IEE

IEE, or intuitive ethical extrovert, is a socionics type of the EP temperament and delta quadra. Some typical manifestations of IEE information processing are described on this page.

   

IEEs are predominantly motivated by their feelings of interest and boredom. They are attracted to novel ideas, unusual or peculiar goings-on in day-to day life, and new experiences. They may have a tendency to frequently engage themselves in novel life "projects," which can and often consist of novel concepts or fields of thought, new activities, and new lifestyles (this list is not all-inclusive). These types of projects often take the form of activities that are uncommon, concepts that are unknown or avocations that have not been done or tried before. Regardless of the nature of their interests, they often have a tendency to try to accumulate as much knowledge about the field as they can, and sometimes to improve the field by finding new ways of conceptually framing its basic principles (needs an example). Eventually, once there is nothing left to discover, or when they simply become bored, they will follow their curiosity and find a new topic of interest.

Many IEEs require a certain degree of freedom from obligation in order to do their work and pursue their sometimes idiosyncratic interests, to the point where they may dramatically eschew conventional lifestyles. Some IEEs may have an irrational dread of working at a desk job or an office where they do not have the opportunity to pursue their whimsical hobbies. However, they often overestimate the torturous ordeal of having to perform specific chores that are not in line with their interests, and many IEEs that are acclimated to the reality of their obligations may not share this trepidation at having to fulfill them.

IEEs are often spontaneous and sometimes quite distractible individuals whose natural energy level leads them to be working on something or doing something most of the time (in contrast to     dominant types whose natural state is one of inertia and contemplation). However their work is often periodic in nature rather and tends to be on whatever projects they have involved themselves in at the moment, or whatever they are interested in doing at the moment, rather than a consistent schedule or routine. Many IEEs routinely have spur-of-the-moment ideas or curiosities, and may be inclined to look up random information or do arbitrary things that have occurred to them in lieu of whatever they might have been working on previously.

IEEs, perhaps more than any other type, often have a tendency to seek out multiple perspectives and viewpoints on controversial matters. They are rarely tied down to any particular ideology and often have an implicit sense of faith that others are as intellectually open as they are. IEEs frequently have a innately optimistic disposition (despite how bleak they perceive the facts of any situation to be), and often earnestly believe in the value of a process of thorough, respectful, and politically correct discussion of controversial matters, and often that through a such due process of formal exposition of viewpoints, most reasonable people will come to a consensus as to the essential facts and truth of the debate.

IEEs often tend to mentalize and verbalize matters of personal development, individual qualities, and significant personal experiences, and often develop connections best with others through disucssing matters of personal development that are close at heart to them. They may have a sort of innate tendency to spontaneously try to help others find an appropriate outlet for their particular talents, focusing on the potential positive aspects of their character; they may become engrossed over what people might become rather than what they are currently, and thus have a tendency to be able to see the positive side of everyone.

   

At first glance, IEEs are usually friendly, propitious and accepting people. They often enjoy interacting and learning from all types of people and tend to enjoy cultivating a sincere atmosphere of passive good will, where others can feel comfortable and accepted for who they are.

Like SEEs, IEEs are usually aware of and highly influenced by their emotional responses towards other people, things, or situations, but unlike SEEs they are less likely to be driven by their emotional reactions quite as viscerally; instead, their emotions are more likely to drive them to be a bit avoidant. They are often disturbed by conflict or aggression, and rather than espousing a confrontational or accusatory attitude, when possible they often prefer to politely smile and avoid being drawn into contentious arguments. They may be also somewhat fettered by and avoidant of situations replete with feelings of social awkwardness or situations in which their autonomy over their activities or choices is threatened.

They may be inclined to keep track of a large network of social acquaintances with whom they feel a significant connection. Many IEEs share a common pattern in that for them mental stimulation is often interpersonal; they may extensively enjoy interacting with many different people and find a situation boring if there are no interesting people with whom to engage in conversation. They are typically more oriented towards building relationships than maintaining them, and can seem somewhat transient and sporadic in their presence, but they may see the role of building their relationships as principal in their lives.

However, for all that IEEs focus on collaborating and building relationships, they are nonetheless internally independent and sometimes unwilling to develop connections with people in such a way that would restrict their ability to follow their own interests. As a result, for all the connections they have built, they may sometimes feel that they are not sharing the important things in their life. IEEs choose their own interests and have a somewhat hands-off approach towards what other people choose to do. It can be a point of growth for IEEs to be able to impose themselves just enough so as to include others in their interests and activities.

   

IEEs are able to focus themselves on matters of willpower and can be resolutely focused on achieving goals, but they have a somewhat philosophical attitude towards goal-oriented behavior and material pursuits. They are capable of being drawn to exhibiting aggression and sometimes feel it necessary to act in a territorial and confrontational way (especially in unfamiliar situations where they feel threatened by others' expectations), but usually tend to avoid aggressive or confrontational behavior and are more often drawn to more informal environments where they can express their frivolity, spontaneity, and engage others. They are typically difficult to anger and prefer relaxed and non-confrontational environments to competitively charged ones.

IEEs are usually not very materialistic and are rarely motivated by or attached to material possessions. They are much more deeply driven by their peripatetic interests, and by their relationships with other individuals.

   

IEEs are inclined to be sensitive to and to reject in their lifestyle societal or social rules that limit their freedom to expand into whatever interest draws their attention. IEEs may feel as though they require complete autonomy over their life circumstances, and may expect the ability to lead a lifestyle that would afford them the ability to move to China at a moment's notice. They are inclined to avoid structuring their lives much and are especially mindful of rules and regulations that they believe might limit their future actions.

IEEs can express contemptuous attitudes towards individuals who they perceive as narrowly focused on the world, without taking an appropriately multiperspectival approach. With     +     values, IEEs are inclined to be principally forgiving of others -- concerning themselves more with considering the possible causes for others' misdeeds than with condemnation. Though not normally deeply irritable people, IEEs can become suprisingly irritable when dealing with people that flagrantly reject the multiperspectivality which they find obvious -- people who narrowly focus on essential facts without taking contexts into consideration, or people who have strict and unbending viewpoints on everything.

   

IEEs are neglectful of their inner needs. Stereotypically, this deficit is described with the somewhat hackneyed idea that as     suggestives fail to notice when they are hungry, or too cold, etc. While this stereotype contains a certain amount of truth, it is overly extreme, but it captures in a more easily accessible way what it means to lack attention to one's inner physical needs. While IEEs may be so unaware of their internal physical state that they will not realize they need to eat in the moment, what is more realistic is that they will not attend to their internal physical state somewhat in advance. For instance, they may be so attentive to their projects and the ideas they have about what to do, that they may forget to bring with them a bottle of water and much later realize that they are thirsty and have put themselves in a position where their physical needs cannot be easily attended to.

More generally than physical needs, IEEs are unaware of their environment. While they can often be drawn to and relaxed by natural settings, they tend to have so much going on in their heads that they forget to give themselves time to appreciate such places. IEEs naturally underestimate the extent to which their surrounding environment and their physical well-being has an effect on them, although they can learn to adapt to this state of affairs very well. When they become aware of their environment, or when they are made aware of their environment, they are able to identify necessary changes (expansive possibilities) to the environment to improve their lifestyle and well-being (For instance, Rick DeLong speaks of things such as his propensity for addiction to puzzle games which eat up his time and limit his productivity, so consciously altered his living environment to make those puzzles difficult to access). Being aware of the impact of the environment is the principal deficit of attention.

   

IEEs can have a tendency to play the role of an information gatherer. IEEs are motivated by their transient interests, and may express these interests by quickly gathering a large amount of information on a particular topic that strikes their fancy, before moving on to something new.

IEEs, perhaps moreso than most other ethical types, can be unattached intellectuals. Their approach towards the intellectual realm could be summed up as being open-minded and politically correct. They can have an orientation towards collecting and disseminating objectively measurable and observable facts. Moreso than most types and much like ILEs, IEEs often view knowledge advancement as a collaborative process, about which they might invite dialogue and discussion. As IEEs are oriented towards     and others' potential, in the intellectual and factual realm IEEs' basic attitude is the opposite of cynicism; they embody the principle of valuing others' contributions as made in good faith, and they can tend to believe that other people are persuaded by facts (whether or not this is true). Ironically, for their big-picture orientation, IEEs may end up doing important intellectual dirty work; fact checking, examining primary source material, etc.

Despite their factual and open-minded orientation, IEEs are not unattached and, as     estimatives, can have a bit of a sore spot towards criticism of their process of information gathering, although this soreness is alleviated by open-minded and factually oriented criticism, and exacerbated by the appearance of stubbornness and certitude.

   

IEEs are constantly focused on novel activities, ideas, insights, and events. Because they are always interested by something new, they do not spend lots of time on the same topics as     types do. They typically do not spend much time in a dreamy, laconic, or reflective state; they prefer to be on the move and doing something new and different and find it very dull to be focused on the same ideas for too long. They may find such inertia and limited scope in life focus a little bit unsettling in others.

IEEs' interests tend to be directed towards practical problems rather than completely abstract or theoretical topics, reflecting their fundamental orientation towards acceptance and improvement of the world around them. To an IEE, the question "What if?" usually applies to something that the IEE can do to change his future, not some sort of alternate reality, such as "What if I bike instead of drive to work?" as opposed to "What if gravity didn't exist?"

   

IEEs are partially attentive to the exterior emotional atmosphere surrounding them. They may freely enjoy atmospheres where people are cooperating well and having fun, and is moderately affected by the miasma of toxic individuals who mordantly disrupt a pleasant atmosphere. However, they also see an excess attention to creating a pleasant atmosphere, such as by an individual who can't handle an unfocused group discussion, as overkill.

Ultimately, instead of being strongly affected by the exterior emotional space, IEEs are affected by their inner emotional experience. While they are affected by conflict, they may see it as more important to value the individual and are able to see multiple perspectives when dissensions arise. They tend to devalue affiliations and ideologies and view others based on their individual personal qualities.

Interestingly, IEEs may resemble IEIs in their emphasis on individualism and acceptance of others' perspectives. However, IEIs emphasize individuality for much different reasons -- they are not fundamentally disinterested in ideologies and affiliations, and they sometimes preach the virtues of the individual primarily because they wish their presentation in exterior emotional space to be genuinely their own, different from IEEs' attention to individual potential.

This article draws heavily from Rick DeLong's writings, most particularly his extended IEE description.