Collaboration Styles

The Rational styles I concluded are:
- Fe: student
- Ti: professor
- Te: physician
- Fi: patient

The ideas behind them are, on short:
- Student: he wants to understand a situation to act. He needs all the details, what and why and considers each situation as different, requiring different understanding which the Professor can provide by thinking about and answering every question. He develops his own methods per case and refuses to adhere to pre-established ones.
- Professor: he agrees with anyone who has a correct understanding of a situation, case-by-case. He requires understanding from people, which implies adherence to strict principles, although not being interested in the methods. This requirement is satisfied by the Student - who asks for explanations and can be examined - trusting that a good understanding implies good results.
- Physician: he is interested only in what the presented problem is and what is supposed to be accomplished. He has a large baggage of practical knowledge and knows how to do things by himself using pre-established procedures as much as possible, being able to recommend what's to be done in each case. He does not require people to have understanding in the problems, but the detailed report of the problems themselves.
- Patient: he is interested only in what's supposed to be done in a problem he has. He's not interested in explaining people his reasons or understanding, just to be presented solutions to his grievances. The Physician is the one who can accomplish that, he asks for the symptoms, identify the issue and takes the required measures.

An explanation on "childish" and "mature" views in the Socion

Discovery and knowledge are the vehicles by which children and adults perceive and judge things.
Children have very little previous knowledge, their mental processes are based on discovery and experimentation to accumulate it.
Adults have a large baggage of information which they use to process information and make decisions.

Reinin Judicious/Decissive and Merry/Serious, which I'll discuss in this article, are basically sub-dichotomies, as in the case of Internals/External, but they have to be split considering the application of the information elements: perception or judgment. In the same way, Feeling is internal Judgment while iNtuition is internal Perception.
For the understanding of the further explanations, I assert the following:
- extroverted (bodies), dynamic and external are of positive polarization;
- introverted (fields), static and internal are negative.

Both dichotomies refer to the comparison between the extroversion line and externality, either both positive/negative, or of opposite polarity. These lines correspond to the start and the end of a mental activity, assumption and conclusion in Perception, purpose and result in Judgment.
We may refer to them in perception as:
- "knowledge", when the conclusion matches the initial assumption;
- "discovery" , when the conclusion does not match the initial assumption.
We may refer to them in judgment as:
- "production", when the result matches the initial purpose;
- "creation", when the result does not match the initial purpose.
They are the match between the known of the past/present (certain) and the unknown of the future (uncertain).
Although all people have these traits, we may say that children are discovering and creating, because their knowledge is low, case in which future results are undefined, as long as assertions cannot be made. On the other hand, adults cannot ignore their knowledge, therefore they are able to predict the consequences of their actions. This assertion is the base for the notion of "responsibility" in adults.

When one's initial assumption and conclusion do not match, it is said that the person is "naive", a trait specific to children. They have to experiment a situation and interact with another person to make a judgment. Judicious (Reasonable) people have this trait. They easier overlook flaws in themselves and others.
When one's initial purpose and result do not match, it is said that they are "not serious", irresponsible, improvisers. Again, this is another common view on children. Merry (Subjectivist) people have this trait. They are often involved in activities which do not require precision but creativity and experimentation is needed: arts, research, troubleshooting.


- Perception:
- - Judicious:
- - - "I have to behave naturally, I am who I am and I can't change it"
- - - "I may have problems in the future if I'm over-estimated"
- - - "if I know how to do that job, I am ready to for it"
- - - "damn! I need a better qualification for that job!"
- - - "he's a doctor, if he fails it means he's incompetent"
- - - "I kinda stink and have no time to go home for a shower, I'm sure she will be understanding, this hopefully will not change her opinion about me. If this happens, she's not worth it, to misjudge me for this incident only."
- - - "I like to say I'm doing my studies, because saying I'm a student implies something more"
- - Decisive:
- - - "I have to create and maintain a good image, I am who I want to be"
- - - "the higher I am estimated, the better"
- - - "I will not do that job because I'm not qualified for it"
- - - "damn! I need a better job for my qualification!"
- - - "he's a doctor, if he fails it means the situation is really grave"
- - - "I kinda stink and have no time to go home for a shower, I'll find an excuse to delay the date for tomorrow because this incident could change her opinion about me. If this does not happen it means she has no self-esteem, I'll find out in the future."
- - - "I like to say I'm a student, because this implies something more than doing my studies"

- Judgment:
- - Merry:
- - - "when I work for myself and I know what I'm doing, the results of my work are usually better or worse than what I wanted"
- - - "it is easier for me to exclude questionable elements while I work, and add them in the end, if needed"
- - - "I check for possible errors while I work, even if I follow an already used procedure which worked before"
- - - "my mistake is unfortunate. I'll be as careful as possible to avoid it next time."
- - - "I can finish it faster if you just tell me what you want"
- - - "in a complex task, it is easier for me to ensure global variety than uniformity"
- - - "under extreme time pressure, the first thing I do is to deal with the uncertain"
- - Serious:
- - - "when I work for myself and I know what I'm doing, the results of my work are usually what I wanted"
- - - "it is easier for me to include questionable elements while I work, and remove them in the end, if unneeded"
- - - "I don't check for errors while I work, if I follow a procedure I used before and it worked"
- - - "my mistake is unfortunate. I'll take all possible measures to avoid it next time."
- - - "I can finish it faster if you just tell me how to do it, step-by-step"
- - - "in a complex task, it is easier for me to ensure global uniformity than variety"
- - - "under extreme time pressure, the first thing I do is to use what is certain"


We may conclude that types in the Socionics...:
- Beta quadra have mature perception and childish judgment (Decisive and Merry);
- Delta quadra have childish perception and mature judgment (Judicious and Serious);
- Alpha quadra have childish perception and judgment (Judicious and Merry);
- Gamma quadra have mature perception and judgment (Decisive and Serious);
Therefore Alpha is the most childish-like quadra, while Gamma is the most mature-like one.

- Alpha and Delta are both rather doubtful than confident, while Beta and Gamma are both rather confident than doubtful.
- Alpha and Beta are both rather creative than productive, while Gamma and Delta are both rather productive than creative;
Doubt implies further experiments and discovery, confidence implies complete trust in previous knowledge.

Considering the perception is the most involved in gathering information and judgment in applying the knowledge, the conclusion that the Perceiving types are more childish than the Judging types is also valid. Using only these three dichotomies, someone would be able to find the Dual pair a subject belongs, before knowing his type of perceptive, respectively judging functions.

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Updated: 16 May 2009 Mihai Militaru
This article is updated based on the feedback from web forum users.
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Wikipedia entry on Socionics.