Thursday, November 25, 2010

Ideas to Ponder: "Understand your personality type, but Don't Stereotype!"

People in the research and development area, had developed a psychological measurement tool, which measures the personality type of a person. 

Personality 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 between people, whereas traits might be construed as quantitative differences. According to type theories, for example, introverts and extraverts are two fundamentally different categories of people.

Then some other theorists developed another tool which measures the same stuff, but in a different way. In this tool, people have been classified into six different types: investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional and realistic. 

I am in no way saying that; these tools are totally wrong and exists only for pleasure of people who use them. But what I am saying that, these tools represents (if at all), the perceived self and many times your current situation. And they never ever talk about what you could be in future! 

Basically, these tools are useful only when you need to deal with another person, because by understanding his/her personality type you can position yourself better, hence become more effective in getting the job done. 

Where I am concerned is that, you should never stereotype yourself or other on the basis of these  tools. Specially when it comes to judging the group behavior. Because, if there are 'n' different personalities in a group, the there would be n(n-1)/2 number of possibilities of how a group behaves. 

Stereotyping is easy and its the only default that you have if you stop using your conscience! Be-aware of your DOGMAS! 



It is the 15th of many posts written under "Idea to Ponder series" (you can visit all of them here).
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