Introduction into Socionics (draft): Part 1

© Dmitri Lytov, Marianna Lytova, January 2005
First presented as Internet lectures to pedagogues and students
of the St. Kliment Okhridsky University (Sofia, Bulgaria).

Part 1—Part 2—Part 3

Dear readers,

we will much appreciate your feedback.
If you have any suggestions or remark concerning this text, please send your opinion to the authors.

Socionics is a branch of psychology that studies relationships between psychological types. It is based on somewhat modified system of psychological types described by C.G.Jung in his Psychological Types (1916, 1920 etc.) and Tavistock Lectures (1935).

You also know a different version of Jungian typology known as the Myers-Briggs Type Theory (MBTT). It is based on the test called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It is well known in the US, and for the last years in Europe as well.

The Myers-Briggs Type Theory is sometimes confused with socionics, although there are some differences between these two theories. Let us describe them shortly:

1. Different methods of type evaluation. MBTT almost completely relies upon tests, while socionics from the beginning developed alternative methods – determining type by interviewing, observation, etc. Verbal testing is considered as a secondary, not primary method, because it says nothing about the nature of types. This does not mean that tests are not known in socionics. For example we the authors of this article developed the Socionic Multifactor Test, which we are going to discuss below. In the last years socionics focuses on biological parameters of types.
2. Somewhat different definitions of the 4 basic type criteria. In MBTT, the type is defined as 4 basic choices: extraversion (E) or introversion (I), sensing (S) or intuition (N), thinking (T) or feeling (F), judgment (J) or perception (P). Socionics uses terms logic/ethic – instead of thinking/feeling, and rationality/irrationality – instead of perception/judgment. However, more important is the contents of these definitions, they do not always coincide.
3. Intertype relationships. Although several representatives of MBTT proposed their own views on compatibility between the Myers-Briggs types, a thorough theory of intertype relationships does not exist in MBTT. By contrast, Socionics, from the very beginning, was created as a theory describing and explaining some regularities of relations between people.

On the other hand, there is also a lot in common between these two theories. Main fields of application are the same: family and business consulting, education etc. When first publications about MBTT appeared in the former USSR (a very short overview appeared in 1984, and several popular books were translated since 1994), socionists found a lot of useful information there. We believe in fruitful cooperation between these two branches of Jungian typology is possible; we should not forget about the differences, but we believe they can be resolved.

Origin of C.G.Jung's Typology.

Even those who never heard about Jung know the terms Extraversion and Introversion. However, Jung himself for many years had doubts about their contents and semantics. He was only sure that the difference between extraverts and introverts arose from the pre-determination of different people to different kinds of psychiatric diseases.

Jung studied mentally ill people, for he was a psychiatrist. However, for the years of his studies he mentioned that even mentally sound people are predetermined to different mental diseases. Most of people for their whole lives have no opportunity to unleash this potential.

Let us look on this problem from the different viewpoint. When we consider negative and positive epithets used in literature, we will notice that very often the same quality may be described as both positive and negative. And, on the contrary, there exist mutually incompatible traits: one can develop one of them only at cost of the other.

Jung considered extraversion and introversion as such mutually incompatible characteristics. However, his definition of this criterion was vague and contradictory: as focus on the “outer world” (extraversion) or “inner world” (introversion). At that time (1910 – 1920) these terms were not accepted and/or understood by psychologists.

He went on with studying other mutually incompatible traits. In 1920 he published his fundamental work called Psychological Types. In this work he described 4 psychological types: two of them, Thinking and Feeling, he called Rational (Judging); and the other two, Sensing and Intuitive, he called Irrational (Perceiving). Each of these 4 types could be extraverted or introverted.

Did you notice what has changed? Initially Jung wrote about the extraverted and introverted types. Later he changed his mind, and began to consider extraversion and introversion as something like “taste” of the main psychical functions.

For the next 15 years he extended his typology: he supposed that Rational types (thinking or feeling) can have irrational "secondary function" (sensing or intuition), and vice versa. This meant that the types initially described by him could be "decomposed" into binary criteria, which in turn could serve as basis for more profound typology. He summarized his views in his Tavistock Lectures, where he finally described his 4 binary criteria of psychological types:

- rationality (judgment, J) vs. irrationality (perception, P);

- thinking (T) vs. feeling (F);

- sensing (S) vs. intuition (N);

- extraversion (E) vs. introversion (I).

(the symbols J/P, T/F etc. were invented not by Jung but proposed later by Isabel Briggs Myers).

On this basis it was possible to describe 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 types.

However, then Jung seemed to forget his type theory! Very rarely, he made comments on it in his letters – and that was all! Why?

Jung was well aware of the fact that the definitions he gave to these 4 criteria were vague and unclear. And they could not be improved at his time! It was impossible because of very little knowledge about the human nature, about the nature of psychical functions. And Jung had negative attitudes towards those who wanted to popularize his typology, to create tests on its basis.

Jung made some important observations and statements about his typology.

First, he wrote that these type must be inborn. They were not just attitudes, conscious models of behavior. For any person, one half of the criterion (e.g. introversion) is “natural”, and the other (e.g. extraversion) is “unnatural”, contradicts to his nature. A person may behave like an extravert, being a “born introvert”, and this makes him feel depressed, frustrated.

Second, in Psychological Types (1920) he wrote about interaction between his types. He wrote about “special charm”, “influence at the level of the subconscious” that have towards each other representatives of complementary types. These complementary types should be both rational, or both irrational, and other criteria should be different (for example, ES – IN, or ET – IF). Alas, this hypothesis was expressed only in brief phrases, Jung did not develop it later.

People who worked together with Jung defined him as Intuitive, Introverted, Thinking.

Right, Augusta started from relationships, not from types.

The Origin of Socionics.

Augusta was an economist by education and occupation (after graduation she worked at the Ministry of Finance of the Soviet Lithuania), but later she became a sociologist. At that time (1960s) sociology was new in the Soviet Union – under Stalin it was considered as a “bourgeois pseudo-science”. Augusta studied family relations.

According to Marx, economy was the basis of everything – including human relations. Augusta studied happy and unhappy marriages, and initially she relied upon Marx – she studied economic, social and cultural factors that took place in these families. However, she quickly realized that they were not enough. There were families, quite “normal” from the viewpoint of economic situation, cultural level etc., but unhappy anyway.

What was the reason of their unhappiness? Maybe sex? Augusta was not too shy in these matters (later she even published some articles on sexology). She began to read books on psychoanalysis. In fact she was in better situation than many other Soviet researchers, psychologists and sociologists, who lived in other republics. Lithuania became a part of USSR only in 1940, and before this year, many books on psychoanalysis have been published in Lithuanian language. In addition, many books from the West came to Lithuanian libraries at that time. She started from Freud, and very soon came across C.J.Jung's typology.

But at first glance she did not understand it. She began to study other psychological typologies known at that time – these of Kretschmer, Gannushkin, Leonhard, Sheldon etc. Soon she understood that all these typologies were somewhat chaotic. These scientists simply observed some “typical cases” and made them “defined points” of their typologies. By contrast, Jung's typology was SYSTEMATIC, logical.

She came back to C.G.Jung's typology and tried to apply it to the families she had previously studied…

Augusta was surprised by the fact that none of the above mentioned personality typologies considered the problem of intertype relationships. She tried to consider families known to her from the viewpoint of different typologies. However, all of them showed no regularities – except the Jung's typology.

The first regularity was named quasi-identity.

Jung did not distinguish clearly rational types from irrational. For him, Thinking Extraverted type with secondary Intuition (ENT rational) was “almost the same” as Intuitive Extraverted with secondary Thinking (ENT irrational). Jung's adherents (M.L. von Franz, J. Hillman etc.), as a rule, ignored the rationality/irrationality criterion. The first test of Jung's types (the Gray – Wheelwright test, 1938) included only three of the four criteria.

However, Augusta's researches showed something different—it was a VERY IMPORTANT criterion. It worked like a “switch” that sometimes changed positive into negative.

For example, she observed several families where one of spouses was an intuitive-logical extravert (ENT irrational), and the second – sensory-ethical introvert (ISF irrational). The relationship within this couple was quite harmonious and good. However, it was opposite in the pair with ALL THE FOUR criteria different: e.g. intuitive-logical extravert (ENT irrational), and ethical-sensory introvert (ISF rational). Compatibility between partners in this couple was very bad, they often fell into conflicts. In general, the situation in the first pair could be described as “mutual support”, “distribution of tasks according to the partners' strong functions”, while the second pair could be described as "embarrassment", "frustration" and "disappointment".

Augusta used the term “quasi-identity” to describe the types with difference in the criterion rationality/irrationality. At first glance, quasi-identical types seemed similar in many ways. But at close distance, the difference became obvious. The quasi-identical types practiced usually same kinds of activities, but seemed to evaluate them from different viewpoints. However, in quasi-identical pairs such difference very rarely resulted in conflicts – more often it resulted in lack of understanding or indifference to each other.

Correct. It studies the relationships between psychological types. The main idea of socionics is that the type predetermines relations to certain extent.

However, socionics NEVER forgets about other factors (irrelevant to psychological types) that also influence relations, such as economic level, age, sex, culture, corporate traditions, occupation etc.

And the type is considered IN DYNAMICS. This means that the relationship between two types, e.g. INT-rational and ISF-rational, may have various options. This is probably its principal difference both from original Jung's ideas and from MBTT: considering the type not as a “list of traits”, but rather as an “algorithm of traits”.

Initially, when socionics was isolated from the official Soviet psychology, it was a school, or even a “circle of adherents”. It was the only school that studied the dependence between human relations and human types. The official “Marxist psychology" said that everything is determined by the society: character, human development and, finally, human relations. At that time socionics was even declared to be a “new science” :).

But starting from 1990s socionics more and more integrates into psychology, somewhere between the psycho-diagnostics and the social psychology. So, for us it is unclear whether socionics today is a school or a method. Both answers are acceptable.

The subject of socionics is the human relations in the broadest meaning: in family, between friends, colleagues, in large workgroups, sport teams etc. Socionics wants to answer the question where are the limits of human compatibility between people of different (or identical) types, how it is possible to help people to adapt to each other, improve productivity of their co-working; sometimes, when conflicts at close distance seem to be insoluble, socionics suggests to introduce a ”third party” in order to resolve a conflict, or to regroup people, or simply to redirect their attention.

Also, studying relations is impossible without studying profound mechanisms of human psyche. For example, actually several socionists (Talanov in St. Petersburg, Prof. Bogomaz in Tomsk, Prof. Okladnikov in Irkutsk etc.) study the problem how types are relevant to the brain activity. We both develop methods of experimental and comparative studying of the types. And so, so on.

Socionists believe (of course hoping to verify it experimentally) that:

1) The psychological type is a structure more or less stable during the whole life; a type is an algorithm with various options (see above), but it cannot be “reprogrammed”;

2) The types are the same in all countries and in all times; at least, in our biographical studies we still have not discovered something impossible to describe in terms of Jungian typology;

3) Jung himself wrote that THE SAME psychological types could be observed among mentally ill and mentally sound people. Moreover, he wrote that people fall into neuroses when they cannot live “according to their natural types”, for example, when an extraverted person in a collective overfilled with extraverts has to play a role of an introverted person. In other words, mental illness, according to Jung, is often caused by the “treason of one's inborn type”, when one attempts to be not what he psychically is.

The second regularity was called duality, or complementariness.

Above we have already described the regularity noticed by Jung – unfortunately, he did not develop his observations. Isabel B. Myers, the founder of MBTT, believed that the best case is when types complement each other by all the 4 criteria – for example, ENTP and ISFJ. However, her hypothesis was disproved by other adherents of MBTT.

According to Augusta, the so-called DUAL PAIRS are the pairs of best compatibility at close distance, for example in family. Here we will not discuss how she came to this conclusion, how she verified it – it is a very long topic. According to her, duality is the complementariness by 3 of the 4 criteria. The fourth (rationality/irrationality) should, on the contrary, coincide.

For example, the pair INT irrational + ESF irrational is a dual pair.

Later this theory was confirmed by empiric data. Several years ago psychologists Boukalov, Karpenko, Chikirisova from Ukraine researched a several plants in different cities. After putting together results of testing of the personnel, they found, that many of them were married with each other. An additional research of the married couples had shown that out of 16 possible intertype relationships, the greatest percentage of family relationships (more than one third) belongs to dual relationships [3]. An independent statistical research of family pairs performed by Filatova (St. Petersburg, 1999) has also shown very high percentage of dual pairs (17%) compared to other relationships.

The main idea of socionics is that the type predetermines relations to certain extent.

However, socionics NEVER forgets about other factors (irrelevant to psychological types) that also influence relations, such as economic level, age, sex, culture, corporate traditions, occupation etc.

And the type is considered IN DYNAMICS. This means that the relationship between two types, e.g. INT-rational and ISF-rational, may have various options. This is probably its principal difference both from original Jung's ideas and from MBTT: considering the type not as a “list of traits”, but rather as an “algorithm of traits”.

Initially, when socionics was isolated from the official Soviet psychology, it was a school, or even a “circle of adherents”. It was the only school that studied the dependence between human relations and human types. The official “Marxist psychology" said that everything is determined by the society: character, human development and, finally, human relations. At that time socionics was even declared to be a “new science” :).

But starting from 1990s socionics more and more integrates into psychology, somewhere between the psycho-diagnostics and the social psychology. So, for us it is unclear whether socionics today is a school or a method. Both answers are acceptable.

The subject of socionics is the human relations in the broadest meaning: in family, between friends, colleagues, in large workgroups, sport teams etc. Socionics wants to answer the question where are the limits of human compatibility between people of different (or identical) types, how it is possible to help people to adapt to each other, improve productivity of their co-working; sometimes, when conflicts at close distance seem to be insoluble, socionics suggests to introduce a ”third party” in order to resolve a conflict, or to regroup people, or simply to redirect their attention.

In his work Psychological Types Jung wrote about 8 basic functions, in Tavistock Lectures about 16 types. This means, that each 2 types have the same basic function but different secondary functions.

RATIONAL (judging) types have dominant Thinking or Feeling function, secondary Sensing or Intuitive function.

IRRATIONAL (perceiving) types have dominant Sensing or Intuitive function, secondary Thinking or Feeling function.

For example, the type INT-irrational has the following strong functions: Ni dominant, Te secondary.

The type INT-rational has the following strong functions: Ti dominant, Ne secondary.

Important: unlike Jung (and unlike socionics), in MBTT Rational is not the same as Judging, Irrational is not the same as Perceiving. They use a different model.

The third regularity was called mirrorness.

The “mirror” pairs are those where the criteria N/S and T/F coincide, while two others are different.

Here are some examples of “mirror” pairs:

ENT-irrational + INT-rational;

ENF-rational + INF-irrational, etc.

Although different in appearance and behavior, they were found similar in their worldview, attitudes etc. – MUCH MORE similar than e.g. quasi-identical types.

For this reason, Augusta introduced graphical symbols for psychological functions. She proposed to describe quasi-identical types by symbols of opposite color, and “mirror” types – by symbols of the same color.

Here are the 8 functions (in details we will describe them in the next topic).

Each extraverted type has an extraverted function dominant, introverted – secondary.

Each introverted type has an introverted function dominant, extraverted – secondary.

Each rational type has a rational function dominant, irrational – secondary.

Each irrational type has an irrational function dominant, rational – secondary.

Here are some examples of type formulas, according to socionics:

—logical-sensory extravert; —sensory-logical introvert; —logical-sensory introvert.

Does socionics deal with mentally ill people? Answer: socionics is a part of psychology, not psychiatry. There ARE some psychiatrists and clinical psychologists interested in socionics, which have published works on application of socionic types in psychiatry. Among them, we should mention:

- Professor Sergey Alexandrovich Bogomaz, Tomsk Medical University,

- Professor Vladislav Ivanovich Okladnikov, Irkutsk State Medical University, or

- Professor Mark Yevguenyevich Sandomirsky, Bashkir State Medical University (Ufa City), and/or

If you need to know more about their researches, you can request them by these e-mail addresses. However, we would suggest that you write to them in Russian – they all belong to the generation (above 50 years old) that did not study English.

As for us both, as well as for the most of socionists – they deal with absolutely normal people, just like adherents of the Myers-Briggs Type Theory do in the US. Belonging to different types is as normal and natural as belonging to different temperaments and/or sexes.

OK, now let us discuss the nature of types and the definition of the type.

So, what is the TYPE in socionics? Yesterday we explained Jung's views on the nature of the types described by him. Now we should tell about the actual status of researches. Knowing of the nature of type is very important for correct diagnostics. If we do not know what it is, how dare we measure it?

The XX century was rich for psychological typologies of all kinds. A Ukrainian psychologist Tamara Blyumina published a book where she collected typologies proposed by different researches (Блюмина Т.А. Вековые натуры в семье, школе, обществе. – М.: 1996.). It altogether includes 108 typologies (with socionics and Myers-Briggs typology, too). Out of these 108, approximately one half has been created in XX century. Blyumina also compared fundamental methods of these typologies. These included: physical constitution, dynamics of reaction, mental activity, inclinations to mental diseases etc., as well as some parameters having very vague relation to psychology (e.g. blood groups). The methods of diagnostics of these types were also different: sometimes testing, sometimes mere observation, some typologies were purely speculative, based on certain philosophical principles but never proven in practice (e.g. Immanuel Kant's typology).

However, we could notice at least two trends in all of these typologies.

Some of them were purely psychiatric. They concerned only mentally ill people. Very often authors of these typologies wrote that they described something abnormal, while normal people represent the “golden mean”. However, another part of the authors of psychiatric typologies (and Jung was among them) wrote that most of mental diseases arise from psychical predisposition to them; there are people more predisposed to e.g. maniacal-depressive psychosis, others are rather predisposed to schizophrenia. It does not mean that they are mentally ill from the very moment of birth—though, it means, that under certain combination of circumstances their “dreaming” disease may be launched and turn from potential into real.

The “psychiatric approach” to personality typology was dominant in the former USSR: only abnormal people have various “accentuations”, “types”, while normal people always strive to an ideal model of a Soviet person.

Another part of researches simply measured psychical parameters of different people, mostly sound, and tried to describe their difference in various terms. Researches of monozygotic twins were really important – they showed that people have certain psychical predisposition, and even education and growth in different conditions only “gives shape” to such predisposition, but does not change its basic contents. Even influence of medicines can cure psychical diseases, but cannot change one's psychological type, NO MATTER WHAT TYPE WE MEAN – according to Jung, Sheldon, Eysenck etc.

However, the speed of development of psychological knowledge in XX century was dramatic. We would compare this development with development of hardware and software technologies. Thus, in psychology things discovered and described 20-30 years ago seem to be too naive and simplified.

The same is true concerning typologies. In most cases, psychologists or psychiatrists never knew the nature of types observed and described by them. They simply thought: we observe it, so it exists. Only few (Kretschmer, Sheldon, Eysenck) strived for finding scientific backgrounds for their typologies.

Carl Gustav Jung created his typology almost 100 years ago. At that time, he did not know what we actually know about higher mental functions. However, his typology was constructed according to classical principle of “black box” usually applied in exact sciences. The expression “black box” means describing something whose nature is unknown, except for certain regularities. Description according to this methodology allows determining direction for future searches, even when science in its actual status does not possess adequate means of measuring this “black box”.

A classical example of a “black box” is the gravitation in physics. Although we still do not know its nature, we nevertheless know some of its fundamental laws and can successfully use them in our calculations.

What are basic requirements of the “black box” methodology?

The requirement # 1 says: the field of application (research) should be strictly defined. Or, at least, we should make delimitation between irrelevant and hypothetically relevant things.

The requirement # 2 says: the criteria of description of the “black box” should be applicable to its whole contents.

How did Jung manage to fulfill these requirements?

All the 4 Jung's dichotomies (i.e., binary criteria) fulfilled the same requirement: they were all equally applicable to human psyche. Each person can be described in terms of BOTH poles of each of the dichotomies. Let us remind them:

—Extraversion/introversion

- Intuition/sensing

- Thinking/feeling (or: logic/ethic in socionics)

- Rationality/Irrationality (or: judgment/perception).

We will consider their definitions only tomorrow, but we can already mention, that EACH person both thinks and feels, both has some imagination (intuition) and controls current situation (sensing), both plans (rationality) and adapts to changing situation (irrationality), sometimes extends the circle of his/her acquaintances, interests, initiatives (extraversion), and sometimes relaxes from excessive initiative and contacts (introversion).

Moreover, these criteria must have been applicable to the people of the past as well. At least, as we can imagine them from literature, biographies etc. Some ancient people were described so clearly and vividly that we have almost no doubts which Jungian type should be attributed to them, e.g., Trotsky and Hitler were probably ethical-intuitive extraverts, and Georgi Dimitrov – an ethical-sensory extravert. Sometimes even people of ancient times, such as Socrates, Aesop, Alexander of Macedonia, seem to be well identifiable with certain psychological types. Jung himself determined Aristotle as a typical extravert, and Plato as a typical introvert.

We repeat again, Jung did not know the nature of these dichotomies. However, he described each of them as two different processes, which interfere, collide with each other, when fulfillment of one process impedes fulfillment of the other. Let us just briefly remind what he wrote in Tavistock Lectures (1935):

1. INTUITION/SENSING:

intuition implies abstract thinking, distraction from what is going on around, while sensing means, on the contrary, focus on irritants, on what is going on around. As a proverb says, it is difficult to develop muscles and mind together.

2. THINKING/FEELING:

“thinking” means impersonal, “objective" evaluation of situation – if we replace these people with others, what will remain unchanged? Thus “thinking" function is creative in inventing and/or learning methods, classifications, rules, typologies. By contrast, "feeling" means personal evaluation of situation; even abstract knowledge is learned personally, “what it means to me?”. “Feeling” people are more skillful in making impression on others, in reacting to other people's emotions, and even in manipulating them, while “thinking” people do not always understand emotions or even ignore them, trying to be “objectively useful” and “objectively evaluating” other people, which is sometimes perceived by others as coldness or harshness.

These two criteria are well reflected in human CONSCIOUS ACTIVITY. At least, we can notice their development and their productivity. We see that some people are more successful in some aspects, other people in other aspects. Both in Myers-Briggs Type Theory and in Socionics these two criteria are considered as important for career choice, professional application of human skills.

In our opinion, Thinking/Feeling and Intuition/Sensation are often (not always) identifiable even at a distance, at first glance.

3. EXTRAVERSION/INTROVERSION:

extraversion means initiative, introversion means restraint. In many popular books, we can find a definition given by Eysenck: “extravert is sociable, introvert is close-mouthed”. This is not exactly what Jung meant; moreover, “extraverts” according to Eysenck are somewhat sensory-feeling, according to Jung; and “introverts” according to Eysenck are somewhat intuitive-thinking, according to Jung. An intuitive-thinking extravert, or a sensory-ethical introvert would be “ambiverts” according to Eysenck (in other words, something between extraverts and introverts).

Jung gave several, somewhat contradictory definitions of extraversion and introversion. However, when he considered this dichotomy on the examples of specific types (in Psychological Types), it was easy to notice that extraversion meant “energy-spending”, introversion “energy-saving” in regard to the specific dominant function.

For example, introverts with dominant T (thinking) self-actualize in supporting and perfecting the existing order, eliminating logical contradictions, systematization, i.e. in avoiding excessive thinking activity.

On the other hand, extraverts with dominant T (thinking) develop and apply various methods, they are rather indifferent to classifications that impede practical activity, “practice is a criterion of truth!”; in other words, they are not afraid of excessive activity, they even find pleasure in making still schemes more dynamic.

4. RATIONALITY/IRRATIONALITY:

this last dichotomy deals with adherence to principle (rationality) or spontaneity, flexibility (irrationality). Psychology has an almost synonymous term: rigidity/lability.

These last two criteria describe DYNAMICS of human neural system. Very often, people do not even realize why they do this way – “it's natural for me, that's all!” Each person is sometimes active, sometimes quiet, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes regular, but it is hard to ignore that some people are “hyper-excitable” even when they try to be calm, others are rather steady, even-tempered.

These last two criteria, in our opinion, are adequately identifiable only at close distance, or (in case of determining type in absence) through detailed studies of biography, facts etc. Even excitable people may sometimes look calm, restrained (especially when they get tired by their own excitability), even shy people may sometimes look aggressive (especially when they are really feared).

Many socionists believe that AT LEAST PARTLY these last two criteria are relevant to classical Hippocrates' temperaments. What is their nature? Most probably they are relevant to hormonal regulation of the brain. There were many researches in this field (Eysenck, Simonov, Khomskaya etc.), but their results only partly coincide, and we are still far from understanding their nature.

We would suggest you to read V.Talanov's works (in Russian) that summarize all the hypotheses about neuro-physiological nature of Jung's dichotomies. Look e.g.: Таланов В.Л., Малкина-Пых И.Г. Справочник практического психолога. – СПб.: Сова, М.: ЭКСМО, 2002. – 928 с.

Another neuro-physiological hypothesis about Jung's dichotomies is here (in English):

http://www.benziger.org/

If you need more details about Jung's own viewpoint, you can find C.G.Jung's texts in English here:

http://www.cgjungpage.org/

Jung himself in Tavistock Lectures mentioned complaints expressed by readers of his books: they said they sometimes could not distinguish Feeling from Sensation, Thinking from Intuition.

This is a linguistic problem, not scientific. In many languages, including Russian, English, German, there are many words describing “intersections” of Jung's criteria. For example, Russian word chuwstvo (sense, feeling) is associated both with Feeling and with Sensing, in Jung's sense.

For this reason, in Socionics the criterion Thinking/Feeling was renamed into Logic/Ethic in order to mark up the difference more clearly.

Intuition/Sensing deals with perception (this is why intuition or sensing is a dominant function for irrational types), while Logic/Ethic deals with methods of argumentation, judgment, evaluation (this is why logic or ethic is a dominant function for rational types).

In our real life, however, we deal NOT WITH ABSTRACT DICHOTOMIES, but with concrete human traits. These traits, we would say, represent interaction of multiple criteria—including Jung's dichotomies.

For example, intuitive+logical types are often perceived by other people as “intellectuals”, while sensory+ethical types as the most “sensual”. However, other two combinations of these criteria also make sense. Sensory+logical types are often described as "practical, pragmatic, thrifty", while intuitive+ethical types—as "humanitarian, idealistic".

In the next topic we will try to illustrate all Jung's dichotomies with practical examples. Also, we will try to answer the following question:

Continued: Part 2