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Accentuation of Functions
¶
Written by Victor Gulenko. Original blog entry at Kvarterion:
http://goul.socionics.kiev.ua/2010/03/aktsentuirovannyie-funktsii/
The concept of accentuated functions in socionics was borrowed from
general psychology. The term “accentuation” was first introduced by a
German psychiatrist Carl Leonhard, who in 1976 published a book titled
“Accentuated Personalities”. In this book, he presented his
understanding of different accentuations and provided real life examples
of their manifestations, as well as examples from classical literature.
What exactly is accentuation? It is an emphasized, acuminated
personality trait that distinguishes a person from other people by
clearly discernible peculiarities of behavior. Accentuation is not a
pathology, although it may provide for some drawbacks during a person’s
life. To be fair, it must be noted that there is a possibility that
accentuation may transfer into a pathological state under unfavorable
conditions.
A study about accentuation was used by A. Agusta in the development of
socionics typology. Particularly, in her work “On the Dual Nature of
Man” she has conducted a simple comparison of Leonhard and Licko’s
accentuations with the 16 sociotypes. There turned out to be more types
than accentuations, so several lines of her comparison table were left
as blank.
Humanitarian Socionics considers that there is no direct correlation
between accentuation and types, thus accentuation is not determined by
the functional model of the type and any function of any type may be
accentuated.
Based on my practice, I present the following list of requisite signs of
an accentuated function:
a strong manifestation in behavior,
an energy imbalance,
situational inadequacy.
The painfully and acutely accentuated function is commonly accompanied
by anxiety, and even complexes. That is, this comprises that which the
person is fixated on, what gnaws at them, what they worry about and
inopportunely attempt to actualize by their actions - this is the
person’s accentuation. Do not fall into the error of the supporters of
the informational paradigm, who believe that constant concentration of
thought on some object or event leads to accentuation. On the contrary,
already emergent accentuation finds a reflection in obtrusive thoughts.
Many especially talented theoreticians involved in abstract sciences
(mathematicians, computer programmers) have strong accentuation that
leads to autism-like traits, deep sinking into their mental imagery to
the point of ignoring of external reality. Apparently, such an
accentuation is inherent to the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman,
depicted in the photograph below, to whom the Clay Institute awarded the
Millenium Prize for his proof of Poincare’s hypothesis.
If accentuation leads to outstanding abilities, should it be
counteracted? I think that it shouldn’t be. However, in some cases if
the person wants to be within aa community or society, it makes sense to
introduce some changes or correctives. One can “treat” the
unstable-excess mental functions, primarily, by trying to balance out
their functioning. How does one establish balance and harmony between
abstract-mathematical and concrete-aesthetic functions? Simply by not
allowing slovenliness of appearance and neglect of the body. See this
report about a scientist whose lifestyle resembled that of a homeless
person:
eg.ru/daily/melochi/9823/
Another way is to vent one’s problematic energy outward. An example of
this way may be the characteristic behavior of people in many online
communities, where some of the members present themselves as a sort of
caricature, in an exaggerated manner that has little in common with
their real selves. In this manner, they remove stress from their
accentuated functions for some period of time.