Temperament Analysis: Looking at the Whole

[keirsey]

One of the biggest differences between Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs with my father, David Keirsey, is how one does analysis of an individual's personality. Isabel and Katherine essentially adopted Carl Jung's incomplete analysis, with some key changes and observations of Isabel that spanned all the kinds of personality. My father recognized Isabel Myers observations of different kinds of people mirrored and expanded on his own observations. He immediately accepted Myers very brief descriptions of the sixteen types of characters, but quickly realized that her atomistic (reductionistic) approach to describing personality had a problem. The first problem was she had no sense of Temperament. The second problem was her descriptions were composed by elements, that did not consider the individual as a whole, but as a sum of parts. The third problem Myers described what she guessed was in people's minds, which is not directly observable.

One can visualize the two differing characterizations as illustrated by the following two diagrams.





So looking at an individual, using Myers Scales [I/E, N/S, T/F, J/P], one can get confused by looking for specific behavior, for example, that is "P." The problem is that one is looking at a "part" of the person, which does not consider the WHOLE person. The behavior of a "P" of a ENTP can be quite different from the "P" of an INFP. The same can be said of the others: E, I, N, S, T, F, and J.

In our analysis of human action, we try to establish the Temperament first, then the agenda Roles: Enterprising vs Inquiring, then the four Roles: Initiating versus Contending, coWorking versus Responding. We try to consider the WHOLE PERSON as we study their actions.

[ENFP123]

That should clarify it nicely for many people.

[fuzzynavelnot21]

I used to have this dilemma all the time...haha....looking at individual letters or parts and then when putting them together...I'd think....mmm...I don't see that in that person at all. Then I would start to think of descriptions of the types and sometimes that would make it more clear. Sometimes it can be ok, and I can type them correctly doing it that way (individual parts to make a whole)...but more recently I've became aware (thanks to Angela and my new Brains book) of how much more accurate it is to use, as you put it David, the 'whole' person to type them. I am still working at improving in this and building my knowledge. Thanks for bringing this topic up and sharing the information with us.

[Goodrum]

...and this gets really interesting, I wonder if that is a reflection of Isabel Briggs Myer's temperament and perhaps Professor Keirsey's nail it personality.

One took something from Carl Jung, added to it, (best they could)... but nothing like to the extensive research/work to be done by the Professor.

Kind of the evolution of a part of temperament and psychology?

Brilliant stuff.

[ShayShay]

It's not that I doubt the accuracy of looking at the whole rather than the parts. It's that I have much more difficulty doing it this way. I need to get Brains asap.

[keirsey]

It's not that I doubt the accuracy of looking at the whole rather than the parts. It's that I have much more difficulty doing it this way.

Bingo. Join the crowd. We all are naturally reductionists, especially Rationals. Isabel, being a Healer Idealist naturally did look at the whole, luckily having Jung's rather vague analysis to point her in the right direction. She actually observed individuals (the key descriptions were actually based on High School students) and for the first time "voiced" them (wrote the sixteen descriptions down). It took my father, a systematic thinker, who had been imbued with Gestalt psychology (where the whole/part distinction matters) and who had be observing and dealing with kids as living (he was head school psychologist for many years), to reconfigure the initial and "correct" recognition of Isabel's all different types.

[Architron]

Diagrams = Win

[ShayShay]

Diagrams = Win

Pictures = Win

Diagrams/Graphs/Modules = Fail

That's how I see it.

Paint me a picture, tell me a story, relate it to something and I'll understand and remember it easier.

Give me raw data and my brain will shut down.

[Perseus]

It's not that I doubt the accuracy of looking at the whole rather than the parts. It's that I have much more difficulty doing it this way.

Bingo. Join the crowd. We all are naturally reductionists, especially Rationals. Isabel, being a Healer Idealist naturally did look at the whole, luckily having Jung's rather vague analysis to point her in the right direction. She actually observed individuals (the key descriptions were actually based on High School students) and for the first time "voiced" them (wrote the sixteen descriptions down). It took my father, a systematic thinker, who had been imbued with Gestalt psychology (where the whole/part distinction matters) and who had be observing and dealing with kids as living (he was head school psychologist for many years), to reconfigure the initial and "correct" recognition of Isabel's all different types.

I don't think ENTP/INTP are necessarily reductionists at all. All NPs may be psychedelics or global thinkers. Even a stressed out Irrational (see Quenk) may base his imagination not on twisted logic (ESFJ) as much as faulty/selfish observations from his limited view of the world.

By the way, I am using Intuition (the auxiliary) as a primary process in the inductic leap mode. This is ENTP or I am using extroversion in a demonstrative mode (which is easily possible with sufficient energy). See if this post spooks a response? If Idealists react, somebody might have to do some rewriting.

[ShayShay]

See if this post spooks a response? If Idealists react, somebody might have to do some rewriting.

If you're referring to yourself rewriting, please do. Haha. No offense at all, I just really don't get what you're trying to say most of the time, although I must say that I've been able to grasp it and almost make a clear picture as of late, so I thank you for the effort. But I am by no means trying to chip away at your thing that you do. No Pygmalion Project here...just trying to make sense of your language.