Psychological typologies
Encyclopedia
Psychological typologies are classifications used by psychologists to describe the distinctions between people. The problem of finding the essential basis for the classification of psychological types
—that is, the basis determining a broader spectrum of derivative characteristics—is crucial in differential psychology.
1) to "catch" the central organizing link, some kind of the motor of all design, and to distribute people by the qualitative specificity of these central links;
2) to decompose the psychic
to its components in order to understand the work of parts and to create a classification on the basis of differences in the structure
and quality of parts.
At present there are several thousand of various psychological classifications that point to these or other distinctions between people or mental characteristics as such.
The classifications may have different ground scales of generalizations, degree of inner
strictness.
of psychological classifications development demanded parallel existing of two scientific approaches: one of which was named «psychology of types», and the other — «psychology of traits». In the course of time both the approaches shifted towards each other: the psychology of types - in attempts to understand the structure of psychological traits of every type, trait psychology - in attempts to achieve more high and system generalizations.
An example of trait psychology development (stages):
The example of type psychology development (stages):
In the course of development of psychology as a science
and a practice, the understanding has developed that the individual is a «microcosm
», which has all traits, properties, and characteristics, but they are distributed according to certain systemic lows, which have yet to be discovered.
, common universal laws of the nature
and mind
, have the greatest scale
and orderliness. Everything including the principle of psychological classification, has mathematical accuracy and clearness. The typology has the subordinated role, it reflects the natural belonging to cosmic laws.
Example: Psycosmology
Example: Witkin in 1954 singled out the types of people as field dependent and field independent. The field dependent do not see a simple figure in a complex geometrical background. The field independent can single out the figure from complex geometrical background.
Example: From the psychoanalytical point of view, the child in her development undergoes in a number of psychosexual stages which creates a particular make up of soul
and mind, being a sort of psychological type.
The developing person is viewed as an auto-erotic creature that receives sensual pleasure from stimulation of erogenous zones of the body by the parents or other people during the process of rearing. Freud believed that for every such stage there is a particular erogenous zone.
The person goes through certain studies in the development of self-consciousness
in the search of Self. Carl Jung
considered the Self
to be a central archetype
, the one of order and wholeness of personality. Jung called ability of humans to self-cognition and self-development as individuation
confluence of her/his conscious and unconscious. The first stage of the individuation is the acquisition of the element in the structure of the personality psychic called - person or mask hiding the real self and the unconscious, called the shadow.
So the second stage of the individuation is awareness of the shadow. The third stage is meeting still other components of psychic – called Anima and Animus. The last stage of individuation – development of the Self, that becomes the new center of soul. It brings unity and integrates a conscious and unconscious material. All the mentioned stages intersect. The person constantly and repeatedly returns to old problems. Individuation may be depicted as a spiral in which the person continues once and again deal with the same fundamental problems, each time in a more subtle form.
of psychological systems the systematization and classification play a very important role.
With the development of statistics in the description of weight of the trait (or type) in society
character of the trait (type) distribution
is very important. It is also important, if the distinctions of trait have a quantitative or qualitative character for the adequate interpretation of practically every research in the field of differential psychology understanding of certain fundamental statistical concepts is required.
"There are at least three various theories of the psychological types worked out by psychologists. Some authors represent types as separate classes that exclude each other. Some others psychologists accept the theory of types as more or less detailed trait theory, defining the types as poles of one and same continuum between which people may be ranked by the law of normal distribution. The adepts of the third view believe that the types differ from the traits by having multimodal distributions in which the people are grouped with in definite points, representing pure types". Stagner, 1948.
s) are constructed so that the trait could be normalized with the normal distribution term, if distinctions have quantitative character. For instance, the traits which enter the base of personality named the Big Five
have a normal distribution.
Example: Extraversion/introversion. Most people have ambivert characteristics on this scale.
Example: Right-handedness and left-handedness. The deaf and the hearing. Types in Socionics
.
Example: Typology by Ernst Kretschmer
or William Herbert Sheldon.
Example: Psycosmology model in a context of general, typological and individual.
.
Examples: Astrological (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, the Classical antiquity), astro-musical system of types (India).
«The foundation of development of practices, known nowadays as“ the western astrology ”, was the Mesopotamian astrology whereas the Chinese tradition became a core of systems so-called " Eastern astrology ”. As to astrological systems of meso-American Indians and druids, they haven't survived till present time in the living tradition and are now reconstructed only some with some degree of authenticity. Original astrological systems arose, probably, in other regions of the world as well, but they were quite regional (astrology of inks or original Javano-Balyiskian astrology, based on a “vuku” calendar». Denis Kutalyov. Astrology as historical and cultural phenomenon.
An interesting development of this idea can be found in Johann Kepler's works which really continued the traditions of astro-musical systems, having joined physical and mental laws in the theory of resonance
.
«In his exposition astrology became similar to the physical theory of resonance.
The stars themselves do not influence the destiny of people, but the soul of person at the moment of a birth imprinted the angles between the stars and the following life reacted to them in specific ways“. Ju.A.Danilov Harmony and an astrology in Kepler's works.
A somewhat different approach to problems of astrological knowledge can be observed in Carl Jung's works. Astrology, as Jung believed, – “is the top of all psychological knowledge in antiquity”, the gist of which is in imprinting the symbolical configurations in the form of collective unconscious.
“Astrology as collective unconscious to which the psychology addresses, consists of symbolical configurations:“ planets ”are Gods, the symbols of power unconscious” [Semira, Vetash, 1994, p. 13].
Domination of one of the four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition) is the basis for the classification that Carl Jung theorized from his clinical experience. This typology was expanded by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė
(Socionics) and Isabel Briggs Myers
with her mother, Katharine Briggs (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
).
Examples: Socially-characterological (Theophrastus
), sociopolitical (Plato
).
The Characters by Theophrastus contains thirty brief, vigorous and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a picture of the life of his time, and of human nature in general.
According to Plato, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline from an aristocracy
(rule by the best) to a timocracy
(rule by the honorable), then to an oligarchy
(rule by the few), then to a democracy
(rule by the people), and finally to tyranny (rule by one person, rule by a tyrant).
Plato's is one of the first typologies, based on his values. Plato singled out the following types:
1) aristocratic characterized by dominant of the higher side of soul, aspiration to true search;
2) timocratic characterized by strong development of ambition and inclination to struggle;
3) oligarchic characterized by greediness, restraint and thrift;
4) democratic characterized by moral instability, and aspiration to constant change of sensual pleasures;
5) tyrannic characterized by dominant of lowest animal attraction.
The specific classifications are often build by practical workers on the basis of concrete activity. Within any activity one can find many very different classifications.
. However the person himself was an independent system with his own inner world, with his contradictions, unique way of life and experience, a disposition and levels of development of inner selves. The philosophers looked upon the person from a far distance, doctors had to see the particulars his physical and psychical organization.
The typology of Hippocrates
become a combination of theoretical ideas and practical methods. Remaining on the positions of cosmologists concerning the nature of human soul, he raised the questions about the structure and functioning of different psychical and physical organizations of humans as social creatures, and developed the typology of temperament
s.
Contemporary systemic classifications are represented by works of Carl Jung
, Hans Eysenck
, Ludmila Sobchik, Leonid Dorfman, Natali Nagibina and others. The authors of contemporary systematic conceptions try to generalize as much as possible the results of empirical research of individual characteristics within the frameworks of one typological model
. Such a model, as a rule, is the center of the construction uniting the general, typological and individual psychological characteristics of humans.
As examples of such systematic classification may serve the Theory of leading tendencies by Ludmila Sobchik, Psycosmology by Natali Nagibina, the Concept of the meta-individual world by Leonid Dorfman.
The theory of leading tendencies laid in the basis of methodology of psychodiagnostical research, allows to understand the complex construct of personality in all its completeness. According to this theory, the integral image of the personality includes emotional sphere, individual style of cognition, the type of interpersonal behavior, strength and direction of motivation. The comparative analysis of the psychodiagnostical indicators received in successive studies of different levels of self-consciousness ( objective unconscious, actual-subjective and ideal "Self
"), reveals the zone of the inner conflict, level of self-understanding and ability of the individual to self-control ". L.N. Sobchik. Psychology of Individuality. 2005, p. 15
Example: The Hippocratic school held that four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm consists the basis for the four types of temperaments.
Example: Kretschmer's classification system was based on three main body types: asthenic/leptosomic (thin, small, weak), athletic (muscular, large–boned), and pyknic (stocky, fat). (The athletic category was later combined into the category asthenic/leptosomic.) Each of these body types was associated with certain personality traits and, in a more extreme form, psychopathologies.
Example: American psychologist William Herbert Sheldon associates body types with human temperament types.Sheldon proposed that the human physique be classed according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements, somatotypes, named after the three germ layers of embryonic development: the endoderm, (develops into the digestive tract), the mesoderm, (becomes muscle, heart and blood vessels), and the ectoderm (forms the skin and nervous system).
Sheldon's "somatotypes" and their supposed associated physical traits can be summarized as follows:
Ectomorphic: characterized by long and thin muscles/limbs and low fat storage; receding chin, usually referred to as slim.
Mesomorphic: characterized by medium bones, solid torso, low fat levels, wide shoulders with a narrow waist; usually referred to as muscular.
Endomorphic: characterized by increased fat storage, a wide waist and a large bone structure, usually referred to as fat.
Table 1. Some examples of classifications based on concrete methods of receiving and processing information.
on one side and the world outlooking structure on the other. The sphere of values and senses with its unique picture of the world is the core of personality. Most bright psychological ideas concerning the sphere values and senses are presented in the work of Erich Fromm
, M. Rokeach
, Abraham Maslow
and others.
For example, M.Rokeach treats the values as a kind of steady conviction that a certain goal or way of living is more preferable than some other. The human values are characterized by the following main properties:
1.The whole number of values of a person is relatively small.
2.All people have the same values, although in different degrees.
3.The values are organized in systems.
4.The sources of human values can be tracked down in culture, society and its institutions etc.
5.The influence of the values can be traced practically in all social phenomena, deserving studying.
M.Rokeach distinguishes two classes of values – terminal and instrumental. He defines the terminal values as convictions that a certain final goal in individual life (for instance, happy family life, peace in the whole world) from the personal and the social point of view is worth to be pursued. The instrumental values are beliefs that a certain way of performance (for instant, honesty, rationalism) is from personal and social points of view preferable in any situations. In fact, the distinction between the terminal and instrumental values coincides with already existing, rather traditional differentiations of values-goals and values means. The system of personality values orientation as well as any psychological system can be represented as “multidimentional dynamic space”.
Example: Eric Fromm
describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things ("assimilation"), and reacting to people ("socialization
"). These orientations describe how a person has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also considered that people were never pure in any such orientation. These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive.
Example: N.Losski picked out three three types of characters.
1.Hedonistic type with domination of lower, sensual drives suppressing all higher aspirations. The people of this type are completely under the influence of the biological nature. Their self is not yet mature.
2.Egoistic type. Their self is quite mature and decorates all the striving deeds and feelings. The Self (I) prevails in their consciousness and they are striving to broadly expose it in their activities.
3.Superpersonal type. Their aspirations similarly to those of the first type, are as if given outside, but their source is not in the physical needs of the body, but in the factors of higher order, namely: in higher religious, scientific and aesthetic strivings. Such people act as if not on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of the higher will, which they recognize as the rules of their deeds.
Losski points out, that it is impossible the sharp boundary between the three types, as there are intermediate types, that are transitional from one category to the other.
One dominating value corresponding to every type.
. To classify the objects of the material world is more easy a task.
In psychology
we study consciousness with the help of consciousness. Here new possibilities are opened and the same time new limitations occurred, in part, due to the subjectivity and the necessity to overcome it as it is known, in the psychic there are conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. They often take place separately, as two different means to get knowledge (information) about situations in the world. Because of this, for instance, estimations of personality characteristics with the help of projective tests (which are addressed mostly to unconscious properties) often contradict the results of self-estimations made with help of questionnaires (which are based on consciousness).
For determining of psychological type of a person, it is important to have a measuring instrument (test, inventory etc.), that is calibrated to reveal not the present and actual situational characteristics, but the opens which are typical, repeating with higher probability in the course of life. That is why the methods, which allow to see the present characteristics through the prism of the person whole life: biographical, structured talk, longitudinal observation in real situations) are very important for the psychologists. Such methods are well developed in the clinical psychology
. In the work with healthy people the use of these methods is rather narrow.
Example: The program of personality measuring by A.F. Lazurski.
Training qualified specialists in the field of research and diagnostics of psychological types is a particular problem
. Here a whole complex of specific knowledge and skills is required.
For measuring psychological types it is important to have the ability to see not separate fragments of the psychic reality but operating with the systems (cognition, motivation, values, will, emotions, self-consciousness
) and taking into account their holistic character, to master the knowledge of steady variants of these systems and skills to compare their properties. The comparing and estimating the systems are more difficult in the absence of the reliable methodological base: there is no a generally accepted opinion on what to compare and how to estimate.
For investigation the types it is necessary to be able to use both the qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical reality research, taking into account the following factors:
1.The scale and the complex character of research (the possibility of keeping under control several plans of different scales).
2.The character and specificity of distribution of properties and characteristics in the studied environment.
3.The adequate number of sub-scales, not violating the completeness and the constructive validity
of a psychological traits.
Psychological Types
Psychological Types is the title of the sixth volume in the Princeton / Bollingen edition of the Collected Works of Carl Jung. The original German language edition, "Psychologische Typen", was first published by Rascher Verlag, Zurich in 1921....
—that is, the basis determining a broader spectrum of derivative characteristics—is crucial in differential psychology.
The logic of development of classification hypotheses in psychology
The entire history of human studies from the system-classification position reveals itself as arena of struggle of two opposite methodological directions, the goals of which were:1) to "catch" the central organizing link, some kind of the motor of all design, and to distribute people by the qualitative specificity of these central links;
«The typological approach consists in the global perception of the personPersonA person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
with the following reduction of variety of individual forms to a small number of the groups uniting around the representative type» (Meily, 1960).
2) to decompose the psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
to its components in order to understand the work of parts and to create a classification on the basis of differences in the structure
Structure
Structure is a fundamental, tangible or intangible notion referring to the recognition, observation, nature, and permanence of patterns and relationships of entities. This notion may itself be an object, such as a built structure, or an attribute, such as the structure of society...
and quality of parts.
«It is necessary to reduce all the personalityTrait theoryIn psychology, Trait theory is a major approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable over...
character traits to the elementary mental elements and to the elementary forms of the basic psychological laws, revealing the nature of the discovered ties» (Polan, 1894).).
At present there are several thousand of various psychological classifications that point to these or other distinctions between people or mental characteristics as such.
The classifications may have different ground scales of generalizations, degree of inner
strictness.
Classification of people and psychological characteristics
The logicLogic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
of psychological classifications development demanded parallel existing of two scientific approaches: one of which was named «psychology of types», and the other — «psychology of traits». In the course of time both the approaches shifted towards each other: the psychology of types - in attempts to understand the structure of psychological traits of every type, trait psychology - in attempts to achieve more high and system generalizations.
«As soon as the fact that the observable traits do not corresponds to separate essential psychic characteristics and rather are only aspects of the personality and behaviorBehaviorBehavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
, received general recognition immediately appeared the necessity to reveal the fundamental factors behind the traits. Haimans and Virsma as well as other scientists after them tried to solve the problemProblemA problem is an obstacle, impediment, difficulty or challenge, or any situation that invites resolution; the resolution of which is recognized as a solution or contribution toward a known purpose or goal...
. However all these researches had a fragmentary character, their results have been caused by preliminary hypotheses, and the choice of traits as a rule was determined by the personal view of the researcherResearcherA researcher is somebody who performs research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. Researchers can work in academic, industrial, government, or private institutions.-Examples of research institutions:...
» R.Maily
An example of trait psychology development (stages):
- Singling out the types of love as psychology of traits. In the Antique time the typologyTypologyTypology is the study of types. More specifically, it may refer to:*Typology , division of culture by races*Typology , classification of things according to their characteristics...
of love kinds was very popular, which comprised:
- ErosEros (love)Eros is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can be rendered into English as “love”. The other three are storge, philia and agape...
– a passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of romantic love - Ludus – a love that is played as a game or sport; conquest
- StorgeStorgeStorge , also called familial love, is the Greek word for natural affection—such as the love of a parent toward a child, "cherishing one's kindred, especially parents or children"...
– an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity ( kindred to PhiliaPhiliaPhilia is one of the four ancient Greek words for love.Philia in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is usually translated as 'friendship', though in fact his use of the term is much broader.- Aristotle's view :...
) - Pragma – love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative
- ManiaManiaMania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
– highly volatile love; obsession; fueled by low self-esteem - AgapeAgapeAgape is one of the Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for mankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term...
– selfless altruistic love; spiritual; motherly love
- Every person, as a rule, possesses all the possible types of love, but in different proportion. Which can be expressed by the profile characteristic with ups and downs.
- The Types of people with similar profile characteristics combined into classification of higher level.
The example of type psychology development (stages):
- Singling out groups of people that have obvious dominate of conscious cognitive operations — "Rationals" or unconsciousUnconscious mindThe unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
operation out — "Irrationals". - Pick out the specific cognitive abilities connected with rationalityRationalityIn philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...
and irrationalityIrrationalityIrrationality is cognition, thinking, talking or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate reasoning, emotional distress, or cognitive deficiency...
. - A network for the profile characteristic is worked out which is typical for rationals and irrationals.
In the course of development of psychology as a science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and a practice, the understanding has developed that the individual is a «microcosm
Macrocosm and microcosm
Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale all the way down to the smallest scale...
», which has all traits, properties, and characteristics, but they are distributed according to certain systemic lows, which have yet to be discovered.
Cosmologies
Systems of views about the material and mental world based on principles of harmonyHarmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
, common universal laws of the nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, have the greatest scale
Scalability
In electronics scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process, to handle growing amount of work in a graceful manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth...
and orderliness. Everything including the principle of psychological classification, has mathematical accuracy and clearness. The typology has the subordinated role, it reflects the natural belonging to cosmic laws.
Example: Psycosmology
Formal typologies
Classifications that included stabil types singled out on the basis of some psychological or anatomo-physiological traits refer to formal typologies. The formal typology may have quote varies scale. Often these are typologies on the basis of behavior particulars in certain activity.Example: Witkin in 1954 singled out the types of people as field dependent and field independent. The field dependent do not see a simple figure in a complex geometrical background. The field independent can single out the figure from complex geometrical background.
Dynamic typologies
The dynamic typologies are connected with change and transformations of people, with doing through stages in their development (biological, psychological, social).Example: From the psychoanalytical point of view, the child in her development undergoes in a number of psychosexual stages which creates a particular make up of soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
and mind, being a sort of psychological type.
The developing person is viewed as an auto-erotic creature that receives sensual pleasure from stimulation of erogenous zones of the body by the parents or other people during the process of rearing. Freud believed that for every such stage there is a particular erogenous zone.
The person goes through certain studies in the development of self-consciousness
Self-consciousness
Self-consciousness is an acute sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self-awareness, which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being; although some writers use both terms interchangeably or synonymously...
in the search of Self. Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
considered the Self
Self
The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...
to be a central archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
, the one of order and wholeness of personality. Jung called ability of humans to self-cognition and self-development as individuation
Individuation
Individuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...
confluence of her/his conscious and unconscious. The first stage of the individuation is the acquisition of the element in the structure of the personality psychic called - person or mask hiding the real self and the unconscious, called the shadow.
So the second stage of the individuation is awareness of the shadow. The third stage is meeting still other components of psychic – called Anima and Animus. The last stage of individuation – development of the Self, that becomes the new center of soul. It brings unity and integrates a conscious and unconscious material. All the mentioned stages intersect. The person constantly and repeatedly returns to old problems. Individuation may be depicted as a spiral in which the person continues once and again deal with the same fundamental problems, each time in a more subtle form.
Modeling of systems of psychological types
In modelingConceptual model
In the most general sense, a model is anything used in any way to represent anything else. Some models are physical objects, for instance, a toy model which may be assembled, and may even be made to work like the object it represents. They are used to help us know and understand the subject matter...
of psychological systems the systematization and classification play a very important role.
With the development of statistics in the description of weight of the trait (or type) in society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
character of the trait (type) distribution
Frequency distribution
In statistics, a frequency distribution is an arrangement of the values that one or more variables take in a sample. Each entry in the table contains the frequency or count of the occurrences of values within a particular group or interval, and in this way, the table summarizes the distribution of...
is very important. It is also important, if the distinctions of trait have a quantitative or qualitative character for the adequate interpretation of practically every research in the field of differential psychology understanding of certain fundamental statistical concepts is required.
"There are at least three various theories of the psychological types worked out by psychologists. Some authors represent types as separate classes that exclude each other. Some others psychologists accept the theory of types as more or less detailed trait theory, defining the types as poles of one and same continuum between which people may be ranked by the law of normal distribution. The adepts of the third view believe that the types differ from the traits by having multimodal distributions in which the people are grouped with in definite points, representing pure types". Stagner, 1948.
Distribution of the traits
The more distribution is fundamental and doesn't depend on cultural factors. The majority of measuring instruments (testTest (assessment)
A test or an examination is an assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics . A test may be administered orally, on paper, on a computer, or in a confined area that requires a test taker to physically perform a...
s) are constructed so that the trait could be normalized with the normal distribution term, if distinctions have quantitative character. For instance, the traits which enter the base of personality named the Big Five
Big Five personality traits
In contemporary psychology, the "Big Five" factors of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which are used to describe human personality....
have a normal distribution.
Example: Extraversion/introversion. Most people have ambivert characteristics on this scale.
Strict sets
If characteristics have qualitative rather than quantitative distinctions, they are usually described as strict sets.Example: Right-handedness and left-handedness. The deaf and the hearing. Types in Socionics
Socionics
Socionics , in psychology, is a theory of information processing and personality type, distinguished by its information model of the psyche and a model of interpersonal relations. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism...
.
Nonstrict sets
It is very seldom that a certain quality is stably absent absolutely in psychic. Therefore, in most cases, it is useful to use mild classifications which reflect real character of distribution more precisely.Example: Typology by Ernst Kretschmer
Ernst Kretschmer
Ernst Kretschmer Prof. Dr. med. Dr. phil. h.c., was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology...
or William Herbert Sheldon.
Complex models
More complex and systematization models take into account the fact that may meet both quantitative, and qualitative distinctions of traits. The distributions of these traits as clear connections may form types which in term have enough strict and steady distribution in society.Example: Psycosmology model in a context of general, typological and individual.
System classifications
The system classifications proceeded from the postulate that whole is not a sum of the parts, but is a system of higher organization. The basis of classification often was searched for in laws of Universe functioning. The properties of classification: strictness (everyone belongs to one and only one class and remains in it for the whole life), quantity of classes is determined by laws of the Universe, the organization of psychic is a part of the more general system of functioning of the UniverseUniverse
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
.
Examples: Astrological (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, the Classical antiquity), astro-musical system of types (India).
«The foundation of development of practices, known nowadays as“ the western astrology ”, was the Mesopotamian astrology whereas the Chinese tradition became a core of systems so-called " Eastern astrology ”. As to astrological systems of meso-American Indians and druids, they haven't survived till present time in the living tradition and are now reconstructed only some with some degree of authenticity. Original astrological systems arose, probably, in other regions of the world as well, but they were quite regional (astrology of inks or original Javano-Balyiskian astrology, based on a “vuku” calendar». Denis Kutalyov. Astrology as historical and cultural phenomenon.
An interesting development of this idea can be found in Johann Kepler's works which really continued the traditions of astro-musical systems, having joined physical and mental laws in the theory of resonance
Resonance
In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at a greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies...
.
«In his exposition astrology became similar to the physical theory of resonance.
The stars themselves do not influence the destiny of people, but the soul of person at the moment of a birth imprinted the angles between the stars and the following life reacted to them in specific ways“. Ju.A.Danilov Harmony and an astrology in Kepler's works.
A somewhat different approach to problems of astrological knowledge can be observed in Carl Jung's works. Astrology, as Jung believed, – “is the top of all psychological knowledge in antiquity”, the gist of which is in imprinting the symbolical configurations in the form of collective unconscious.
“Astrology as collective unconscious to which the psychology addresses, consists of symbolical configurations:“ planets ”are Gods, the symbols of power unconscious” [Semira, Vetash, 1994, p. 13].
Domination of one of the four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition) is the basis for the classification that Carl Jung theorized from his clinical experience. This typology was expanded by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė
Aušra Augustinaviciute
Aušra Augustinavičiūtė was a Lithuanian psychologist, author of numerous scientific theories and discoveries, and the founder of Socionics...
(Socionics) and Isabel Briggs Myers
Isabel Briggs Myers
Isabel Briggs Myers was an American psychological theorist. She was co-creator, with her mother, of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ....
with her mother, Katharine Briggs (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions...
).
Specific classifications
The classification more often touched on the characteristics connected with the sphere of social interaction. They were built as a set of bipolar traits in which the dominance of certain trais were accentuated in the person's character. The characteristics of specific classifications are the absence of a clear borders between classes—the person can pass from one class into another under the influence of the external and internal forces. The number of classes depends on the position of the author of the classification.Examples: Socially-characterological (Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
), sociopolitical (Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
).
The Characters by Theophrastus contains thirty brief, vigorous and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a picture of the life of his time, and of human nature in general.
According to Plato, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline from an aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
(rule by the best) to a timocracy
Timocracy
Constitutional theory defines a timocracy as either:# a state where only property owners may participate in government# a government in which love of honor is the ruling principle...
(rule by the honorable), then to an oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
(rule by the few), then to a democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
(rule by the people), and finally to tyranny (rule by one person, rule by a tyrant).
Plato's is one of the first typologies, based on his values. Plato singled out the following types:
1) aristocratic characterized by dominant of the higher side of soul, aspiration to true search;
2) timocratic characterized by strong development of ambition and inclination to struggle;
3) oligarchic characterized by greediness, restraint and thrift;
4) democratic characterized by moral instability, and aspiration to constant change of sensual pleasures;
5) tyrannic characterized by dominant of lowest animal attraction.
The specific classifications are often build by practical workers on the basis of concrete activity. Within any activity one can find many very different classifications.
Mixed classifications
The characteristics of the classifications: combination of strictness and flexibility. There are laws of Universe, which determine strict classifications and there are earthly laws which act on another level, not destroying the strict classification, and creating variations within one class, contributing the system flexibility. The person as a part entered more general systems - the Universe, the SocietySociety
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. However the person himself was an independent system with his own inner world, with his contradictions, unique way of life and experience, a disposition and levels of development of inner selves. The philosophers looked upon the person from a far distance, doctors had to see the particulars his physical and psychical organization.
The typology of Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
become a combination of theoretical ideas and practical methods. Remaining on the positions of cosmologists concerning the nature of human soul, he raised the questions about the structure and functioning of different psychical and physical organizations of humans as social creatures, and developed the typology of temperament
Temperament
In psychology, temperament refers to those aspects of an individual's personality, such as introversion or extroversion, that are often regarded as innate rather than learned...
s.
Contemporary systemic classifications are represented by works of Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, Hans Eysenck
Hans Eysenck
Hans Jürgen Eysenck was a German-British psychologist who spent most of his career in Britain, best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas...
, Ludmila Sobchik, Leonid Dorfman, Natali Nagibina and others. The authors of contemporary systematic conceptions try to generalize as much as possible the results of empirical research of individual characteristics within the frameworks of one typological model
Conceptual model
In the most general sense, a model is anything used in any way to represent anything else. Some models are physical objects, for instance, a toy model which may be assembled, and may even be made to work like the object it represents. They are used to help us know and understand the subject matter...
. Such a model, as a rule, is the center of the construction uniting the general, typological and individual psychological characteristics of humans.
As examples of such systematic classification may serve the Theory of leading tendencies by Ludmila Sobchik, Psycosmology by Natali Nagibina, the Concept of the meta-individual world by Leonid Dorfman.
The theory of leading tendencies laid in the basis of methodology of psychodiagnostical research, allows to understand the complex construct of personality in all its completeness. According to this theory, the integral image of the personality includes emotional sphere, individual style of cognition, the type of interpersonal behavior, strength and direction of motivation. The comparative analysis of the psychodiagnostical indicators received in successive studies of different levels of self-consciousness ( objective unconscious, actual-subjective and ideal "Self
Self
The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...
"), reveals the zone of the inner conflict, level of self-understanding and ability of the individual to self-control ". L.N. Sobchik. Psychology of Individuality. 2005, p. 15
Basis of classification
The theoretical analysis and empirical verification of the classification systems of the psyche have been undertaken by a number of authors in the twentieth century (C. Jung, H. Eysenck, R. Meily, V.S. Merlin, L.N. Sobchik, L.Ja. Dorfman, E.P. Ilyin, N.L. Nagibina and others).Bodily and formal-dynamic characteristics as grounds for classification
These classifications are more often used by the clinical psychologists and the psychiatrists.Example: The Hippocratic school held that four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm consists the basis for the four types of temperaments.
Example: Kretschmer's classification system was based on three main body types: asthenic/leptosomic (thin, small, weak), athletic (muscular, large–boned), and pyknic (stocky, fat). (The athletic category was later combined into the category asthenic/leptosomic.) Each of these body types was associated with certain personality traits and, in a more extreme form, psychopathologies.
Example: American psychologist William Herbert Sheldon associates body types with human temperament types.Sheldon proposed that the human physique be classed according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements, somatotypes, named after the three germ layers of embryonic development: the endoderm, (develops into the digestive tract), the mesoderm, (becomes muscle, heart and blood vessels), and the ectoderm (forms the skin and nervous system).
Sheldon's "somatotypes" and their supposed associated physical traits can be summarized as follows:
Ectomorphic: characterized by long and thin muscles/limbs and low fat storage; receding chin, usually referred to as slim.
Mesomorphic: characterized by medium bones, solid torso, low fat levels, wide shoulders with a narrow waist; usually referred to as muscular.
Endomorphic: characterized by increased fat storage, a wide waist and a large bone structure, usually referred to as fat.
Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification
Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification become popular in the twentieth century.Table 1. Some examples of classifications based on concrete methods of receiving and processing information.
| Basis of classification | Interpretation | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| Analytical (differentiating) /Sintetical (integrating) | Analyticals tend to perceive separate parts and properties, and have difficulty catching whole structures oriented on distinctions. Syntetics tend to perceive the phenomena as an integrated whole, seeing the similarities in the parts. | Gottshald, 1914 Rorschach Hermann Rorschach Hermann Rorschach was a Swiss Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, best known for developing a projective test known as the Rorschach inkblot test. This test was reportedly designed to reflect unconscious parts of the personality that "project" onto the stimuli... , 1921 |
| Thinkers / Artists | In thinkers, the second signal system is dominant. In artists, the first signal system is dominant. | Pavlov Ivan Pavlov Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field.... , 1927 |
| Objectivists / Subjectivists | The objectivists are characterized by steady, narrowly directed and precise perception. The subjectivists are characterized by a broader field of perception, with subjective interpretation supplementing perception. | Angyal Angyal - Surnames :* Ákos Angyal, a Hungarian sprint canoer* András Angyal , a Hungarian-US psychiatrist* András Angyal ; * Anna Angyal ; * Bandi Angyal ; * Dávid Angyal ; * Erica Angyal... , 1948 |
| Rationals / Irrationals | Rationals have conscious, logical thinking as their primary function. Irrationals have unconscious sensations and intuitive thinking as their primary function. | Jung Jung Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology.Jung may also refer to:* Jung * JUNG, Java Universal Network/Graph Framework-See also:... , 1902 |
Values and motivational characteristics as grounds for personality classifications
The sphere of personality values and senses is situated at the crossing point of two large areas of psychic: motivationMotivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
on one side and the world outlooking structure on the other. The sphere of values and senses with its unique picture of the world is the core of personality. Most bright psychological ideas concerning the sphere values and senses are presented in the work of Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm was a Jewish German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory.-Life:Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, at Frankfurt am...
, M. Rokeach
Rokeach
Rokeach is the surname of:* Aharon Rokeach , the fourth Belzer Rebbe* Elazar Rokeach , Talmudist and kabbalist* Milton Rokeach , Professor of social psychology* Sholom Rokeach , the first Belzer Rebbe...
, Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
and others.
For example, M.Rokeach treats the values as a kind of steady conviction that a certain goal or way of living is more preferable than some other. The human values are characterized by the following main properties:
1.The whole number of values of a person is relatively small.
2.All people have the same values, although in different degrees.
3.The values are organized in systems.
4.The sources of human values can be tracked down in culture, society and its institutions etc.
5.The influence of the values can be traced practically in all social phenomena, deserving studying.
M.Rokeach distinguishes two classes of values – terminal and instrumental. He defines the terminal values as convictions that a certain final goal in individual life (for instance, happy family life, peace in the whole world) from the personal and the social point of view is worth to be pursued. The instrumental values are beliefs that a certain way of performance (for instant, honesty, rationalism) is from personal and social points of view preferable in any situations. In fact, the distinction between the terminal and instrumental values coincides with already existing, rather traditional differentiations of values-goals and values means. The system of personality values orientation as well as any psychological system can be represented as “multidimentional dynamic space”.
Example: Eric Fromm
Eric Fromm
Eric Fromm is a former tennis player from the United States. Perhaps Fromm's best result was reaching the fourth round of the French Open in 1983 in singles, where he lost comprehensively to Jimmy Connors....
describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things ("assimilation"), and reacting to people ("socialization
Socialization
Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies...
"). These orientations describe how a person has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also considered that people were never pure in any such orientation. These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive.
Example: N.Losski picked out three three types of characters.
1.Hedonistic type with domination of lower, sensual drives suppressing all higher aspirations. The people of this type are completely under the influence of the biological nature. Their self is not yet mature.
2.Egoistic type. Their self is quite mature and decorates all the striving deeds and feelings. The Self (I) prevails in their consciousness and they are striving to broadly expose it in their activities.
3.Superpersonal type. Their aspirations similarly to those of the first type, are as if given outside, but their source is not in the physical needs of the body, but in the factors of higher order, namely: in higher religious, scientific and aesthetic strivings. Such people act as if not on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of the higher will, which they recognize as the rules of their deeds.
Losski points out, that it is impossible the sharp boundary between the three types, as there are intermediate types, that are transitional from one category to the other.
Bounded complexes of cognitive characteristics, values and motives as ground for personality classifications
Example: E. Spranger distinguishes six types of personality, which connect cognition and values correlating the personality type with cognition of the world.- The Theoretical, whose dominant interest is the discovery of truth. A passion to discover, systematize and analyze; a search for knowledge.
- The Economic, who is interested in what is useful. A passion to gain a return on all investments involving time, money and resources.
- The Aesthetic, whose highest value is form and harmony. A passion to experience impressions of the world and achieve form and harmony in life; self-actualization.
- The Social, whose highest value is love of people. A passion to invest myself, my time, and my resources into helping others achieve their potential.
- The Political, whose interest is primarily in power. A passion to achieve position and to use that position to affect and influence others.
- The Religious, whose highest value is unity. A passion to seek out and pursue the highest meaning in life, in the divine or the ideal, and achieve a system for living.
One dominating value corresponding to every type.
Contemporary problems of psychological classifications
The problems of psychological classifications are caused the high complexity and mobility of psychicPsychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
. To classify the objects of the material world is more easy a task.
In psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
we study consciousness with the help of consciousness. Here new possibilities are opened and the same time new limitations occurred, in part, due to the subjectivity and the necessity to overcome it as it is known, in the psychic there are conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. They often take place separately, as two different means to get knowledge (information) about situations in the world. Because of this, for instance, estimations of personality characteristics with the help of projective tests (which are addressed mostly to unconscious properties) often contradict the results of self-estimations made with help of questionnaires (which are based on consciousness).
For determining of psychological type of a person, it is important to have a measuring instrument (test, inventory etc.), that is calibrated to reveal not the present and actual situational characteristics, but the opens which are typical, repeating with higher probability in the course of life. That is why the methods, which allow to see the present characteristics through the prism of the person whole life: biographical, structured talk, longitudinal observation in real situations) are very important for the psychologists. Such methods are well developed in the clinical psychology
Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...
. In the work with healthy people the use of these methods is rather narrow.
Example: The program of personality measuring by A.F. Lazurski.
Training qualified specialists in the field of research and diagnostics of psychological types is a particular problem
Problem
A problem is an obstacle, impediment, difficulty or challenge, or any situation that invites resolution; the resolution of which is recognized as a solution or contribution toward a known purpose or goal...
. Here a whole complex of specific knowledge and skills is required.
For measuring psychological types it is important to have the ability to see not separate fragments of the psychic reality but operating with the systems (cognition, motivation, values, will, emotions, self-consciousness
Self-consciousness
Self-consciousness is an acute sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self-awareness, which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being; although some writers use both terms interchangeably or synonymously...
) and taking into account their holistic character, to master the knowledge of steady variants of these systems and skills to compare their properties. The comparing and estimating the systems are more difficult in the absence of the reliable methodological base: there is no a generally accepted opinion on what to compare and how to estimate.
For investigation the types it is necessary to be able to use both the qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical reality research, taking into account the following factors:
1.The scale and the complex character of research (the possibility of keeping under control several plans of different scales).
2.The character and specificity of distribution of properties and characteristics in the studied environment.
3.The adequate number of sub-scales, not violating the completeness and the constructive validity
Validity
In logic, argument is valid if and only if its conclusion is entailed by its premises, a formula is valid if and only if it is true under every interpretation, and an argument form is valid if and only if every argument of that logical form is valid....
of a psychological traits.
See also
- Hermeneutics
- HeterophenomenologyHeterophenomenologyHeterophenomenology is a term coined by Daniel Dennett to describe an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness and other mental phenomena...
- Important publications in phenomenological psychology
- Personhood Theory
- Differential psychology
- Phenomenology (psychology)Phenomenology (psychology)Phenomenology is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl. Early phenomenologists such as Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conducted their own psychological investigations in the early 20th century...
- Philosophical AnthropologyPhilosophical anthropologyPhilosophical anthropology is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person, and interpersonal relationships. It is the attempt to unify disparate ways of understanding behaviour of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of...
- Personology
- Psychological typesPsychological TypesPsychological Types is the title of the sixth volume in the Princeton / Bollingen edition of the Collected Works of Carl Jung. The original German language edition, "Psychologische Typen", was first published by Rascher Verlag, Zurich in 1921....
- Interaction StylesInteraction StylesInteraction Styles are groupings of the 16 types of the MBTI instrument of psychometrics and Jungian psychology. The Interaction Styles model was developed by Linda Berens, PhD, founder of the Temperament Research Institute...
- Personality psychologyPersonality psychologyPersonality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...
- PsychometricsPsychometricsPsychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, personality traits, and educational measurement...
- SocionicsSocionicsSocionics , in psychology, is a theory of information processing and personality type, distinguished by its information model of the psyche and a model of interpersonal relations. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism...
- RationalityRationalityIn philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...
- IrrationalityIrrationalityIrrationality is cognition, thinking, talking or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate reasoning, emotional distress, or cognitive deficiency...
- Personality typePersonality typePersonality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences...
- 16PF
- Adjective Check ListAdjective Check ListThe Adjective Check List is an assessment used to identify common psychological traits. Developed by Harrison G. Gough and Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr., the checklist contains 300 adjectives . Respondents select the adjectives that they believe describe themselves...
(ACL) - BarOn EQ-i
- Big Five personality traitsBig Five personality traitsIn contemporary psychology, the "Big Five" factors of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which are used to describe human personality....
- Birkman Method
- CPI 260
- DISC assessmentDISC assessmentDISC is a group of psychological inventories developed by John Geier, and others, and based on the 1928 work of psychologist William Moulton Marston and the original behavioralist Walter V. Clarke and others.-History:...
- Enneagram of PersonalityEnneagram of PersonalityThe Enneagram of Personality is a model of human personality which is principally used as a typology. Principally developed by Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, it is also partly based on earlier teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff...
- Interpersonal compatibilityInterpersonal compatibilityInterpersonal compatibility is a concept that describes the long-term interaction between two or more individuals in terms of the ease and comfort of communication.-Existing concepts:...
- Keirsey Temperament SorterKeirsey Temperament SorterThe Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves and others. It was first introduced in the book Please Understand Me...
- KingdomalityKingdomalityKingdomality is a vocational placement system created in 1990 by vocational psychologist Richard Silvano. When he and his two daughters were playing with a Playmobil castle and Klicky figures, Silvano was inspired to fashion a short personality test by translating Playmobil and Klicky figures into...
- List of personality tests
- Minnesota Multiphasic Personality InventoryMinnesota Multiphasic Personality InventoryThe Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is one of the most frequently used personality tests in mental health. The test is used by trained professionals to assist in identifying personality structure and psychopathology....
(MMPI) - Myers-Briggs Type IndicatorMyers-Briggs Type IndicatorThe Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions...
- NEORevised NEO Personality InventoryThe Revised NEO Personality Inventory, or NEO PI-R, is a psychological personality inventory; a 240-item measure of the Five Factor Model: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. Additionally, the test measures six subordinate dimensions of each of...
- OCEANOceanAn ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
- Strong Interest InventoryStrong Interest InventoryThe Strong Interest Inventory is an interest inventory used in career assessment. The goal of this test is to give insight into a person's interests, so that they may have less difficulty in deciding on an appropriate career choice for themselves. It is also frequently used for educational...
- Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode InstrumentThomas Kilmann Conflict Mode InstrumentThe Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument is a conflict style inventory, which is a tool developed to measure an individual's response to conflict situations.-Development:...
- Jungian Type IndexJungian Type IndexThe Jungian Type Index, or JTI, is an alternative to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator . Introduced by Optimas in 2001, the JTI was developed over a 10-year period in Norway by psychologists Thor Ødegård and Hallvard E: Ringstad...
- Jung Type Indicator
List of important theorists of psychological typology and differential psychology
- Alfred AdlerAlfred AdlerAlfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement as a core member of the Vienna...
- Anne AnastasiAnne AnastasiAnne Anastasi was an American psychologist best known for her pioneering development of psychometrics. Her seminal work, Psychological Testing, remains a classic text in which she drew attention to the individual being tested and therefore to the responsibilities of the testers...
- Raymond CattellRaymond CattellRaymond Bernard Cattell was a British and American psychologist, known for his exploration of many areas in psychology...
- Hans EysenckHans EysenckHans Jürgen Eysenck was a German-British psychologist who spent most of his career in Britain, best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas...
- Sigmund FreudSigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
- Franz Joseph GallFranz Joseph GallFranz Joseph Gall was a neuroanatomist, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain.- Life :...
- Francis GaltonFrancis GaltonSir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
- HippocratesHippocratesHippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
- Karen Horny
- Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
- William JamesWilliam JamesWilliam James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
- Carl JungCarl JungCarl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
- Ernst KretschmerErnst KretschmerErnst Kretschmer Prof. Dr. med. Dr. phil. h.c., was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology...
- Oswald KülpeOswald KülpeOswald Külpe was one of the structural psychologists of the late 19th and early 20th century.-Biography:...
- Karl LeonhardKarl LeonhardKarl Leonhard was a German psychiatrist, who stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke and Karl Kleist. He created a complex classification of psychotic illnesses called nosological.His work covered Psychology, Psychotherapy, Biological psychiatry and Biological psychology...
- Cesare LombrosoCesare LombrosoCesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature...
- Isabel Briggs MyersIsabel Briggs MyersIsabel Briggs Myers was an American psychological theorist. She was co-creator, with her mother, of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ....
- Ivan PavlovIvan PavlovIvan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
- Nikolai LosskyNikolai LosskyNikolay Onufriyevich Lossky was a Russian philosopher, representative of Russian idealism, intuitionism, personalism, libertarianism, ethics, Axiology , and his philosophy he called intuitive-personalism. Born in Latvia, he spent his working life in St. Petersburg, New York and Paris...
- Grigory Ivanovich RossolimoGrigory Ivanovich RossolimoGrigory Ivanovich Rossolimo was a Russian neurologist who was a native of Odessa. He specialized in the field of child neuropsychology.In 1884 he graduated from the University of Moscow, and subsequently worked under Aleksei...
- PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
- Théodule-Armand RibotThéodule-Armand RibotThéodule-Armand Ribot , French psychologist, was born at Guingamp, and was educated at the Lycée de St Brieuc.In 1856 he began to teach, and was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure in 1862...
- Hermann RorschachHermann RorschachHermann Rorschach was a Swiss Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, best known for developing a projective test known as the Rorschach inkblot test. This test was reportedly designed to reflect unconscious parts of the personality that "project" onto the stimuli...
- William Stern
- TheophrastusTheophrastusTheophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
External links
- Arikha, Noga (2007). Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours
- Helminen, Päivi (1999). Discovering Our Potential: An Introduction to Character Types
- In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)In Our Time is a live BBC radio discussion series exploring the history of ideas, presented by Melvyn Bragg since 15 October 1998.. It is one of BBC radio's most successful discussion programmes, acknowledged to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time"...
episode on the four humours in MP3 format, 45 minutes
- Rudolf Steiner "The Four Temperaments" http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19090304p01.html
- The System of types - Psycosmology