Socionical approach in studding of nations
Volodymyr Scherbyna, Russia
It is not new idea to consider ethnos as integral person (collective subject). This idea was advanced and was substantiated in the works of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Nikolay Berdyayev, Nykolay Lossky, etc. In particular Carl Jung wrote that “people’s psyche is only more compound structure than person’s psyche”. It is logically to consider this integral person to be reasonable, i. e. this integral person has consciousness, memory, action logic, emotions. Ethnosocionics considers ethnos as psychoinformation system, of which the persons’ typology is also true. In each ethnos there are persons of different psychological types. In spite of this the ethnos is the macroorganism of the certain psychological type. Just this often to be named as “national character”. So this science studies ethnoses’ psychological types, features of their behaviour, mutual relations with other nations, etc.
Ethnosocionics is one of the directions of socionics, a young science, which was born on the boundary between psychology, sociology and information science. Socionics is based on the Jung's typology and Augustinavichjute's Intertypes' Relations Theory. It is considering persons as bearers of the certain types of information metabolism, which are developing and interacting on the base of objective laws.
Each person is being examined over 4 main pairs of signs (coordinates): logical ¾ ethical (emotional), sensorical ¾ intuitional, rational ¾ irrational, extravert ¾ introvert. While studding the concrete person one can determine the mentality type, this person inclined to: logical or emotional, concrete or abstract etc. Having determined each of 4 pairs of signs one determines the one of 16 sociotypes the person under determination belongs to.
Let us remind their names:
- Intuitive-logical extravert (ILE, ENTP*)
- Sensoro- ethical introvert (SEI, ISFP)
- Ethico- sensorical extravert (ESE, ESFJ)
- Logico- intuitive introvert (LII, INTJ)
- Ethico- intuitive extravert (EIE, ENFJ)
- Logico- sensorical introvert (LSI, ISTJ)
- Sensoro- logical extravert (SLE, ESTP)
- Intuitive- ethical introvert (IEI, INFP)
- Logico-intuitive extravert (LIE, ENTJ)
- Ethico- sensorical introvert (ESI, ISFJ)
- Sensoro- ethical extravert (SEE, ESFP)
- Intuitive- logical introvert (ILI, INTP)
- Intuitive-ethical extravert (IEE, ENFP)
- Sensoro- logical introvert (SLI, ISTP)
- Logico-sensorical extravert (LSE, ESTJ)
- Ethico- intuitive introvert (EII, INFL)
Socionics considers person as information system, the bearer of the certain type of information metabolism. The body of person lives exchanging substance and energy with the outer world. And the psyche part of the person lives sharing information with the outer world. All information, which person receives from the outside (the information about outer world) and from the inside (the information about psychophysical state of person), is the common information stream.
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Each person can make out some aspects of information stream better then other ones. Psychological function is the ability of person to make out one aspect of information stream. Socionics descries 8 aspects of information stream and 8 psychological functions accordingly. These functions have graphical conventional signs, names and “duties”:
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*) In the SOCIONICS psychological (socionical) types have 3-letters conventional signs, and in the western literature — 4-letters ones.
| abilities’ intuition | the knock of human abilities’ feeling; sensing of development’s perspectives; integral perception of the world, feeling of its unity, interdependency, reiteration on different levels of world’s hierarchy; understanding of the very essence of subjects and processes. |
| time’s intuition | the understanding of contradictions in outer world and in human psyche; the understanding of opposites, which separate people and events; feeling of danger; aptitude for seeing vainness |
| volitional sensorics | aptitude for controlling of outer spaciousness; ability for putting pressure on others and to stand up to anyone’s pressure; understanding of enemy’s force and enforce; power; will to win; authority of power |
| sensation sensorics | capacity for body’s necessities satisfaction, sensation of own body; beauty, design, turning towards the high inner quality; cosiness and comfort |
| dynamic logic | reasonable acting logic; technology, process, method, procedure, rule, algorithm, conveyor, cause and effect, enterprise |
| static logic | aptitude for systematizing knowledge and phenomena; deep understanding of logical correlation between objects; facts’ system, hierarchy, classification, statistics, register and verification, machinery |
| emotions’ ethics | capacity for feeling persons’ emotional state, for its controlling; ability for inspiring people with joy, enthusiasm or fear, horror, anxiety, panic. |
| relations’ ethics | world’s perception through people’s relations; the ability for adjusting needing relations; sense of duty; tolerance, love, kindness, charity, humanity |
It is established that each sociotype has his own number of the “strong” and “weak” psychological functions. On this base the person’s psyche functioning model (sociomodel) is made. The socionical model helps to understand how to use person’s “strong” features and to defend “weak” ones; it also helps to understand mechanism of mutual relation between people. Intertypes’ Relations Law is based on the understanding of sociomodel’s functioning. This Law defines features of the information exchange and mutual relations between sociotypes.
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So ethnosocionics uses socionical laws and methods and studies:
- socionical types of ethnoses and nations (“national characters”);
- their history, relations with neighbours and other nations;
- nation’s construction and national-state construction;
- national leaders; their accordance with the epoch and with the national sociotype;
- national elite’s construction; its accordance with the nation.
The knowledge of nation’s sociotype offers to approach scientifically to strategic planning of state’s development (like the knowledge of person’s sociotype helps in profession choosing)
As the example, let us consider briefly how to determine one pair of main signs: logical (pragmatic) or ethical (emotional) the nation under examination is?
Some features of logical (pragmatic) nations:
1. main criteria in this societies are: logical-unlogical, correct-uncorrect, cleverly-foolishly, advantageous-disadvantageous, economical-uneconomical etc. Actions of other nations, states and persons are estimated from the point of view of logic, reason, activity and not of the emotion maintenance (kindness, sympathy, responsiveness etc.)
2. They try to solve their problems by themselves, with the help of their own abilities. As a rule they don’t ask somebody and don’t persuade somebody. They prove their rightness by deeds and unanswerable arguments.
3. Their promises are more reliable. Their care of truth stirs up the real esteem: it is not the declaration but really truth; it is not the formal replay but really law, this society lives under.
4. Fashion and many other human society’s dynamic attributes are changing more slowly in these nations than in emotional ones. One of the cause is the pragmatic advantage to be one of the paramount values of such nations.
5. Constructive logic in these nations restrains influence of social myths. New myths are being born because of the shortage of needing information. But the existence of the new social myth in these nations is short and expedient.
Some features of ethical (emotional) nations:
1. Pragmatism is not strong virtue of such nations. Main criteria in these societies are: well-bad, human-unhuman, honestly-dishonestly, will be offended - will not be offended etc.
2. Truth and untruth have relative character, not absolute one: it is seemed to be good all, that is pleasant for people (sometimes even if it is not truth). By this reason laws have less rigid functions in these nations.
3. These nations are more spontaneous while contact with other societies and cultures. Their ethics is creative, initiative and primary before logic.
4. There are many impulsive and unreasoned in these nations. Forces of pragmatic and scientific constructing are not enough developed. Utter emotions don’t afraid people in these nations. It is seemed often that people seek them intentionally.
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5. The influence of social myth is stronger in these nations than in logical ones. Myth can interprets each event. Often political leader wins elections because of people’s sympathy and not because of his program.
While using this approach we can determine as logical next nations: Americans, Canadians, Danes, English, Germans, Japanese, Jews, Lithuanians, Scots etc. We can determine as ethical next nations: Austrians, Belorussians, French, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians etc.
The similar approach is used while defining other pairs of signs. Psychological features of nations are expressed in language, literature, art, religion, science, mythology, nation-state construction and other sides of social life.
While studding these expressions one can draw a conclusion about the mentality type, the nation inclined to, prognose probable trend of development and mutual relations with other nations.