Unfortunately my normal microphone equipment was not working correctly and the backup equipment apparently was nearly inaudible. Unfortunately my sound quality in the interview is awful. However, Michael's sound quality is fine, and the viewer can hear all of his answers, if not always my follow up questions. I apologize for the sound quality; I should have delayed the interview instead of conducting it on poor equipment.
Some observations of Michael:
- Straightforward, direct, terse answers; does not naturally or easily elaborate beyond the parameters of the question
- Defensiveness; there is a certain reluctance to part with information giving a privileged, close-up view of the self
- Preference for acting, rather than planning [45:40]
- Self-confidence, mainly in own ability to navigate the world (especially socially ["I don't need much life advice 30:30" ; "I get a lot of compliments about my sense of humor", pay close attention after around 23:40], also professionally [19:40]])
- Competition
- Certain disinterest in "intellectualism" for its own sake [34:20]
- Extended focus on evaluating the character of others and, situationally, restricting the interaction of the self with others (definitely disputable)
My view is that Michael is the Se dominant type. The most important feature that stood out to me about Michael's narrative and experience was the relative lack of planning evident in his comments [see segment around 45:00 as background].
I feel that we learn the most about people, anyway the most accurate information about people, by making sense of the contradictions that describe them. Michael seems to be a very hardworking student with a situationally high degree of work ethic, who essentially flunked out of the architecture program at his school, and tells and shows us how also spends much time in the same body appearing "too laid back" to respond to the exigencies of life which other people sometimes expect of him. My view is that the common thread in this contradiction is inconsistency.
I think Michael is a poor self-observer. He prefers to describe himself with a narrative that he is successful in a wide range of areas of life -- social, relational, professional, intellectual. This narrative is not untrue, but there are a number of signs that Michael's life is much more variegated and less consistently successful than the narration makes it seem. Probably most clearly, we see that Michael's work ethic for schoolwork has not remained very consistent throughout his education.
The lack of planning is evident not only in the explicit description around 45:40, but also in the lack of elaboration for many of the real plans that Michael does enumerate (and the replacement of planning with sheer self-confidence). For instance, Michael mentions his interest in political science as a genuine desire to learn more about political stances, and describes himself as "having an instinctive understanding of geopolitics" (What aspects of geopolitics?) and working in politics, perhaps as some kind of political consultant. While of course Michael has plenty of time left, and experiences to encounter, before settling on his professional goals, these plans are fairly unelaborated.
Likewise, Michael describes to us that he has not planned at all about the circumstance from the interview question I borrow from Peter Bartl, "What would you do with your time if you had enough money to live comfortably".
In my view of socionics, the lack of planning -- in particular, genuine but inconsistent attempts to make careful plans, and the difficulty of planning being a sensitive pressure point of the psyche, is a good description of Ni suggestive.
Likewise, the sheer confidence, inconsistent lifestyle, competitiveness, and lack of spontaneous elaboration (or "storytelling") is much like the Se dominant. There is an element in the lack of spontaneous storytelling, as I allude to in the observations, of self-protection; I think Michael is sometimes less than fully cooperative in his depiction of himself (although, even this level of cooperation is still "mostly" cooperative, merely with some detail omitted). The meaning of this behavior is much less clear; this ego-protectiveness can occur with a variety of types for a variety of reasons. I think it exists sometimes in the Se dominant types, although more commonly in the SEE and in the other gamma extrovert, LIE. Worth noting, in many cases Se dominant types do not have this ego-protection, rather they have no filter on top of their spontaneity, which usually doesn't serve them well in life. I think that many representatives of these types learn early in life to police themselves for protection.
So I have described some reasons why I see Michael as the Se dominant type. I think it is much less clear whether Michael is the SLE or SEE, and I think this is very difficult to tell from the interview between these types. I was quite unsure between these types, and had a short, unrecorded follow-up session with Michael after the main interview to help disambiguate between them. This session is difficult to summarize convincingly; after all, it is unavailable to the reader, which is the opposite of what I attempt to do on this blog, I try to present everything to the reader, explain my own reasons, and let the reader find their own conclusions.
But it is important to say that I got some information from this session. I was more convinced after asking questions in this session that Michael
I feel that we learn the most about people, anyway the most accurate information about people, by making sense of the contradictions that describe them. Michael seems to be a very hardworking student with a situationally high degree of work ethic, who essentially flunked out of the architecture program at his school, and tells and shows us how also spends much time in the same body appearing "too laid back" to respond to the exigencies of life which other people sometimes expect of him. My view is that the common thread in this contradiction is inconsistency.
I think Michael is a poor self-observer. He prefers to describe himself with a narrative that he is successful in a wide range of areas of life -- social, relational, professional, intellectual. This narrative is not untrue, but there are a number of signs that Michael's life is much more variegated and less consistently successful than the narration makes it seem. Probably most clearly, we see that Michael's work ethic for schoolwork has not remained very consistent throughout his education.
The lack of planning is evident not only in the explicit description around 45:40, but also in the lack of elaboration for many of the real plans that Michael does enumerate (and the replacement of planning with sheer self-confidence). For instance, Michael mentions his interest in political science as a genuine desire to learn more about political stances, and describes himself as "having an instinctive understanding of geopolitics" (What aspects of geopolitics?) and working in politics, perhaps as some kind of political consultant. While of course Michael has plenty of time left, and experiences to encounter, before settling on his professional goals, these plans are fairly unelaborated.
Likewise, Michael describes to us that he has not planned at all about the circumstance from the interview question I borrow from Peter Bartl, "What would you do with your time if you had enough money to live comfortably".
In my view of socionics, the lack of planning -- in particular, genuine but inconsistent attempts to make careful plans, and the difficulty of planning being a sensitive pressure point of the psyche, is a good description of Ni suggestive.
Likewise, the sheer confidence, inconsistent lifestyle, competitiveness, and lack of spontaneous elaboration (or "storytelling") is much like the Se dominant. There is an element in the lack of spontaneous storytelling, as I allude to in the observations, of self-protection; I think Michael is sometimes less than fully cooperative in his depiction of himself (although, even this level of cooperation is still "mostly" cooperative, merely with some detail omitted). The meaning of this behavior is much less clear; this ego-protectiveness can occur with a variety of types for a variety of reasons. I think it exists sometimes in the Se dominant types, although more commonly in the SEE and in the other gamma extrovert, LIE. Worth noting, in many cases Se dominant types do not have this ego-protection, rather they have no filter on top of their spontaneity, which usually doesn't serve them well in life. I think that many representatives of these types learn early in life to police themselves for protection.
So I have described some reasons why I see Michael as the Se dominant type. I think it is much less clear whether Michael is the SLE or SEE, and I think this is very difficult to tell from the interview between these types. I was quite unsure between these types, and had a short, unrecorded follow-up session with Michael after the main interview to help disambiguate between them. This session is difficult to summarize convincingly; after all, it is unavailable to the reader, which is the opposite of what I attempt to do on this blog, I try to present everything to the reader, explain my own reasons, and let the reader find their own conclusions.
But it is important to say that I got some information from this session. I was more convinced after asking questions in this session that Michael
- is not obsessively concerned with the discrepancies in how he feels he "vibes" and how other people feel he "vibes"
- is spontaneously tuned to evaluating the character of other individuals, at least some of the time
- is emotionally present and probably rather more emotionally labile than he might seem, although I do not feel 100% sure of this.
As the reader may guess, I think Michael is the SEE, and not the SLE. The SEE is a Fi-valuing type which in my view has a spontaneous attention to the character of other people and sources (and can be expected to sometimes spontaneously discuss these topics). The SLE is an Fi vulnerable type with no attention whatsoever to the character of others and a great deal of attention to how they are perceived and whether they are fitting in the way they would like.
However, I think the interview really is insufficient evidence to make this distinction of Michael. I consider the SLE typing reasonable, and it is a very realistic alternative to my typing of SEE, and may nonetheless be correct.
Another contradiction present in Michael, I think, is that he tells us he is a nondiscriminating, friendly person who easily and without anxiety initiates new contacts, and also declined to carefully detail some of his most pressing personal conflicts. It is worth considering this comment skeptically for its accuracy, but taken at face value, this is similar to how I see the manifestation of harsh judgment in the SEE. Representatives of the SEE type, in my experience, usually do not easily identify themselves as having harsh judgment, because they prefer to be positive and upbeat and do not identify themselves as critical of others. However, the common theme of the SEE is their inconsistency, in their emotionality and in life. For the SEE, I describe that harsh judgment occurs "in the moment", indeed they might be the most volatile and critical type of the whole socion in particularly stressful circumstances.
I think there is some evidence to suggest an interest in the character of others in the interview, in the description of the "SLE" friend and the other "ESI" friend in the saga about the trip to Colorado that did not ensue, and various other designations of friends throughout the interview. But the character assessments are not made very clear in the interview, and there is a reasonable argument that these stories depict the opposite of character assessment; rather "chunking" of the concept of character into simplistic socionics boxes. Looking at everything, I don't think so (and in my experience in this interview context many types refer intrusively to socionics concepts; this is sloppy thinking regardless), but that argument is certainly a consistent interpretation.
However, I think the interview really is insufficient evidence to make this distinction of Michael. I consider the SLE typing reasonable, and it is a very realistic alternative to my typing of SEE, and may nonetheless be correct.
Another contradiction present in Michael, I think, is that he tells us he is a nondiscriminating, friendly person who easily and without anxiety initiates new contacts, and also declined to carefully detail some of his most pressing personal conflicts. It is worth considering this comment skeptically for its accuracy, but taken at face value, this is similar to how I see the manifestation of harsh judgment in the SEE. Representatives of the SEE type, in my experience, usually do not easily identify themselves as having harsh judgment, because they prefer to be positive and upbeat and do not identify themselves as critical of others. However, the common theme of the SEE is their inconsistency, in their emotionality and in life. For the SEE, I describe that harsh judgment occurs "in the moment", indeed they might be the most volatile and critical type of the whole socion in particularly stressful circumstances.
I think there is some evidence to suggest an interest in the character of others in the interview, in the description of the "SLE" friend and the other "ESI" friend in the saga about the trip to Colorado that did not ensue, and various other designations of friends throughout the interview. But the character assessments are not made very clear in the interview, and there is a reasonable argument that these stories depict the opposite of character assessment; rather "chunking" of the concept of character into simplistic socionics boxes. Looking at everything, I don't think so (and in my experience in this interview context many types refer intrusively to socionics concepts; this is sloppy thinking regardless), but that argument is certainly a consistent interpretation.
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