Introduction
At the peak of the Cold War, the Soviets and the Americans battled for supremacy in numerous different fields: weaponry, global expansion, space exploration, and, most importantly, personality testing. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Socionics test, respectively, were the American and Soviet weapons of choice. Despite different question types, styles, and overall vibes, these two tests are fundamentally based on the same core system, invented by one Carl Jung. The MBTI has such wide-spread influence that most Americans are assumed to know their four-letter personality type off the top of their heads. While Socionics never rose to that level thanks to a criminal lack of marketing, it has been quite popular in the USSR (and now the former USSR, primarily Russia and Ukraine) since its release. Despite its lack of popularity, Socionics offers increased accuracy and specificity over MBTI.
Historical background
MBTI was originally created in New England by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. Briggs was inspired to research personality types when she met Isabel’s future husband, who had a very different outlook on the world than the one to which she was accustomed. She began by reading Carl Jung’s Psychological Types when it was translated into English in 1923. Katharine and Isabel were inspired by Word War II to make the post-war world a more inspired place, and worked tirelessly throughout the war to that end. Their resultant first version of the test was completed in the form of a paper survey in the early 1940s, but they continued tweaking it for two decades until 1962, when the modern version of MBTI was released, marking the beginning of the Great Personality Test War.
Socionics was developed in the USSR by a Lithuanian sociologist named Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. She had long fostered an interest in family relations and their improvement, which led to her becoming one of the first Soviet sociologists, as the Soviets at the time considered sociology to be a “bourgeois pseudoscience”. She developed the concept of socionics in 1968, when she determined to one-up MBTI by combining the work of Jung with a few other personality models, particularly Antoni Kepinski’s concept of information metabolism. When she published her results in 1978, it led to a “socionics movement” amongst Soviet academics that swept small portions of the western USSR by storm. This not-so-widespread movement established socionics institutes in Kiev and Moscow – the larger of which, the International Institute of Socionics, brought together nearly ten socionists. The work of these great socionists led to the socionics test we know today.
Models
MBTI and Socionics both have their fundamental roots in Jungian psychology. The 4 Jungian archetypes are the persona, the shadow, the anima/animus, and the ego. This was developed into the MBTI model by determining two ends to a spectrum of each, creating 4 dichotomies as follows:
- Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)
- Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)
- Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
- Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)
Socionics took the Jungian model and used different names, with slightly different meanings, for two of their dichotomies – rationality-irrationality in favor of judging-perceiving, and logic-ethics in favor of thinking-feeling. They argue, in the case of rationality-irrationality, that it was the original name Jung used for the model, and that the American version does not truly convey the intention of the Jungian model. The Soviets, naturally, then proceeded to rename Jung’s terms for thinking-feeling. After the terminology was settled, Gregory Reinin then took the model and greatly expanded it, adding 11 “derivative dichotomies” to the original 4, for a total of 15 dichotomies. These new dichotomies are the results of various intersections of the originals. This addition allows Socionics to have 225 personality types as opposed to MBTI’s 16.
Practical Applications
MBTI is primarily deployed in personal development and career counseling. The test’s simple format allowed for widespread adoption worldwide due to its ease of administration and brief results. It is also often seen in corporate settings where a healthy understanding of employee’s personality types can help with team building and boost individual productivity.
Socionics is more focused on interpersonal relationships and determining compatibility for friendships, colleagues, and relationships. It is lengthy and time-consuming, and generates excruciatingly detailed results which could be pored over for hours. This complexity limits its ability to be used en masse, especially for business applications, despite its increased detail over MBTI. Socionics also features blunt, piercing personal questions, such as “Do you believe that certain people deserve to be treated like dirt?’’ and “When needed, I can deliberately mislead and anticipate partners’ reactions to my seemingly casual, intentional words.” These off-putting questions make the test process itself more entertaining and introspective than MBTI’s and increase the accuracy of the results even more. The socionics test process becomes an intense personal journey, rather than MBTI’s cookie-cutter form that leads to a standardized result.
Both systems have a global reach, although the spread of socionics is much more oriented in the eastern hemisphere. Data from Google Trends reveals that MBTI has averaged around 7 times the number of searches of socionics. However, Socionics has more searches than MBTI in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
Criticisms & Concerns
MBTI has been plagued with criticism since its creation. Psychologists have varied opinions on its validity, ranging from vague acceptance to harsh criticism. The critics believe that it is too simplistic to describe the complexity of human personality, and that considering the dichotomies to be a binary rather than a spectrum is reductionary. MBTI is also criticized for assuming humans to be static, whereas in reality these aspects are likely to grow and change over time.
Socionics fixes most of these issues via its derivative dichotomies. Its model is a much more in-depth analysis of the human psyche, and it accounts for people who are in every portion of the four spectrums by creating intersections between the spectrums and analyzing people more holistically. The issue it shares with MBTI is the belief that humans are static, and a resultant lack of scientific backing. The personality aspects of the Jungian model have never successfully been proven to be inherent traits, which many people believe invalidates both tests entirely. Some psychologists have even pointed out that results can change simply from a person’s mood while taking the test.
Socionics also has its own unique share of problems. It was not translated out of Russian until the early 2000s, which led to a lack of global accessibility. Even after being translated into other languages, it still suffers from a lack of marketing to this day. Its creators believe that the test is inherently superior to MBTI and should thus be able to stand on its own merit, but the Google Trends from earlier prove that is decidedly not the case, with the exception of a few countries. Its lack of widespread awareness has severely hampered its ability to make an impact on the world.
Conclusion
The Great Personality Test War, decades later, remains undecided. As with the space race, both sides have claimed to have won, and both sides are partially right. The Socionics test is better than MBTI in every way, except for marketing. The Americans, as usual, marketed their product as having won to the degree that according to most of the globe it actually did. In this case, it seems as if attempting to win on the sheer merits of quality was a crippling mistake for the socionics. If your goal is to learn the most about yourself and your only choice was these two tests, socionics would be the way to go by a landslide, no matter how impressive the MBTI marketing scheme may be. However, both of these tests were developed the better part of a century ago, and both science and technology have left the world of these tests behind. If Jungian theory hasn’t been proven accurate by now, it never will be. It’s past time to leave Jung in the rearview mirror and embrace the future.
Reference Articles with Citations
- “What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?”
Source: Verywell Mind
URL: verywellmind.com/what-is-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-2795583
Description: A comprehensive overview of the MBTI, its history, and applications. - “Speaking Different Languages, Striving for the same”
Source: Socionics Institute
URL: https://socionic.info/pdf/Speaking%20Different%20Languages.pdf
Description: A detailed comparison between Socionics and MBTI, focusing on their theoretical frameworks and practical uses. - “The Pros and Cons of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test”
Source: Best Personality Tests
URL: https://bestpersonalitytests.com/mbti-full-review-pros-and-cons/#:~:text=Psychologists%20hold%20various%20views%20on,supporting%20its%20validity%20and%20reliability.
Description: A balanced discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the MBTI. - “Review of the socionic model of information metabolism at individual, interpersonal and societal levels ”
Source: ResearchGate
URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319568523_Review_of_the_Socionic_Model_of_Information_Metabolism_at_Individual_Interpersonal_and_Societal_Levels
Description: This article introduces the core concepts of Socionics, including type relations and information metabolism. - “The truth about the Myers–Briggs personality test”
Source: iai news
URL: https://iai.tv/articles/the-truth-about-the-myersbriggs-personality-test-auid-2235
Description: A critical look at the scientific basis (or lack thereof) behind the MBTI, examining its strengths and shortcomings. - “The Foundations of socionics: a review”
Source: ResearchGate
URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318643067_The_foundations_of_socionics_-_A_review
Description: An in-depth analysis of the history and model of socionics.
