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In 90 seconds
Two people can want the same thing and still misunderstand each other. Both may agree to move, for example, while having different ideas about commitments to relatives, their future life, and preparations for the move.
Before We Build proposes discussing these questions separately: what must we honour, where are we going, how do we act together, and how do we understand information? The starting points are real conduct, circumstances, free consent, and outcomes. Typologies offer only provisional explanations for the last three questions.
Four questions about a shared undertaking
The approach can be used with any two people. Specify the task: a relationship, shared work, or another undertaking.
| Level | What we draw on | What we ask |
|---|---|---|
| Value-moral foundation | commitments, conduct, consent, safety | What must we not sacrifice to reach our goal? |
| Strategic | Temporistics as a research model | Where are we going, and how do we connect past, present, and future? |
| Operational | Psychosophy as a research model | How do we make decisions and act together? |
| Tactical | Socionics as a research model | How do we form a picture of the situation and communicate it to each other? |
Back to the move
One person helps an elderly relative. Wanting to move does not answer how that commitment will be met. It needs its own discussion.
Suppose they find a solution. They still need to understand how each imagines their future in the new city. Then they must agree who will look for housing and who will check costs. Even after that, they should compare how they understood the risks. Answering one question does not answer the others.
What can be checked in daily life
Record what people say and choose, the deadlines they name, how they divide work, and what information they request. Then examine what they revised and what happened. The same observations may allow several explanations.
Where hypotheses begin
A type in this project is a hypothesis about a recurring way of perceiving and organizing experience, not a personality type. A proposed internal process explaining it is called latent: we cannot observe it directly. Proposing a natural basis for a predisposition is another step that needs separate testing. Innateness has not been established.
Socionics, Psychosophy, and Temporistics are proposed as different models for investigating these processes. Linking them to the tactical, operational, and strategic levels is a project hypothesis, not a proven fact of psychology.
Other explanations to check
Recurring behaviour may reflect training, family culture, language, disability, trauma, role expectations, or present constraints. These explanations need to be considered alongside a typological one.
What must not be concluded
No level describes the whole person. A type does not determine values, moral worth, relationship safety, or outcomes. Easy communication does not justify coercion or remove disagreements about other matters.
Questions for conversation
- Is our disagreement about commitments, the future, action, or information?
- Are we describing an action or proposing what happens inside the person?
- What circumstances could have produced the same behaviour?
- What evidence would show that our explanation is wrong?
How to study this
First record an observation. Then describe what recurs and propose an explanation involving an internal process. Use that explanation to make a prediction for a specific situation, and test it against outcomes. Read more about latent processes and the validation programme.
Where to go next
Continue with four levels of compatibility. Then read how the project reinterprets typologies.