Thursday, March 5, 2009

Personality

I was hanging out in my LDS Marriage and Family class and the teacher started going over material that wasn't in the books. He made a big deal about this haha. But listening, it was actually a really interesting discussion. He started talking about personalities, and that there are four basic types. Now, I know you're all starting to think about that INFP jazz or color code test or whatever but this was a collaboration of him and some of his colleagues (he's a marriage counselor). And it was slightly different than what I've heard. Obviously there are ways to intermingle and have a dominant and recessive type and all of that but here are the basic standards that he told us (taken from my notes for the day):
Dominant
Dominant people are always interested in the bottom line. Their main interest is to get things done. They're always moving and busy and have a lot of energy. They're task oriented, and they want brief interactions with people because they're busy. There isn't much emotion; relationships ride shotgun to the tasks that need to be completed. The trick is to take them seriously, but not personally.
Expressive
Expressive people also have lots of energy, but their focus is on relationships. They base decisions on emotion and intuition and put much less stock on the facts. They are validated through relationships with others and personal touch...they're very touchy people. They have a hard time saying no to others and often have a lot to do because of that. They talk with their hands and meander throughout the day. The trick is to give them the big picture: they love to see how their role plays in it. Provide a lot of feedback.
Analytical
Analytical people are a little slower; they don't have as much energy. They are often off in their head and don't have as much interaction with others. They want to do things right the first time. They're often more introverted. They analyze everything and often search for the best deal on anything they might do. They're list people, and instead of getting excited about finishing the list they are very excited about crossing things off.
Amiable
The amiable people are very relationship oriented. They want to do things right, but maybe not necessarily the first time. As long as it happens. They are people that do anything to avoid contention, often backing out and letting others have their way. They are very easily distracted. They want to make everyone happy all of the time, often at their own expense.

He then went on to talk about behavioral shifting and defense mechanisms and all. But after reviewing the list I decided I'm an amiable person...but with analytical points as well. Anyway, there isn't much point to this post. I just thought it was interesting haha. Thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Let me know if you're so inclined.

3 comments:

Bonnie said...

I don't know if everyone fits perfectly into one of those groups. But I definatly fall mostly under expressive aka needy :-)

Windy Dawn said...

I love this. And I am definitely heavy on the analytical personality type. Which is probably what makes me good at what I do. Thanks for sharing.

Aleece said...

wow haha the expressive pretty much described me to a tee