Sex Differences in Socionic Indicators

(Sex differences between women and men in a sample of 365 mixed-sex pairs of people connected by romantic or friendly relationships; - V. L. Talanov, March 2020, preprint)

Comparison of the mean values of socionic indicators in women and men is usually methodologically complicated by the fact that the motivations for participating in socionic testing may differ substantially between men and women. In principle, this may explain many of the sex differences obtained in such comparisons. In other words, the method of comparing mean socionic indicators in aggregate samples of unpaired women and men who undergo questionnaire-based socionic testing does not make it possible to separate factors of genuinely physiological and temperamental-psychological differences from the role and influence of the social-psychological factor.

However, if men and women are compared in a sample in which participants simultaneously undergo typing as mixed-sex pairs (connected by friendship or romantic relationships), then the role of the social-psychological factor in influencing the resulting differences is minimized. This is because the member of the pair who is less inclined toward typing from the standpoint of the social-psychological factor is “pushed” toward typing by the other member of the pair, who is more interested in socionic diagnostics. Conversely – the activity of those psychotypes that, within each sex, are especially inclined toward socionic diagnostics is restrained by the other member of the pair, who in this case also has to complete the questionnaire.

Below we present tables of sex differences for a number of socionic indicators obtained by comparing 365 women and 365 men who jointly (as pairs) completed socionic diagnostic questionnaires. We believe that these results are maximally indicative of the true (that is, physiologically and temperamentally determined) differences between women and men. In other words, we consider the influence on these differences of heterogeneities in the type composition of the sex-specific samples, caused by the specific motivations of men and women of different psychotypes toward testing, to be sufficiently minimal.

The colored columns in all tables show the difference between women and men in fractions of the standard deviation (standard spread) of the corresponding indicator.

Table 2. Sex differences in a sample of 365 men and 365 women connected by romantic or friendly relationships. The main indicator (delta) equals the difference between the corresponding mean raw indicators in the subsamples of women and men separately, divided by the averaged standard deviation of this indicator in both subsamples.

Correlations with the 16 types are measured initially; traits and functions are calculated from them in arbitrary score units.

Correlations with the 15 traits are measured initially; types and functions are calculated from them in arbitrary score units.

Table 1. Sex differences in a sample of 365 men and 365 women connected by romantic or friendly relationships. The main indicator (delta) equals the difference between the corresponding mean raw indicators in the subsamples of women and men separately, divided by the averaged standard deviation of this indicator in both subsamples.

Correlations with the 16 types are measured initially; traits and functions are calculated from them in arbitrary score units.

Correlations with the 15 traits are measured initially; types and functions are calculated from them in arbitrary score units.

Table 3. Sex differences in a sample of 365 men and 365 women connected by romantic or friendly relationships. The main indicator (delta) equals the difference between the corresponding mean raw indicators in the subsamples of women and men separately, divided by the averaged standard deviation of this indicator in both subsamples.

Correlations with the 16 types are measured initially; traits and functions are calculated from them in arbitrary score units.

Correlations with the 15 traits are measured initially; types and functions are calculated from them in arbitrary score units.

Table 4. Sex differences in a sample of 365 men and 365 women connected by romantic or friendly relationships. The main indicator (delta) equals the difference between the corresponding mean raw indicators in the subsamples of women and men separately, divided by the averaged standard deviation of this indicator in both subsamples.

RESULTS:

Among the 15 socionic traits, women, compared with men, show (on average) substantial shifts toward Ethics and Dynamics (these shifts nearly reach one standard deviation), as well as weaker shifts toward Carelessness, Intuition, Constructivism, Questimity, and Aristocracy.

By functions, the most pronounced shifts in women are toward strengthening Fe, Fi, and Qe, as well as weakening Ti, Te, and Se.

For the additional indicators accompanying socionic questionnaire diagnostics, appreciable shifts are found in women toward higher scores for the level of familiarity with socionics and toward lower indicators of social dissimulation (that is, women’s self-assessment is lower than men’s, while the level of sincerity of their responses – conversely, is higher)

Conditionally, the most “male” psychotype is SLE, and the most “female” is EIE (see Table 1).

This, incidentally, may explain why among same-sex romantic pairs (see another publication vk.com/wall-168821911_14595), in the previously examined statistics of which lesbian pairs predominated, the SLE+EIE psychotype pair is represented with a frequency significantly higher than expected, - as a result of which relations of activation statistically come into first place in these pairs (instead of dual relations), while the rationality/irrationality trait in same-sex romantic pairs becomes complementary (instead of matching, as a statistical tendency, in its polarity among opposite-sex romantic pairs).