Talk:Socionics

Lead sentence again

I would say that, apart from the fact that the article is too long considering the its encyclopedic goal and relatively small importance of socionics, we should approach socionics more like psychoanalysis. In the article about the psychoanalysis, the dispute about its status as the field of science is moved to its proper place - to the criticism section. Similarly to psychoanalysis, socionics is based on some unfalsifiable models, but it seems to work in practice, if used to proper problems by reasonable, intelligent people. I would say it is very distant from hard science (as, for example, Jungian depth psychology is also distant from modern science). I do agree that many socionists - people who devoted their lives to building socionic models and using socionics in their psychological practice, mainly in Russia and Ukraine - present socionics as a scientific theory, especially to unsuspecting common people. Therefore, they are making pseudoscience out of it, and they are unethical. I would say that socionics per se is neither science or pseudoscience, but most people use it pseudoscientifically. Rather than labeling it pseudoscientific in the overview, I say that criticism section should be used for this purpose. Because if we label socionics pseudoscience right away, the same should be done with depth psychology and with psychoanalysis. Moreover, the article is just too long and overloaded with references from sources too closely related to the topic in question. --Pancarlos (talk) 14:04, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Pancarlos, Wikipedia-wide consensus is that criticisms should not be relegated entirely to a separate 'Criticism' section, as that causes severe neutrality problems. In the case, the fact that virtually no one outside of a few practitioners accepts that Socionics is legitimate science is extremely relevant context, and readers need to know that right away so they can understand the rest of the article. MrOllie (talk) 14:31, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

You say that no one outside of a few practitioners accept that Socionics is a legitimate science, but have you considered that hardly anyone who is English-speaking even knows what Socionics is? Sample size is important when making statements such as this. There are only a tiny number of English-speaking psychologists who know what Socionics is, and none of them maintain that Socionics is a science or a pseudoscience. It is a philosophy that presents tool for interpretation of data, not for empirical predictions. Do you know of the School of System Socionics? Do you know of the World Socionics Society? If you do not know of groups such as these, which are well established and take a scientifically responsible approach to the use of Model A, by not trying to use it predictively, but ad hoc on information already gathered, then how can you assess whether the sources you are collating on this subject are reliable or not when speaking of Socionics as a monolith? Echidna1000 (talk) 02:36, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows the sources, and in this case we happen to have 10 of them. MrOllie (talk) 02:41, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

If that were true, the article would say both that Socionics is a science and a pseudoscience, because there are plenty of sources claiming the former, as well as the 10 claiming the latter. Evidently, someone hasn't included these sources for whatever reason. The point is, sources that support a one-sided narrative have been picked at the exclusion of other sources, whether accidentally or deliberately. At the same time, simply 'following the sources' implies that this is not an interpretive exercise, when it clearly is. After all, and if had 11 sources claiming Socionics is a science and only 10 claiming Socionics is a pseudoscience, you wouldn't say that 'Socionics is a science'. You'd still probably have the article call it a pseudoscience.

Of course, I'm not saying you should claim Socionics is a 'science' either, it's obviously not. There are definitely people in Russia and Ukraine who have vested interests in calling Socionics a 'science' publicly. I've had heated discussions with these people, particularly Alexander Bukalov. However, there are multiple groups such as the World Socionics Society and the School of System Socionics, and other practitioners who see the value in Socionics but don't claim that it is a science, but rather an ad hoc analytical framework for making sense of a person's values and strengths, using commonly accepted methodologies such as self-rated questionnaires and interviews. Their approaches are different and by the definition of 'pseudoscience' meaning something erroneously claimed to be a 'science' that means that these approaches to Socionics are not pseudoscientific. Now, if it's simply the case that these sources haven't been provided and taken into consideration, alright, maybe we can accumulate those sources to make the case.

Would you be willing to concede the point and allow the article to be made more nuanced if I provide these sources? At the moment, the article is a heavily disputed mess and will always be a mess until we work together to clear things up. It's obvious to me that no socionists are involved in the decision-making on the information available, so we have people who don't have that insight making decisions on how to present things they don't yet understand. Echidna1000 (talk) 12:05, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Sourcing isn't a vote. Sources written by people who are making their living off Socionics (such as the groups you mention) are weighted far below the independent sources. The independent sources are quite clear, this is pseudoscience. That no socionists are involved in the decision-making is a feature, not a bug, just as it is a benefit that no flat-earthers are making decisions for the Flat earth article. MrOllie (talk) 12:13, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

There are two sets of double standards that are implicit to what you suggest here.

1. Many articles are dependent almost solely on sources by people who are an expert in that field. Do you have a rule on the ophthalmology article that no sources be taken from ophthalmologists, who obviously make money from the field so cannot be trusted? Obviously you don't, because that is a science. However, you have already categorised socionics as a 'pseudoscience' in your head, so you are applying a different rule to the one that would be used for an established science. Am I right?

2. It has not been established that any of these sources are 'independent' though, only that they are not socionists. They could very well be people who benefit from bringing the entire field into disrepute. Any psychologist who uses methodologies that compete with socionics will fall into that category. Have you checked for that possibility? People don't tend to just write articles saying that Socionics is a pseudoscience without some kind of axe to grind. What is the process to ensure that there is no conflict of interest on the other side? Several of the sources themselves are not substantiated by data, but are opinions, or passing remarks, rather than concerted attempts to determine if Socionics is a pseudoscience or not. So, not only are you listening to opinions by people who could very well have a conflict of interest against socionics, but you are then shutting out more informed opinions by those who have dedicated their lives to understanding this field.

I don't think it's a benefit that you don't allow flat earthers to contribute to the flat earth article. It reads as a very biased article that wields the scientific consensus to obstruct an exploration of the flat earther's ideas. Just because an idea is not true, that does not mean that their perspective should not be understood as much as possible on the article dedicated to exploring them, and to do that, you actually need the flat earther's, in the same way you have ophthalmologists. The agenda of this article is to tell the reader to not believe flat earthers, rather than being to tell the reader informatively about flat earther's and what they believe. I don't like that at all, and I'm not a flat earther or a fan of flat earthers.

I'll tell you what though. I actually do know some independent sources that verify what I have been saying. I'll put those in. Echidna1000 (talk) 00:14, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I have another question. Wikipedia accepts the existence of protoscience as something different to pseudoscience. Is it acceptable to link to independent sources that recognise some approaches to Socionics being protoscience, rather than pseudoscience? If so, would it be acceptable to represent that nuance in the introductory paragraph? Echidna1000 (talk) 01:57, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

You have an obvious WP:Conflict of interest here. You should not be writing about yourself or trying to cite your group as though it is an independent source of information. Really, you should not edit this article at all. As to your speculation that there is some secret cabal operating to bring down socionics, there is no evidence of that. There is plenty of evidence of people with a vested interest in promoting this stuff (as you well know). The 'agenda' of Wikipedia is to present what the best independent sources say about a topic. Proponents of fringe ideas are rarely happy with that, but it is how Wikipedia operates. MrOllie (talk) 02:57, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Too few people are interested in Socionics to be both 1) independent, 2) knowledgeable about it, and 3) inclined to write and publish on it, so your priorities in this context are a recipe for a misleading picture, and will inevitably be dominated by those who are not socionists, but have a desire to publish against it for whatever reason. I never said there had to be a 'cabal', just people who stand to gain, and so go to the effort of publishing. It's too obscure to be done justice by a system of decision-making that inevitably prioritises those with a bias against X over those with a bias in favour of X by incorrectly confusing the former with the virtue of 'independence'. Not being part of the club doesn't necessarily confer objectivity.

Nevertheless, if you are depriving me of the ability to use what I know to improve the article, then I would ask you to make the edits instead, as I assume that you are independent, and therefore, will not turn away good sources of information even if they contradict what is currently argued. Evidently, if I go around suggesting that other people make edits, I cannot pay them to do so, as that would immediately become a conflict of interest. They would have to want to spend the time doing it out of a Kantian sense of duty to writing and providing good information. Hard to find such people, although you appear to be of this rare breed. If as you claim you are not biased against Socionics, then surely you will be obliging to any information I can provide you.

For example, have you looked at Pietrak K, The foundations of socionics – a review, Cognitive Systems Research 47 (2018) 1-11. DOI/10.1016/j.cogsys.2017.07.001 ?

Karol Pietrak is not a socionist. He is a good and VERY RARE example of someone interested in the theory and with enough of an academic background to write on it academically, without in any way standing to gain from it, and to do so in English. In this article, published in a peer-reviewed journal, he clearly concludes that "At the most general level, socionics may be classified as part of the cognitive sciences." (p.18)

As you say, sourcing is not "a vote". That's good, in which case, can you really say that this article in a peer-reviewed journal is the inferior of the ten sources arguing the opposite? Are the ten sources even peer reviewed? Some are clearly not, but are books, not articles. Others are in journals whose peer-reviewed status I am unsure of. If you are not already sure, you might want to check. If it's the case, that none of these ten sources are in a peer-reviewed journal, then Pietrak's article is the superior source, and therefore, you would need to remove "pseudoscientific" from the introductory paragraph. At the very least, you will need to acknowledge in the Wikipedia article that there are high-quality, independent sources that directly contradict the opening statement. Echidna1000 (talk) 11:56, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Pietrak is a mechanical engineer. He's an expert on heat transfer, not psychology. MrOllie (talk) 12:31, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Now you're contradicting yourself. Pietrak not being a psychologist means he's independent. He has no horse in the race. His writing on the subject was nevertheless authoritative enough to be accepted by a peer-reviewed journal.

If you want an expert on the subject, I'm an expert, but I'm not good enough because I'm not independent. How can you be 1) an expert in a field, while also being 2) independent from a field?

It's not even the case that being a psychologist gives you relevant expertise in Socionics. After all, if it is legitimately psychology, which is a science, then Socionics is a science. If Socionics is not a science, then how can it be psychology? If Socionics is not psychology, why can only a psychologist be deemed an 'expert'? It all seems like a catch-22 to me.

Nevertheless, I am going to hold these other sources to the standards you have laid out:

Are the writers of the 10 sources saying socionics is a 'pseudoscience' psychologists? A.G. Sergeev isn't a psychologist, he's a mathematician. V.N. Sokolchik isn't a psychologist, she's a philosopher. V. A. Zilinha, A. B. Nevelev, and A. Ya. Kamaletdinova all three are philosophers. L. A. Salpagarova? surprise surprise, ANOTHER philosopher.

Finally we have a psychologist in Volkov, but the source is not published in a peer-reviewed journal. It's part of a collection of materials that he used at a conference. It's his opinion, without peer-review. The opinion itself is an off-hand remark and part of a list of multiple fields, showing NO expertise in Socionics. The fact he is a psychologist is more circumstantial than relevant.

Meanwhile, although E. Ivashechkina appears to be art an historian (I'm not sure about this) G.A Chedzemov is in the social sciences, although likely not still a psychologist. The article, however, appears to be a well-researched source, based on more than a passing knowledge of Socionics. I cannot really fault this article, except that it treats Socionics as a bit of a monolith again, and evidently these people have never heard of me, despite it being 2019, which means they are not familiar with the developments in the west over the past decade and have not factored this into their analysis. However, it is clear in this article that Socionics is seen a 'science in development', rather than a pseudoscience. They do not use "pseudoscience" at all in the article. Socionics is described as going through different stages of development, and that while claims of it being a 'science' are premature, there is a trajectory of the approach becoming more scientific over time. The key criticism is that the results are currently hard to falsify. That is not an argument for Socionics being a pseudoscience, but rather a protoscience.

Ignatyev, another philosopher (although someone of the same name appears to be an engineer)

Abashkina's article does not seem to even be relevant to the discussion. Maybe there was a translation error. It certainly is not about psychology, but semantics.

If your standard for accepting sources is that people have to be psychologists, you have to scrap almost every source there, except for one article where the pseudoscientific nature of Socionics is mentioned in an offhand remark in an essay that isn't even peer-reviewed. Echidna1000 (talk) 14:10, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

That's a nice straw man argument, but it doesn't have much to do with what I said. Being a psychologist is one way (but not the only way) to be reliable enough to make a determination that something is a pseudoscience. A mechanical engineer who gets an article in a low-rank interdisciplinary journal that mostly publishes articles on AI isn't a way to do that. Using the example of Flat earth again, many people are experts in Astronomy, Geology, Cartography, Physics, Philosophy of Science, etc. They are all qualified to say that flat earth theories are nonsense for a variety of reasons. That none of them are specifically flat earth 'experts' (I feel like you really mean 'adherents' when you use that term) does not mean that they are unqualified. On the other hand, somebody like a medical doctor - though they are no doubt an expert in their own field, the human body, really aren't qualified to say much about celestial bodies. MrOllie (talk) 14:14, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

How does a philosopher, a non-scientist, have a field of expertise more appropriate to determining whether Socionics, a field adjacent to psychology, is a pseudoscience or not, than a mechanical engineer, who is an actual scientist? I am fortunate enough to have degrees in both philosophy and psychology, and I can tell you that philosophers don't normally receive training in what is a science or not. That comes with psychology and definitely comes with the hard sciences. Nevertheless, you are comfortable with these articles, refer to them to add weight to the position stated in this article, and yet are not comfortable with Pietrak's contribution. Why?

Well, I'm an expert in Socionics, but I am not an adherent to Socionics. There are a number of things in the original setting out of the theory that I disagree with and change in my application, as well as education of others. I don't adhere to the theory, I understand, practise critical thinking and develop the theory to be more accessible and aligned with what we can see and observe. That is how we do it in the World Socionics Society. A good example is getting rid of determinations of 'conscious' and 'unconscious' which are vague and either easy to disprove or else impossible to falsify depending on the parameters set. Echidna1000 (talk) 14:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I am quite surprised that a philosopher hasn't heard of Philosophy of science before. MrOllie (talk) 14:56, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

A branch of philosophy in which there is no consensus and which amounts to different opinions without an empirical mediator. You are now relying on something that is not scientific in order to determine what is scientific and what is not. As I said before, to be a philosopher you also do not need the remotest training in scientific methodology, and the other works of those publishing these articles do not convey an expertise or focus in Philosophy of Science as a field.

The structure of your rationale for not including a peer-reviewed, independent, relevant article is arbitrary and internally inconsistent, and does not reflect well on Wikipedia as an institution. How can you yourself claim to be impartial with such a gerrymandered definition of source acceptability? Echidna1000 (talk) 15:51, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I think, MrOllie, that your approach to this is a violation of NPOV, whether you are currently willing to acknowledge this or not. Sure, I understand the COF point, and will avoid making direct edits as a result, particularly where referencing myself. Naturally, I understand why you should have independent people making edits, while sourcing their information from experts with publications in peer-reviewed journals. However, I do not understand why you then decide to reject a peer-reviewed article from a journal with an Impact Score of 3.5, putting it in the top 20% of journals, when you have accepted non-scientific articles from journals that are less credible to the support the sentence at the heart of our debate.

The basis of your argument seems to be a hierarchy (of your creation, I cannot see Wikipedia spelling this out in their policy, although they do spell out a clear attachment to Neutrality, where "significant minority views" are also given weight) where Philosophers are better able to decide the status of a field as a 'science' or not than many scientists. Lots of issues here. Philosophy, even Philosophy of Science, is not a science. It does not function like a science. A philosopher cannot be an expert of anything except their ideas. Some are experts of another philosopher's ideas, largely due to closely reading that person's works. Their field does not depend on obscure facts that are only acquired by repeated opportunities to observe, but on ideas and rationales, that people are free to critique and reject with their own reasoning. That is why there is no consensus in the field on its central arguments. The merit of a philosopher CANNOT stand on expertise, and MUST stand on the strength of their analysis and argumentation. That is why it is a humanity, not a science. As already mentioned by several people here, every occasion of Socionics being called 'pseudoscience' by these sources has been done so WITHOUT argumentation. The one source there to have a clear argument does NOT use the word 'pseudoscience', and details a sequence of events that better fits a 'protoscience'. Therefore, these sources, bar the one, should be deemed a less-than-reliable source, and that one should be interpreted less extremely. The claim that a philosopher of science, or even 10 philosophers are better able to decide on the status of a field they have no demonstrable close familiarity with, than a scientist with a demonstrable close familiarity with the field (the familiarity is clear from the article itself), who happens to have a background in a very different scientific field, does not hold water.

To decide whether Socionics is pseudoscience or not, you need two parts. Yes, you need to know 1) the definition of a 'pseudoscience', which philosophers of science have already provided. However, you also need to know 2) the totality of relevant facts about Socionics to see if it meets the criteria of a pseudoscience or not. These philosophers have not made a clear argument, and have not demonstrated their knowledge of that second part. At the same time, 1) is such common knowledge that being of the field that first defined 1) should not confer any special knowledge there either. In the same way, you shouldn't need a doctor to find out if you should eat your vegetables and engage in regular light exercise.

Think this over. I'm not going to let this go while I believe the matter is not being treated fairly, and will persist until you either 1) realise that this is unfair, or 2) reassure me that your approach to this is coherent and in line with an impartial Wikipedia policy that I can work constructively within. Echidna1000 (talk) 02:47, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

“is a pseudoscientific”

Statement “is a pseudoscientific” is an opinion, not a fact. It is badly phrased and open to argument. Socionics is a hypothesis it is not considered theory. Change this to a reference about how it has faced criticism by specific individuals/ groups with credited sources later on in the article. Accuracy is important so it may be worth referencing the validity/lack of clinical testing as a seperate point. Point that it is generally not perceived as scientifically proven by academics should be indicated, but not just stated as truth. This is objectively false. SarahMalkmus (talk) 06:05, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

No, we will follow the sources. - Roxy the dog 06:40, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Some thoughts

How can a theory be pseudoscientific? In my OPINION a theory is just a theory until it can be proven by scientific methods and just then it becomes science or a scientific fact.

A theory that cannot be proven by scientific methods is not by definition pseudoscientific, it has to be proven to be FALSE by scientific methods before it can be declared to be pseudoscientific and I doubt that socionics as whole and as a philosophical concept or theory has been proven to be false by scientific methods.

If it helps, I am trained engineer with a background in scientific research, so I should know one or two things about scientific methods, although I have no academic training in psychology nor philosophy.

…and what happened to this page? A couple of years ago it was much longer and then it was one of my favorite articles on Wikipedia. Can someone please restore all those sections with subgroups like Quadras, Clubs, Temperaments etc.? I think they were a helpful complement for the understanding of intertype relationships. 81.236.0.233 (talk) 11:34, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Lots of theories are pseudoscientific. Flat earth theory, Ancient astronauts, and Homeopathy just to name a few. Part of the definition of pseudoscience is that it claims to be scientific even though it is not. Some things are not well defined enough to be falsifiable, which means that they cannot be proven (or disproven) by scientific methods. That is the case here. What 'happened to this page' is that a lot of unreliably sourced material was cut. Wikipedia presents scientific (or pseudoscientific) topics from the mainstream view, which means that it leaves out details that are discussed by the pseudoscientists and no one else. MrOllie (talk) 18:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 January 2024

Adding 'is considered by some a pseudoscience' to the start of the socionics article would be more accurate. I'm still reading about it but there's definitely some areas where the scientific method is being used. Goodnighthawk (talk) 03:29, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done - Wikipedia follows the reliable sources, it doesn't water down their positions. - MrOllie (talk) 03:31, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Information cut from opening section

I have rewritten the opening section of this article to better introduce this topic. However, this resulted in some information being cut. I'm not sure where in the article this information should go (if it should be kept at all), so I am pasting it here for future reference.

Socionics is modification of Jung's personality type theory that uses eight psychic functions instead of four. These cognitive functions are supposed to process information at varying levels of competency and interact with the corresponding function in other individuals, giving rise to predictable reactions and impressions—a theory of intertype relations.

However, the immutability of socionic рsychophysiological types is determined by the stability of their neural structures in the brain. At the same time, psychological personality traits can evolve and change throughout life.

In the West, the term 'socionics' (German: Sozionik) is used in a different sense, to refer to an interdisciplinary area of research on distributed artificial intelligence systems and their applications to sociology.

Heatedfrost (talk) 12:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

References