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School of System Socionics

“Practice is the proof of the truth”

Dimension one - the "experience" parameter

With this parameter begins our perception of the world. You touch things, you get the feeling of the touch - this is your sensory experience. You feel sad, you live through this feeling - this is your emotional experience; you feel sorry for a hungry puppy - this is your experience of empathy (ethics); you understand the meaning of what has been said - it's your intuitive experience; you feel the length of the conversation - this is your experience of time; you hammer a nail - this is your experience with objects; you catch a logical connection between phenomena - this is your logical experience.

Every experience is individual. Every next moment there is a new experience, a new feeling, a new understanding. Experiences do not repeat, they accumulate. Every experience is a point in the space of the world. A single point. Nobody will be able to get exactly the same experience as you. No one can see with your eyes, nobody will be able to touch with your hands or able to understand with your mind.  Experience can not be passed to another person, you can only put the other person in the same condition in which you received your experience so that he gets a similar experience. Similar, but not yours. You can try to describe your experience but it will only be a description. The listener will not pass your experience through his bodily sensors, he will reconstruct it in his imagination. All he can do is imagine your experience in his own way. Within the dimension "experience" you are alone in the whole universe.

Thus, the essence of the "experience" parameter, its distinguishing characteristic is individuality and non-transferability to another person. The "experience" parameter is present in all the functions. It is a fundamental parameter. "Experience is the basic component of information processing that allows us to link the internal operations of the human psyche with the outside world."

«Одномерность»One-dimensional functions (# 4 and #5) are the functions that have only one parameter - the "experience" parameter.

The consequence of such one-dimensional perception by an information function is self-awareness: pleasant/unpleasant; I like it/ I dislike it; I feel good / I feel bad; I feel it/I don't feel it; I understand/I do not understand, etc. Actually that is what experience is - direct individual psychological reaction to a contact with the world. For a one-dimensional function there is no mechanism of comparison with any reference. If it is necessary to take a decision, one can remember his past experiences. And the typical solution (if there is a similar experience) is to retrace the same path by your old steps. This reinforces the "well-beaten track" of the reaction pattern.

Normally, a person always needs to get confirmation of the "correctness" of his responses (his understanding, his actions, his thinking) which relate to his one-dimensional functions (#5 and #4) simply because he lives in a society. Our education engraves in us the tendency to divide everything into right and wrong: "do you do it right?", "do you behave right?", "do you dress in a right manner?", "do you eat in a right manner?" and so on. Such confirmation or its opposite can be either approval or criticism. Of course, we all would like to get approved, but for some reason, life is such that others are eager to express their dissatisfaction and hold back their approval.

If a one-dimensional function accumulates a lot of negative feedback, a person may develop an inferiority complex, and adopt the attitude of a victim. Sometimes one can witness a burst of indignation (especially coming from the vital track function 5) when there is an accumulated expectation of positive feedback, and there in no feedback coming, and often the person may not realize the cause of such an accumulated frustration.

The essence of the Ex parameter is the personal perception which is non-transferable to others.

An individual needs a response to the question "what is the right way?", "what is required?". A one-dimensional function develops its own individual understanding of the "rightness", some kind of norms substitutes. And such norms substitutes often are expressed as a kind of "spell" or self-suggestion formulas (and in that they differ from the true norms).

Another way of comparing to others for a one-dimensional function is an assessment of the effort, energy invested into an action. Also, when there is a need to take a decision, a person can make use of the norms available in the adjacent function ( the block neighbor function) or make use of the second function of the same macro element (for example, P<-> L, E<-> R, etc.)

Examples

If I feel lonely for someone it means that I love this person, if I do not feel loneliness - it means that I do not love him/her (interpretation of R through E)

If he tried very hard then the thing is done well, if he did not try hard then he did not do it well (e\/aluation or result by the amount of visible effort)

I try not to think about it, this way nothing bad will happen (individual suggestion formula)

If I understood it then I'm clever (block: interpretation of L through I 1 )

If you love me, then I'm a good person (block: interpretation of I through R )

A job is well done if I had not noticed shortcomings (individual formula of complacency)

A job is well done if I have a feeling of satisfaction with the result (judgement by e\/aluation of individual energy state).

If I read a lot then I am clever, if I don't then I am stupid (individual suggestion formula).

Having no comparison tool (no possibility to use any norm as a reference), a one-dimensional function can transfer the problem to a multidimensional block. For example, logical types understand relationships by interpreting them through logical rules.

Any information that ends up in a one-dimensional function is assessed by the function as pleasant or unpleasant. Natural (from the viewpoint of one-dimensional function) reaction when encountering an "unpleasant" information is the desire to get rid of it, to turn away, not to take it into account, to pretend that it does not exist, to forget, to fence off in any way.

One of the methods of "getting away" is mental time hastening - "I wish it ends quickly," which leads to the feverishness of the function. Thinking becomes impatient, shallow and very narrow. It can be compared with the rapid running through dark places, when your field of vision is narrowed to a spot, you do not want to see anything around. Reactions are accelerated, there is haste. We are hurriedly doing something to get rid of the unpleasant thing faster: we quickly tinker through our relationship, we hastily make our calculation, or in general, we quickly react to the information related to the element of our one-dimensional function. This, of course, often leads to mistakes, and we get the opposite of what we have hoped for - we do not get rid of the unwanted situation, we make it worse. Trying to "run through" the situation at high speed, just to feel relieved that it's over, deep down, we still feel that we are failing and we feel "suspended." The suggestive function (#5) may show feverishness of its reactions coming from the desire to quickly get the expected pleasure. Such "feverishnes" of one-dimensional functions is apparent for an outside observer.

What features of mental reactions point to the one-dimensionality of information processing?

  • Reliance on previous experience when trying to comprehend, e\/aluate, understand the new experience, when searching for a new solution. This is similar to walking the old beaten track: movement in one direction only, and only repeating the same track.
  • Repetition over and over of similar reactions, e\/aluations and decisions.
  • The use of language expressive means that help a person to isolate, mark-up individual perception.
  • Inability to make reference to a fixed norm, to a pattern or a rule, which causes constant anxiety.
  • Accumulation of errors resulting from inadequate (not complying with the social norms) decisions and actions, leading to formation of fears and complexes. It could be right the opposite - an inadequate over-confidence (a publicly demonstrated mask, behind which hide all the same fears and insecurities).
  • The desire to "cut off" part of the the information, "shut ones eyes", often it manifests in traces of failures getting "erased" from the memory.
  • Painful expectation of repetition of the bad experiences.
  • Haste in processing of unpleasant information.
  • Presence of fear.
  • Desire to get more and more information by the suggestive function(f. 5).
  • Confusion when e\/aluating new situations.
  • Processing of information feels like a huge loss of energy.
  • The lack of norms for comparison may cause unexpected inadequate self-esteem. The person may not be aware of how adequately he is processing the information, so he can can judge his one-dimensional function to be a very strong one.
  • Possible suggestibility. No critical assessment of information.

Other papers on the topic:

  1. Eglit I.M. Dimensions of functions
  2. Eglit I.M., Pyatnitsky V.V. Investigation of fears in one-dimensional functions.
  3. Eglit I.M. Use of protocols for TIM identification by correspondence in the Internet
  4. Eglit I.M. Low dimensional functions are not "weak".
  5. Eglit I.M. Socionic type identification (more in detail and with examples)
  6. Eglit I.M. Pyatnitsky V.V. Interpretation of human behavior inadequacies in terms of the A-model.

1 Our observations show that generally the concept of "clever" is perceived in terms of the L element.

Eglit IM ©