Reinin dichotomies are defined as linear combinations of Jungian dichotomies. The Jungian dichotomies are introversion/extroversion, intuition/sensation, logic/ethics, and rationality/irrationality. To illustrate these dichotomies, I use Sergei Ganin's terminology, such that an LSE is called ESTj, which is different than the MBTI ESTJ which has the same Jungian dichotomies.
As an example, ES+IN types are farsighted, whereas EN+IS types are carefree. To be more precise, the ESFj, INTj, ESTp, INFp, ESFp, INTp, ESTj, and INFj are farsighted, and the ENTp, ISFp, ENFj, ISTj, ENTj, ISFj, ENFp, and ISTp are carefree. The farsighted types are those that are both extroverted and sensors, or both introverted and intuitives. The carefree types are those that are both extroverted and intuitives, or both introverts and sensors.
All of the Reinin dichotomies are linear combinations of Jungian dichotomies in this way.
There are six Reinin dichotomies that are combinations of two Jungian dichotomies. I define these as second-order Reinin dichotomies.
Farsighted ES+IN, carefree EN+IS
Yielding ET+IF, obstinate EF+IT
Dynamic EJ+IP, static EP+IJ
Aristocratic ST+NF, democratic SF+NT
Tactics SJ+NP, strategy SP+NJ
Emotivist TJ+FP, constructivist TP+FJ
There are four Reinin dichotomies that are combinations of three Jungian dichotomies, or in other words, combinations of one Jungian dichotomy with one second-order Reinin dichotomy. These are defined as third-order Reinin dichotomies.
For example, the positivist/negativist dichotomy, which is the ESTX dichotomy, can be defined as E+aristocracy, S+yielding, or T+farsighted. The large group resulting from these definitions are all equivalent.
Negativist EST+ENF+ISF+INT, positivist ESF+ENT+IST+INF
Judicious ESJ+ENP+ISP+INJ, decisive ESP+ENJ+ISJ+INP
Serious ETJ+EFP+ITP+IFJ, merry EFJ+ETP+ITJ+IFP
Process STJ+SFP+NTP+NFJ, result STP+SFJ+NTJ+NFP
The remaining Reinin dichotomy, asking/declaring is the only fourth-order Reinin dichotomy, which predictably is derived from a Jungian dichotomy and a third-order Reinin dichotomy, or by any two non-overlapping second-order Reinin dichotomies. The large group resulting from all of the combinations is the same. This proves that even though a combination of all four Jungian dichotomies is needed to make this Reinin dichotomy, even though there are 16 ways to assemble the four jungian dichotomies, there is only one way to construct a fourth-order Reinin dichotomy, which is sort of an interesting algebra result even in spite of the semantic meaninglessness of the Reinin dichotomies.
My primary purpose in describing the derivations of Reinin dichotomies is to point out that their definition assigns them no meaning. What is the significance anyway of grouping the SJ and NP types together, across from the SP and NJ? As an exercise for the skeptical reader, I challenge the reader to think of a convincing explanation for the significance of any Reinin groups.
The biggest problem with Reinin groups is that they are totally aquadral. The Reinin groups posit some (maybe undiscovered) similarities between types of all different quadras. If you see types as expressions of their quadras, these proposed sweeping similarities between both sets of opposite quadras are hard to make sense of. The Reinin traits have nothing to do with the structure of the socion based on quadras
Even if you completely rejected grouping by quadras and focused more on jungian dichotomy traits and dimensionality, concepts that I reject in socionics, the Reinin groupings relate some very opposite MBTI types (the Reinin dichotomies are a valid mathematical construction in MBTI whether anyone uses them in MBTI or not, since only the Jungian dichotomies are used to derive them). In mainstream MBTI (and in very much of eastern pop-classical socionics), type similarity is often seen by the number of jungian dichotomies in common which hypothetically underly some traits. Using this type of similarity as an assessment, the Reinin groups are also broken.
Reinin dichotomies are in fact so broken and incompatible with any other major ideas in socionics that the schools of socionics that focus on Reinin groupings (the ones that is most familiar to me is the school following the works of Vladimir Mironov) are essentially outcasts that regard no other major principles in socionics, such as quadras, IM elements, intertype relations as important, and their only activity is to characterize the objective observable nature of Reinin traits. I talked with a Russian guy who came to a meetup in New York City one time, perhaps around 2013 or 2014, who was primarily exposed to the Mironov school, and it became clear very quickly that we had very different views of socionics, when I explained to him that i view socionics as a theory of quadras, he said, paraphrasing, "I never heard anyone say anything like that before, I only thought people really focus on Reinin dichotomies, it's the only thing in socionics I've ever thought of as real"
The School of Humanitarian Socionics, by Viktor Gulenko, at least trends heavily in this direction and seems to focus principally on complex dichotomies while paying little attention to the quadras and IM elements, something Gulenko has done for decades. Another notable school is the "introverted socionics" of Semyon Churyumov, who redefines intertype relations as qualities of types and develops a new intertype distance measure of Reinin dichotomies, which is very confusing.
Overall, Reinin dichotomies have no significance. They are haphazardly constructed to group all of the different types of opposite types. They are incompatible with quadras. They are also incompatible with concepts of dimensionality and jungian dichotomy similarity in mainstream MBTI. Indeed, assuming the semantic meaning of the Reinin dichotomies was described by Reinin and Augusta as something to be cautious about, even while they both assumed, for some incredible reason, that they had some highly significant, yet undiscovered meaning. Reinin treated most of his discussion about what was the significance of his dichotomies, as speculative hypotheses. The descriptions that he did come up with, that have been propagated today as semantically descriptive of the Reinin traits, are quite vague and in some cases pretty inconsistent across the very different types in the socion. For example, the positive emotionality oriented alpha quadra has in it the supposedly glass-half-empty negativist types LII and especially SEI, which is difficult to rationalize and should be seen as inconsistent with basic quadra values.
Prior to Reinins derivation of the Reinin dichotomies, Augusta had already defined the large group of askers and declarers, and provided the semantic interpretation that askers ask more questions and declares make more declarations in their speech patterns. This interpretation is not very consistent with quadra dynamics, since it suggests for instance that the SEE, which has significant access to the independent-mindedness of the Te+Ni block of the gamma quadra, it is still considered an asker (it is difficult to understand conceptually why the harsh judgment block should be an asking block, as well). But, I guess that this hypothesis led Augusta to be more interested in the idea that the other elaborated Reinin combinations also had significant meanings too, even though she had no justification for this assumption.
Of course, the Reinin dichotomies include two quadra dichotomies. These are certainly not meaningless. (They likewise also contain a dichotomy that relates the opposite quadras, which is worse than meaningless, it is directly the reverse of quadra similarity). Besides the two quadra axis groups, the other 9 Reinin dichotomies are meaningless, including the 5 other dichotomies that can also be derived by some other properties in model A, which still equate some similarity between extremely different types. A broken clock is right 2 times out of every 11.
