# Developing relevant questions



## esq (Jun 7, 2012)

Purpose 1: Find out the person's type
Purpose 2: Provide data to support basic socionics
Purpose 3: Provide data to develop future hypotheticals


What is your MBTI? 
What is your Enneagram? 
If you have an opinion, what do you think is your Socionics type? 

For all different situations: 
Describe your body.
Describe your facial expressions. 
Describe your posture. 

For each of 16 types, describe a person you know and your relationship with each other. Please use MBTI dichotomy typings and avoid functions terminology (Ti, Se, etc). 

Name somebody I know and tell me about him/her. 

What distinguishes you?
What are you incapable of? 
What do you see as your weaknesses? 
What have people criticized you for or commented on? 

What are your pastimes? 

When are you most comfortable with other people? 

What is a life and what will become of you? 

=================================

People of Socionics subforum, I think that these questions are more efficient and more fun for all parties involved. Please mention your concerns and any questions you want answered. Mention what you think will be efficient questions to determine type. Mention what lines of inquiry will provide data to settle our internal disputes.


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## sinigang (May 5, 2012)

I think some of the questions can be merged into one questions such as:


> What are you incapable of?
> What do you see as your weaknesses?
> What have people criticized you for or commented on?


And


> For each of 16 types, describe a person you know and your relationship with each other. Please use MBTI dichotomy typings and avoid functions terminology (Ti, Se, etc).


Might require too much prior knowledge and it might be tiring to describe all those types. I'd also think if they can answer that they could already identify themselves.


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## Boolean11 (Jun 11, 2012)

Its simple step to your socionics type in the guide I'm planning for the way I see the theory, know your *Club*, *Orientation *and *Quasi-Identity preference*. Wham bam thank you ma'am.



> *Socioncs Clubs (SF, ST, NT, NF)*
> _Socials SF_
> _Pragmatists ST _
> _Researchers NT_
> ...


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## aestrivex (Mar 7, 2011)

esq said:


> Purpose 1: Find out the person's type
> Purpose 2: Provide data to support basic socionics
> Purpose 3: Provide data to develop future hypotheticals
> 
> ...


the purpose of having people answer questions is to acquire a clearer picture about their behavior and motivations without actually knowing that person in the flesh. questions focusing on terminology, and asking about MBTI types and so forth will lead to answers that vaguely look like "well my ENTP boyfriend is sweet and kind and my ENFJ grandmother is mean and controlling" -- or anything even vaguely similar, which is not informative because it offers no independent observation.

all of the questions quoted above, in my opinion, are completely uninformative.



> Name somebody I know and tell me about him/her.


i like this one.



> What distinguishes you?
> What are you incapable of?
> What do you see as your weaknesses?
> What have people criticized you for or commented on?
> ...


these are all good or potentially good questions that ask people to tell a story about themselves. i think some of them are more useful than others -- some of them, such as "what are you incapable of" try to focus somewhat directly on the rather abstract assumptions from socionics that people are unlikely to know about. focusing on this structure isn't a good idea because it will lead to similarly abstract responses as the present questionnaire going around, which leads people to answer based on their individuality and personal values -- not actually that useful when you think about it if we want to understand the differences between people's motivational orientations.

questions about abstract qualities of people are all well and good, but i think a major omission in the storytelling is collecting more basic and practical information. maybe it isn't interesting in all cases, but to help with the context of the story, ask people about where they come from and what they do for a living and why. i like the "when are you most comfortable with people" and "what are your pastimes" questions as they play into the same dynamic of collecting information that is not really that abstract.


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## Kanerou (Oct 8, 2009)

I would recommend not bringing MBTI into it at all; while it could provide a set of views to work from, I think the risk of people just trying to convert the type to Socionics is too high. Also, why ask people who may have very little knowledge of Socionics to pick people of different Socionic types and describe their interaction? As Aestrivex said, there's no way to determine that the typings are solid. Similarly, avoid asking people about physical features or posture. It's not particularly helpful.


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## Boolean11 (Jun 11, 2012)

esq said:


> Purpose 1: Find out the person's type
> Purpose 2: Provide data to support basic socionics
> Purpose 3: Provide data to develop future hypotheticals
> 
> ...


I use replace the MBTI question by asking whether a person knows their Jungian cognitive function type or not. Most people in MBTI will be mistypes since they'll type themselves according to the caricatures. A simple question that can allow translation is asking whether their person is aware of their innate Jungian type along his introversion/extroversion definitions as well as the rational/irrational dichotomy.


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## cyamitide (Jul 8, 2010)

"describe your body" is a very awkward question. One's physique has little to do with one's type.

"describe you facial expressions" most people won't be able to give an accurate answer to this question since most of us can't observe ourselves from outside. Facial expressions are very instinctive. Unless you have watched several videos of yourself, you may not have a good clue about how you come through.

"What are you pasttimes?" This has little to do with type. I know a couple of INFj and ENFp programmers who spend most of their time on NT-like hobbies and INTjs and ENTps who are in social and humanitarian fields.

"what is a life?" not sure what you're asking here..biological life? social life? metaphysical life? which aspects of life do you want to be described?


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## sinigang (May 5, 2012)

cyamitide said:


> "What are you pasttimes?" This has little to do with type. I know a couple of INFj and ENFp programmers who spend most of their time on NT-like hobbies and INTjs and ENTps who are in social and humanitarian fields.


Not sure if this is a coincidence or not. But my list seems to support this, though nobody was too eager. Lol.
http://personalitycafe.com/socionics-forum/129441-clubs-secondary-clubs-just-theory.html


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## cyamitide (Jul 8, 2010)

sinigang said:


> Not sure if this is a coincidence or not. But my list seems to support this, though nobody was too eager. Lol.
> http://personalitycafe.com/socionics-forum/129441-clubs-secondary-clubs-just-theory.html


supports what? I'm not sure I understand.


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## esq (Jun 7, 2012)

I feel there are two goals which require two separate surveys. Since people will continue to ask for their type, one survey should determine this concisely and effectively and make the process enjoyable. 

The second survey has the more noble goal of acting as a vehicle of research, to reveal things we do not already know about socionics. I feel a need to gather data on random aspects of the person's life, aspects which may or may not be relevant to type. I call this the spray and pray method, which means I believe there are correlations to be discovered if we have a fuller view of each person. 

I even prefer the second survey's method because 1) It is a lot of trouble to design an efficient survey without field testing, therefore we ask many questions to find out which ones work. 2) Each typologist pays attention to different things when typing someone. We wish to provide relevant information to all lines of inquiry. 

======================

I agree there are pitfalls to mentioning MBTI alongside socionics. Just don't let it impair your judgement. I feel it is necessary because I am endlessly annoyed when people call the SLI an ISTJ. Other people disagree with me, and since people will continue to correlate between the two systems, this way we will have some data, even if it be fuzzy mistyped data. 

This might just be my curiosity killing me. I understand there are many things people don't want to see in a survey, however I'm not sure I really care about making a concise end product as much as I care about asking as many questions as possible.

Basically I care more about gathering data than helping you find out your type.


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## Kanerou (Oct 8, 2009)

> I agree there are pitfalls to mentioning MBTI alongside socionics. *Just don't let it impair your judgement.* I feel it is necessary because I am endlessly annoyed when people call the SLI an ISTJ. Other people disagree with me, and since people will continue to correlate between the two systems, this way we will have some data, even if it be fuzzy mistyped data.


Too many people do, which is why including such a question is a mistake. If you're asking already-typed people what their MBTI type is, I have no problem with that; it just doesn't belong on a typing survey.



> This might just be my curiosity killing me. I understand there are many things people don't want to see in a survey, however I'm not sure I really care about making a concise end product as much as I care about asking as many questions as possible.
> 
> Basically I care more about gathering data than helping you find out your type.


If you're mostly looking to gather data, stay out of the "type me" threads and pose surveys to people who are reasonably certain of their types. You won't help type-seekers by presenting them with hopelessly bloated surveys containing questions that may not even be relevant to the typing process.


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## aestrivex (Mar 7, 2011)

esq said:


> I agree there are pitfalls to mentioning MBTI alongside socionics. Just don't let it impair your judgement. I feel it is necessary because I am endlessly annoyed when people call the SLI an ISTJ. Other people disagree with me, and since people will continue to correlate between the two systems, this way we will have some data, even if it be fuzzy mistyped data.


all the more reason why you should design a questionnaire to discourage people from thinking in terminology to begin with, and to encourage them to share useful observations about themselves instead -- rather than asking themselves about categorizing a different system.



> Basically I care more about gathering data than helping you find out your type.


it would be useful to examine MBTI only if you are specially interested in the question of how MBTI and socionics are intertwined. but, if you were interested in doing this, i strongly suggest you use a better measure of MBTI type than asking people what their type is.

it is fine to discuss potential research approaches -- but if you are serious about discussing research approaches, well basically convince me you are serious by having planned out some useful operationalizations.


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## Sixty Nein (Feb 13, 2011)

ISF Hedonists

I didn't know that ESIs are known for their hedonism, but I guess I was wrong here.

That list is stupid. You are looking into behaviors and not into motivation and interaction between others. (which I thought socionics is all about)


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