Personality types are as old as the Classical time
period. Hippocrates is credited as the
first to document personality types, as early as 400 BC. Paul refers to personality types in Romans
chapter 12 (90 AD) as spiritual gifts with distinct attributes separating them
one from the other. He gives instruction
to each type with the overall command to work together as a single body. We are to understand one another, and work
together. This is seen throughout the
Corinthian letters also.
Modern day Psychologists have looked at the problem from
multiple sides, as attested by the multitude of Personality tests and
profiles. Most go along with Hippocrates
using his four categories, Choleric, Phlegmatic, Sanguine and Melancholic, though
they have chosen a variety of differing names.
The name I’ll be going with align with Hippocrates as such: Choleric is a
Controller, Phlegmatic is a Persuader, Sanguine is a Stabilizer and Melancholic
is an Analyst. Here is a common four-quadrant layout for the Personality Types
(Figure 1).
Figure 1. Four
Personality Types
In 1921, Carl Jung broke down personality types into
16. During World War II, Katharine Cook
Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, developed a questionnaire method
for determining personality in correspondence with Jung’s research. What came out is what we know today as the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI).
The MBTI are broken into four categories: Introvert/Extrovert,
Sensory/Intuitive, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving. When you take a MBTI test, you assess how you
rate in each category by choosing preferred activities. For example, if you are more introverted
versus sensory you will select reading a book versus going to a party.
MBTI gives an indication of where you fit within the four
quadrants. Figure 2 provides a look at how the MBTI categories work with the
four personality types. The left side of
the diagram, the Analysts and Stabilizers tend to be Introverts. The Right Side, Controllers and Persuaders
are Extroverted. The top (Analysts and
Controllers) are more sensory and Judging.
The bottom (Stabilizers and Persuaders) tend to be more Intuitive and
Perceiving. Thinking and Feeling is also
a split between the AS and CP sides.
Figure 2. MBTI
associated to Four Personality Types
When you find out what your MBTI is, you will have an
understanding of what your primary and secondary personality traits are. For example and INTJ will have the primary
personality of a Stabilizer with the secondary drive of Controller. An ESFP will find themselves in the Persuader/Analyzer
categories of personality and so on.
The driving need of an Analyst is to be right. The driving need of a controller is to
control things. The driving need of a
persuader is to be liked. The driving
need of a stabilizer is security and trust.
Each drive in each personality is unique and the combination of drives
along with the variability of MBTI-ness within each category allows for a wide
variety of personal-ness.
Personality is a spectrum. We reflect what we value in any
given situation. You can be
anything you need to be within the personality spectrum at any time. The classification
reflects what you chose to be in a majority of situations.
Avoid the pitfall of the personality study. It’s okay to
classify core drives, as long as you free a person to act accordingly in a
given situation. We are all different from one another. Common drives do not
preclude uniqueness among the kinds. It’s simply a reflection of the patterns
in your brain. Three lobes – three personalities, with the fourth personality
composed of the intersection of the three. If my brain favors the left lobe,
I’ll be more analytical. If my brain favors the right, I’ll be more controlling.
If my brain favors the lower lobe, I’ll be more feeling. Stabilizers tend to
the center, the intersection of the three.
