Spencer Stern
Independent author & personality systems researcher
I've been studying Socionics since the mid-2000s, when I built the original Definitive Socionics reference archive as a personal project. That material sat largely untouched for the best part of two decades. This site is its long-overdue remake — better presented, properly maintained, and built to last.
Alongside classical Socionics, I developed The SLIDE System — a modern framework built on Socionics foundations, designed to make the theory more accessible to contemporary audiences.
The SLIDE System
The SLIDE System (Stern-Lezama Interpersonal Dynamics Evaluator) is a modernisation of classical Socionics developed from research conducted in the mid-2000s. It does not change the underlying structure — Model A, the 16 types, the intertype relations — but it reframes the vocabulary so that the theory is accessible to readers without a background in Soviet-era psychology.
Two things are renamed. The first is the eight cognitive functions, which SLIDE calls attitudes. The second is the eight Model A positions, which SLIDE names for what each position actually does in practice rather than where it sits in a structural diagram.
The eight attitudes
Classical Socionics labels each function by its dimension (extraverted/introverted) and domain (intuition, sensing, logic, ethics). SLIDE renames them for their behavioural expression — what each attitude looks like from the outside.
The eight Model A positions
Classical Socionics names positions structurally — Leading, Creative, Role, and so on. SLIDE renames them for what the position means to the person carrying it.
The extended Model A diagram
The classical Model A is typically drawn as a plain grid. The SLIDE version makes three dimensions visible at once: the relative strength of each position, the direction of information flow (input vs. output), and the conscious/subconscious divide. The result is an hourglass shape — wide at the strong positions, narrow at the weak ones.
In practice this means: the Ego block drives behaviour consciously and confidently; the Super-Ego is the area of effortful self-monitoring; the Super-Id is the zone of deep need — the attitudes most wanted from others; and the Id operates powerfully in the background, largely below awareness.
The framework is, in that sense, a vocabulary update rather than a theoretical revision. The structure is Augusta's. The names are designed for the rest of us.
About This Site
Socionics Insight is a free reference site covering classical Socionics: the 16 types, the 8 cognitive functions, and the full set of 16 intertype relations. The aim is to present the theory clearly and accurately, without affiliation to any particular Socionics school or tradition.
The content here is grounded in the same source material I researched and wrote in 2007–2009. It predates the generative AI era by over a decade — AI has been used to help package and present the material, not to generate the underlying theory or analysis.
For a full overview of all projects — the reference site, the matching app, the books, the shop and the community Discord — see the hub.
How This Site Is Built
Most Socionics resources that have disappeared over the years almost certainly ran on dynamic hosting — PHP, WordPress, databases, VPS servers with monthly bills. When the person maintaining them loses interest or a payment lapses, the site goes dark. That is the pattern behind every dead Socionics resource.
This site is structured differently. It is a static site built with Eleventy — every page is pre-built HTML, with no server process, no database, and no compute cost per visitor. The source code lives in a private GitHub repository, which has offered free private repos since 2019 and is now owned by Microsoft. The site is deployed and hosted on Netlify's legacy free plan, which grandfathers existing accounts and serves static files at effectively no cost regardless of traffic.
The result is a site with no meaningful ongoing cost to keep alive. There is no server bill accumulating in the background. The only financial dependency is the domain renewal — approximately £10–15 per year on auto-renew. That is the entirety of what it costs for this site to exist indefinitely.
The open source data underpinning the site follows the same principle: transparent, auditable, and not locked to any paid infrastructure. See the socionics-core package below.
Sources
The primary source for the type profiles, function descriptions and intertype relation data is my own original research archive — the Definitive Socionics Index, compiled between 2007 and 2009 and hosted at definitive-socionics.wikidot.com until its retirement in 2026. That archive drew on the foundational Socionics literature, including the work of Aushra Augusta and subsequent theorists in the Russian and Ukrainian Socionics tradition.
Where the original archive has been revised, expanded or corrected, this site reflects the updated version.
Open Source Data
The type, function, relation and group data that powers this site is published as a free npm package — socionics-core — under the MIT licence. If you are building a Socionics tool, quiz or application, you are welcome to use it.
npm install socionics-core
The package covers all 16 types with full Model A function stacks, all 8 functions with SLIDE attitude names, the complete 16×16 intertype relation lookup, and the four small group classifications (quadra, club, temperament, orientation).
Affiliate Disclosure
Some links on this site — including links to books and resources — are Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
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Contact
Questions, corrections or collaboration enquiries — use the contact page.