Two Birds in a Tree: Glossary: Typology

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Glossary: Typology

The classification of personality based on the variation of traits among individuals; attitudes and behavior patterns are categorized in an attempt to explain differences between people. We enjoy typologies because want to understand ourselves and others, and a good type theory increases our understanding. This is doubtless why there are so many quizzes that tell you what Harry Potter character you are or what have you.

Typologies have been around for as long as humans have wondered about why we do the things we do. One example is Hippocrates' notion of the four humors, which dominated Western medicine from the time of the Greeks up until fairly recently. A model that's currently popular in academia is known as “the big 5” and consists of the following traits, which are believed to be the five basic dimensions of personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Other popular typology systems include the Enneagram, Ayurvedic humors, and the widely known concepts of Type A (stressed out, heart attack prone) and Type B (laid back) personalities.

Where other personality typologies are based on temperament or physiology, Jung's is based on the movement of energy (libido). Jungian personality typology consists of the two attitudes (introversion and extroversion) and four psychological functions (thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation). There's also a typology based on Greek mythology that was developed by Jungian psychologist Jean Shinoda Bolen, but I'm not going to go into that in this post. Check out my previous blog for more information on that particular typology.

First and foremost, it is a critical tool for the research worker, who needs definite points of view and guidelines if he is to reduce the chaotic profusion of individual experiences to any kind of order... Secondly, a typology is a great help in understanding the wide variations that occur among individuals, and it also furnishes a clue to the fundamental differences in the psychological theories now current. Last but not least, it is an essential means for determining the “personal equation” of the practising psychologist, who, armed with an exact knowledge of his differentiated and inferior functions, can avoid many serious blunders in dealing with his patients.

- “Psychological Typology,” par. 986

The whole psychology of an individual even in its most fundamental features is oriented in accordance with his habitual attitude... [which is] a resultant of all the factors that exert a decisive influence on the psyche, such as innate disposition, environmental influences, experience of life, insights and convictions gained through differentiation, collective views, etc... At bottom, attitude is an individual phenomenon that eludes scientific investigation. In actual experience, however, certain typical attitudes can be distinguished ... When a function habitually predominates, a typical attitude is produced... There is thus a typical thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuitive attitude.