Common Psychological Properties and Values in the Dual Pair of Psychotypes SEE and ILI.

V. L. Talanov

The present work is a continuation of study [2], which examined the common psychological properties and values of the dual pairs of the first and second quadras. In the present work, the author has considered the properties of the next dual pair, SEE-ILI, in somewhat greater detail; therefore, the article is limited to consideration of this dual pair alone, while the remaining pair of the third quadra (LIE-ESI) will be the subject of the next, likewise separate, article.

Let us recall several universal propositions concerning all sociotypes and all their dual pairs. Any real psychological property projects not onto a single socionic trait, but most often onto several traits simultaneously; therefore, “pure” manifestations of a pole, for example, of -nality, are almost never encountered in practice. Manifestations of irrationality-rationality may make the determining contribution to the content of a particular psychological property, but at the same time its coloring will still contain and reflect the poles of a number of other socionic traits as well – for example, “Decisiveness”, “Yielding”, “Statics”, etc. If socionic traits that are invariant for duals participate in the formation of a psychological property in the first and leading roles, then such a composite property will also be invariant, that is, common to both types of that particular dual pair.

Dual psychotypes have the same pole signs for seven of the fifteen socionic traits - duals coincide in the polarity of -nality, the three quadral traits (Judicious-Decisive, Democratic-Aristocratic, Merry-Serious), as well as the traits “Process-Result”, “Yielding-Obstinate”, and “Carefree-Farsighted”. If certain psychological properties and values have one, two, or several of the listed socionic traits as their leading components, then such properties behave in the same way for both members of the dual pair and prove to be common to the dual psychotypes.

The other eight socionic traits have opposite polarities in duals; therefore, these eight traits cannot participate in the formation of common psychological properties and values of dual pairs, and their presence in a property, even if slight, will blur and reduce its commonality between duals.

The principal ideological values are associated almost exclusively with only the three quadral traits [1], and their polarities are the same in duals; therefore, the ideological attitudes of the members of a dual pair are, as a rule, identical or very close. The same applies to any other psychological properties if their largest projections are found along the axes of -nality and the three quadral traits, as well as the Yielding-Obstinate, Carefree-Farsighted, and Process-Result axes. The contribution of any of the other eight socionic traits to a psychological property will, by contrast, impede common manifestation of that property in duals.

The fact that most “ideological values”, as experience shows, are associated with quadral traits and therefore manifest identically or very similarly in both members of a dual pair may have an evolutionary basis. At the lower level, primate populations are divided into small family groups, which in turn unite into larger communities. Accordingly, with a certain degree of convention, one may distinguish the sphere of the “domestic policy” of small family groups and the sphere of their “foreign-policy” interests and actions in relation to the population as a whole. In the intrafamilial, domestic-policy sphere, expediency dictates the benefit of dividing behavioral functions, the benefit of diversification and dissimilarity. In the foreign-policy sphere, directed toward other family groups and the population as a whole, unity of values and motives is advantageous, ultimately ensuring joint action by the dual pair (usually a male and a female) in relation to their neighbors.

The tables below list the results of a detailed experimental study of the common psychophysiological and psychological properties and values of the dual pair consisting of SEE and ILI. The study analyzed responses to psychological questionnaire questions (more than 3000 questionnaire items in total) given by more than two thousand respondents whose socionic psychotypes had been determined in advance. Psychotypes were determined by means of questionnaires, using correlations between respondents’ answers and the “reference” (averaged) answers to the same questions given by the “average representatives” of all 16 sociotypes. Thus, to determine the type of a particular person, 16 empirically obtained correlations were compared with one another. The maximum correlation indicated the diagnosis of the leading psychotype (sociotype). As calculations showed, the reliability of determining respondents’ leading type by this procedure in our study averaged no less than 93% correct diagnoses. The “reference answers” of the types (the basis of diagnosis) are understood as the averaged answers of respondents who, in the training sample, declared their type on the basis of repeated external typing (predominantly by experts from professional socionics schools in Moscow and Kyiv). Thus, within each type in the training sample, answers were averaged across respondents typed by different experts whose views on the boundaries between types partly diverged. This achieved a representation of the view of type boundaries averaged across the general “socionics culture” of Russia and Ukraine. Additional correction of the type reference answers, increasing the accuracy and reliability of the diagnostic coefficients, was introduced using two special mathematical procedures: first, stepwise recurrent refinement of respondents’ diagnoses and, second, symmetrization of the training-sample data array (the procedure is based on the fact that the reference answer of any type to a particular question can be predicted with high accuracy – by decomposition over the Reinin traits - from the reference answers given to that question by the other 15 types).

To identify the common psychological manifestations of the SEE-ILI dual pair, questionnaire items were first selected that simultaneously produced, for both SEE and ILI, a deviation in the same direction relative to the conditional population mean (for a definition of this term, see the next paragraph). Then, for each preliminarily selected questionnaire item, the geometric mean of the deviations from the conditional population mean of the assessments of that questionnaire item (degrees of agreement with it), averaged within the SEE and ILI groups, was calculated. If the absolute value of the resulting geometric mean exceeded 0,25, the corresponding questionnaire item was included in the list for final semantic clustering. Clustering was performed “manually” (according to the semantic content of the questionnaire items); the clustering results were checked by the similarity of the projection profiles of questionnaire statements presumed to belong to the same cluster across all 16 types and 15 Reinin traits.

In all the tables below, the zero reference level for a given property is taken to be its mean value in a conditional model population consisting of equal numbers of representatives of each of the 16 sociotypes (the so-called “conditional population mean”). Thus, all values given in the tables characterize deviations from this conditional population mean (plus – upward, minus – downward). The unit of measurement is a universal quantity equal to the standard deviation (“half-spread”) of the magnitude of the property in the population. For example, (-0,5) denotes a downward deviation, by half a standard deviation from the conditional population mean, of the magnitude of the property (or the frequency of its occurrence) measured and averaged in the subsample of a particular sociotype, club, quadra, or trait pole.

The mean values of a property isolated as a cluster and represented by several questionnaire questions-items are obtained by averaging the values of the individual questionnaire items included in the cluster, taking into account their individual weights in the cluster. Corrections have been introduced into the final quantities characterizing the cluster as a whole to mathematically correct the partial leveling (smoothing, attenuation of the property) that occurs when several questionnaire items that are not perfectly correlated with one another are averaged. This leveling, unavoidable in intermediate calculations, has therefore been corrected and compensated for in the final tables. The fact that this compensating correction was made means that, in the tables presented, the number of primary questionnaire items from which the cluster for a property was composed does not affect the magnitude of the variance of that property (its spread across the 16 sociotypes).

All property values indicated for trait poles, clubs, and quadras are derived from the values initially and empirically obtained for the 16 psychotypes. For example, the value of a property for the 1st quadra is calculated as the arithmetic mean of the values for the four psychotypes belonging to that quadra - the same calculation method is applied to the trait poles. Thus, the actual heterogeneity of respondent samples (that is, variation in the percentage of types, clubs, and quadras represented in a particular sample) has no effect whatsoever on the results presented in the tables, including the mean values of trait poles.

The average sample size used to calculate the mean values of individual questionnaire items was 357 people (from 120 to 1500 people). Of course, in subsequent calculations the total number of respondents was further divided among the 16 sociotype groups, within each of which the averaging itself was performed. Given that the SEE and ILI groups each constituted, on average, 5,6% of the experimental sample sizes, it follows that the averages for the SEE and ILI types were each calculated from approximately 20 respondents of the corresponding type. Naturally, in the subsequent enlargement of questionnaire items by combining them into clusters, the accuracy of the mean-value calculations increased further, since each cluster combines several primary statements tested on different respondent samples.

Table 1. Common psychological properties and values in the SEE-ILI dual pair. Projections of clusters onto the 16 sociotypes.

Table 2. Common psychological properties and values in the SEE-ILI dual pair. Projections of clusters onto 8 differing and 7 shared socionic traits.

Table 3. Common psychological properties and values in the SEE-ILI dual pair. Projections of clusters onto 8 socionic functions, 4 clubs, and 4 quadras.

Table 4. Examples of individuals

Discussion of Tables 1-3:

Individual conditionally negative qualities of the SEE-ILI dual pair

If you have come to ask SEE or ILI for something, a pleasant expressive voice will be more useful to you for this purpose than a pleasant expressive face. You can let a tear enter your voice - despite the well-known “lack of empathy” of these types, emotion in your voice (but not on your face) turns out to have some effect on them. If, during an appointment, you allow an ILI or SEE official to mock you to their heart’s content and, as the conversation progresses, gradually increase the plaintiveness in your voice, then as a reward for the pleasure you have provided you may also count on a favorable resolution of the matter. By contrast, structural-logical arguments affect SEE and ILI extremely weakly, at best arousing the desire, usual for these sociotypes, to dispute your arguments. They dislike admitting defeat in an argument to an extreme degree. A second variant of a psychological approach to these sociotypes, if you require their partnership in some undertaking, may be a “challenge to an adventure” - but only if they can anticipate a large gain in the event of a favorable outcome. Risk factors associated with a possible “rip-off” must be excluded or, at least, minimized. These sociotypes like to play roulette with fate, but they are distrustful of people.

SEE and ILI, together with EIE and IEI, form a socion risk group for predisposition to various psychological addictions - drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling addiction, kleptomania, etc. Duel-seeking and pugnacity (recall M. Yu. Lermontov) – are also their trait. The reason for this is curiosity toward everything new, attraction to “strong” sensations, and the desire to stimulate oneself through an adrenaline release from experiencing intense risk and anticipating the result. Most likely, this characteristic is attributable to reduced density or hyposensitivity of dopamine receptors in the striatum, requiring elevated dopamine concentrations (situational increases in dopamine concentrations are precisely what drugs, alcohol, humor, and risky situations provide). Two well-known “risk-taking” swindlers - Alice the Fox and Basilio the Cat - in this case turn out to be a very suitable illustration of the SEE-ILI pair. ILI can readily be encountered among preferans players (the poet Nekrasov), SEE in slot-machine halls and casinos.

Let us turn to property No. 47. Among alcoholic beverages, ILI and SEE prefer vodka and strong alcoholic drinks in general, and in this both stand out in the socion. It is true that ILI is noticeably ahead of SEE in preference for vodka; the latter also lags behind SLE. Taken together, ILI, SLE, and SEE (in precisely that order) are the three principal lovers of vodka in the human population. But, unlike SLE, the duals ILI and SEE also like loud music. We did not test this experimentally, but observations suggest that some ILI are able to drink while outwardly remaining sober for a long time and to be fully sober by the beginning of the next working day. Also according to the author’s personal observations, the behavior of at least some ILI after alcohol consumption may become noticeably aggressive (in most LII, by contrast, such cases produce brazen uninhibitedness and sexual promiscuity, after which apathy and drowsiness usually develop).

SEE and ILI are cosmopolitan and alien to attachment to any group values, as well as to obligations toward any group. Therefore, you are unlikely to encounter them among supporters of any particular country or nation, or of any permanent football club.

Both types are characterized by egoism, laziness, and slovenliness (ILI, as an intuitive and introverted type, is more slovenly and lazy), and may readily offer you dirty and frankly foul-smelling slippers when you enter their apartment so that you do not accidentally dirty their floor. In addition, both are fixated on hypochondria, although it manifests differently in them. SEE is more concerned about not catching something from you and, speaking somewhat exaggeratedly, will shake your hand cautiously after first checking whether it has been washed well, whereas ILI may spend a long time checking whether he contracted cholera or cancer a week ago. Both types react extremely negatively to losing money, even when it has been lost entirely honestly at cards. SEE may quite possibly immediately begin cheating in some way and turn his loss into a joke, whereas ILI will sulk, become angry, puff seriously, and make accusations, trying to inflate the matter into a scandal so as likewise not to admit defeat and not to pay.

ILI and SEE are not especially touchy, but in any case the author asks them not to take offense at the criticism voiced above, especially since these are only group-average assessments. In any event, the discussion below will also concern the indisputably positive traits of these duals.

Individual conditionally positive qualities of the SEE-ILI dual pair

The independence of this pair from particular group values, its love of freedom, and, when serious punishment does not threaten, its love of political hooliganism - all of this can bring considerable benefit to society. When intelligent representatives of SEE and ILI are concerned, every representative of this pair has substantial positive reformist potential, and each of these types can, by its own means, climb to fairly high positions in society. Here, for example, are well-known ILI - “Critics”, “Balzacs”. Charles Darwin, who created the theory of the origin of species. The jurist Koni, who acquitted Vera Zasulich and thereby pushed the political course of Russian events forward. Sergei Korolev, who brazenly forced his way into the Central Committee and then into world history with the first artificial satellite – he successfully chose the moment to appeal to the authorities, waiting until the model thermonuclear warhead intended for test launches had to be sent back for modification and two launch vehicles happened to be free at the launch site. Primakov, who turned his airplane around over the Atlantic but, alas, never made it to the presidential chair. Gerashchenko, who was not afraid to reveal to the world the secret that hidden-surveillance video cameras had been installed in the ceilings of the offices of domestic officials since KGB times… There have been many of them, courageous “Balzacs” useful to humanity. If we delve into world history, we will also find quite a few “Caesars” who have played and continue to play a positive, explosive, reformist role in it (take M. S. Gorbachev, for example).

Another trait of SEE and ILI is the predominance in thinking not of sequential (successive), but of simultaneous (quasi-simultaneous) information-processing processes, during which several objects and several “storylines” are tracked in parallel. If ILI did not have this characteristic, Charles Darwin would not have been able to derive the theory of evolution from comparing differences between isolated populations of finches on the Galapagos Islands, and if SEE did not have it, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the course of shuttle diplomacy, would hardly have stopped the escalation of the recent war in the Caucasus. And there is almost no one who can replace these types when such a need arises - no one else in the socion, apart from ILI and SEE, possesses this mental gift to the same degree.

The ability to exploit those close to oneself, and indeed anyone who happens to be at hand, with little regard for their interests? If SEE did not have this ability, the type would not also be called the “Politician”, and if it were not a “Politician”, its reformist itch would never be turned to the benefit of large states…

A love of looking into the future and forecasting the situation, present, surprisingly, not only in ILI but, in a distinctive form, also in the sensing SEE? Truly, this is a gift from God - for a politician, an economist, and a stock-market player alike. Although it is not unique to SEE and ILI, since all Scientists of the first quadra also possess it to one degree or another, Alpha types rarely manage to rise to leadership heights in the political or banking hierarchy. At any rate, this is how matters stand in Russia, where officials and ordinary people traditionally call scientists, and indeed all first-quadra Scientists, “Yids”.

Obstinacy and insensitivity to other people’s logical arguments? Why are they needed if one has one’s own? For example, it was often said of Leningrad Oblast governor Serdyukov that he was unreceptive to other people’s arguments. Perhaps that was a good thing? Unlike St. Petersburg, Serdyukov protected Leningrad Oblast from an influx of construction speculators. Persistent petitioners gradually left the governor alone, while genuinely serious and promising investments meanwhile began flowing into the oblast with his blessing, and modern competitive enterprises were built with their help.

ILI’s and SEE’s dislike of strict censorship and the constriction of free information flows - this positive quality of theirs requires no additional recommendation, except perhaps that it would need to be justified for fascists, but we are not writing for them.

In addition, both of these types believe that most people’s rights to life and freedom are, as a rule, more important than so-called national interests. Let us thank SEE and ILI for a sober and humane view of things, especially given that in 99 percent of cases the authorities pass off personal interests or their own “cockroaches” as national interests. When SEE and ILI are in leadership, there is neither totalitarianism nor bloody revolutions. Tyrannies are not established under their rule, and there is usually progress.

The vividness and breadth of fantasies, the generalized and global character of ideas. Are these good qualities, encouraging one to set major tasks? If Sergei Korolev had not possessed them, Russia would not have gone into space for a long time yet. The scale of the construction undertaken in Moscow by Luzhkov often attracts criticism, but let us also give him his due - in the rapid pace of the capital’s transformation there is an indisputable positive side ensured by his psychological type.

Let us also recall the ability of SEE and ILI to maneuver effectively both in relations with people and in solving problems. The tables above indicate that this quality is achieved through high ethical plasticity and lack of principles, as well as through a developed ability to readjust quickly on the fly, change tactics when encountering resistance, and alternate advances and retreats. If the Roman Caesar and the Russian Kutuzov had not possessed this quality, Caesar’s troops (SEE) would not have crossed the Rubicon in their rebellious march on Rome, and Kutuzov (ILI) would hardly have defeated Napoleon Bonaparte (SLE). Whether these victories brought humanity more good or more evil is another difficult question altogether, and it depends on how one looks at it, how one looks at it.

A reluctance, in serious cases, to part with money, and at the same time the ability and inclination to solve one’s problems at someone else’s expense? Both the “Politician” and the “Critic” have this trait. Remember how Owl ceremoniously gave Eeyore his own tail for his birthday? She had simply stopped liking it as the cord for her doorbell. Well, at least Owl’s family hollow was sturdy. If she ran a bank, such a bank would also feel as safe behind her as behind a stone wall.

Thus, SEE and ILI have two sides, one dark and the other light. In what phase will this “type Moon” appear if someone looks at it from the standpoint of the socion? That will depend on which type is looking and, most importantly, for what purpose.

Some theoretical considerations.

Let us consider the mechanism that equalizes, in dual types, the behavioral manifestations of some of their extra-/introversion-dependent properties, despite the fact that one dual is an extravert and the other an introvert. For example, property No. 2 - lack of discipline - correlates not only with irrationality, but also with extraversion and intuition. Extraversion produces an additional increase in this property in SEE, but it is compensated for by sensing, which lowers the level of lack of discipline; as a result, the additional effects of extraversion and sensing on lack of discipline cancel one another out. The same occurs in ILI, where the effects of introversion and intuition cancel one another out. As a result, only irrationality, equally characteristic of both types, exerts an increasing effect on the property.

Attention should be paid to one more fundamental point. In “classical” socionics based on Model A, the mutual complementarity of duals’ functions is usually emphasized, but their identical stylistic, value-based, and ideological closeness in many properties is discussed extremely rarely. The reason is that complementarity is derived directly from the eight socionic functions, whereas identity follows from the shared polarity of those Reinin traits that are not too obviously connected with the functions (especially the quadral traits). Nevertheless, the mutual attraction of duals to one another is explained not only by their mutual “complementarity”, but to no lesser extent by their stylistic, value-based, and ideological similarity. Probably this is also the reason that marriages between identical types often turn out to be harmonious and stable despite the complete absence of a mutually complementary psychological principle in such marriages. The role of identity mechanisms is especially important in cases where spouses, for one reason or another, are forced to oppose an unfriendly environment.

We should not be surprised by the psychologically different-level properties of sociotypes – that is, by the presence among the characteristic properties of a single type both of characteristics clearly at the temperamental level and of those that psychology (especially Soviet, “Bodalevian” psychology, whose continuity is maintained by present-day Russian psychology) usually strictly classifies as secondary and socially formed personality properties. There is no revelation here for socionists – all of them know well that, for example, although particular kinds of psychological defense are not innate, they are formed during a person’s social ontogenesis on the basis of innate temperament and therefore naturally reflect the capabilities and the strong and weak sides of a person’s innate “temperamental” psychotype. The results of the present work merely confirm this well and widely known fact. The same applies to ideological preferences, and to an even greater degree. The point is that such features of the psyche as the capacity for empathy, the predominant emotional background, a tendency toward aggression, accumulation of affect or readiness to let things go, wariness of outsiders, the breadth of the boundaries used to classify people as “us and them”, greed, paranoid traits, and much else are a direct reflection of individual physiological characteristics of the brain. But it is precisely these characteristics that “set the direction” in the socially mediated formation of most of a person’s ideological preferences.

References:

1. V. L. Talanov. Ideological Differences and Psychological Types of People. http://www.newsocionicsmodel.narod.ru/Ideology.html

2. V. L. Talanov. Common Psychological Properties and Values in Dual Pairs of Psychotypes. Psychotypes of the Alpha and Beta Quadras. http://www.newsocionicsmodel.narod.ru/dualy1.html

© V. L. Talanov 2008

The work was published on the website http://rapidshare.com/files/160636557/dualySEE_ILI.html, reproduced on the website http://www.newsocionicsmodel.narod.ru/ in November 2008.