Toggle Light / Dark / Auto color theme
Toggle table of contents sidebar
Socionics Type and Intertype Relations Statistics by Filatova
¶
Published by
Ekaterina Filatova
in
“Socionics, Mentology, and Psychology of Personality”, 2000,  6.
Original article
.
Abstract:
This article outlines the results of a statistical
study that was conducted on 105 families, numbering 299 people in
total. Four main socionic dichotomies were examined and uneven
distributions were found. The distribution of couples according to
intertype relations and the socionics relations of children to their
parents were also investigated. Some correlations were identified in
the frequency of sociotypes among children in relation to the
sociotypes of their parents.
Key words:
socionics, socionics types, intertype relations, family
relations, distrubtion of types, statistics of types and intertype
relations.
This work was originally conceived as a study of relations between types
of children and types of their parents. For this purpose, I have
collected and stored relevant data of many years of my work, including
data on people who sought my counseling to resolve conflicts with their
family members. Information presented here does not relate to people
engaged in a certain field or profession, but is completely random, and
also contains data from the relatives, friends, neighbors, etc.
Accordingly, it seemed appropriate to use this data for other socionic
research that can be conducted on a sufficiently random sample of 299
people, and thus, this work was broken down into two parts. The first
part presents research of distribution of types according to gender and
socionics dichotomies, while the second part touches upon intertype
relations in the families, and the relation of children’s sociotypes to
types of their parents and other family members. This study in part also
concerns similar type of research that was carried out by Bukalov,
Karpenko, and Chykyrysova (1), thus some comparisons are presented.
At the end of the article a complete list of the data on which this
study was based is presents. Data on the first 71 families were gathered
during many years of my research work; the rest was kindly provided by
E. Malskaya, A. Filimonov, D. Shulman, for which I am thankful to them.
Part 1. General Research.
¶
The total number of people surveyed (parents and their children) is 299
people, out of which 161 individuals were female and 138 individual were
male. The list includes 27 single-parent families. For 24 of them the
type of father is unknown, and for 3 of them - the type of mother is
unknown. Adding the number of missing parents to the total number of
representatives we obtain an almost equal number of both sexes: 164
women and 162 men. This is consistent with the known statistics on the
distribution of men and women.
The following table shows type distribution among 299 people broken down
by gender.
Table 1. Summary statistics.
¶
Pragmatists
Men
Women
Total
%
Socials
Men
Women
Total
%
LSE
11
8
19
6.35%
ESI
2
11
13
4.35%
LSI
10
9
19
6.35%
ESE
1
9
10
3.34%
SLE
4
9
13
4.35%
SEE
2
16
18
6.02%
SLI
5
5
10
3.34%
SEI
11
7
18
6.02%
Total:
30
31
61
20.40%
Total:
16
43
59
19.73%
Researchers
Men
Women
Total
%
Humanitarians
Men
Women
Total
%
LIE
12
9
21
7.02%
EII
3
6
9
3.01%
LII
13
14
27
9.03%
EIE
22
16
38
2.71%
ILE
9
6
15
5.02%
IEE
6
7
13
4.35%
ILI
19
14
33
11.04%
IEI
8
15
23
7.69%
Total:
53
43
96
32.11%
Total:
39
44
83
27.76%
Quite unexpected was the general inequality in the distribution of
sociotypes. The most frequent types were EIE and ILI (38 and 33,
respectively), while the least numerous types were EII, ESE, and SLI (9,
10, and 10, respectively). There were significantly fewer
representatives of Pragmatist and Social clubs in this sample (40.13%)
than Researchers and Humanitarians (59.87%).
These findings differ significantly from the data from [1]
where the authors observed a uniform distribution, as follows:
Table 2. Comparative statistics.
¶
Distribution from
this study
Distribution from [1]
Pragmatists [STs]
20.40%
26.5%
Researchers [NTs]
32.11%
25.2%
Socials [SFs]
27.76%
24.40%
Humanitarians [NFs]
27.76%
24.40%
Of course, we can assume that the disproportionate number of Researchers
compared to other clubs is due to the fact that the circle of scientific
intelligentsia, to which all those who who provided the data belong, is
closest to the Researchers club. However, the children, who comprised
half the list, have not yet chosen their occupation and interests. It is
also noteworthy is that the second largest group is the Humanitarian
club, in which the most numerous type belongs to the representative of
Humanitarians - EIE. This cannot be explained the preferred social
circle.
Evaluation of the confidence probability using statistics of Student
(t-test) that the obtained values are not random:
Pragmatists [STs]
LSE - 0.15
LSI - 0.15
SLE - 0.95
SLI - 0.985
Researchers [NTs]
LIE - 0.95
LII - 0.99
ILE - 0.85
ILI - 0.99
Socials [SFs]
ESI - 0.95
ESE - 0.98
SEE - 0.20
SEI - 0.20
Humanitarians [NFs]
EII - 0.98
EIE - 0.99
IEE - 0.95
IEI - 0.97
These results show a sufficient high probability of uneven distribution
of sociotypes in most cases.
This data may reflect the observation that in presence of significant
number of inventions and discoveries, of high level of philosophical
thought, culture and spirituality, our country was never distinguished
by practical ability, while social services always occupied the last
place. Of course, we cannot confidently draw any conclusions at this
point, only forward possible arguments about the consistency of the
data.
Distribution by Quadra:
Table 4. Distribution by Quadra.
¶
Quadra
Distribution from
this study
Distribution from [1]
First Quadra (Alpha)
23.41%
23%
Second Quadra (Beta)
31.10%
29%
Third Quadra (Gamma)
28.43%
26%
Fourth Quadra
(Delta)
17.06%
22%
The fourth squadra is the smallest, while the second is almost double
the size of the fourth. This trend, however, is less expressed in work
of Bukalov. et al
[1]
that studied only married couples.
Now, let us examine the distribution of sociotypes by Jungian
dichotomies. This data is presented below by gender.
Table 5. Gender distribution along the socionics dichotomy of rationality-irrationality.
¶
Irrationals
Men
Women
Total
Rationals
Men
Women
Total
IEI
8
15
23
EIE
22
16
38
ILI
19
14
33
ESE
1
9
10
SEI
11
7
18
LIE
12
9
21
SLI
5
5
10
LSE
11
8
19
IEE
6
7
13
EII
23
6
29
SEE
2
16
18
ESI
2
11
13
ILE
9
6
15
LII
13
14
27
SLE
4
9
13
LSI
10
9
19
Totals:
64
79
143
Totals:
74
82
156
The distribution in this case is almost equal. Given that there are 21
more women on our list than men, we can assume women are no less
rational than men. Summary of the results:
For women: rational types
- 49.7 % (79/161),
irrational types
- 50.93% (8/161)
For men: rational types
- 46,38% (64/138),
irrational types
-
53,62% (74/138)
Table 6. Gender distribution along the socionics dichotomy of extraversion-introversion.
¶
Extroverts
Men
Women
Total
Introverts
Men
Women
Total
LSE
11
8
19
IEI
8
15
23
LIE
12
9
21
SEI
11
7
18
ESE
1
9
10
ILI
19
14
33
EIE
22
16
38
SLI
5
5
10
IEE
6
7
13
EII
3
6
9
SEI
2
16
18
ESI
2
11
13
ILE
9
6
15
LII
13
14
27
SLE
4
9
13
LSI
10
9
19
Totals:
67
80
147
Totals
71
81
162
Data on the parameter of extraversion / introversion is similar to the
data on the rationality / irrationality. Just as in the previous case,
the number of extraverts is comparable to the number of introverts, and
given the larger number of women (21) we can assume that the
distribution of extraversion / introversion trait according to gender is
essentially the same.
For women: extroverted types
- 49.69% (80/161),
introverted
types
- 50.31% (81/161)
For men: extroverted types
- 48.55% (67/138),
introverted
types
- 51.45% (71/138)
Table 7. Gender distribution along the socionics dichotomy of logic-ethics.
¶
Logical
Men
Women
Total
Ethical
Men
Women
Total
LSE
11
8
19
IEI
8
15
23
LIE
12
9
21
SEI
11
7
18
SLE
4
9
13
EII
3
6
9
ILE
9
6
15
ESI
2
11
13
LSI
10
9
19
IEE
6
7
13
LII
13
14
27
SEE
2
16
18
SLI
5
5
10
EIE
22
16
38
ILI
19
14
33
ESE
1
9
10
Totals:
83
74
157
Totals:
55
87
142
From the above table we can see that among men the relative number of
logical types is greater than ethical types, while the reverse is true
for women. The overall ratio of logical to ethical types is about even
(157 to 142). This difference is within the margin of error associated
with the small sample of 299 people. Possibly, with more statistics this
data may even out or diverse even further. There is nothing more
specific that could be said at this point.
For women: logical types
- 46%,
ethical types
- 54%
For men: logical types
- 60%,
ethical types
- 40%
The difference in distribution of logical and ethical types is less
among women than among men. A difference of 8% makes it less likely that
there is a difference in distribution of ethical and logical types among
women, while for men the results are more supportive of the existence of
such difference.
These results are also markedly different from the data of [1],
where in the sample group 68% of women were ethical types while 71% of
men were logical types.
Table 8. Gender distribution along the socionics dichotomy of sensing-intuition.
¶
Sensing
Men
Women
Total
Intuitive
Men
Women
Total
LSE
11
8
19
LIE
12
9
21
ESE
1
9
10
EIE
22
16
38
SLE
4
9
13
ILE
9
6
15
SEE
2
16
18
IEE
6
7
13
LSI
10
9
19
LII
13
14
27
ESI
2
11
13
EII
3
6
9
SLI
5
5
10
ILI
19
14
33
SEI
11
7
18
IEI
8
15
23
Totals:
46
74
120
Totals:
92
87
179
For this last dichotomy, an overall significant shift toward intuitive
types is evident (179-120), and this cannot be attributed to
insufficient statistics. The confidence level for both sensing and
intuitive numbers is greater than 0.7 applying Student statistics. The
distribution according to gender is as follows:
For women: sensing types - 46%, intuitive types - 54% For men: sensing
types - 67%, intuitive types - 33%
Here, just as with the dichotomy “logic-ethics”, the differences for
women lies within the statistical error (8%), while for men the
difference is more significant.
In summary, dichotomies of ationality / irrationality, and extraversion
/ introversion show an equal distribution according to gender.
Dichotomies of logic / ethics and sensing / intuition show uneven gender
distributions. Our data also shows that nature takes care of the
availability of all poles of the dichotomies. The only major shift in
the poles, in our case, was presents in the dichotomy of
intuition-sensing towards the intuitive side. The distribution of
sociotypes was extreemely uneven (EIE - 39, IEI - 9), such that not
everyone, in theory, would be able to find a dual.
Part 2. Study of sociotypes and intertype relations in families.
¶
Now let’s examine the parameters of families, and above all, let us
analyze the distribution of couples to intertype relations. The result
is shown below:
Table 9. Distribution of families by intertype relations.
¶
Distribution from
this study
Distribution from [1]
Duallity
12 (15.6%)
45%
Activation
12 (15.6%)
45%
Semi-duality
9 (11.7%)
Mirrow
8 (10.4%)
5%
Quasi-identity
7 (9.1%)
Benefit
6 (7.8%)
10%
Supervision
5 (6.5%)
5%
Extinguishment
4 (5.2%)
Conflict
4 (5.2%)
Business
3 (3.9%)
Superego
3 (3.9%)
Illusionary
2 (2.6%)
Kindred
1 (1.3%)
Identity
1 (1.3%)
6%
Total
77 (100%)
Note: According to our information, two families in supervision
relations fell apart shortly after they had a child.
Our results diverge strongly from the data of A. V. Bukalov et al. in
citation (1) which estimated dual pairs to be at 45% compared to our
15.6%.
Other data can be considered qualitatively consistent, given
the small sample size.
Next we present a very interesting result concerning the distribution of
sociotypes of children and the sociotypes of their parents. The
following table shows the child’s type’s socionics relation to the type
of his or her mother and father:
Table 10. The correlation of types of children to the types of their parents.
¶
Dual
Semi
-dual
M
irage
M
irror
Con
trary
Con
flict
S
uperv
ision
F
ather
5
6
8
10
3
6
5
M
other
36
6
6
5
15
7
11
Iden
tical
Ki
ndred
Bus
iness
Sup
erego
Quasi
-iden
tical
Act
ivity
Be
nefit
F
ather
31
9
8
3
5
5
3
M
other
11
6
6
2
7
7
12
Two sharp outliers in intertype relations of children to their parents
immediately attract attention:
duality of children to their mothers and
identity to their fathers
are strongly represented in comparison to all
other types of relations. Indeed, among the full number of children,
which is 142, we were able to trace 136 having relation to mother and
108 having relation to father.
25.7% (35/136) cases when the child was dual to mother
28.7% (31/108) cases when the child was identical to father
This strong deviation is hardly accidental. Confidence level of these
results according to Student’s test is greater than 0.7. At the same
time, identity relation to mothers and duality to fathers is not
particularly distinguished from other types of intertype relations.
(Note that the numbers of children related to their mothers and their
fathers were not the same because in some families it was not possible
to obtain the type of one of the parents).
This different could be due to various reasons, in particular, children
often tend to mimic and play into the roles of their parents (boys
imitate their fathers, and girls - their mothers), which increases the
potential error in determining their sociotypes. However, in this case,
the identical relations deviated only in relations to the fathers, while
identity to the mothers was very weak. For mothers, by contrast,
according to our data, it is more characteristic to have children who
are not identical but dual. Furthermore, out of 31 children who were
identical to their fathers, 11 were girls and 20 were boys. It can be
proposed that some of the boys ended up on this list only on the basis
of roles, since there were 9 more boys than girls. Even if you subtract
that number 9 of total 31 yielding 22, this number of children identical
to their fathers still strongly stands out of the picture.
If, however, role imitation was not the decisive fact here, it is
possible that the inheritance of sociotype is uneven according to the
child’s gender: boys more often inherit the sociotype of their fathers.
Course, all this is still only be considered as a preliminary results to
which I would like to draw the attention of my colleagues and invite
them to take part in this type of research.
Another number that stands out is contrary intertype relations of
children to their mothers, while in relation to the fathers this figure
is likely an underestimate. Significantly high is the number of
supervision relationships of children to their mothers. Here, however, I
would like to share some observations: in three of these families, with
which I’m familiar enough, there is the most tender friendship, I would
say even excessive attachment between the parent and the child in
supervision relations. Apparently, the difference in levels of
development has an effect here, as the parent is either particularly
careful of the vulnerable function of the child, or, if the child is the
supervisor, is in excessive admiration of the child.
It was customary to believe that the trait of rationality-irrationality
is transmitted to the children provided that both parents are same on
this trait. It turned out that this is not so: for 25 pairs on the above
list this is indeed the case, however, two rational parents may have an
irrational child, and vice versa, irrational parents may produce an
irrational child as has been observed in 10 cases; that is, this is not
so rare.
Since 25 +10 = 35 - this is the total number of families where parents
are both rational or irrational types, we have: 25/35 = 0.71, that is,
in 71% of cases, the child is on the same side of the
rational-irrational dichotomy as the parents, and in 29% of cases - on
the other side
. This question hasn’t been considered for the other
dichotomies since the fact that the other traits are not conserved is
quite obvious from the data.
It may be surmised that there is reproducibility of the same sociotypes
within families across several generations. Unfortunately, there is not
enough data for such analysis due to the difficulty of determining the
sociotypes even within three generations, for obvious reasons, but it
should be noted that such proposition makes sense.
Here is a list of “kindred” families. The elder generation is at the top
of the list, and below it is the younger generation.
Families, numbered 1-3. Curiously, the rational parents in this
couple had two rational children, EIE son and daughter, and then
suddenly an irrational child of type IEI (family 1). The same
situation occurred in the family 2, in which the mother EIE (daughter
of family 1) had a daughter of sociotype IEI.
Families 20-21. In family 21, a grandson appeared of same type as his
grandfather, SEI.
Families 24-25. Almost all of members are of sociotype LSI. The
grandson is of the same type as the grandmother.
Families 32-33. SEE grandson is of the same type as that of his
grandmother.
Families 52-54. Frequent repetition of sociotype ILI. In particular,
in family 54 son repeats the type of his grandfather of the family 53.
Families 83-85. Here grandfather LSE of family has grandaughter LSE
in family 3.
Families 71-74. Children in family 72, LII and IEI, with their
families (73 and 74) reproduced types LIE and IEI.
Families 95-96. Any patterns are not noticeable.
Families 99-100. Family 100 had a grandson of type LIE, same type as
his grandfather.
In all of these above listed families we were able to identify
sociotypes of 21 grandchildren, out of whom 8 were repeating the
sociotype of one of their ancestors. But we have managed to trace only a
single vertical line. However, each grandchild has two grandmothers and
two grandfathers, therefore, the likelihood of recurrence of sociotypes
is doubled, as a result, confidence level is more than 0.99.
Thus, we see that the most frequent distribution of sociotypes is when a
grandchild is repeating the sociotype of grandparents: could this be the
reason for the special tender affection of grandparents for their
grandchildren? At the very least, even this small statistical sample
reveals such a trend quite confidently.
Another frequently encountered view in socionics is that dual parents
have dual or identical children. This opinion was not confirmed: in dual
families we did find 10 children who were dual or identical types to
their parents, but there were also 5 children of other types; that is,
sufficiently frequently this hypothesis is not supported.
The above data, namely, the appearance of children who are dual to their
mothers and identical to their fathers with probability greater than
25%, and the frequent recurrence of the same sociotypes within several
generations, implies a possible genetic origins of socionics types.
Indeed, a fertilized egg already carries some genetic information that
in case of normal development of the fetus does not change and remains
the same after birth.
The assumption of the genetic nature of the formation of sociotype, in
my opinion, is also confirmed by a strong external similarities of
sub-types within a type. This is particularly evident in those cases
where the investigator is working with sufficient relevant data.
Currently I have the photo library numbering several thousand
photographs of at least a thousand representatives of different types
(shots were made from three or more angles for each person). In cases
where there is large amount of data for members of the same type (for
example, more than 100 people of type ILI), groups of similar faces
become apparent, sometimes producing an impression of well-known twins.
Pictures of ILIs in my photo library naturally form around a dozen such
clusters, eight pairs of which can be found in my book (2).
In this regard, I would like to remind the reader of a very
interesting, from my point of view the work D. A. Ivanova (3), which has
shown that identical twins have same sociotypes, as well as being very
similar in appearance and various physiological parameters.
In this
case, their genetic sameness is obvious. Also I can recollect a private
communication of director of the St. Petersburg Institute of
Psychoanalysis M. M. Reshetnikov concerning the work of one physician
who studied medical parameters of identical twins and found that these
parameters were almost completely identical. Unfortunately, he could not
provide any coordinates of this work.
Apparently, in socionics, observing groups of people who are nearly
identical externally and by physiological manifestations we have come
close to the “elementary”, so to speak, type, whose properties can be
described as a specific genetic code, and thus, the question of total
number of such “elementary” types can be resolved. Already, it seems
clear that the traditional socionic count of 16 types is some kind of
intermediate stage of classification. Each of the 16 psychological types
naturally breaks down to a number of smaller groups (in my photo library
this number varies from 14 to 16), the exact value of which can be
determined with sufficiently large amount of data. Currently, the most
important question in my view is the basis for these divisions.
In conclusion, I want to sincerely thank A. M. Elyashevich who took the
trouble to present the material of this paper to the socionics
conference in September 1999, and with a high degree of understanding of
the work answered numerous questions of the audience.
Supporting data:
Each family is assigned a serial number. The next column contains
sociotypes of mother, father, their socionics intertype relation, then
the types of their children and their intertype relations to each
parent. The letter “s” and “d” indicate the sex of the child (son or
daughter), while in the column of children intertype relations with
their parents the letters “m” and “f” “characterize the relationship
with her mother and father, respectively.
The names of all the families are recorded in my file cabinet according
to their numerical order, however, as there have been numerous requests
to not publish their full names, these were removed from the list below.
It may be useful to provide complete, detailed set of data instead of
just the end result for my colleagues who may want to extract additional
information that may be of interest to them.
Table 11. Summary Table of intertype relations for 299 families
[Table not included. Full table can be found at:
http://uchebilka.ru/voennoe/8590/index.html?page=3
]
References
¶
Bukalov A.V., Karpenko O.B., Chykyrysova G.V., “On statistics of
relations within couples. // Socionics, Mentology, and Psychology of
Perosnality”,  1, Kiev, 1999.
Filatov E.S., “Socionics for everyone”, BSK, St. Petersburg, 1999.
Ivanov D. A. “Some features of thinking that twins with mental
infantilism. // Socionics, Mentology, and Psychology of Personality”, 6, Kiev, 1997