Psychology and you

Written by: Juliane

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Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and behavior. There are several different branches of psychology ranging from developmental psychology to personality psychology. Clearly, one article isn't enough to share with you everything you might want to know about psychology, but one interesting aspect of psychology that you can relate to yourself, is personality. And that's what my main focus will be.

Personality psychology in itself has three areas of focus. First, there is the conception of "a coherent picture of the individual and their major psychology processes". For instance, when you think about your friend, or simply someone you know, you will often have one "picture" of them and their usual behavior, which means that you will usually know what to expect from them and maybe even how they think (if you're very close). Then, personality psychology is the "investigation of individual psychological differences"; as such, this branch of psychology seeks to identify distinctions in the psychology of people. Finally, personality psychology investigates "human nature and psychological similarities between individuals". The way I understand this, is that this field tries to comprehend the general "nature", or characteristics, that humans innately possess. Moreover, it studies the psychological resemblance between all people, however different they may appear.

Again, it seems to me that this is a lot to cover in one article, but I will attempt to by focusing on the idea of "personality".

As you may or may not have noticed, your personality is different from that of most of the people who surround you. The word personality signifies "the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character"; it is a rather complex term because it takes into account patterns of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments and behaviors that can be observed in an individual over time. These different factors, to some extent, explain why there are so many different personalities. These personalities are distinguished into 16 personality types, according to the Myers-Briggs indicator. So who are you?

The 16 personality types take into account eight attributes which, when combined in groups of four, form the personality types. These adjectives are: extraverted (E), introverted (I); intuitive (N), observant (S); thinking (T), feeling (F); judging (J) and prospecting (P). As you can see, each attribute has one letter which represents it. As a consequence, the personality types are determined by combinations of four letters, each with one characteristic of each group of two listed, and in the order of their listing. The attributes come in groups of twos, which means that you can be either one or the other, but not both. For example, you can't be extraverted and introverted in your personality type; of course, this only means that your personality type doesn't take both into account. However, everyone is a bit of both, but one percentage is almost always higher than the other.

The different personality types can be grouped into four categories, these are: The Analysts (INTJ, INTP, ENTJ, ENTP), The Diplomats (INFJ, INFP, ENFJ, ENFP), The Sentinels (ISTJ, ISFJ, ESTJ, ESFJ), The Explorers (ISTP, ISFP, ESTP, ESFP). The personalities of each category always have two initials in common. Every personality type has an occupation, or type of person (for lack of a better word), which reflects it, but they aren't always called the same thing. Indeed, the ISTJ personality, for instance, is sometimes called "Logistician" and sometimes named "The Inspector"; these words are just supposed to generalize the characteristics of the personality type. The four categories of personality types exist to regroup the personality types that are most similar. On the one hand, the Analysts are the Intuitive (N) and Thinking (T) personality types, "known for their rationality, impartiality, and intellectual excellence", whereas the Diplomats are the Intuitive (N) and Feeling (F) personality types, "known for their empathy, diplomatic skills and passionate idealism". On the other hand, the Sentinels are the Observant (S) and Judging (J) personality types, "known for their practicality and focus on order, security and stability" and the Explorers are the Observant (S) and Prospecting (P) personality types, "known for their spontaneity, ingenuity and ability to live in the moment".

As always, the internet is the easiest place to go to find out which personality type corresponds to you, if you'd like to. Knowing your personality type can be interesting if you want to analyze your behavior, compare your personality to that of your friends, and maybe even to consider how you're different from people with the same personality type. Personally, I've taken two personality tests, and I didn't obtain the same results; this may be due to differing questions in both tests...who knows. Nevertheless, if you'd like to take the test and read about your results and other personality types, I recommend this website. Remember, you don't necessarily keep the same personality type throughout your life; you will live through experiences that may change you... So if you ever feel that you've changed since the last time you've taken the test, just take it again!

Thanks for reading this article, I hope the title wasn't too misleading and that the content didn't disappoint you as a result. Happy living!

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