My husband is involved in a men's Bible study group this year. They are going to be spending quite a bit of time talking about the marriage relationship, so in preparation for this, both he and I were assigned the task of completing a personality inventory this week. I guess it's supposed to help us peer into each other's souls or some such thing. It's a relatively simple inventory, and when your "score" is tallied, you are assigned one of the following personalities: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, or Phlegmatic. I would give each of these categories the following basic summaries, respectively: Happy, Bossy, Anal-retentive, and Laid-back.
I have encountered problems as a result of taking this personality inventory. The underlying assumption is that a person will display one predominant personality type, with their scores in the other 3 categories falling relatively low on the scale. This worked for my husband - he's clearly Mr. Bossy-Pants...er...I mean, Natural-Born Leader. This did not, however, work for me. My high score was evenly split between 2 categories, only differing by 2 points.
Problem #1: From my sketchy knowledge of modern psychology, I would assume that makes me the victim of a split-personality. Not comforting.
Problem #2: From my even sketchier knowledge of personality profiles, the two categories I'm split between should, in theory, be complete opposites of one another. Basically, mutually exclusive. So now, I'm a psychotic and theoretically unexplainable split-personality. Even less comforting.
Problem #3: If I put a lot of weight on those 2 measly points that divide my 2 most prominent personalities, I technically fall into a group that I don't really want to be part of. The group that I would consider the "bummer personality."
So...here's my score:
Sanguine: 15
Choleric: 3
Melancholy: 17
Phlegmatic: 5
So, I'm not a leader - Whew! That's a relief! I'm not laid back - well, duh! Anyone who has ever met me could attest to that! I'm quite happy - that's good, I like happy people. But I'm even more anal-retentive - see...that's where the bummer part comes in.
Now, I already knew that I'm anal-retentive and perfectionistic, so it's really no surprise. But what gets me is that the category is called "melancholy". Doesn't that by definition mean depressed, ho-hum, Eeyore-like and rather a bummer for anyone to come into contact with??!! Here are some of the characteristics that the book lists under that personality type: unpopular, hard-to-please, alienated, moody and critical. OUCH!! That is not who I want to be! AND...how in the world do I make that mesh with the fact that I'm also strongly Sanguine, under which is listed these characteristics: popular, mixes easily, refreshing, playful and cute. Those characteristics are much easier to swallow...but I still come back to the small problem of them being completely polar opposite of the melancholy characteristics!!!
People...either there's something the matter with me, or there's something the matter with that test. (Please, don't vote.) The scary thing is, this is not the first personality inventory I've taken, and I always come up with these bi-polar results! It is not good for the self esteem!
I must admit, however, that I am somewhat secretly pleased that I send the compass of personality inventories spinning wildly out of control. There is something very unsettling to me about fitting neatly into a box. (Dad, I know. You've waited a lifetime to hear me say those words, and they don't fit at all with the anal-retentive results of my profile. Here, I must return to my first conclusion: clearly, I'm psychotic.) I don't know that I would want to be easily categorized into a personality package with a neat little bow on top that assumes I'm a cookie-cutter version of 25% of the rest of the population. Am I not just a little bit more unique than that?
I would much rather simply be known as uncategorized, unexplainable, unrepeatable, and undeniably Me!
9 comments:
Well, my little apple, you don't fall far from the tree. I have been made to retake that test, told I'm not being truthful and in a word that the results are unexplainable. I will have to see if I have the results on file and let you know if they are similar to yours.
I like to think of myself a unique creation not to be labeled by man :-)
I'm sure your Dad will be able to explain it all.
Mom
Well as you probably know, I have used several of those “4 box models” to describe style or personality in my HR work in the past. They can be very useful in helping people understand that not everyone thinks or approaches life like they do. Ya wouldn’t think you would need to take a survey to figure that out! But then, not everyone thinks like me.
They are all very similar, but the one I like the least is the one you describe because the labels they use for each box are so loaded with meaning in our culture. And the baggage associated with those terms doesn’t fit what they are trying to describe with the model very well. The one I like the best is called DISC and they use each of those four letters as labels for the boxes. You really have to be wacky to have a lot of baggage assigned to a letter of the alphabet!
D- Makes decisions easily, direct communication style, task oriented, likes adventure (definitely Samson)
I- Makes decisions easily, direct communication style, people oriented, happy go lucky, likes new things (definitely part of you)
S- Difficulty making decisions can see all sides of an issue, indirect communication style, people oriented, afraid to hurt or offend others. (some of you here too)
C- Difficulty making decisions, wants to do things “right”, indirect communication style, likes rules and boundaries, task and detail oriented (also part of you)
While it is not uncommon for someone to be high in one box and low in all the others, it is also very common for someone to be high it two boxes. In fact if you are so married (pun intended) to one style you will have more difficulty understanding others and putting yourself in their shoes.
By the way, you will find outstanding leaders in all of the 4 styles; their leadership will look and feel differently to those they lead however.
These instruments are intended to facilitate a dialog between individuals of differing styles to facilitate understanding, and in no way are they useful in diagnosing neurosis or any other “personality disorder”. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you and Samson are both perfectly normal. However, you are quite different! Enjoy the dialog.
P.S.
All those models list some positive and some negative characteristics for each box. Most people exhibit the positive characteristics when they are relaxed, engaged, bring successful, etc.; and exhibit the negative characteristics when under stress, failing, being attacked, etc.
Nobody exhibits all the characteristics. Some will fit you and are useful; many won’t and are of no use to you. Think of it like eating fish…chew on the meat and spit out the bones!
Thanks for the tutorial, Dad! :-) I hope you could hear the dripping sarcasm in this post! I know what these models are supposed to accomplish, and the strengths and weaknesses inherent in them...I just still always find it hilariously funny (and a bit unnerving) to view the results. Hey, since the test can't prove that I'm psychotic, perhaps I can just blame all my wackiness on you and Mom?? :-)
Hey,
No way! I've already said I'm a unique creation and I'm sure I can only be perfected in being duplicated.
In my world, my daughter is never sarcastic or cynical. Rather she is always truthful, pleasant, helpful, positive and she loves puppies.
Good thing you live in a different city...I'd hate to ruin your perception! :-)
Hey, I got to endure the same "test" last night. :) I scored:
Choleric: 10
Melancholy: 20
Phlegmatic: 10
I am not sure what that means. All I know is that - I scored zero in Mark's strongest one....Sanguine. Maybe, we balance each other out??? Mark looked up on-line the results but I was too tired to listen. :) Maybe, I should look them up myself tonight. I'll have to look yours up too and learn about you!
BTW: You can call me, Eeyore! :)
funny funny post. and love your dad's commentary. I do think it's interesting that there are always FOUR groupings -- no matter the test, seems there are always four.
...K just went up to go get his workbook now. I seem to remember scoring high "melancholy" in the past. We shall see...
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