Socionics
In psychology and sociology, socionics is a pseudoscientific theory of information processing and personality types. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism.
In contrast to the generally accepted views in personality psychology on age-related variability of the human psyche, socionics distinguishes 16 psychophysiological types which it claims go unchanged throughout a person's life. The existence of personality types is extremely controversial in modern personality psychology.
Socionics was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, primarily by the Lithuanian researcher Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. The name "socionics" is derived from the word "society", because Augustinavičiūtė believed that each sociotype has a distinct purpose in society.
The central idea of socionics is that information is intuitively divisible into eight categories, called information elements, which a person's psyche processes using eight psychological functions. Each sociotype has a different correspondence between functions and information elements, which it posits results in different ways of handling information and distinct thinking patterns. One prevalent idea in socionics is the theory of intertype relations, which is based on the interaction of these functions between types.
Independent authors point to the insufficient empirical validity of socionics both in its basis and in its further development, as well as the practical absence of studies on socionics outside the former USSR. The Commission on Pseudoscience of the Russian Academy of Sciences has placed socionics among such well-known pseudosciences as astrology and homeopathy.
Purpose
Socionics provides a means of predicting the character of relations and degree of business compatibility, information sharing and psychological compatibility of people before their joining in one collective group, i.e. to solve the "inverse task" of sociometry.According to Aleksandr Bukalov and Betty Lou Leaver, socionics uses Jungian typology, informational model of psyche, and theory of information metabolism for political and sociological analysis.
According to G. Fink and B. Mayrhofer, socionics is considered one of the four most popular models of personality, deserving special attention because of its importance in the study of personality.
According to J. Horwood, and A. Maw, socionics is a science developed by Augustinavičiūtė in the 1970s. Augustinavičiūtė and her colleagues worked with Carl Jung's personality typologies to develop personality-based relationship profiles. It was found that the nature and development of interpersonal relationships are far from random. Instead, they are based on how well suited each individual's psychological profiles are to one another, allowing Augustinavičiūtė to develop 16 'socionic types' predicting and describing the interpersonal relationships between any combination of Jung's personality types.
According to R. Blutner and E. Hochnadel, "socionics is not so much a theory of personalities per se, but much more a theory of type relations providing an analysis of the relationships that arise as a consequence of the interaction of people with different personalities."
Philosopher L. Monastyrsky treats socionics as pre-science. At the same time, L. Monastyrsky himself proposes to pay attention to "the concept of socionic type".
Philosopher E. Pletuhina defines socionics as the study about the information interaction of the human psyche with the outside world, between people. She also defines it as the doctrine of psychological types of people and the relationships between them, as well as notes that the particular quality of socionics is that it considers the innate qualities of the human psyche, including the personality type, which cannot be arbitrarily changed without prejudice to the mental and physical health.
History
The basic structure of socionics was established in the 1960s and 1970s by Augustinavičiūtė, along with a group of enthusiasts who met in Vilnius, Lithuania. What resulted from their discussions and Augustinavičiūtė's personal investigations was an information model of the psyche and of interpersonal interaction based on Jung's typology but with eight psychic functions rather than four. Augustinavičiūtė's first works on socionics were published between 1978 and 1980.Socionics as an academic discipline
Through the work of the International Institute of Socionics and other schools of socionics, there are four scientific peer-reviewed journals and an annual International conference on socionics. The Institute gives "popularization and proliferation of socionic knowledge" as one of its goals.Svetlana V. Ivanova notes that socionics is taught in more than 150 universities in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS and European Union countries. Some universities in Russia
Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania, have published or commissioned a number of textbooks and monographs on socionics, or on psychology, pedagogy and management, which socionics and its methods are devoted to specific topics.
Areas of research include educational socionics, sociological socionics, aviation socionics, library socionics, technical socionics, linguistic socionics, penitentiary socionics, and socionics in other subject areas.
Socionics is used in education, not only as a tool for teachers to manage the learning process, but also as a basis for the development and improvement of education and training. Bogdanova claim that a teacher holding socionic knowledge and technologies can consciously collaborate with others and improve professional efficiency. Targeted use of intertype relations helps intensify the didactic process, increase the motivation of students. Socionics is also used to assess the individual psychological and personal qualities to forecast the success of employee career.
Izmailova and Kiseleva found socionics interesting to be applied in advertising and marketing, because it allows you to explain the reasons for the behavior of consumers.
Socionics is a tool for the study of personality and creativity of the writer, the typology of the characters in his works. The method of linguistic-socionic modeling proposed by L. M. Komissarova, used for analysis of individual lexicon of language personality. A translation of socionic characteristics in verbal ones is called the "method of linguistic-socionic modeling" and widely used.
Socionic methods have been proposed for the modeling of information processes in the "human-machine" systems, and practically used to model systems "aircraft operator" in pilots' training, and other similar areas.
Due to the variety of applications of socionics, its concepts and information models, in the 1990s, Bukalov proposed to distinguish socionics of personality, or differential socionics, and generalized, more abstract integral socionics. Bukalov believes that the concept of information metabolism, cybernetic modeling and general systems theory extends beyond of psychology and sociology, and consider the relationship of technical information devices, and the types of information human interactions as operator with various technical and electronic management systems of major industries, including chemical, nuclear power stations, complex computer complexes with adaptive tunable to a specific operator interfaces.
Propagation of socionics
International Institute of Socionics lists a number of academic publications on socionics in English in peer-reviewed journals. Since 2000 socionics as a scientific discipline and a field of research has been recognized in Russia and Ukraine.Pedagogical socionics
The concepts and methods of socionics are widely used in pedagogy, this collaboration creates a new scientific branch – pedagogical socionics.Pletuhina noted that the parent, trainer or teacher, who knows the theory of socionics, who also understands an idea of the "image of a socionics type" and who can determine the child's personality type with a sufficient degree of probability can use those opportunities of the individual approaches that socionics provides to raise and educate a child.
The role that socionics takes in the educational process is not limited to being a teacher's tool for the managing process. It is also a base for development and improving the educational system and for preparing staff. Teachers armed with socionics technology can consciously establish relationships with other people and increase efficiency of their pedagogical skills. Rational implementation of intertype relationships can push educational process to become more intensive and increase students' motivation.
Socionics is also researched practical methods and techniques dedicated to evaluation person's individual psychological values to prognoses professional success. Keneva, Marchenko, and Minaev argue that socionics might become a theoretical base for personal-oriented educational technologies.
Socionics in astronautics
In Star City conducted number of science seminars based on socionics methods and person typology to training space crews. Forming space crews by socionics methods was a central topic at the International conference on space researches, at the Space Forum 2011 and at the conference "Piloted flights into Space".Aviation socionics
According to order of the Ministry of transport of Russian Federation Flight Standards Department approved a default application "Training of pilots in the field of human factor", which expects basic socionics knowledge not only among pilots and other crew members, but also prognosing interaction in air crews by socionics methods.To improve interaction among crew members, specialists of Saint Petersburg University examined 2330 people by socionics methods, including university students; aircrews of airlines; air traffic controllers; professors from almost all flight academies of Russia; delegates from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Estonia.
This database represents result of 10 years of scientific work. In their research, authors are relying on fundamental works of the Kyiv School of Socionics, International Institute of Socionics, publications in journals "Socionics, mentology and personal psychology", "Management and personnel: management psychology, socionics and sociology".
According to the experimental results were obtained socionics and sociometric data of air traffic controllers and correlation analyses of its parameters, also was determined the connection's intensity between person's interaction levels. The practical values of this research is to develop automated module to determine individual characteristic of operators and to evaluate the effectiveness of socionics in the management of air traffic, particular in special cases of flight