Statistics of Intertype Relations in Romantic Couples as a Function of Relationship Duration

This statistical analysis examined 342 married and romantic couples whose members had simultaneously completed one of the forms (the same form for both members of the couple) of V. Talanov’s sociodiagnostic questionnaire.

From the table presented, it is evident that “attraction through similarity” is of great importance in initial romantic contacts - when relationship duration is very short, Identity relations constitute a substantial share, just as in friendships.

However, culling begins thereafter.

As the duration of romantic relationships increases, Identity, Mirage, Supervision, Super-ego, Extinguishment, Quasi-identity, and Kindred relations break down.

Conversely, over time, Mirror, Duality, Activation, Business, Benefit, and even Conflict relations stabilize and strengthen, successfully passing selection.

At the same time, when relationships have lasted sufficiently long (over a year, at least), Duality proves to be the most common type of relation.

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In addition to the conclusions of direct interest regarding the differing stability of romantic relationships over time depending on the type of their ITR, the results, in our view, also support the hypothesis that socionic ITR play a real role.

If the statistical heterogeneity of romantic relationships depending on their ITR were associated with the effect of socionic knowledge and socionic autosuggestion among the members of the couple, then short-term relationships and romantic relationships of long duration would have similar statistics. Moreover, one should, on the contrary, expect the share of those ITR that socionics predicts to be comfortable, but that in reality (supposedly) do not differ from others in this respect, to decline as relationship duration increases (that is, after being tested in practice).

However, as we can see, this is not at all the case.

Hypothetically, one may suppose that during the initial formation of a romantic union (that is, at its very earliest stages), knowledge of sociotypes (one’s own and one’s partner’s) could somehow influence the probability of a couple forming depending on the type of its ITR.

But to believe that marriages are not only entered into but then also REMAIN INTACT for many years thanks to the members of the couple being aware of the supposedly comfortable nature of their socionic relations, that is, that they are held together and strengthened for years thanks to the effect of socionic autosuggestion – that is an overly bold and, in our view, obviously absurd assumption (the trend in such cases should be precisely the reverse - effects of rapprochement and attraction caused only by initial suggestion weaken and break down over time).

Particularly illustrative are the examples of Mirage and Super-ego relations, which at first, hypothetically, may be mistaken for comfortable Duality relations, but over the years, as we can see in the table, increasingly reveal their true nature and, as a statistical tendency, are inexorably culled.

Statistics of intertype relations for 342 opposite-sex romantic couples as a function of relationship duration (ITR are measured using the complete trait profile of the members of the couple; the ITR receiving the highest score is taken as the dominant ITR)