Positivism/Negativism, Questimity/Declatimity and Functional Asymmetry of the Brain

1. Introduction. Signs of Aspects/Functions and Reinin Traits
2. Interhemispheric Asymmetry and Localization of Cross-Functions
3. Gender and Racial-Ethnic Differences in the Expression of Function Poles
4. Additional Remarks

1. Introduction. Signs of Aspects/Functions and Reinin Traits

This article is a continuation of our study of socionic functions from the standpoint of ethology (the science of animal behavior) and neurophysiology [7], in which the ethological basis of aspects and functions was identified, with a substantial refinement of how the content of aspects depends on colors and signs. The main subject of analysis here will be the signs of aspects and functions, more precisely, the differences between functions of the same name but with different signs (here and below we will call them poles of functions). Let us briefly recall the understanding of function signs that has developed in socionics, taking into account the refinements made in [7].

The main difference between the two poles (+/–) of any information aspect is the level of detail of the perceived signals and the closely related specificity of meanings. Detail is a property not only of the signal (simplicity/complexity), but also of the perceptual set: thus, complex information can be simplified and stripped down, while simple information can be spontaneously complicated and supplemented by inference if it is processed by a function of the “wrong” sign. Specificity is a property not of the signals themselves, but of their meanings. Narrowly specific meanings are characterized by a strong dependence on fine details of the signal; for broad (less specific) meanings this dependence is weaker, while the so-called “equivalence region” is wider [17]. As a result, the (+) pole is characterized by detailed perception, complexity of signals, and narrow specificity of meanings; the (–) pole by simplicity of signals, breadth (up to universality) of meanings, and disregard for details in perception. This dichotomy tends to be associated with scale (large/small) and viewing distance (near/far): details are perceived better at close range and in close-up, whereas viewing the overall picture from a greater distance simplifies it.

In addition to scale and distance, socionics attributes two further properties to the signs: direction (“toward oneself”/“away from oneself”) and the function’s positivism/negativism proper (priority of an orientation toward achieving success or avoiding harm). There is an obvious connection between them (avoidance of harm means repulsion, striving for success means attraction). However, unlike scale and distance, these properties concern not information and its processing, but the motivational set of the psyche. Therefore, in our view, the “informational” and “motivational” manifestations of the signs should not be conflated, but should be considered separately and even, if necessary, contrasted with one another. Indeed, positivism/negativism and complication/simplification are entirely different things, which prompted V. Gulenko to suggest that the signs do not coincide across the Reinin traits “process/result” (with which he associated the tendency toward complication/simplification) and “positivism/negativism” [4, 5].

The results of analyzing the adaptive role of different function poles from the standpoint of ethology [7] confirmed Gulenko’s hypothesis. The “positive” functions proved to be +Se, –Si, +Ne, –Ni, –Te, +Ti, –Fe, +Fi (i.e., static functions with a plus and dynamic functions with a minus, if the sign reflects detail/simplicity); the “negative” functions were –Se, +Si, –Ne, +Ni, +Te, –Ti, +Fe, –Fi. At the same time, for rational functions positivism/negativism reflects, to the greatest degree, not the sign of an emotion or the quality of an action, but their social-signaling directionality. The latter is expressed in the convergence or, conversely, divergence (convergence/divergence) of the emotional states and/or social positions of communicating individuals. In this sense, joy, sadness, and even anger can be “positive”, as can any “contagious” emotion in which the addressee seemingly enters the emotional state of the person expressing it of their own accord. “Negative” emotions are those that compel the addressee to enter a different, usually opposite, state. Thus, expressing fear before a rival by no means frightens the latter (quite the opposite!); other examples of this kind are ingratiation, flattery, and even the expression of superiority, although the latter would seem to be “positive”, yet it is nevertheless intended to make others not feel proud but, on the contrary, envious. Still, convergent emotions are usually positive in both senses, because their sociobiological purpose is to create an emotional-motivational commonality, including group cohesion, which is achieved much more effectively by positive signals. The same applies analogously to divergent emotions: their role is to create and emphasize inequality of positions, for which negative signals are better suited. Thus, directionality and the sign of emotion tend to correlate with one another.

The situation is similar with the poles of the Te function. The ethological basis of +Te includes complex signaling displays, including displays of social status; it can be seen that functions of this pole are purely divergent. As for the superstructure in the sphere of labor and economic activity, +Te encompasses complex activities requiring high qualifications, whereas –Te encompasses simple unskilled labor, which essentially coincides with Marx’s division between concrete and abstract labor [7, part III]. Here it may seem that +Te is “positive” because of a striving for higher quality and qualification. However, if one looks deeper, the quality of work is a factor in competition and, in general, the same kind of “distinguishing” display: “Look, I can do this, and you cannot!” In this way, a specialist marks out a distinct social place, a unique niche in the division of labor, i.e. a purely divergent social action, although psychologically it may be perceived positively.

In [7] it was shown that functions of the same name but of different sign and color tend to work together, complementing one another, as a result of which they were combined into cross-functions and cross-aspects (an example for intuition: +Ne–Ni and +Ni–Ne). If Reinin traits are applied to the poles of functions (as A. Trekhov did in [15]), it can be seen that cross-functions of the same name differ in positivism/negativism and Questimity/Declatimity.

As a very important, although secondary, consequence of the analysis in [7], a fundamental difference was identified between the ethological basis of questim cross-aspects and that of declatim cross-aspects. It turned out that questim aspects are better suited to transmitting information of a discrete (fragmented) kind: spatial and temporal patterns (sensing), sign-signals (logic), and discrete associations (intuition). Declatim aspects, by contrast, are better suited to information of a continual (continuous) kind: images, index-signals (of the pointing type), and fuzzy meanings and associations (intuition). The only notable exception is perhaps Fe emotions, to which the discrete-continuous distinction is scarcely applicable at all.

Comparison of questim and declatim cross-aspects in terms of their ethological basis [7].

We emphasize that the analysis of discreteness/continuity concerned only the ethological basis of the cross-aspects. In humans, the basis is substantially overlaid by culturally conditioned information, meanings, and behavioral models. However, according to the conclusions of the final part of [7], the aspect “superstructure” pertains not to an individual aspect or function, but at least to a block of two functions (one rational and one irrational). Since, in theory, a block consists of functions of different signs, in superstructural models detail “flows” from one aspect into another. Even Model A itself in socionics can serve as an example. It is based on simple binary traits (–Ti), but individual positions in the model are assigned qualitatively different, specific, and elaborately described (at least in theory) purposes of functions (+Ne). The simplicity and “black-and-white” nature of the classification, the rejection of quantitative descriptions (the strength of functions on some scale) in favor of binary dichotomies, is compensated for by a complex and fairly precise “division of labor” among functions within the model, with the resulting peculiarities of the psyche’s reactions. Models of the directly opposite type are, of course, also possible, with exact ratios of the power of functions and states (+Ti–Te) being specified and their qualitative differences reduced merely to the quantitative predominance of some factors over others (–Ne). An example from socionics is Talanov’s approach involving construction of a TIM profile: in this case the boundaries between TIMs become blurred, while Model A loses its qualitative character and turns into a purely quantitative Model T. However, this analysis goes far beyond the scope of the present article.

Let us note once again that the discreteness/continuity trait characterizes only information (signals, associations, etc. received and understood by the psyche), but not the subject’s motivation: the latter is described by the positivism/negativism trait. Moreover, the informational and motivational manifestations of functions by sign are not rigidly linked, but only on average and as a tendency. Thus, a positively motivated person (in terms of +Ne) may quite well resort to “declatim” informational models if necessary, and vice versa. The tendency is related only to the better adaptation of information functions for performing tasks of “their own” motivational sign. For example, simple –Fe emotions are read and empathized with more easily; a person seemingly enters the emotional state of the “sender” of their own accord. More complex, “as-if-telling-us-something” +Fe emotions, by contrast, are more likely even to interfere with this, which makes them better suited to creating emotional contrast within a group, to separation, and to emphasizing differences in positions and experiences.

2. Interhemispheric Asymmetry and Localization of Cross-Functions

Both positivism/negativism and (to an even greater extent!) discreteness/continuity are substantially associated with functional brain asymmetry. According to established views in neurophysiology, the left hemisphere specialized in processing discrete (including sign-based) information, while the right specialized in continual images [9]. Likewise, the left hemisphere is more closely associated with positive emotions and the right with negative ones; this is confirmed both when one hemisphere is chemically deactivated and in experiments presenting emotion-inducing images in the left and right visual fields [8, 18]. This naturally suggests a connection between the Reinin traits mentioned above and laterally asymmetric localization of cross-functions in the cerebral cortex.

Socionics does not yet have a generally accepted scheme for localizing functions across the cerebral hemispheres. Thus, V. Gulenko associates logic and sensing with the left hemisphere and ethics and intuition with the right [3]. A. Filimonov believed that dynamic functions are localized on the left and static functions on the right [16]. S. Bogomaz [1], V. Talanov [13], and, following him, V. Stukas [12] regard logic and intuition as left-hemisphere functions and sensing and ethics as right-hemisphere functions. Talanov and Stukas also associate logic, among other things, with Broca’s area (located in the left inferior frontal cortex and generally responsible for word pronunciation and the grammatical correctness of speech), and intuition with Wernicke’s area (left inferior temporal cortex; responsible for perception of the meaning of speech). They also believe (together with A. Filimonov) that rational functions are localized mainly in the anterior parts of the cortex, while irrational functions are localized in the temporal and occipital regions.

None of these works, however, takes the signs of functions into account. This, in turn, prevented the authors from constructing lateralization models based on the positivism/negativism and Questimity/Declatimity traits of functions, as a result of which the analysis proved insufficiently detailed, although a number of its propositions are undoubtedly correct. Thus, according to [7], it is not logic in general that is associated with Broca’s area and adjacent regions, but the +Te pole (and, as will be shown below, –Ti). Likewise, it is not all intuition that is tied to Wernicke’s area, but only the discrete +Ne–Ni (see [7], sec. 11). The fine-grained picture of localization was lost because of Talanov’s tendency (following Jung) toward an integral, undivided understanding of functions without taking signs into account.

After this introduction to the subject, we can now present a model of function localization that takes signs into account. First, we will give the general scheme for standard right-handers; the argumentation will follow below.

What can be said about this scheme at first glance?

The irrational cross-functions are clearly separated: discrete-positive ones are on the left, continual-negative ones on the right, which fully corresponds to the neurophysiological views mentioned above. For rational functions, the picture is somewhat different, for which their Reinin traits are “to blame”: Questimity (discreteness) is linked with negativism, while Declatimity (continuity) is linked with positivism, i.e. by one trait a cross-function “should” be on the left, and by the other on the right. The contradiction is resolved by separating the functions: questim logic and declatim ethics are on the left, and the reverse on the right. In the case of logic, this is dictated by the fact that both speech and complex movements and plans (+Te, see [7]) are tied to the left hemisphere; with respect to emotions, by the predominant association of a negative emotional set (not necessarily every emotion, but specifically the general set; see [8]) with the right brain and a positive one with the left. In addition, the discreteness/continuity trait is hardly applicable to emotions at all (see above), whereas positivism/negativism plays a very important role, so the localization contradiction should be resolved in favor of the second trait. For logic, the opposite is true: discreteness/continuity plays the leading role, while positivism/negativism is secondary.

We will also present our considerations regarding the localization of intuitive and sensing cross-functions. Discrete intuition +Ne–Ni, whose basis includes, among other things, a literal understanding of the meaning of speech, is naturally tied to the left hemisphere, more precisely to the left temporal lobe (Wernicke’s area and adjacent regions). However, the right brain also has its own intuition, continual +Ni–Ne, responsible for “creative” functions such as transfer of meaning: it is known that when the right brain is deactivated, only literal understanding of speech remains, while figurative meanings are lost.

As for sensing, let us recall the main difference between the two cross-functions from [7]. Sensing of the object (continual) +Si–Se is responsible for its maximally precise recognition with all details taken into account; the most complex task of this kind is face recognition, and it is performed much better by the right hemisphere (damage to the corresponding areas leads to facial agnosia). Sensing of configuration (discrete) +Se–Si recognizes not objects but patterns, i.e. sequences or configurations of simpler objects and movements. The most complex tasks of this kind are perception of speech sounds and rapid reading: both are normally handled by the left hemisphere, damage to which causes aphasias. In reading, the decisive factor is not recognition of individual letters (this is a simple task that either hemisphere can handle), but the speed of combining letters into words and sentences, as well as the ease of reading long texts without fatigue. However, this applies only to phonetic writing; in reading hieroglyphs such as Chinese characters, by contrast, the right hemisphere performs better because of the greater complexity and diversity of the signs (there are thousands of them) and the shorter length of the chain of characters constituting a concept (usually one or two). The advantage of the left hemisphere in pattern recognition is a consequence of the special organization of the visual image, namely discriminant description (the image is represented as a point in a multidimensional space of simple invariant features), which permits rapid and coarse recognition of an object-pattern [6]. In the right hemisphere, by contrast, the image of an object is stored together with all its details, which facilitates precise recognition. Identification of non-speech sounds is likewise the domain of the right brain.

It should be noted that the asymmetry of functions is not absolute, but only relative, and depends decisively on the complexity of the tasks being solved. The most complex and most lateralized are the speech, reading, and face-recognition functions mentioned above; one may also add mathematical operations (primarily the domain of the left brain), control of speech-related emotions (right brain), as well as the “creative” abilities attributed to the right hemisphere, which, in our view, reflect the operation of declatim-continual intuition +Ni–Ne, poorly accessible to introspection and verbal description. (Continual logic +Ti–Te may play an important role in this work, presumably being responsible for the transformation and manipulation of intuitive models; we will return to this question.) However, simpler functions, including uncomplicated movements, recognition of objects and patterns in the absence of time constraints, as well as simplified (compressed), stripped-down solutions to more complex tasks, can be carried out by either hemisphere, as demonstrated by observations of patients with a severed corpus callosum [9]. This suggests the possibility of an alternative understanding of aspect signs: the (+/–) poles can be superimposed on a continuous scale of complexity (detail), where the conventional zero of the latter corresponds to the (–) pole, while the maximum (determined by the ceiling of the brain’s capacity to process information in the given aspect) corresponds to the (+) pole. Thus, the aspect signs themselves admit both a binary-dichotomous and a continual interpretation.

Let us also examine how blocks of functions, or more precisely, cross-blocks (as we will call pairs of cross-functions of different rationality that coincide in Questimity/Declatimity), map onto the localization scheme. First, it can be seen that all functions of logical cross-blocks are localized in the same hemisphere: on the left, +Te–Ti with +Se–Si and +Ne–Ni; on the right, –Te+Ti with –Se+Si and –Ne+Ni. Ethical cross-blocks, by contrast, consist of functions from different hemispheres. This is consistent with a number of neurophysiological findings on activation of diametrically opposed cortical regions during emotional arousal [10, 18]: left anterior and right posterior regions (in the scheme, the cross-blocks –Fe+Fi with –Se+Si, –Ne+Ni), or right anterior and left posterior regions (+Fe–Fi with +Se–Si, +Ne–Ni).

The basic forms of interaction between functions in logical cross-blocks also generally agree with current conceptions of how the two cerebral hemispheres operate. Thus, the basic form of interaction of the cross-functions –Se+Si/–Te+Ti is morphological analysis of an object: identification of structure, schematization (translation of information +Si ––> +Ti, in detail, taking into account the invariance of structure under possible spatial rotations and deformations), and classification of objects on the basis of their structural similarities and differences, both as wholes and in their parts. This is object-spatial analysis, which is handled better by the right hemisphere (although in simple tasks the interhemispheric difference is barely noticeable).

The cross-block +Se–Si/+Te–Ti operates somewhat differently at the basic level and is “tuned” to analyzing not objects but patterns, i.e. configurations of object-elements in space or time (including sound sequences). First, it compares objects/elements by simple features and maps them in a multidimensional feature space [6], which is very important for rapidly isolating a specific pattern from an array of extraneous “noise” objects. A spatiotemporal scheme of the pattern is then constructed. (Strangely enough, the right hemisphere performs worse here; for example, when scattered component parts of a familiar object are rapidly presented in the left visual field, the right hemisphere may “see” the complete object in assembled form.) In addition to pattern recognition itself, the pattern can be subjected to analysis with components identified according to different features, disassembled and subsequently reassembled, including with structural variations. In this process, information is translated into the language of actions: +Se ––> +Te, the pattern is transformed into a construction procedure (algorithm), or into a model for action. This elementary translation from sensing to logic is very important, for example, for speech recognition, reading/writing, and performing complex actions by following a model. In tasks of such complexity, even if the right hemisphere can cope, it does so only with great difficulty and becomes fatigued rapidly (an example is reading in people with lesions of the corresponding regions of the left hemisphere).

In its basic form, the cross-block +Te–Ti/+Ne–Ni provides abstract-sign (including, but not limited to, speech-related) thinking and analysis. Speech processes proper are primarily +Te (pronunciation) and +Ne (meanings, the meaning of words), but also –Ti (following grammatical rules) and even –Ni (predicting subsequent words during speech on the basis of what has already been heard). In a more general sense, this cross-block implements the generalized sign relation “signal (signifier) ––> signified” while observing certain signaling rules. In addition, by analogy with the “left” sensing-logical cross-block, its intuitive analogue +Te–Ti/+Ne–Ni implements complex actions involving abstract objects and patterns while observing certain rules: this includes most of mathematics, from the simplest arithmetic to the most advanced abstract theories. Formal logic (including Aristotelian logic), of course, also belongs here.

The basis of the “right” intuitive-logical cross-block +Ti–Te/+Ni–Ne, however, has not yet been adequately described. The obvious name “cross-block of creative-logical thinking” is not very informative: although linking creative thinking to the right hemisphere has already become commonplace, the concept is too vague, and almost anything is understood as creativity (moreover, one can create through all functions, both left- and right-hemisphere ones). Therefore, it is better here to rely on predictions of the theory rather than conceptions from popular psychology. What does the theory tell us? In terms of linguistic meanings, the main distinction between the basis of continual intuition +Ni–Ne and discrete intuition is the fuzziness of associations and their nontrivial dependence on various kinds of emphases and contextual semantic relations, which makes transfer of meaning possible (including, for example, a sense of humor). In terms of more general associations (including models of change), the +Ni–Ne cross-function is likewise distinguished by sensitivity to small changes in systemic relations at the “input” of the model. In our view, in a cross-block with +Ti–Te it operates by searching for models in memory according to the principle of resonance. Moreover, resonance can be elicited not only by the complete form of a structure (as in the case of discrete associations, where a pattern is recognized by all its components), but also by particular relations among elements of the structure and active factors (+Ti–Te), possibly even in transformed form if they fit the model’s “input” well. The determining factors are specifically structural relations, not the system’s concrete embodiment (recall that intuition is the domain of implicit associations, not associations based on physical similarity or proximity): one and the same model can operate on the structure of entirely different systems. Nevertheless, we should note that the idea of a resonant character of this cross-block’s operation is so far only a hypothesis, albeit a highly plausible one.

3. Gender and Racial-Ethnic Differences in the Expression of Function Poles

Studies of lateral asymmetry of brain functions have found statistically significant dependencies of lateralization on an individual’s sex. In the popular interpretation, women are considered, on average, more “right-hemispheric” than men, and the lateralization of functions is also less pronounced in them. In reality, the picture is clearly more complex, especially if one takes into account the existence of a “left” and a “right” pole for all socionic functions. We will try to examine the gender effects in the operation of each of them separately, comparing them with available neurophysiological data.

[2] provides details of the gender dependence of the operation of sign-linguistic (left-hemisphere) intelligence. It turns out that in men, Wernicke’s area (the left inferior temporal region) participates more actively in productive speech processes. In women it is significantly less active, which, however, is compensated for by Broca’s area (the left inferior frontal cortex), as well as by the laterally symmetrical region of the right temporal lobe. Above, in agreement with Talanov and Stukas, we associated the +Ne pole of intuition (and, presumably, the entire +Ne–Ni cross-function) with Wernicke’s area, and the +Te pole of logic and the +Te–Ti cross-function as a whole with Broca’s area. It thus turns out that in women, strangely enough, logic +Te takes over some part of the work of intuition +Ne! This, of course, contradicts all popular views about women being less “logical” and more “intuitive” than men.

However, it is enough to look at logic and intuition somewhat more rigorously for the erroneousness of these popular views to become immediately apparent. If women are inferior to men in anything, it is not in logic, as evidenced by comparison of the abilities and achievements of the two sexes in different professions. Activities requiring compliance with many rules of various kinds (Ti, grammatical, legal, administrative) are performed by women no worse, and sometimes even better, than by men. Women’s speech is well developed; they are more talkative than men (Te). Women also cope fairly well with complex classifications, including in the natural sciences. In science in general, women are truly inferior to men only in mathematics (and mathematized disciplines such as physics and computer science) and, strangely enough, in philosophy (while in all other humanities disciplines they show no noticeable lag). They are also significantly inferior to men in those areas of technology where one must not classify or follow rules (which women can in fact do!), but solve inventive problems. However, in these areas of activity that are “problematic” for the weaker sex, intuition, more precisely the +Ne pole (and specifically in a block with logic!), plays a primary role, imparting clarity and specificity to implicit connections and correspondences and making them substantially dependent on meaningful details of the situation. In general, in our view, so-called “female logic” is actually female intuition, or more precisely, an insufficient ability of the latter to assist logic in modeling complex, detailed systemic connections-associations. This scarcely affects the function of purely linguistic signification (which constitutes the ethological basis of +Ne), but it very noticeably impedes work with narrowly specific models-associations that have no simple representation either in language or in object-spatial thinking. The best example is mathematical associations, where a clear understanding is required of what all kinds of variables, quantities, and terms in formulas correspond to, as well as the ability to spontaneously evoke in one’s mind these correspondences in specific problem situations.

Thus, the operation of the +Ne–Ti block in women may differ quite substantially from the operation of the same block in men, mainly in the lower concreteness of complex non-speech associations. At present it is difficult for us to determine what causes this difference: a weakening in women of the +Ne pole taken separately, or of the basic cross-block connection +Ne–Ni/+Te–Ti (see above). In addition, part of the load of this “left” cross-block in women is transferred to “right” intuition and logic, i.e. to the language of spatial and fuzzy-associative thinking.

It should be especially emphasized that “female” +Ne is not lower-dimensional (in the socionic sense) than the “male” one; in other words, one should not expect ILE/LII TIMs to occur less frequently among women than among men. The main gender difference concerns “quantitative detail”, independently of strength/weakness and dimensionality. Conventionally speaking, women show a “lack of plusness” in +Ne, which, however, is compensated for by an “excess of plusness” (of course, only on average in comparison with men) in the functions +Fe and +Te. For the former of these two there is little cause for objection: in general, women are widely recognized as having greater sensitivity to emotional signals and nuances, as well as finer control over emotional expression. The situation is somewhat more complicated with +Te; here the nonverbal component is most immediately apparent, namely finer control over movements in women (manifested in gestures, dance, gymnastics, and also in production work, where women cope much better than men with fine manual work). In management, when teaching in schools and universities, and so forth, women also behave on average somewhat more pedantically and are more demanding with regard to small facts and details of regulations.

The gender dependencies identified above, namely an “excess of detail” in +Te and +Fe together with a lack of detail in +Ne, can be extended by hypothesizing the same deficit of detail in women for the other extraverted-irrational function +Se (together with a “transfer of complexity” from +Se to +Te/+Fe). At first glance, this would again seem to contradict the impulsiveness and spontaneity of behavior (+Se) traditionally attributed to women together with their lower aggressiveness (in the narrow sense, –Se). However, careful aspect-by-aspect analysis shows that these notions are not exactly incorrect, but from the standpoint of socionics they must be interpreted in an entirely different way. First, an unquestionable indicator of a shift in the +Se ––> +Te balance in women is the finer control over movements mentioned above (compared with men). Second, spontaneously active behavior, the search for novelty and trying out new actions in different situations, is in the ethological and biological sense actually more characteristic of males, because the male sex implements to a greater degree a strategy of variability and search for novelty (this is important above all for the purposes of competitive struggle). Females, by contrast, adhere to more conservative, protective strategies, with a predominant emphasis on avoiding threats (which is very important above all for the survival of offspring). In other words, “female” sensing behavior is shifted toward negativism, while male behavior is shifted toward positivism. We may also add here men’s greater tendency toward play aggression and gambling addiction (as well as drug addiction, which is more a matter of an unhealthy emphasis on –Si [7], although according to the Reinin traits this is again a positive aspect). Third, the generally recognized “spontaneity” of women’s behavior is expressed mostly in emotional reactions and displays (+Fe), rather than in physical activity proper (+Se); this can be regarded as an indicator of a relative shift in activity +Se ––> +Fe in women compared with men.

To summarize the above, the left-hemisphere irrational functions +Ne and +Se operate under a lower load in women (compared with men); this is compensated for by greater activity of the right-hemisphere irrational functions –Ne and –Se, as well as of the rational functions +Te and +Fe. In addition to the obvious shift of women toward negativism, it unexpectedly follows here that they should tend to be somewhat more rational than men. We should note, however, that our analysis has so far concerned only the black socionic functions; different gender dependencies may apply to the white functions, which the analysis has not yet reached.

Our description of gender characteristics overlaps to some extent with V. Stukas’s analysis [11]. Although Stukas associates gender dependence not with function signs, but with the settings of their excitatory and inhibitory filters according to Model “T”, his results regarding irrational functions are very similar to ours. According to Stukas, “strong-signal” sensing and intuition are “male”, while “weak-signal” sensing and intuition are female. In Model “T”, the setting of filters by excitation is associated with extraversion/introversion. However, in [7], on the basis of analysis of the functions’ basic adaptive role, we associated strong- and weak-signal character with the discreteness/continuity of signals or, equivalently, with the Questimity/Declatimity trait of functions. Under this interpretation of Stukas’s idea, the cross-functions +Se–Si and +Ne–Ni prove to be “male”, while +Si–Se and +Ni–Ne are “female”.

At the end of this section it is appropriate to address the question of racial and ethnic dependencies in the operation of socionic functions, because the left-/right-hemisphere dichotomy is often identified not only with male/female but also with Western/Eastern thinking. This identification is not entirely correct (the so-called “East” is extremely heterogeneous), but the thinking and culture of the peoples of East Asia, compared with Western Europe, do indeed show characteristics similar to the differences between the “female” versions of socionic functions and the “male” ones. First and foremost, this is, of course, a lack of detail in static intuition +Ne, expressed, on the one hand, in an “inventive lag” (a lack of creativity in solving technical problems), and also in the clearly greater vagueness of concepts and conceptions in Eastern philosophical systems compared with Western ones. This is again compensated for by finer control over +Te (discipline in activity, familiar from corporate-technological management), as well as by the use of broader –Ne schemes of thinking (examples include Chinese stratagems, the “Book of Changes”, and so forth). The +Se function is similarly weakened, which is expressed in clearly lower impulsiveness of behavior (including lower crime and better discipline). Comparison of Eastern and Western styles of hand-to-hand combat likewise provides an excellent example of the shift +Se ––> +Te.

4. Additional Remarks

Can the theory of function localization proposed by us be applied in socionic typing? At first glance, the prospect seems attractive, given the existence of more or less developed methods for determining the asymmetry profile and the dominant cerebral hemisphere. In our view, however, serious obstacles still exist here.

First, the proposed localization scheme pertains only to the specific basis of functions (and fully so only to the most complex manifestations of the basis), and by no means to the entire spectrum of manifestations of functions considered in socionics. Indeed, we referred to the localization, verified by neurologists, of functions that are complex but specific, such as speech, reading, face recognition, control of fine hand movements, and so forth. This is a level so fundamental (relative to more complex psychic behavior) that it is essentially not even considered in socionics (although more careful analysis, from Talanov’s articles through our work [7], confidently links it to the basis of specific socionic functions). In socionics, however, only the “higher” forms of behavior and thinking are so far regarded as significant, and information about their implementation “in nature” (= in brain physiology) is still fragmentary and contradictory, where it exists at all. In other words, we have confidently localized only the part of the functions that is least interesting to socionists… In addition, in [7] we established that in humans the superstructure of thinking over the ethological basis consists almost entirely of models involving not a single function but at least a block of functions. At present we cannot say anything definite about the localization of these superstructural models. Moreover, implementation of thinking models through one of the blocks may quite well require operation at the basis of other functions of any sign, and a block that is theoretically “left-hemispheric” may invoke right-hemisphere basic functions for its purposes, and vice versa.

Second, and no less importantly, localization of functions in the brain is subject to considerable individual variation. Left-handedness, for example, is a familiar and not particularly rare phenomenon; moreover, the brains of left-handed people are a mirror image of the “normal” brain in only a small number of cases. A wide variety of variants occur: some functions may be localized as in a “standard right-hander”, others may be mirror-reversed, while still others may be distributed across both hemispheres. For example, [6] states that in approximately 10-20% of right-handed people the hemispheres “switch roles” with respect to visual information processing. V. Talanov believes that the probability of left-handedness depends on TIM and is highest in LIE (it is noteworthy that –Te, the base function for this TIM, is localized on the right in our model and, naturally, primarily controls movements), although his statistics are not especially representative [14].

Here we will permit ourselves to put forward a promising but as yet unsupported hypothesis: if, for some reason (genetic left-handedness or physical brain trauma), the normal localization of functions is disrupted, then functions may become linked into blocks and cross-blocks according to an alternative scheme. (For example, the seemingly forbidden-by-sign-theory block –Ne+Ti would appear in the Ego of ILE.) Testing this hypothesis requires socionic typing data on people who are demonstrably left-handed, as well as on people who have suffered severe brain injuries. Unfortunately, the low accuracy of typing, especially with respect to function signs, is at present unlikely to permit reliable detection of such effects, which are generally rare and at best appear in a small percentage of the population. Nevertheless, we hope that studying the possibility of alternative linkage of functions into blocks will shed light on certain characteristics of perception and thinking in some left-handed people (including, perhaps, even geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci) and in people who have suffered injuries. This is a prospect for future socionic research.

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Ivan Popov, February 2010