Slot Names and Behaviors

For the 1st slot :

I prefer "frame" to any of the common alternatives (hero, lead, base, dominant, primary) because it conveys the idea of a fundamental, architectonic, but not necessarily visible substratum.
And that's exactly how our first function will manifest.

It's pervasive. It's always there. It's always "on" in some way. It's the basis upon which everything else happens in our cognition.

But at the same time, and paradoxically, it's not necessarily visible.

To us, this function is so immediately obvious that we are not necessarily conscious of it, the same way we aren't constantly conscious of our own breath.

Strictly speaking, we do not "use" it, we breath it.

To others, our first function will often be tricky to see and detect too.
Yes, it's everywhere and it's strong but that's exactly why they might miss it : unless they are themselves primary users of it they won't fully understand what we do with it, or even notice when we use it.

As a result, the first function is rarely the first thing we see when we type people, until it becomes obvious that it's indeed the frame that contains everything else that we did see.

TS Eliot and David Lynch typing threads are very good examples of this.

For the 3rd slot

MBTI term "tertiary" (just like "secondary" for aux) only works for typees who have the decency to belong to the "regular type".

Not so much for jumpers and creative subtypes.

Socionics "hidden agenda" works much better, except most of the time the agenda is actually not so hidden.

It's our second strongest absolute value function.

So we will often end up fighting over it against dominant and auxiliary users AND against people who lack it.

But at the same time, it's not as good, as organic and as pervasive as frame,  and it can take some efforts to use it.

So we learn to "pick our fights" with it. We learn to use in a deliberate, specific, delineated, goal oriented way.

Hence the difference with frame and the name agenda.

And even jumpers, who have a very very strong agenda "up there with their frame" will retain this quality.

In any case, most people will be very acutely aware of it and will "show" lot of it.

Which is why it's often one of the first functions you see during a typing process.

Actually, it's so "not so hidden" that mistaking your agenda for your frame is probably one of the most common sources of self-mistype.

(And a ton of self-proclaimed intuitives in the MBTI community are actually Nx agenda people.)

... is probably one of the less understood of all slots overall.

And that's the case both in socionics and in MBTI.

The term "Opposing" or "Opposite" is just wrong.

Even within the best attempt to frame type into a hero Journey, 5th wouldn't be "the enemy".

We aren't "at war" with it, and we really CAN'T be at war with it, because fields of cognition (N,S,T,F) matter, and in a way matter more than functions themselves. Especially in the first row.  

An Ni dom, for example, will get Ne just fine, and won't oppose it, because ultimately N is N. You can't reject half of it if it's your frame.

Beebe's "opposite personality" (or "opposite anima") is a bit better, because it evokes the potential of the 5th slot to somehow work as a frame.
But it will only be the case in full shadow mode.
That's not how that slot will manifest most of the time in most people.

Similarly, most socionics alternate names ("control", "observing", "argumentative") will only be situationally true.

The main characteristic of that slot is that it's both strong and competent AND unvalued (comparatively to frame).

We can handle it just fine, better than most people, but we will still prioritize our frame over it most of the time.

As a result, if we are left to our own device, especially at average health level, we will have tendency to ignore and neglect it.

Sometimes to the point it will appear "blind spot-ish". Absent. Missing.

But that's not the whole story.

That "ignored" slot will still manifest quite often and sometimes quite strongly.

That's why i came to prefer the term (un)ignoring, which reflects better the complexity of the slot.

How this unignoring will manifest will depend a lot on what triggers it.

And similar to 4th, our 5th slot is very sensitive to intertype relationships.

If we are prompted or forced to use it, it will often feel boring. Too easy. Not substantial enough. Why bother ?

If we come from strong users and in a more playful way, it will feel often great, fun, in a pretty intoxicating way.

Sometimes, it will manifest from within, without any prompt, but with some kind of delay, some perceptible "latency".

As something we could and should have processed earlier, but simply didn't (because we were "lagging", sitting in our frame)

Healthy people will have a tendency to unignore more often and will manage to use that function more often "a bit late, but right on time".

Think about Lieutenant Columbo coming back to ask the suspect a last question. THE last question

 

For the 7th slot :

It's our absolute weakest, least valued and least understood function.

It's not entirely wrong to call it "blind", "blindspot" or "oblivious". But it's also pretty misleading.

The thing is, our polr is so bad that we can never afford to be fully blind or oblivious about it.

At least not for long.

it's our most avoided function, but that avoidance is not passive and incidental.

It's active avoidance, even when said avoidance isn't conscious.

In a way, we are blind to it the same way bats are blind.

PolR in a way works like the sonar of a bat.

We still navigate the world trying to "echolocate" our way out of polr and trying to not bump into polr walls.

Which of course still happens a lot.

That's why polr people are sometimes the first ones to detect (and sometimes even predict) the worst manifestations of that function in the world.

An effect we sometimes call the "canary in the coal mine" effect.

It's not because we suddenly unblind ourselves and see it.

It's not because we suddenly understand it.

It's because our panicked sonar knows there is something BIG in the room. Which may very well be the proverbial elephant.

Calling it "vulnerable" is a bit better.

It's indeed true that this slot is the cause of many wounds and problems. Which is why, along with 6th, it's the most important slot to understand your type.

But that's because when we "get" that function from the outside, we get raw and whole, without processing it.

But the thing is, that vulnerability is not the result of an heightened sensitivity to it.
It's really the result of our lack of resistance against it.

So "path of least resistance", PolR, is indeed the best way to put it.

Especially since, when we type people, it's usually that lack of resistance, and the absence of any processing, that betrays that slot. 

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