More on Black Questimity

(some minor points from the results of recent statistical analyses)

MORE OFTEN DISSEMBLES, DOES NOT ADMIT GUILT, AND SHIFTS THE BLAME ONTO OTHER PEOPLE.

No. 60. More often dissembles, does not admit guilt, and shifts the blame onto other people.

(averaging the profiles of 8 scale items, 8875 respondent answers in total; all profiles, except the 2nd and 3rd type profiles, are normalized to unit sigma of the type profile). All profiles are given after corrective factor rotation.

Unnormalized type profile (deviations from the mean in units of the population standard deviation):

Approximate percentage of representatives of each type group showing the raw responses “YES” and “RATHER YES” for the property (averaging across all scale items, taking the item sign into account, after corrective factor rotation, diagnostics by traits):

Contribution of traits to the variance of the property, in percent:

1. Sometimes I place responsibility for my own mistakes on others - it simply makes it easier to breathe. 0.89
2. In an argument, I often resort to the technique of “shifting the blame” onto another person. 0.87
3. I can lie in order to get out of a difficult situation. 0.85
4. It is foolish to admit my guilt - when I am at fault, I can almost always turn the conversation toward the guilt of those around me. 0.82
5. I try, whenever possible, to shift my responsibilities onto others. 0.80

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6. When I am at fault, as a rule I honestly admit my guilt without trying to wriggle out of it. -0.88
7. I always take responsibility for my mistakes. -0.87
8. When giving an account of some unpleasant incident, I always tell the truth. -0.85

According to our assumption, at the neurophysiological level this property is determined by increased activity of the right anterior insular cortex and the ventromedial cortex (associated with both Qe and Ni), and by reduced activity of the dorsolateral cortex.

(the rationale for this and other physiological assumptions will be discussed a few days later)

OFTEN USES TRICKS AND FEINTS IN EXPLANATIONS, LEAVES THINGS UNSAID, AND “BEATS AROUND THE BUSH”.

No. 69. Often uses tricks and feints in explanations, leaves things unsaid, and “beats around the bush”.

(averaging the profiles of 6 scale items, 5191 respondent answers in total; all profiles, except the 2nd and 3rd type profiles, are normalized to unit sigma of the type profile). All profiles are given after corrective factor rotation.

Unnormalized type profile (deviations from the mean in units of the population standard deviation):

Approximate percentage of representatives of each type group showing the raw responses “YES” and “RATHER YES” for the property (averaging across all scale items, taking the item sign into account, after corrective factor rotation, diagnostics by traits):

Contribution of traits to the variance of the property, in percent:

1. I have a habit, when speaking, of using circumlocutions, of “beating around the bush”, without saying anything unequivocally and directly. 0.84
2. Depending on whom I am communicating with, I can use completely different, even mutually contradictory, arguments and facts to substantiate my position. 0.81
3. Sometimes I pretend that I care about others. 0.64

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4. I like certainty and directness in everything; I never use circumlocutions, that is, I never “beat around the bush”. -0.89
5. The only way I might offend another person is by always telling them the truth about the situation “to their face”, with the best of intentions. -0.84
6. Every patient has the right to complete and reliable information about their illness, and concealing their diagnosis even from terminally ill patients is absolutely unacceptable. -0.79

PREDOMINANT ORIENTATION TOWARD EXPECTING TROUBLE, A SENSE OF CONSTANT THREAT FROM OTHER PEOPLE.

No. 61. Predominant orientation toward expecting trouble, a sense of constant threat from other people.

(averaging the profiles of 22 scale items, 20428 respondent answers in total; all profiles, except the 2nd and 3rd type profiles, are normalized to unit sigma of the type profile). All profiles are given after corrective factor rotation.

Unnormalized type profile (deviations from the mean in units of the population standard deviation):

Approximate percentage of representatives of each type group showing the raw responses “YES” and “RATHER YES” for the property (averaging across all scale items, taking the item sign into account, after corrective factor rotation, diagnostics by traits):

Contribution of traits to the variance of the property, in percent:

1. I am often on my guard and prepare myself for expecting something nasty. 0.92
2. People’s actions more often evoke rejection in me than acceptance. 0.91
3. I am often in a constant state of expecting trouble. 0.91
4. There is often anger in my thoughts. 0.91
5. I experience indignation more often than cheerfulness. 0.91
6. I often think about how I might be harmed. 0.91
7. There are phenomena or people that arouse constant burning hatred in me. 0.90
8. I often expect some kind of catch from reality. 0.88
9. Compared with others, I am probably more suspicious and more inclined to hold grudges. 0.88
10. I am afraid of appearing vulnerable in some way. 0.88
11. At times I am overcome by intense hatred toward some person. 0.88
12. A somewhat paranoid suspiciousness is characteristic of me. 0.86
13. People often deliberately want to annoy me. 0.85
14. Many times every day I have hostile thoughts full of indignation, anger, or sarcasm. 0.85
15. I tense up in advance in expectation of something unpleasant. 0.85
16. I absolutely cannot tolerate it when someone touches my things or interferes in my affairs without permission. 0.74
17. On social networks I am very selective about whom I communicate with - there are many people I strongly dislike and with whom I definitely will not make contact. 0.68
18. People’s facial expressions sometimes seem angry and threatening to me. 0.86
19. I strongly dislike outsiders on my territory. 0.72

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20. As a rule, positive emotions predominate in my mood, coloring the world with feelings of brotherly love. -0.91
21. I am generally satisfied with the people around me. -0.91
22. I trust other people. -0.87

There is a certain paradox in the profiles of this property – it would seem that one might expect a contribution from the “Decisiveness” pole (closely associated with ill will toward people), but no. As it turns out, entirely different traits contribute to the property. Negativism, Aristocracy, Foresight, Process. Among the functions, Qe (Black Questimity) dominates. The reason here is evidently that, however much socionic “Decisiveness” may be characterized by ill will toward outsiders, fears are foreign to it. The property under consideration, however, is built precisely on fears of outsiders, of their possible destabilizing interference in one’s own life. And the opposition between individualistically wary Qe and De, which readily establishes any horizontal contacts and is completely devoid of fears of communication with anything unlike itself, emerges here not by chance.

In American psychology, this property (fear of outsiders accompanied by a sense of hostility toward them) is regarded as an important component of conservative-authoritarian thinking (which, according to sociological research, is characteristic of Donald Trump’s core electorate); it is considered alongside such other psychophysiological markers of conservatism as sensitivity to unpleasant bodily odors and fear of uncertainty. However, in all these clusters Qe plays the leading role, while the role of Di is minimal - on average it is even negative. At the same time, according to socionics statistics, Di plays a much more important and weighty role than Qe in markers of conservative thinking (such as a negative attitude toward abortion, rejection of the need for freedom of speech, etc.). Where, then, did the role of Di go in American conceptions of the conservative mentality? Why has the opposition between conservatism and liberalism in American psychology in recent years been reduced to an opposition between Qe and De markers?

Three explanations are possible for this paradox of American psychological statistics, according to which conservative mentality is reduced mainly to the contribution of Qe markers (while the contributions of Di and Se, for some reason, go unnoticed and are ignored in studies).

First – among the conservative public, surveys and studies are conducted on a skewed sample in which EIEs predominate by a wide margin. This is possible because EIEs are much more willing (and even proactive) to make contact and participate in all kinds of experiments in order to express their opinion to interviewers, whereas their same-quadra counterparts LSI and SLE (for whom Qe, by contrast, is depressed, while Di and Se dominate) avoid psychological examinations and interviews. –

The second possible explanation – a certain skew in the very understanding of conservatism in contemporary Western civilization (and especially in the United States), where fear of the outsider and wary dislike of the outsider (owing to the priority of racial issues in public consciousness) comes precisely first, dividing electoral sympathies into two camps, whereas issues of freedom of opinion and personal independence, which are no less important (at least for Southeast Asia, Russia, and the entire post-Soviet space) and which, represented by Di, oppose state authoritarianism, are not relevant for America as bases of political division and are pushed to the margins.

The third explanation – the personal factor of Donald Trump, who elicits sympathy from many “Qe specialists” (and from them – first and foremost). Although it is not entirely clear why SLEs and LSIs, with their authoritarian-force values, would prefer, for example, Biden rather than Trump.

Which explanation is most correct (or whether all three operate simultaneously), we do not know.

But in any case, one can conclude from this that the results of recent American studies identifying psychophysiological markers of political conservatism should be treated with some caution – both because the type composition of the samples in these studies was not controlled, and because conceptions of the substantive core of conservative and liberal ideology in the mass consciousness of the United States and of the population of the post-Soviet space do, after all, differ.

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GRUDGE-HOLDING

No. 62. Grudge-holding

(averaging the profiles of 8 scale items, 8599 respondent answers in total; all profiles, except the 2nd and 3rd type profiles, are normalized to unit sigma of the type profile). All profiles are given after corrective factor rotation.

Unnormalized type profile (deviations from the mean in units of the population standard deviation):

Approximate percentage of representatives of each type group showing the raw responses “YES” and “RATHER YES” for the property (averaging across all scale items, taking the item sign into account, after corrective factor rotation, diagnostics by traits):

Contribution of traits to the variance of the property, in percent:

1. I take a very long time to get over anger - another person’s repentance and apologies are not enough here; afterward, I need to be left completely alone for a long time. 0.92
2. I hold grudges. 0.92
3. I retain the memory of unpleasant events for a long time. 0.89
4. Grudge-holding is characteristic of me. 0.86
5. I am a grudge-holding person. 0.66

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6. I get over things easily and do not stay offended for long. -0.96
7. Compared with others, I am more likely to get over things easily than to hold grudges. -0.89
8. I easily ignore past unpleasant events and live in the present, feeling calm confidence in tomorrow and in my future in general. -0.87

The profiles of this property are very similar to the profiles of the previous property – hostile, wary expectation of trouble from other people. Except that the contribution of Decisiveness is slightly greater here.