Needs and perception
Needs are closely related to perception of various information streams. An unusually powerful need of some kind implies that one's awareness is constantly riveted to all things that might potentially be able to fill that need. One studies and thinks about these things more than most other people do.
Can all possible varieties of need structures and perceptual emphases be summarized in just 16 socionic types? Of course not. The patterns of needs and perception described by socionics are very general and abstract. The patterns described must be general enough to remain true throughout a person's entire lifespan, regardless of what choices a person makes in his lifetime. Otherwise, we would end up with a typology of temporary perceptual emphases.
Here's my attempt* to briefly summarize the very general needs that might be associated with the information elements:
(extraverted intuition) the need to increase one's potential
(extraverted sensing) the need to assert oneself territorially
(extraverted logic) the need to produce
(extraverted ethics) the need to experience emotional contact with people
(introverted intuition) the need to be a part of something meaningful
(introverted sensing) the need for physical and psychological enjoyment
(introverted logic) the need to have one's place and belong
(introverted ethics) the need to feel needed by others
*This list, while intriguing, is too abstract to be of practical use in typing people - so don't try. But do note its relation to the "spiritual type programs."
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This reminds me of the enneagram as described by Riso and Hudson, with 'basic desire' and 'basic fear.' The nine types are shown with nine levels of development, in the back of the big orange book, and each level has them getting farther from their basic desire and closer to their basic fear.
So there is a fear/desire for each enneagram type. And as shown above, there is a need associated with each function. There are (I hate, HATE mentioning anything having to do with the numbers of something in a particular belief system!!!) eight functions and nine enneatypes.
I will assume that there is a 'some to some' correlation, and that JUST BECAUSE there HAPPEN to be eight of one, and nine of the other, *DOES NOT IMPLY* that they necessarily match up or are talking about the same things if only you add one more new function (for instance 'persona' or 'motion'). Some of them might partially correlate with each other, while others will be referring to something totally different that isn't represented at all in the other system. I repeat, *IT DOES ***NOT*** IMPLY* that just because there are eight of one, and nine of the other, all you need to do to reconcile them is just add one more new function. Some of the functions in socionics might not be about exactly the same thing as the 'basic needs' in the enneagram.
You might, for instance, merge everything together and come up with a strange, random, unpleasant, 'ugly,' awkward number like 11 types or 13 types or 17 types or something. Do not be attracted to the beautifulness and the perfectness and the pleasantness of a number. The number is whatever it is. You might find that some enneatype basic needs are so exactly similar to the functions that you can say they are the same thing. But if they aren't the same thing, don't force them to be the same thing, and ESPECIALLY don't force them if you are feeling tempted to do so for the purpose of creating a pleasant, round, easy-to-calculate number like eight or sixteen or something. You must tolerate 'ugly' numbers and tolerate uncertainty. There is always a reason why you can only find that particular number of functions. There might even be other functions that *nobody* has ever noticed, which aren't mentioned in either the enneagram or socionics. Or some totally different authors have noticed them, but nobody made the connection.
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