Type Talk:
The 16 Personality Types That Determine How
We Live, Love, and Work by Otto Kroeger and Janet M. Thuesen
Dell Publishing, October, 1989
Type Talk is a primer on personality preference typing centered on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (“MBTI”). The MBTI is a widely-used “test” that helps a person begin to understand why people perceive situations differently, communicate different from others, and opt for different activities.
The book’s authors, Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen, husband and wife, have long been in the forefront of adapting the MBTI for use in everyday life and coined the phrase “Typewatching” as a descriptor for their work.
Kroeger and Thuesen open the book with a chapter on “name-calling”. They use this phrase, not in the derogatory sense as is often the case, but to show that name-calling is used by everyone as a means of “cataloging people” based on their unique, identifying characteristics. If we’re to do this inevitable “name-calling” the authors believe it should be done in an objective and constructive manner and when elevated to this higher level it becomes “Typewatching”
In the early 1920’s the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of personality types where he said behavioral differences were “a result of preferences related to the basic functions our personalities perform throughout life” (p. 8). Jung’s theory was published in his book titled Personality Types in 1923.
Meanwhile, earlier in the century, Katherine Briggs was researching human behavior and through her observations had developed a way to describe it – that due to different life styles, people approach life differently. When Briggs read Jung’s work she found it to be very similar to her own work and set hers aside to focus on Jung’s. Shortly thereafter, Briggs’ daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers became involved and the mother-daughter team sought to assimilate their work with that of Jung. In the 1940’s Myers created an inventory based on her mother’s observations and Jung’s theory. The two women theorized that, with the offensive of the Second World War so near, if people were more aware of their psychological type they could be assigned to wartime roles that best fit their preferences.
The MBTI was slow to gain acceptance by the psychological community. Few psychologists signed on to Jung’s obscure theories and even Jung himself felt his theor...
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...Another benefit from the style of this book is that it prompts us to laugh at ourselves as I did when I read the traits of a (P)erceiver who is “easily distracted and can get ‘lost’ between the front door and the car” (p. 21).
The foreword to the book comes from Dr. Charles Seashore, a faculty member at Santa Barbara’s Fielding Institute. In his foreword he presents what I feel is a major premise of this book where he says “impossible conflicts, unreconcilable differences, and personality conflicts are amenable to new types of solutions when seen through the lens of Typewatching. Our hopeless dilemmas are turned to the light in such a way that vivid colors soon replace dull and draining grays. The differences that block us can be translated into differences that empower us.”
I find the views expressed in Type Talk offer a perfect complement to the humanistic perspective on personality where the humanists emphasize free will and the innate goodness of humankind. Typewatching seeks to move us beyond the simplistic good/bad, right/wrong approach to behavior by leading us toward an appreciation of the gifts and strengths of ourselves and others and a celebration of our differences.
Personality types stems from Carl Jung spend time observing personality preferences, which he later on published in his in 1921. Carl’s discovery of the two major typical differences in human psychology such as extrovert and introvert influenced Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers theories and lead them to experiment during World War II. Myers and Briggs worked on methods that would help women, who heretofore had no prior workplace experience, find those types of jobs that were most comfortable and effective (Myers & Myers, 1996). The three learning styles I have chosen to write about would meet the needs of the learners and provide an effective learner/teacher experience. Therefore, the need for learning level in people varies at all levels, to make sure the delivery method meets the learners’ expectation, it is important to re-evaluate the styles of learning chosen and make sure all background
Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore, once said “I stopped focusing on people being different, and started treating everyone the same way.” An authority figure refuses to acknowledge the differences in people, and treats different individuals the same way. Authoritarian figures have shut down people, mostly kids, who are different for years. Striving to reach a conformity in society, they refuse to recognize the uniqueness of every individual. Similarly, in the short story “Antaeus”, the main character, T.J., is evidently different from the rest of urban society, much to authority’s disliking. In Borden Deal’s short story “Antaeus”, the author uses the main character ,T.J., to demonstrate that when man is different from the rest of society,
In my original paper on Carl Gustav Jung, I took a rather skeptical view of the doctor and his work, for several reasons that I will reiterate. However, after studying further into his work, I realized that these objections only related to his early psychiatric cases, and I found myself to be far more intrigued and impressed by his later work and theories. While I had stated in my first consideration of Jung that, “there is a frustratingly limited, almost biased quality to much of… his work”, I was pleasantly surprised later on to find that many of his later theories and assumptions were anything but limited. I still believe that in his early case work he took tremendous risks, both clinically and professionally, yet it is that risk-taking aspect of his personality that ultimately allowed, or rather, propelled him to boldly go forward with some of his most groundbreaking and controversial contributions to the fields of psychology, and philosophy as well. It can even be said, and has been, that Dr. Jung is the father of modern “new-age” thinking. He also laid the groundwork for those who were inspired by his thoughts, perhaps much in the way that he himself was originally inspired by Freud. Once again, while my original opinion of Dr. Jung caused me to “wonder how much of Jung’s work was truly visionary, and how much of it benefits from a positive hindsight bias because of the successes he was able to achieve” in his early casework, I must say that my current opinion, early casework aside, is that Jung was in fact truly visionary, and was the originator of some of the most revolutionary conceptual thinking that the human experience has to offer.
Carr is worried. He confesses that he now has difficulty with the simple task of sitting down and reading a book. Absorbing the text is now belaboring, and he finds that his mind drifts off into other realms. Moreover, this phenomenon is not only limited to himself. Bruce Friedman, a pathologist at the University of Michigan Medical School, admits that he “can’t read War and Peace anymore…even a blog post of three or four paragraphs is too much,” (Carr). In addition, Scott Karp, a devoted blogger on online media and literature major, relates that he was an avid reader in college. Sadly, he observes the same trend in his focus as Carr and Friedman. Karp speculates that the loss of focus isn’t so much a change in the way he reads, but in the way he thinks (Carr).
One of the major theoretical areas in the study of the personality is the trait perspective. It suggests that individual personalities are comprised of broad dispositions, and it identifies and measures the characteristics that they are made up of (Cherry). The trait perspective helps to identify a person’s personality type (Myers). This perspective focuses on the difference between individual personalities and the traits that shape them.
The “play of difference” contributes to this cycle through what Hall identifies as “the Other,” an outside group used for differentiation. He claims that “only when there is an Other can you know who you are.” The “Other” serves to provide a comparison in order to discover that which one is not; this is differentiation. Identity does not solely rely on the social differentiation of the self – identity is mutually constructed. It does not exist without “the dialogic relationship to the Other.”(Hall, 11) That is, one’s personal narrative of the self must also come into play, relating identity to difference.
The four-letter type and temperament traits are measured by the Myers Briggs Personality Assessment. The assessment is a list of questions that is rated to determine your personality traits. This paper will discuss the validity of my four-letter type and temperament traits according to the Myers Briggs Personality Assessment. I will discuss each letter of my personality type and how they work together. There are different weaknesses that exist with each personality trait. We can use our personality traits to improve our overall performance on a day to day basis, as well as within our work life. The terminology used to describe each type and temperament is very broad and vague, resulting in a greater chance for people to conform and believe
Jung, Carl G. Psychological Types. Princeton N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. 3, 333. Print.
We have also read some information about how Carl Jung defines personality and he uses, eight personality types based introversion as well as extroversion. Jung states that our attitudes seem to have a tendency, to behave in a certain manner. Jung believed that individuals who classify themselves as introverts place importance on their personal views of the world, while individuals who classify themselves as extroverts seem to place more importance on detachment and surrounding influences.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is another model that attempts to inventory personality traits. Isabel Briggs Myers created the MBTI based on psychologist Carl Jung’s work regarding psychological types. Myers developed the model to “help people understand themselves and each other so they could find work that matches their personality.” (Phillips & Gully, 2014) Four scales are explored with the MBTI. The first scale assesses extroversion/introversion; the same idea described in the first dimension of the Big Five. The second scale identifies sensing or intuitive individuals. Sensing individuals are detail and fact oriented when focusing on information, whereas intuitive people interpret and add meaning to information. The third scale classifies
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was developed by mother-daughter duo Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Myers. They wanted everyone to be able to understand their own personality types as well as others. When they were introduced to Jung’s (C. G. ideas in 1923, they believed his ideas were so powerful and they could help everyone make better life choices. By developing the MBTI, they completed their life goals. This gave everyone the chance to understand personality types. The different personality types are either extrovert (E) or introvert (I), sensing (S) or intuition (N), thinking (T) or feeling (F), and judging (J) or perceiving (P). All eight of these different personality traits make up the sixteen different personality types.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2013). Theories of personality (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth.
"Personality Test Based on C. Jung and I. Briggs Myers Type Theory."Personality Test Based on C. Jung and I. Briggs Myers Type Theory. Humanmetrics, 1998. Web. 11 June 2014. .
Humanity is defined by one major factor: one’s understating of the self. By understanding one’s self, one can understand society and the world that surrounds themselves. There is one thing that can often distort one’s personality, one’s identity. By identifying as one thing a person can often change how they act or do certain things. This is often found to hide one’s true motives or intention, but it can also be used to hide hidden factors that aren’t as prevalent. One’s personality and identity are very closely linked, and tend to play off one another. This fact can be show in within multiple works. To name a few authors who demonstrate this fact: Clifford Geertz, Horace Miner, and Andrei Toom. Their works seek to dive deeper
In this essay I will describe the four major theories of personality and identify the advantages and disadvantages of each. The first major theory of personality is psychodynamic which was created by Sigmund Freud. The second major theory of personality is trait or five-factor model which is the most scientifically supported model. The third major theory of personality is humanistic, and Carl Rogers was the best known humanistic theorist. Finally, the fourth major theory of personality is social cognitive which was developed by social learning theorists.