Personalities

So recently the topic of personalities was reinvigorated and I made most of my friends do the Myers Briggs personality test which after a set of questions, places people squarely into 16 different personality types based on 4 different ways that people approach the world. You can either be Introverted/Extroverted, iNtiution/Sensing, Feeling/Thinking, or Judging/Perceiving. Then your whole personality is reduced to 4 letters: ENTJ for myself.

So the first thought comes to mind that it is foolish to reduce an entire person's personality into 16 broad categories for most people like to think every person is unique to their own extent. But rather than argue about its validity, it instead became a novelty topic to inspire discussion within a friendship circle about each other's supposed personalities, and it many ways it feels like a more scientific version of a horoscope. Whereas a horoscope is overly broad to incorporate everyone into months of birth, the 16 personalities model is able to tailor a slight more focused approach into how someone is likely to act, given their answers to the test. For instance, I found mine to be quite accurate for my personality but then just like a horoscope, I was looking for answers that matched what I already thought about myself.

It also stimulates ideas that in a friendship circle, in that it is likely that common interests and convenience form the beginning of a group, but what is it thereafter that continues it, and what makes certain groups more harmonious than others? I have always like to think that within a friend circle, there is a certain balance, for a group filled with crazy adventurers, might succumb to unreliability and bad mistakes, yet a group filled with dogmatic, rule abiding organisers might be dreary and unexciting. Therefore, it is always balance that makes a group function well, and for me, the test provided some more systematic way of grouping the individuals in the group and how there is enough balance in the traits of the group to allow it to function.

Indeed my research continued on to other measures psychologists have used including the "Big Five" personality traits: "OCEAN": Openness to experiences, Conscientousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Then on further questioning of psychologists in my rotation lead to even more inventories and tests administered on patients: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Millon Clincial Inventory, the list goes on. At the end of the day, the message I received was: don't look into the supposed personalities of your friends outside to stimulate a fun conversation. Unless you are friends with a lot of quirky, formal personality disorders characters then perhaps go see a psychologist about being tested.

Thinking about my role in the group so bye.

Sites for perusal during boredom/procrastination:
http://kisa.ca/personality/
https://www.16personalities.com/