In this post I discuss the World Socionics Society interview with Greg, embedded below.
I was not able to get in touch with Greg who did not respond to my messages. I would prefer to have the permission of the people who I analyze in a detailed public fashion, but I found this particular interview so compelling that I decided to post about it anyway. While I would prefer to have Greg's approval, ultimately I consider it ethical to examine for public analysis a video that is shared publically.
Here is a selection of the notes I took about Greg while watching the video:
Lots of use of corporate, businesslike language. Very involved and identified with his profession.
Strange, energetically-driven comments, "I am fortunate to have the ability to see between the molecules, to have a greater comprehension of the human condition."
Shows somewhat limited emotional range although becomes much more comfortable in the later part of the interview
Idealistic commentary about his profession, a bit unusual in the context of a marketing job perhaps. Sees a portion of marketing as helping people and driving innovation.
Describes interesting "pre-instigating" -- taking the initiative before other people have a change to take the initiative whenever he senses that someone else is about to initiate
If these observations do not seem substantial to you, and/or you did not get a whole lot out of the interview to understand what sort of person Greg is, you are much like me, at least the first time watching through the interview. The interviewer's suggestion of ESE initially appeared reasonable to me, but I wondered about other types especially ILE and IEE; I did not have a good sense of what was going on.
The second time I watched the interview, I caught a lot more. The meat of the interview is subtle. Pay close attention to the language used. Here is a selection of comments:
"I am highly loyal with my friends [...] My friends and I are very open, we tell each other that we love each other [...] We're vulnerable around each other; there's an authenticity to our engagement"
"I am very touchy-feely in relationships; I have a high degree of emotional sensitivity and physical sensitivity, so I like to express myself physically and emotionally"
"I try to maintain relationships with my family that are authentic"
"My perception of the given emotion in that moment is that my whole life has felt that way, it's very extreme [...] I struggle with the desire to say what I feel in any given moment regardless whether it's appropriate or not"
"I'm a good channeler of otherworld energy"
"I'm in tune with the world's energy, which isn't always a good thing, I think I suffer a lot because of it, but I do feel honored that I have the ability to sense that, I'm on a wavelength that if I watch a news report, I'm there and feeling it the way that people there would be feeling it."
These comments are stated without much emotional energy, but I was drawn to the extremity of these comments, and especially of the somewhat bland telling our friends that we love each other. All of these comments are spoken softly, but their emotional depth is quite strong and a lot of types are not comfortable saying things like the things he says he says, with such open emotionality, especially towards strangers.
The comments about "between the molecules" and "otherworld energy" are particularly well described. This sort of language, reading the "energy" of other people or situations is something that is most often described by Fe ego types. Typically these are stated in vague ways such as e.g. "I am good at reading the energy of situations" which is vague and sounds metaphysically implausible. Greg's descriptions of this phenomenon, especially the description of watching news reports and feeling things, and his experience of observing riots in Belfast, do an excellent job of very precisely showing exactly what these comments are supposed to mean. That is, he expands on the vague statements like "I am a good channeler of otherworldly energy" and describes that what he really means by this is tapping into the emotional mood of the world around him, basically a picturesque example of Fe orientation towards the exterior emotional state.
It is also worth noting that a key component of Greg's emotionality is his *openness.* He has an altruistic idealism towards the world, a friendliness towards others and seems to be not at all judgmental, ideological, or heated. A typing of EIE wouldn't necessarily be extremely unreasonable from this video, but I interpret that alpha values are better.
A few other observations
Interesting comment, "I tell what is going on in each specific moment and then figure out what is the best thing to do at that moment, but I can't plan more than a few steps ahead"
But I can plan very meticulously somethnig that is self-contained, like a six-week vacation I can plan every part in advance.
These can be thought of as Si ego statements with Ni vulnerable. The argument that they are suggestive of Si immediate-moment attention is stronger than them being Ni vulnerable.
One of the reasons I wanted to post about this interview is because I felt that a lot of the informative content in this interview is very subtle and it took me a little while to realize it was there. However, the interviewer picks up on all of this subtlety and offers ESE as a typing very quickly -- as well as offering a sound explanation of the care with which Greg takes his image to explain why Greg's emotionality is so subdued in spite of this typing. Of the twenty-odd World Socionics Society interviews I have watched, most of them are pretty good, but still I identified some mistakes or choices that I found questionable in the interview methodology. This one is, as far as I can tell, virtually entirely free of executional flaws (apart perhaps from the interview questions). In no other WSS interview does the interviewer do a better job than in this one. Unlike some of the other interviews, the interviewer played his role in moving the discussion forward, generally did not make leading statements or speculate about motivations that were not stated in Greg's words, picked up on all of the subtle cues he was supposed to, and explicitly provided good explanations for why they were so subtle in his conclusion (which of course I think is correct). I can say without question that if I were interviewing Greg I would not have done as good a job.
