Expectation January 30, 2007
Posted by m5 in Life, Psychology.trackback
I’ve been quite interested in personality systems as aids for self-awareness and observing interpersonal dynamics, mainly Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram so far.
The other day, a friend and I were discussing Myers-Briggs types (there’s a good overview at http://www.personalitypage.com/info.html, from which I draw for my summary). In short, this system devises 4 axes of personality: our flow of energy (Introvert/Extrovert – are we primarily focused internally or externally?), how we prefer to take in information (Sensing/iNtuition – do we trust what we perceive with our senses or our gut feelings?), how we prefer to make decisions (Thinking/Feeling – do we decide based on logic or emotion?), and our preferred general lifestyle (Judging/Perceiving – do we prefer to be organized and come to a decision, or do we prefer to leave things more open-ended and flexible?).
Not surprisingly, the Judging characteristic is sometimes misunderstood to mean judgmental. My friend had said that most of his girlfriends had been J types, and when I asked him what he thought J characterized, he said something like, “Having unspoken rules that I am judged by,” at which point I joked, “Well, no wonder you thought that most of your girlfriends are J’s!”
It probably wasn’t the best joke to make, reinforcing the stereotype that women expect men to be mindreaders. But more seriously, don’t almost all of us have expectations, possibly many of which are not even conscious? And while expectations remain unconscious, there’s no possibility of considering how reasonable they are, or communicating preferences.
it’s so funny, i just had a conversation with a group tonight about myers briggs, and because i had read this entry, i brought up the point you made about how J is usually interpreted as judgmental, when it actually more means decisive. is there a test online that you’ve taken, or is there an official one? i just took this one, but don’t know how it differs from the original test. my friend was telling us about how he hadn’t understood a lot about the differences he had with his now-ex-girlfriend, but this test helped him realize a lot of things about their relationship. i’m kind of curious as to whether it’s better to match your partner in these types, or complement them. perhaps it is different for each category – but i would guess that at least for the P/J category, it is probably better to be in synch.
I’ve only taken a few free online tests. Wikipedia says that the official MBTI has 93 questions, and I haven’t tried that one. It’s noteworthy that “[the MBTI ethical code] states that the person taking the indicator is always the best judge of what their preferences are and that the indicator alone should never be used to make this decision.” So ultimately, the decision lies with you.
Maybe the pickup line should be “What’s your (personality) type?” rather than “What’s your sign?” these days :) There are varying theories around personality and partners. One idea is that the most important axis to match is S/N. One variant of that theory is that S/N should match, and all other axes should be opposite. And another states that S/N and T/F should match, while I/E and P/J should complement. In short, there’s no consensus.
Regarding P/J, I can say that some of the conflicts that come up between my mom and me are due to this opposition (she’s a P, I’m a J). For example, she likes to change her mind (return tickets, change hotels…) if she thinks something better has come up, whereas I prefer to be happy with what we’d decided on prior.