raabjerg

Personality

maj 15th, 2008

Having become quite fond of the Myers-Briggs personality inventory as slightly modified by David Keirsey, I have started seeing the world in terms of NF’s, NT’s, SJ’s and SP’s – and of course the more nuanced types, making for a total of 16 different compositions, in the 4 main groups. Let there be no doubt about it; this helps me greatly in looking at the world. If this does not make any sense to you, I might blog a bit more about the whole concept, but for now, I am struggling with the question of idealising personality traits.

The basic premise of most of the type inventories are that everyone is unique, and that there is nothing wrong with having your particular traits. For instance, that I am an introvert is not objectively good or bad, it’s just me. And in the same way, the unique combination of different traits that make up the person I am, is not good nor bad, it’s just who I am. And I can follow the premises of the theory thus far.

However, I am left with a nagging sense of uneasiness when we tend to idealise all the traits of our personality. Or rather, what I might be trying to say is that from a Christian perspective, we as human-beings are not inherently good. In fact, we often tend to be the opposite, though I believe that we by God’s grace can be enabled to do very much good, and become transformed beings (generally speaking, not going into deep theological debate).

The problem as I see it, when we go into very detailed descriptions of our traits and proclaim all types as being very good and different, is that it may be difficult to point out the weaknesses in our personalities (if everything is seen as a strength), and identify them as inherent weaknesses we need to work on. (I am not challenging the use of personality type as a descriptive tool, but maybe rather arguing that we should not attempt to use it as a normative tool to declare everything as ‘okay’. Or as an NT friend recently put it – ‘where is the room for growth?’ I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but now I’m beginning to)

For instance, the fact that I as an NF-type person tend to be much in touch with my feelings and has a deep emotional capability, does not necessarily mean that I should never let my thinking or reason guide the way I feel (even though as I’m writing it, it just feels very very wrong to write something like that ). Or the SP-type’s easygoing tendency does not necessarily mean that they should follow every impulse without evaluating on it first. Or that if a personality type has problems in communicating, that it should just be ascribed to – ‘this is my personality type, live with it’.

Obviously, when I’m looking at the world, I tend to idealise many of my own traits, and see the propensities in other types as weaker or less ‘right’. This, I need to work on.

But still, I am wondering – is there such a thing as objectively good when talking about personality? Probably not. But it would be nice with a normative, not-to-simple, balanced, model which could offer some advise on dealing with the strengths and weaknesses in our particular make-up. Right now, it can quickly become ‘anything goes’ as an excuse for not dealing with our shortcomings (mine included).

Does this make sense?

Entry Filed under: Life,Personality,Reflections,Theology