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Alpha Quadra - Hangout Thread

143K views 1K replies 157 participants last post by  pyramidserum 
#1 ·
The purpose of this thread is to engage in conversation with members of this quadra, to ask questions and (hopefully) receive answers from alphas, and otherwise develop a better understanding of this quadra group through direct interaction and/or observation. This thread is for general discussion about whatever is on your mind, but is particularly focused on discussion between those who belong to the alpha quadra.

Good information (in my opinion) on the alpha quadra can be found here: Alpha Quadra - Wikisocion

If you are not an alpha you are still welcome to post in this thread, but posts from those identifying themselves as belonging to the alpha quadra are highly encouraged so that others can benefit from examining the way in which alphas tend to express themselves. Feel free to use this thread to discuss the alpha quadra itself as well, and maybe an alpha or two will be interested in giving some first-hand feedback on their own perspectives.
 
#12 ·
IMO, the best way to go about it is to just take the following test:

Type indicator

And then whatever MBTI type you get from that, just go straight over to the exact same Socionics type, don't flip the J/P either. Ignore the functions, they don't really matter. It's a level of detail that isn't necessary. It's like taking your car to the mechanic and explaining what's wrong by describing hydrocarbons and thermodynamics instead of just saying "I think the spark plugs are out." The dichotomies are all you need. They are the macro-scale, functions are the micro-scale and aren't that important. When you build a house, you don't need to know the particle physics that describes the molecular structure of the wood. You just bang on nails and get it done.
 
#15 ·
IMO, the best way to go about it is to just take the following test:

Type indicator

And then whatever MBTI type you get from that, just go straight over to the exact same Socionics type, don't flip the J/P either. Ignore the functions, they don't really matter. It's a level of detail that isn't necessary. It's like taking your car to the mechanic and explaining what's wrong by describing hydrocarbons and thermodynamics instead of just saying "I think the spark plugs are out." The dichotomies are all you need. They are the macro-scale, functions are the micro-scale and aren't that important. When you build a house, you don't need to know the particle physics that describes the molecular structure of the wood. You just bang on nails and get it done.

NO.
 
#47 ·
Heh. That did occur to me. I don't mind taking this elsewhere if we're killing your happy thread too much.

@Abraxas Your most recent post makes me wonder how much you've really studied socionics. Do you understand the Model A at all? Do you understand the concept of duality and the mechanisms behind it? Do you understand what extroversion and introversion mean in socionic terms? I would guess "no", given the complaints you've voiced here. Socionics in the West has some very good material (as does Main Page - WSWiki), and it might explain some of your concerns with the theory.
 
#46 ·
Okay, I know I said I'd drop it, but I hate watching people struggle.

It may help some of you to look into the NEO-PI-R test, I'm sure there's a few free online ones floating around.

The reason I suggest this is because, first of all, the NEO-PI-R is what you will be taught when you go to college and get a degree in depth psychology, specializing in personality theory. You may be taught the basics of MBTI, but only as a precursor to the Big 5, because the Big 5 is what is the most widely accepted model of personality type all over the world. Both MBTI and Socionics (being entirely "Jung-centric") completely leave out an empirically well established personality trait in the Big 5 (that Jung never thought of) called "neuroticism." It is entirely possible that some of you might score a little above average in neuroticism and that would account for the minor discrepancies between yourself and the flat four-dichotomies type descriptions you're reading in both MBTI and Socionics.

Just throwing it out there, because at least in my case, it almost completely corrects for the discrepancies between my actual personality and that of an ILI without even having to go into functions at all. Literally I can just break it down to introvert-irrational-thinker-intuitive and by adding on "slightly neurotic" - there's no more question in my mind that I've found my type.

The reason for this is actually very simple and very intuitive and what (at least in my mind) backs up why I'm recommending a dichotomy approach to type. The Big 5 lists the 5 dimensions of personality type as (in no particular order) neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion. These more or less correspond to four of the MBTI/Socionics dichotomies that determine your type. Openness = intuitiveness, agreeableness = feeling, extraversion = extraversion, conscientiousness = rationality/judgment, and neuroticism doesn't have a correlate in either.

In other words, a low score in conscientiousness is more or less the same thing as scoring high in irrationality/perception. A low score in extraversion is more or less the same thing as being introverted. A low score in openness is more or less being more of a sensation/concrete type. A low score in agreeableness more or less means you are a tough-minded thinker. One thing I actually like more about the Big 5 is that these dimensions don't perfectly cross over. You can be a thinker that scores rather high in openness because your thinking is more of an exploratory-theoretical kind, and also score high in agreeableness because that doesn't need to imply that you're not a nice person. It's always been one of my core points of contention with both MBTI and Socionics. These models would have you believe that just because you are a logical, hard-headed, point-of-fact kinda guy, you can't be a mushy, feely kinda guy as well who cries at the movies during the sappy parts and genuinely feels compassion for everyone and tries to promote harmony.

Anyway, TL;DR, ya'll ought to check out the NEO-PI-R if you're having this much difficulty with your type and then come back to Socionics and MBTI with some new ideas rolling around in your head that might make it clear that the issue isn't with you, or that you lack self-knowledge and self-understanding, it's with these backwards models that don't account for all the factors in a way that actually lines up with the way things really are.
 
#48 ·
@Abraxas Concerning the cognitive functions (MBTI), you seem to expound upon them quite a bit for someone who can't take seriously others who use them; and while I'm no expert, you seem to be fairly good at explaining them. This comes off as highly inconsistent to me.
 
#49 ·
@Abraxas Concerning the cognitive functions (MBTI), you seem to expound upon them quite a bit for someone who can't take seriously others who use them; and while I'm no expert, you seem to be fairly good at explaining them. This comes off as highly inconsistent to me.
Maybe that's the problem. The inconsistency isn't with me or my behavior, it's your way of looking at things.

You're choosing to believe, and not recognizing, that I'm the kind of person who deeply studies something before I levy an opinion about it.

The fact is, I do understand the concepts that make up the Jungian functions, and that's precisely why I can play around with them and show how they mean X or mean Y to give other people a better understanding of them if they so choose to believe in them.

This entire time, I've been giving my honest personal opinion about what I prefer and believe would help people. I'm not trying to denounce Socionics, and certainly not MBTI. In fact, I find MBTI laudable, and insofar as Socionics shares a lot in common with it, Socionics as well.

But I'm not going to tell people lies. I'm going to repeat what I was taught in college when I attended. I'm going to tell people what I read in peer-reviewed journals full of accumulated articles citing important studies done for over 50 years.

The simple fact is that I just don't have citations like that to draw upon to back up Socionics.

Does that mean I think Socionics is false? No, of course not. It could be perfectly true. But can I, in good conscious argue that it IS true without myself being convinced of that based on strong evidence and decades of resource by literally hundreds of scientists? No. I'm going to point people in the direction of established theories first, and then recommend, if they want to learn more, they might have a gander at the "fringe" theories.

It's like saying, I'm not going to introduce my students to modal realism and the "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics without first laying out some of the basics of the Copenhagen interpretation and the core principals of physics themselves. To start people out with the wildly speculative stuff and pretend we all ought to bow down to it is just nonsensical.

Now, if you happen to have 50 years of dedicated research by multiple peer-reviewed journalists reporting on and citing widely accepted empirical studies, then by all means, throw down. I do (despite all surface appearances) really like Socionics and want to see it succeed as a theory. But has it? Arguably not, by comparison to others I've been espousing. I would really like to read some serious material backing it up.

I mean, you're a reasonable person, right? Help me out here. Chalk up some links to legitimate articles so I can read them and go, "huh, this guy has a point. Those studies look really legitimate and lend a lot of validity to the theory, maybe I ought to recommend this theory before I recommend this other theory which is currently the academic standard taught in the public institutions I attended, such as UC Berkeley for instance."
 
#60 ·
Right, I've had just about enough of this silly bickering!1. @Abraxas, you're right that the dichotomies can be a good way to start with working out someone's type in Socionics. HOWEVER, in practice this can lead to huge mistypings because the test writers often don't understand the nuances of each of the dichotomies and are often unable to adequately convey them in the questions.For instance, on most mbti tests, Judging oriented questions are actually biased towards Logic as a judging IM Element and not Ethics, so FJ can be confused for FP. Also their ideas of Extroversion seems exclusively people-based, making IxFx types seem Extroverted and ExTx types seeming Introverted in some cases. Also, the Thinking/Feeling questions seem to focus too much on Feelers being nice people and Thinkers being insensitive while the Intuition/Sensation questions seem to focused on patterns and the 'big picture' which leads to inaccurate assessment.2. @FreeBeer - for the reasons I posted in 1, many people who are supposedly ENTJs in MBTI would not qualify as LIE in Socionics, in fact, the LIEs I know might be brash and insensitive at times, but they're often very much caught up on doing the 'right' thing (far more so than ILEs and EIEs) and an ESI's values should sync rather well.
 
#61 ·
And here I thought a bunch of Alphas started posting in this thread. I am disappoint.
 
#72 ·
I really don't understand how ego types can be extroverted. :/
 
#82 ·
Hey, welcome! Glad to have you on board! Our poor Alpha thread has been lacking love and attention lately. Do you type as SEI?

You guys look like you know how to have fun. Can I hang out with you for a while? :D
No matter what the Beta quadra might say, we're obviously the most fun. :cool: Hang out here all you like and make up for the lack of alphas on the forum.
 
#90 ·
Aw, we've all been pretty stereotypical alphas with our lists. It's nice to see the quadra like-mindedness theory played out so well.
It would be interesting to see what the other types would list.

(hint: any B/G/D lurkers post a list so we can compare :wink: )
 
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#91 ·
I was reading an article posted by bionic in the Gamma thread and it said that personifying inanimate objects was associated with Extraverted ethics, which is something I have never seen before.

I think I do that a lot - I will assign emotions to inanimate objects and I have never been able to explain how or why I do that. I had always assumed it was just an individual quirk or some weird introverted sensing+extraverted ethics thing. I have not met too many others that do the same or as often, including a good friend of mine who is IEI.

Anyone else do that? Am I just crazy? LOL.
 
#95 ·
Gamma is beating us by 130 posts and Beta is only less than 20 posts behind.

ALPHAZ

POST DAMMIT D:
 
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#109 ·
@zinnia Here we go. Taken from here.

----------------

Ethics
Both extraverted and introverted ethics describe influencing and influences on people's feelings through vocabulary such as offend, make happy, enthrall, infuriate, scare, get interested. It appears that individuals with strong extraverted and introverted ethics emphasize somewhat different aspects of this influence: the former are focused on external action as a way of changing the emotional atmosphere (saying or doing something), whereas the latter are focused on changes in the subject's emotional state and feelings as a result of this impact.

The same is true of emotional states. Extraverted ethics emphasizes external manifestations (facial expressions, gestures, words), while introverted ethics emphasizes internal feelings, though the theme itself is a part of both aspects. Also, all ethical types are prone to personification - the "animation" of unliving things ("bad computer!" "the computer is acting up again," "this fence doesn't seem to want to fall over; it's still alive"). The field of ethical aspects also includes evaluatory or emotionally charged oaths, for example "creep" or "mean person."

Overlapping themes:
Verbs describing relationships between people
describes external manifestations of relationships (meet, date, make friends, be friends, flirt, break up, make up, break off, suck up), while
describes the subject's experience of relationships (be grateful, admire, love, fall in love, hate, be offended, be embarrassed, value).


Verbs describing influencing feelings
focuses on the external (observable) actions associated with emotional interaction (excite, praise, get going, hurt, fool, offend, cheer up, scare, make laugh, comfort, calm down), while
focuses on internal feelings (trouble, get tired of, make nervious, offend, let down, scare, irritate, make mad, make upsent, calm). Note that the same words can be used, but with a different emphasis.


Abstract nouns for expressing emotions
focuses on visible emotional states (edginess, gloominess, breakdown, boredom, quietness, ecstasy, horror, panic, enthusiasm, sarcasm), while
focuses on internal feelings (guilt, unrest, delight, pride, annoyance, fright, love, hate, hurt, feeling, shame, embarrassment).


Adverbs describing how actions are performed and one's attitude toward them
, again, focuses on visible emotional attitudes (gladly, dismally, wonderfully, half-heartedly, discreetly, sarcastically), while
focuses on internal attitudes (frankly, honestly, dishonestly, decently, in a friendly way, in a good way, in a bad way, tactfully, tactlessly).
 
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#110 ·
@Kanerou "Also, all ethical types are prone to personification - the "animation" of unliving things ("bad computer!" "the computer is acting up again," "this fence doesn't seem to want to fall over; it's still alive")."

Interesting. Thanks for the information. I've never seen that site before... something new to read, cool.

Overlapping themes:
Verbs describing relationships between people
describes external manifestations of relationships (meet, date, make friends, be friends, flirt, break up, make up, break off, suck up), while
describes the subject's experience of relationships (be grateful, admire, love, fall in love, hate, be offended, be embarrassed, value).


Verbs describing influencing feelings
focuses on the external (observable) actions associated with emotional interaction (excite, praise, get going, hurt, fool, offend, cheer up, scare, make laugh, comfort, calm down), while
focuses on internal feelings (trouble, get tired of, make nervious, offend, let down, scare, irritate, make mad, make upsent, calm). Note that the same words can be used, but with a different emphasis.


Abstract nouns for expressing emotions
focuses on visible emotional states (edginess, gloominess, breakdown, boredom, quietness, ecstasy, horror, panic, enthusiasm, sarcasm), while
focuses on internal feelings (guilt, unrest, delight, pride, annoyance, fright, love, hate, hurt, feeling, shame, embarrassment).


Adverbs describing how actions are performed and one's attitude toward them
, again, focuses on visible emotional attitudes (gladly, dismally, wonderfully, half-heartedly, discreetly, sarcastically), while
focuses on internal attitudes (frankly, honestly, dishonestly, decently, in a friendly way, in a good way, in a bad way, tactfully, tactlessly).
I believe I can easily differentiate between extroverted and introverted ethics in others by the way they typically react to events and other people, but descriptions like this aren't perfectly clear to me... It is as if I don't really have a good understanding of the definition and so I really doubt if I was correct in the first place. I am sorry if you've been through this before but do you have any insights or thoughts that helped you tell the difference? When you decided you were Fi-base, was there any particular piece of information that led you to that conclusion? Thanks in advance.

@FreeBeer (quotes keep giving me errors, sorry) I guess it could be...? When I watched it, it seemed a little forced/rehearsed to me so I didn't really find most of it to be very funny. I do occasionally pretend my plush dolls are real animals, I suppose. LOL.
 
#111 ·
@FreeBeer (quotes keep giving me errors, sorry) I guess it could be...? When I watched it, it seemed a little forced/rehearsed to me so I didn't really find most of it to be very funny. I do occasionally pretend my plush dolls are real animals, I suppose. LOL.
o.o uhm, what quotes? Well..maybe its because they are gamers and since I'm a gamer and have played Bioshock before..I get what they are talking about. Maybe its just a nerd/geek thing :( idk...sry.
 
#117 ·
Dafuq is this quadra thing. Someone explain this.
 
#118 ·
Socionics looks at people's preference of certain modes of information and how those preferences can complement each other or clash completely, causing problems in interaction or relationships. Basically, each type prefers a certain 4 modes of information (IM elements) and dismisses/devalues the other. Quadras are formed by putting together the types that prefer the same 4 IM elements.

Alpha: Ne, Si, Fe, Ti (ILE, LII, ESE, SEI)
Beta: Ni, Se, Fe Ti (SLE, LSI, EIE, IEI)
Gamma: Ni, Se, Fi, Te (SEE, ESI, LIE, ILI)
Delta: Ne, Si, Fi, Te (IEE, EII, LSE, SLI)
 
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