2. I always assume the worst—let reality turn out better than my forecasts; that will only please me more. 0.93
3. I often engage in thinking through possible troubles. 0.89
4. I often find myself in a constant expectation of troubles. 0.88
5. I am a master at making gloomy forecasts. 0.88
6. I am often on guard and tune myself to expect some kind of nastiness. 0.88
7. I am more a skeptic настроенный on future troubles than a romantic tuned to future successes. 0.86
8. I often assume there is some kind of catch if everything is going too smoothly and perfectly. 0.85
9. Quite unpleasant ideas and assumptions promising trouble often come into my head. 0.83
10. I always sense anxious situations in advance and think through backup options. 0.80
11. I can instantly notice and logically calculate even a minor danger. 0.77
12. I always fear losses, “slip-ups,” and failures, and devote many thoughts and concerns to insurance matters. 0.67

13. When starting something, I believe in success and proceed from the assumption that things definitely will not get worse. -0.93
14. I more often expect pleasant things than unpleasant ones. -0.90
15. I am a cheerful optimist and readily take risks, relying on my intuition. -0.90
16. I can quickly find my own advantage even in obvious disadvantages. -0.89
17. I am quite adept at convincing myself that even troubles that have occurred are for the better. -0.88
18. When starting something, I think much more about the upcoming victory than about possible failures and dangers. -0.86
19. It is simultaneously true for me that I always believe in success and react with irritation to bad forecasts; I like it when my faith is shared and people take my word for it; I do not like to prove anything. -0.85
20. I like to praise; I easily find something encouraging and optimistic in everything. -0.85
21. Usually I see no dangers or problems at all, and in any case do not pay attention to them—life is beautiful! -0.82
22. There is much more carelessness in me than anxiety. -0.79
23. At times I underestimate danger; I need people who are more prudent and not as relaxed and carefree as I am. -0.77

MARKERS OF DISTRUST AND REJECTION OF OTHERS’ PROPOSALS

1. I more often notice dirt around me than joy and love. 0.97
2. I often use in my speech the words “no,” “never,” “no way,” “under no circumstances,” “in no case.” 0.94
3. Basically, I am a “prickly” and wary person. 0.92
4. There is far more ironic distrust in me than readiness for friendship and brotherly love. 0.92
5. I am rather suspicious than trusting. 0.92
6. A person who behaves in a friendly manner most likely just wants to use you. 0.90
7. I expect to hear a lot of foolishness from people in advance, and I feel contempt for this foolishness in advance. 0.90
8. Compared to others, I am probably more suspicious and vindictive. 0.90
9. Very often I feel contempt toward those around me. 0.90
10. There are plenty of swindlers and deceivers around me. 0.90
11. In my remarks during conversation, there is often an implied dissatisfaction or doubt addressed to the interlocutor. 0.89
12. It is true that I never trust people. 0.89
13. I always lack in the object I am studying its useful and good possibilities; the negative possibilities are immediately visible. 0.88
14. To almost any question or proposal, I more often initially answer “no.” 0.87
15. My first reaction to others’ proposals is more often “NO”; a “YES” reaction may appear only after further analysis of these proposals. 0.72

16. What characterizes you more? 1) Distrustfulness. 5) Trustfulness. -0.96
17. I like to praise; I easily find something encouraging and optimistic in everything. -0.96
18. At first, I am more inclined toward acceptance than toward rejection. -0.95
19. I trust other people. -0.93
20. My relationships with most acquaintances are colored by acceptance, friendliness, and sympathy. -0.92
21. I treat most people around me with warmth and goodwill, almost never thinking about whether they are “harboring a stone in their bosom.” -0.89
22. First and foremost, I see what connects, unites, and brings people closer together, rather than what divides their interests. -0.87

MARKERS OF PRIMARY ATTENTION TO ERRORS AND SHORTCOMINGS IN ANY OBJECT OR ACTIVITY

1. As a rule, I critically analyze everything that comes into my head. 0.97
2. I always quickly notice any incorrectness or inaccuracy in anything whatsoever. 0.94
3. I find it difficult to refrain from corrections and objections to others’ projects. 0.88
4. My attention is more often focused on searching for flaws in a newly purchased item than on its merits. 0.85
5. I am always critical of the ideas that come into my head and immediately, without difficulty, mentally “run them through,” checking them in a mental experiment. 0.85
6. I often think about shortcomings in legislation and existing rules and procedures. 0.85
7. I am picky and even involuntarily more often pay attention to defects than to merits. 0.83
8. Alas, most often what you are given turns out to be either of dubious quality or off the mark. 0.82
9. I see flaws and imperfections in things faster than others and want to correct them. 0.82
10. I have heightened criticality toward the things, technologies, texts, or systems that I create—almost always I want to return and redo something. 0.82
11. I am better than others at detecting problems. 0.81
12. Being a skeptic by nature, I am prone to frequent doubts and hesitations; I notice all contradictions and imperfections of the surrounding world. 0.81
13. I often discover important inconsistencies and problems where others do not notice them or ignore them. 0.79
14. I always think through my work from the point of view of what claims could be made against it. 0.75
15. Any deviation from laws that I notice around me affects and irritates me strongly. 0.73
16. In conversation, I often “cling” to minor carelessness in others’ arguments, to inaccurate wording, etc. 0.72
17. I like to mentally identify sources of errors and delusions in people I know. 0.71
18. I am very attentive to omissions, errors, and contradictions in the texts of documents I work with and always instantly notice them while reading. 0.70
19. I notice any of my own mistakes earlier than others do. 0.69

20. I am often uncritical of the ideas that come into my head; it is usually difficult for me to immediately mentally “estimate” and mentally check them. -0.84
21. If I were a journalist, I would more often write about the merits of the surrounding life rather than about its shortcomings. -0.82
22. Whether fair or not, friends often reproach me for not learning from past mistakes at all. -0.75
23. I can find advantages in things in which others do not find them. -0.75

MARKERS OF A PESSIMISTIC, SKEPTICAL, DISSATISFIED BACKGROUND MOOD

1. Most of the time I am rather dissatisfied with something than satisfied. 0.98
2. I am more often dissatisfied with everything than strongly satisfied with something. 0.94
3. A bad mood predominates in me. 0.93
4. Notes of distrust and doubt often slip into my voice. 0.93
5. I involuntarily look for situations in which I could frown rather than smile. 0.92
6. Indignation happens to me more often than merriment. 0.91
7. I often expect some kind of trick from reality. 0.91
8. I am more often sad than cheerful and joyful. 0.91
9. What is more characteristic of you? – 1) I can enjoy comforts 5) I often pay attention to existing inconveniences 0.90
10. Negative emotions break out of me more often than positive ones. 0.88
11. It is easier for me to extract from memory some sharply unpleasant recollection than to recall something pleasant. 0.74

12. My imagination has a more joyful than anxious tone. -0.97
13. Most often I am in a relaxed and bright mood. -0.97
14. I am more an optimist than a pessimist. -0.97
15. In my mood, positive emotions usually predominate, coloring the world with feelings of brotherly love. -0.96
16. I almost always have a bright, optimistic mood. -0.95
17. I usually have an uplifted and cheerful background mood. -0.95
18. I have a cheerful, light, and completely unobtrusive disposition; I know how to enjoy life and give joy to others. -0.94
19. I am much more often in an uplifted and major mood than in a “lowered” and minor one. -0.93
20. I create my cheerful mood myself and know how to pass it on to others. -0.93
21. I almost never have a bad mood—I am, like an Airedale terrier, an optimist by nature. -0.92
22. I more often give optimistic than skeptical advice. -0.92
23. Bright joy or joyful clarity—call it what you will—but this is the usual background of my “daytime” mood. -0.92
24. My usual mood is joyfully uplifted. -0.92
25. Which word is used more often in speech? – 1) Bad 5) Good -0.92
26. In my mood, bright euphoria almost always predominates, and caustic skepticism practically never occurs. -0.91
27. I more often have a cheerful facial expression than a dissatisfied, gloomy one. -0.91
28. This resonates with me: “Think well of reality, and it will become what you want to see.” -0.91

The profiles of all four clusters of negativism are close to one another and all share the same features:

1. Negativism shows correlation with introversion, “constructivism,” “process,” and “prudence.” At the same time, the correlation with introversion is predicted by neurophysiology, in which it is customary to consider the anterior cortex of the left hemisphere to be more extraverted than that of the right. However, this effect may be a consequence of a vague definition of introversion not only as low-energy behavior (with low amplitude and tempo characteristics), but also partly as avoidant behavior. If the influence of the avoidant behavior factor (associated with increased sensitivity to dangers) is excluded from introversion, then the correlation of negativism with introversion should be minimized. What, in fact, is introversion? First and foremost, reduced energy. Small amplitude of movements and a low need for them. A quiet voice. Slowness—both in speech and in movements. Reduced need for speech, taciturnity. Reduced sociability. Insecurity in contacts, shyness. But most of this does not overlap with negativism. What does overlap is caution, reduced contactness, reduced sociability (but only that part of it which is due to distrust of people). Again, slowness of actions and decisions, but only insofar as it reflects fixation on doubts and possible errors (hence overcaution). Activity also partially decreases under negativism—but not due to low energy, rather due to doubts about success, fixation on possible failures and dangers. In general, the causes of the traits are quite different (in one case—reduced energy, in the other—fixation on the negative), but behaviorally, in their consequences, they partially overlap; therefore, with high negativism, the vertness diagnosed by formal behavioral features begins to partly drift toward introversion. The situation is more complex for the links of negativism with constructivism, process, and prudence. We allow that the small correlation with prudence may be a purely parasitic artifact caused solely by the suggestion effect of the name of the trait “carelessness–prudence.” That is, in this part the trait is empty, unnecessarily pulling onto itself part of the variance of negativism. The situation with constructivism and process is more complex; we will not analyze it here, although it certainly deserves this.
2. As a result of the contribution of traits additional to negativism, the distribution of sociotypes across the main factors of negativism turns out to be not entirely symmetrical. First, the maximal opposition is observed in the mirror pair LIE–ILI, where LIE turns out to be the maximal positivist among all 16 types of the socion, and ILI—on the contrary, the maximal negativist. Correspondence to the proper signs of positivism–negativism is observed in almost all other mirror pairs as well (though with a smaller amplitude of contrast between them), except for the IEE–EII pair. In it, a fundamental inversion of the trait is observed. EII, which ought to be a positivist, turns out to be rather a negativist. And IEE, which ought to be a negativist, on the contrary, to a greater extent demonstrates properties of a positivist. In addition, the differences are considerably smoothed (though without inversion) in the mirror pairs SLE–LSI and ESE–SEI. If for ESE and SLE, with their predominant pole, everything is in order (the average SLE, by the sum of the four clusters, behaves as a negativist, and ESE as a positivist, that is, as they should), then for the average SEI and LSI a complete ambiversion in positivism–negativism is observed.
3. There is also a small difference between the quadras. The second quadra turns out to be, on average, the most negativist of all (only the average IEI shows clear features of positivism within it). At the same time, in general, positivism shows a small correlation with the pole of democrats.
4. It is important that the four analyzed clusters of negativism do not reveal any significant correlations with questimity (more precisely, a correlation of negativism with questimity is detected, but it is very, very small and can quite reasonably be neglected).
5. In principle, it is possible to adjust the socionic traits of vertness, constructivism, process, and prudence in such a way that any correlation of them with negativism disappears. In this case, all sociotypes will slightly change the coordinates of their centers, and as a result, the polarity of positivism–negativism will become proper for the mirror pair EII–IEE, and the difference in the magnitudes of positivism–negativism will become the same in all mirror pairs, without the bright contrasting protrusion of this difference in the ILI–LIE pair. But in this case, we will have to part with a number of established socionic stereotypes, in particular with the idea that ILI is the main skeptic of the socion (from whose spit dandelions wither), and with the idea that IEE is a carefree life player and chatterbox. The question is: do we want this?

Another additional conclusion that suggests itself when considering the final, integral table concerns the twelve functions of the psyche. The projection onto negativism–positivism can be regarded as an indirect indication of the role of the cortex of each of the two cerebral hemispheres in the neural networks of the functions.

In particular, we see that for Ni, Ti, Qe, and Di, the projection onto the negativist pole predominates (from which follows the assumption of their closer association with the cortex of the right hemisphere). For Fe and De, on the contrary, the projection onto the positivist pole predominates.

For the highly rational De, this quite unambiguously indicates its close association with the left prefrontal cortex. However, in the case of Fe, the situation may be more complex: its positivist projection may indicate either activation of left zones associated with the limbic system in the inferior and medial regions of the anterior cortex, or, conversely, hyperactivation of the limbic system of the RIGHT hemisphere (it is known that the limbic system inhibits the neocortex ipsilateral to it, and the effect of activation of the right limbic system may ultimately appear as inhibition of the right cortex, which behaviorally is equivalent to activation of the left).

“Ti surpasses the other functions by a large margin, even Ni, which is particularly unexpected.
Why is this so?
And in many properties it already looks as if there is a correlation between Ti and Di.”

Both functions are associated mainly with the neocortex, with a predominance of activity in the cortex of the right hemisphere. However, Di tends toward the inferior and medial prefrontal cortex, that is, toward the anterior regions of the cortex, whereas Ti apparently tends toward the parietal cortex and its junction with the temporal and occipital regions. In the latter lies the difference; in the former, the commonality. There is also commonality in that these two functions exhibit the highest indicators of their rationality.