Intertype Relationships: Functional Analysis

Text: Dmitri Lytov, 2002 (according to Ye.Shepet'ko, S.Bogomaz, M.Gut).
Translation: Dmitri Lytov, Lev Kamensky, 2002
The term 'interaction styles' was first used by Linda V. Berens (in application to MBTI types).

We are introducing the most complicated part of the Beginners' Course. If you manage to understand it, the rest will seem to you easy enough.

From the very beginning we need to make a note that Socionics describes only one aspect of relationships—the circulation of informational signals between psychological types (and the resulting interactions). All the rest, including the factors of gender, age, social status—may influence them and even distort them, but even under such distorting circumstances one can observe that the same information (or action) is perceived by different people in different ways.

Reading the descriptions of the 16 types, you may have noticed that each type is represented by a sequence of two of the following symbols:

These symbols correspond to certain fragments ("functions") of the human psyche, and we will study their meaning during the next lessons. These functions interact with each other in the course of human communication. Different interaction styles arise from the fact that all psychological functions cannot be equally strong—cultivating some capabilities comes at the expense of deterioration of some other. In the same way the signals coming to one's 'strong' function are perceived differently than signals that affect one's 'weak' function.

There are 4 styles of interaction between these functions. Intertype relationships are based on these interaction styles. In addition to these 4 interaction styles, the sequence of the functions is also important: for example:

and

are two different psychological types, and accordingly, your type will have a different type of relationship with each of them, although in many ways similar. Let us consider 4 styles of interaction, and the issue of the order of the functions.

1. Support.

This looks as complementing of one partner’s weak traits by the strong ones of the other. Often people wonder: “What makes them work together, or be friends, they are so different!” However, understanding is not always good in this kind of relations: when one has already understood everything, the other needs to be persuaded, which takes time. More often partners trust each other, because 'he anyway knows and manages it better than me'.

2. Inhibition.

People connected with this kind of relations (or at least one of them) are bound to experience a serious life crisis (e.g. inability to solve certain life problems). Information exchange in this type of relations is often inefficient – what is said by one, may be unpleasant to the other and may be ignored. In pedagogy this kind of relations also causes many problems.

This feature is caused by the fact that one function develops at the expense of the other (a classical problem of shared resources). At the beginning of the article we have already noted the essence of Jungian personality typology – developing several capabilities costs the deterioration of some other. And this principle is well applicable to the functions “inhibiting” each other. At a distance the bearer of the inhibiting functions even attracts, invokes interest, since he can easily do what the other perceives as difficult.

In reality it is common that people whose types are linked with the inhibiting feature of relations will work together without running into conflicts. This is explicable by their different levels of responsibility. However, at closer distances (such as family) this really turns into inhibition of each other, into condemnation of each other weak points instead of helping. As it was explained in the previous paragraph, developing a skill one’s partner requires, or just taking a partner’s standpoint, costs suppressing a part of one’s own EGO, and the harder is a problem, the harder is the suppression, and the stronger one’s self-esteem suffers.

3. Correction.

Here one can mention a striving to draw one’s partner’s attention to the missed details, trivialities; not to understand, but to correct and amend. Discussions sometimes may be very heated, but in most cases fruitless, and partners get tired of them. In this kind of relations partners often have different, unequal positions, or just belong to different groups. In education this feature is good when a pupil has already mastered necessary information “in general”, and just needs some correction. Otherwise pupils tend to ignore the corrective information.

4. Understanding.

This is the interaction of identical functions (e.g. and). This kind of relations are ideal for teaching each other, for mutual informational exchange, especially when one of the partners significantly exceeds the level of the other. In performing common tasks partners understand each other without words (and are not too shy of each other). However, at least two unpleasant things are immanent to this feature of relations. First, both are equally weak in facing the same problems, both partners are inexperienced; their mutual assistance may be of a very low quality. Second, having a common field of activities may result in competition.

5. Formulas of relationships.

In addition to the mentioned styles, the order of functions also plays an important role. Example:

Your type:
Understanding by the first function, inhibition by the second, direct order
Understanding by the first function, inhibition by the second, reverse order

If the order of function is reverse, this most likely means that the partners' 'vital rhythms' do not coincide. What one of them makes quickly, the other does slowly; where one of them pays a lot of attention to details, the other understands everything “at first glance” and does not need details. This causes problems in close communication (e.g. in family).

Now we are completing the most complicated part of our course and invite you to read the descriptions of the relationships between psychological types.