From the point of view of an sx/sp Fi dominant/EII 5w4:
I have thought a lot about this because I understand soc so poorly. Essentially I think I just generally lack an overall concern and awareness of group hierarchies and power dynamics. Even when I am participating in a group I find myself being more of a separate outsider who joins in whenever I please and I think my blind spot is exemplified well when people clearly express a sense of me being a part of this group and that my participation is welcomed, even at times desired and I don't understand this. Whenever others express this attitude towards me it's usually met with a "huh?" feeling from my end. I don't get why people see me as a part of a group and I don't tend to see or identify myself as a part of a group. I for example often find myself in leadership positions without understanding how I truly got them, especially as I am actually not interested in leadership roles unless it's in the lines of "if I don't do it no one will". I think the fact I even think this way is exemplary of my sx/sp logic; that I must seek things I desire on my own. It shows a certain lack of trust in the community and the idea to be provided for or be dependent makes me feel very uncomfortable and I only seek out such help in situations where I know that I will unable to manage on my own. Then I still ask for help quite grudgingly. I am for example suspecting that my cousin of my age is sp/so (could explain why she's been so uncomfortable in the past as well when we've met up and talking until long into the night) and she often tells me to ask my family for help when I need something. Same with my aunt, especially financially. It's rather funny how some of them can suggest me to ask for help for something I never personally thought of I could use help with or needed help for. I've always been a bit of the "I'll do everything on my own" mindset. I only ask for help when all other options are exhausted.
As an example, I was hospitalized earlier this year because I got suddenly very sick and they wanted me to stay during the night for observation. I literarily had a bit of a breakdown because I didn't want to be there at all and I felt weak and useless. I managed to make them agree for me to at least go back home and get some of my stuff like an extra set of clothes and so on as I refused to let my relatives to do it for me. I didn't ask them for help and I didn't call them. Even though I could barely walk alone for 10 minutes without feeling like I'm going to collapse, I went to the nearest tram stop at the hospital, took the tram to my apartment and got my stuff and back. The only time I even called someone else asking for help was because there was stop in the tram traffic! What I did was that I called my cousin (I don't remember why) and she suggested that I'd call her older sister who lives in the same town as I for help because she has a car and she asked me "Did you ask my sister to drive you there?". Internally I was something like, this was actually an option I could use? Why should I do that if I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself? Now granted, I'm a 5 so I'm still having an innate preference for being self-sufficient but it's still interesting how the thought never occurred to me but it did for my cousin (I suspect that she's an 8 or a 6). It should however be noted that even when I do need help with something I rather pay some service than asking my family first.
I'm also terribly uninterested in what's going on in the world around me outside of myself and the people I've taken an interest in. Even then the connection only extends so far as to be aware of this person but beyond that I tend to get very confused. I think my grandmother is an so/sp and our differences couldn't be more apparent than when she's talking about all her acquaintances and their connections to each other. I tend to shut off after a while because aside her knowing these people I have no idea of who they are or how they relate to each other and this is irregardless of how many times she talks me about this or tells me about this.
When I think of it, I can't even tell the power dynamics of my own friendship circle and such a thought never occurred to me (until now). The only way I can really tell what social position a person is posessing is if they have an official title ascribed to them and I tend to take such titles at face value unless I find the person to be incredibly incompetent at what they do. I think I could possibly spot if there's another person cotrolling from behind the scenes but I don't tend to look out for these things or feel very concerned about them. It's also interesting to point out that when I do notice these things though, I tend to become quite proud of myself and pat myself on my back because I actually figured it out. I have in contrast funnily enough no problem guessing in what romantic stage people are for example even if I see them for the first time assuming that they're together with their partner.
There's another example I thought of that I think is a great example of my blind spot as well, which is that I'm a member of a local political party here in Sweden. Essentially I'm finacially supporting the party called Ung Vänster which is a filial party to the major party Vänsterpartiet. I've been a member of Ung Vänster for probably close to or over a year now but I have yet to attend a single meeting. Even politics itself doesn't tend to overly concern me unless it has something to do with my personal values. Which reminds me of another example that's probably a good way to highlight soc last. For those who are into fantasy literature, a prominent series is called Wheel of Time spends a lot of time and great detail contrasting the political nature of the world its depicting. It's generally quite full of intrigue and power struggles and I remember that these were in fact the portions of the series that bored me the most. I have a similar aversion to other books that spend a great amount of time and detail developing the political inner works of its in-verse. It is also my aversion towards political games that has made me skip over the Game of Thrones hype.
Last but not least, another example I can think of that's a pretty good example of my soc last-ness is actually that I used to study a master program in global studies because I wanted to become an anthropology major but there was no specifically dedicated master program for social anthroplogy. Global studies is very different to anthropology because whereas in anthropology I tended to zone in one the few subjects that interested me, namely music and gender, the perspective of global studies was more driven towards human rights, international relations and to a degree human ecology. While I have briefly studied human ecology I did mostly because it was the subject that lied the closest to social anthropology when I had to pick my in-depth courses as my social anthropology course option was cancelled due to low interest. Social ecology is clearly not for me as well and I when I studied my master program I felt a deep sense of alienation because so many people were clearly burning for social injustices. They want to improve equality among genders in Bangladesh, help starving children in Africa getting better living conditions or teaching shrimp farmers in Singapore to not destroy their mangrove forests.
Me? I wrote my master thesis about why people are fans of a specific genre of metal music (Viking metal if you must know) and how they can be studied according to theories of interconnectedness which is a major theme in global studies (if I hadn't connected my work to said theories it would most likely have been disqualified for not being program-relevant). It was most of all fueled by my personal iterest in metal music though as I already wrote my bachelor's about black metal and gender. Even as I picked this subject I felt alienated because I always felt that I was different. My ideas were different and my interests were different. I wasn't interested in shaping or improving the world as many in my class were. So aside being primarily interest in a subject that is perhaps associated with the social instinct (but I'd argue this point as you can study so many things in anthropology outside of social power structures and hierarchies within groups) I feel that my preference was definitely distinctly not very social instincts-oriented.
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So as much as I would like to help, and as much as I always try to help my friends with whatever they need help with, whenever they need it, there are some things that I'm just ill-equipped to advise them on, and I'd argue that sp needs are one of those things.
