The Leviathan Grook.
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The Leviathan Grook.
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| Personality Type Theory | |||
In the short description of mood disorders, cyclothymia is described as a temperament. That is very strange, for how can something so obviously a disorder be a temperament, a manifestation of basic human diversity ? Either there has to be a mistake in the choice of the word, or they knew what they were talking about. I started off in psychology by examining this thing called personality type theory. Carl G. Jung ( the G stands for Gnarly :) ) first started off the world in this theory with the publication of his Psychological Types in 1923. In the book, he noted some dominant traits which people displayed. These were the extrovert/introvert attitudes towards people, the preference for sensation/intuition in perceiving the world, and the use of feeling/thinking in coming to decisions. These traits were drawn from his experiences with patients who mostly had rare and extreme disorders.  In 1943, Isabel Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, produced the first set of questions based on Jung's theories designed to test a normal person's Jungian preferences. It was the first Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and after years of refinement, has become the most widely used personality indicator in businesses, schools and all types of settings where it is useful to understand each person's unique style of working, playing and learning. It differed substantially from Jung's theory in that it acknowledged the importance of the auxiliary process, which is the part of each personality that is less developed. I believe that it is extremely useful for people to know about type theory, it explains why people are different from each other, and how we can use that understanding to live with each other. Now modern psychology is all about tests, and the MBTI was the first one I ever took outside of I.Q. tests. Sensing ---------------------- iNtuiting Feeling ---------------------- Thinking Each quality lies on opposite ends of a continuum. Sensing/Intuition are known as the Perceiving processes, and Feeling/Thinking are the Judgement processes. Isabel Myers assigned one more pair drawn from this relationship. If the person tends towards being judgemental, ie. quick to come to conclusions, preferring to have matters quickly settled and done with, then he is a Judging Person, and his dominant process would be either Thinking/Feeling. On the other hand, if he tends towards waiting to see if any new developments arise before making decisions, preferring to spend as much time as possible deliberating before making plans or schedules, he is a Perceiving person, and his dominant process would be either Intuiting or Sensing. All this is made complicated in the case of introverts, for they do not display their dominant traits to the outside world. This makes it pretty difficult for introverts to be accurately assessed. In most cases, if a person tests out xNTP, his perceiving preference means his dominant process is N, for iNtuiting. In the case of introverts however, P is the external behaviour he displays to the world. Unless you really know him well, and get into his inner world, you will not know for sure what his dominant process is. This rings up a total of sixteen possible types. Complete descriptions of each type and personality type theory can be found here: Joe Butt's Profiles Each type is essential in society, and fill the various echelons in different ratios. For example there are more Feeling types in careers such as nursing and counselling, and more Thinking types in the sciences and the professions. It makes sense. If you analyse more deeply, you can see what kind of career you are predisposed towards. It is from the MBTI and Jung that the use of the words introversion and extroversion sprung into popular usage. Most of us know that an extravert is likely to be the person who raises hell at parties and has heaps and heaps of friends, and likely takes part in many group sports as well, whereas the introvert is more apt to prefer to keep to himself, prefer solitary activities such as reading, and is usually the first to go home at a party, if he shows up at all. This preference is the first letter of any MBTI personality type. 'E' for extraversion and 'I' for introversion. For ADDers, numerous cases, exactly what percentage I do not know, have been found to be NP types, that is, iNtuitive Perceivers. Personally, I type out as INTP, although I'm not very sure ( see sidebar ). The descriptions of the NPs also sound alot like typical ADD behaviour. For example, the INTP mailing list FAQ has these to mention as typical behaviour: " Since INTPs prefer to use their perceiving function to relate to the outside world, and since they perceive (gather information) intuitively, they can seem "absent-minded," "spaced out," "uninvolved," or "not all there" to people who are more strongly grounded in concrete sense perceptions. Yet, they often seem to have uncanny insights that less intuitive individuals do not have. INTPs Here, as in the case of creativity and giftedness ( there is high correlation of intuition in gifted people. I'll put down the sources on this if I can find the book :) ), intuition and perception work together towards inattention to detail. What counts as traits that cause absentmindedness in these cases are called symptoms of inability to focus in the case of ADD. As Intuet says, "Here there be incongruency ~! NAY-SAYERS SAY NEIGH ~! " The Born to Explore website has some content devoted to exploring the Temperament (personality) connection. Here you are, some links... |
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The Razor's Edge Moses, the Running Moose. Find out about yourself ~! From Main Body
My INTP-type temperament makes it pretty hard to gauge if I'm ADD or not. If I were some other clear cut non-dreaming or absentminded personality type, I would find it easier to make a judgement. As it is, this is pretty much how it stands. I can't decide. :) Mail me if you think you're pretty sure you know what I am. I don't entertain flame-mail though. If you don't like me, or don't like my web-site, I suggest you go soak your head. Cry me a river. ( I've always wanted to say that :P ) |
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Member of the Explorer Webstar ~!  . Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate All rights reserved. Copyright � 1998 by Vinc Wong Chee Wai. |  |