# Personality theories: personal understanding vs book knowledge?



## Ewok City (Sep 21, 2020)

I know, we all rely on both. But which one do you prefer? I almost always come up with my personal interpretation first, so I'm curious whether I'm the only one.

For example, I believe most people have already known that "feelers" and "thinkers" exist long before we even heard about MBTI. Same goes for "extroverts" and "introverts". So other concepts that revolve around "extroverts" and "introverts" comes naturally, and reading the theory is only to assess / check and compare with our own interpretation.

Or do you think that this is Dunning-Kruger effect, and prefer to read first and interpret later?


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## DOGSOUP (Jan 29, 2016)

Hmm well lately I was looking into Personality Assesment System, I read the theory first and then realized it's better than other systems I have ran into, and could quite possibly be the closest match to my personal understanding, so it passed the vibe-check. It's still too complex to be of any use. lol.

I agree with you that most people know of bleeding hearts and wallflowers and party animals and people with severe freudian anal-fixations, but those are never very concise ideas and it's always the most noticeable trait of a person that gets named in their way.... whereas with personality theory I find it interesting, this idea that we can categorize each person somewhere along the lines of such-and-such opposing traits, and from that gain some level of insight into them.... yeah it's so odd.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Ewok City said:


> I know, we all rely on both. But which one do you prefer? I almost always come up with my personal interpretation first, so I'm curious whether I'm the only one.
> 
> For example, I believe most people have already known that "feelers" and "thinkers" exist long before we even heard about MBTI. Same goes for "extroverts" and "introverts". So other concepts that revolve around "extroverts" and "introverts" comes naturally, and reading the theory is only to assess / check and compare with our own interpretation.
> 
> Or do you think that this is Dunning-Kruger effect, and prefer to read first and interpret later?


I need to get the basic theory down before I can apply it, so I'm a book first sort of guy.


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## Sily (Oct 24, 2008)

Definitely book.


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## UpClosePersonal (Apr 18, 2014)

I agree that we already had a sense of what extraverts were like and we were aware of the quiet kids in the back of the room at school. We knew that some people were more sensitive often to a fault. We knew what Thinkers were like.

But what Carl Jung came up with was a defining of terms to describe mental preferences as well as a mapping that he could use to categorize his patients. 

His distinctions helped him to approach his patients in a way which best communicated with them.

If you read his definitions of personality types, you'll get an entirely different understanding of what he's referring to as introversion and extraversion.

Pop culture has boggled it and caused a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about his ideas by over simplifying it and putting people into boxes.

So of what use is knowing your type?

The benefit to the layman in knowing his type and being aware of the other types around him, and how exactly they differ in their outlook and perspective from himself, is the potential for better communication.

Another benefit is in terms of career satisfaction and improved effectiveness in the workplace. The MBTI has the potential to steer you towards work you find more rewarding. 

As an INFP, I think that my type is one who most benefits from the understanding of ourselves in light of Jung's and Myers-Briggs' ideas. We spend the first part of our lives trying to understand why we don't think the same way as others. 

Maybe other types don't find a need for any of this.


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

Perhaps typical of my type but personal experience and observation comes first. As Ne dom I noticed very early in my life how my peers were not interested in the same aspects of the world I was, and as most of them were Sensors there were quite a few difficulties in communication between us. So I took note of how most people around me didn't think like me or cared for the different perspectives, subtleties and potentials with low frequency of being realized which S and esp young ones don't particulalry care for. I wasnt that inclined to systematize my observations back then but later as I found mbti and even better, Jung, I worked more towards that as the language and overall structure were very useful.


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## Allostasis (Feb 2, 2021)

If theory is an explanation/understanding of the subject matter, then personal understanding is a personal theory of the subject matter.

The structure of the question implies that our subject matter is a certain personality theory, not personalities in themselves.
Therefore, our focus must be on studying of subject matter's manifestation, which is the content of the book or whatever medium is used for its translation.

There is no reason to assume that a personal study of personalities in themselves will lead to a better approximation of the personality theory in question compared to a direct personal study of this personality theory, since we are further from the subject matter in such a scenario. We can't assume anything about how close the given theory is in relation to its phenomenon.

In other words, if we want to understand what some Jung meant, we need to read what this certain Jung wrote.
We might conjure a better explanation of the phenomenon, but it will never equal to personality theory (or its best approximation achieved via direct study) in question unless we accidentally fully re-invent it.


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## odinthor (Mar 22, 2017)

In general, book-reading first tends to groom the reader so that when he or she _then_ looks out on on the world, the unwary reader has been sensitized to look for certain things, consciously or subconsciously, and so give potentially undue or artificial prominence to this or that. Everyone will tend to see things in terms of what has most lately had an effect or influence on them.

Personal understanding--which I take to mean personal observation and the reflections arising inwardly from personal observation--is less artificially channeled and thus potentially more "honest," though of course the perceptions and reflections can be queered by the influence of chance happenings and emotional events which loom over the observer.

Best, I think, is a basis of personal understanding and observation which is then honed, elaborated, and (hopefully) clarified by study _in an array_ of diverse books and/or contemplation of _an array _of diverse experiences, continuously making an effort to avoid cherry-picking.


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## Ewok City (Sep 21, 2020)

odinthor said:


> Best, I think, is a basis of personal understanding and observation which is then honed, elaborated, and (hopefully) clarified by study _in an array_ of diverse books and/or contemplation of _an array _of diverse experiences, continuously making an effort to avoid cherry-picking.


Thank you. This is very close to my thought process!


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## impulsenine (Oct 18, 2020)

For practical matters, it's always personal, my friend .

Books are just means of other personal understandings.


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## Squirt (Jun 2, 2017)

I mean, if by personal knowledge you are referring to observing people are different in consistent ways, of course that would end up coming "first"…

But for theory, unless I’m devising my own from scratch, I’d need to learn what someone else's theory is to speak intelligibly about it or compare it with previous knowledge.


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## lww23 (Mar 7, 2021)

Let's first assume that by "personal understanding", OP means one's observations and understandings regarding the differences among individuals. 

Theory construction usually starts with observation and the collection of data. The process is overall, induction, from the specific to the general and the fundamental. Once you have had enough data, you will find patterns and may draw certain conclusions from the data. Those conclusions, when systemized, can form a theory. The starting point is that there must be sufficient data to analyze. In this case, personal understanding comes first, then analysis and conclusion, and finally, maybe, a theory. 

Application of a theory, such as Jungian typology, usually requires sufficient understanding of the theory first. The process is overall, deduction, that is, from the general to the specific. In applying a theory, one might find the pros and cons of the theory, leading to the theory being strengthened or weakened. Through the application, we know if a theory is still up-to-date, and what needs to be revised. In this case, reading books about personality theory comes first. Without a proper understanding of the theory, the application will become unreliable. 

Next, assuming 'personal understanding' means one's own interpretation of typology, that would be the case for theory application rather than theory construction. You cannot possibly develop your own interpretations of theories in the book without having read and understood them, 

In my case, I don't have an expertise in typology so I try to understand everything first. My first goal is to figure out what this is all about. This means I start with the knowledge from books, read them, and try to comprehend. In the process, I also evaluate the theories. From reading Jung, for example, I see the interconnection between his psychological types and his theory of analytical psychology as well as Freudian psychoanalysis. The further you delve into it, the more complicated it becomes. A broader field has been unfolded waiting for me to explore. Personality types are not a system existing on its own. There are underlying myths in Jungian types.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

I rely on my personal non type related understandings first. I understand people better than typology.


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## Ms. Aligned (Aug 26, 2021)

I have to know about it first so I read, then I interpret it completely on my own and come to my own conclusions. Then I read the observations, interpretations, and conclusions of others, and compare it to my understanding and the text to check for gaps or different interpretations and try to figure out the reasons for that. 

Read > interpret > conclude > research > compare/contrast > combine/tweak/discard > final conclusion


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## dirt. (4 mo ago)

I think it's hard to make a full and earnest assessment of social dynamics once you've been too tainted by others observations. Theory can be a fun bouncing point to explore your own experiential data, but it can't replace or even really precede it. It's not unlike basement philosophers, who read all the classics of philosophy and consider themselves wise in the ways of the world and human nature, but clearly don't really fathom the principles much less their application, because in their pursuit of higher truth they never left their mom's house. : P


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

dirt. said:


> I think it's hard to make a full and earnest assessment of social dynamics once you've been too tainted by others observations. Theory can be a fun bouncing point to explore your own experiential data, but it can't replace or even really precede it. It's not unlike basement philosophers, who read all the classics of philosophy and consider themselves wise in the ways of the world and human nature, but clearly don't really fathom the principles much less their application, because in their pursuit of higher truth they never left their mom's house. : P



this might be why people are so attached to the Grant stack even tho it's so poorly reasoned and bad at explaining how personality develops


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## Ewok City (Sep 21, 2020)

Red Panda said:


> this might be why people are so attached to the Grant stack even tho it's so poorly reasoned and bad at explaining how personality develops


Interesting, could you please elaborate? Do you find Jungian model more reliable than Grant? I haven't delved deep into it, because I'm not fully convinced yet.


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

Ewok City said:


> Interesting, could you please elaborate? Do you find Jungian model more reliable than Grant? I haven't delved deep into it, because I'm not fully convinced yet.


Yea, so for starters extraversion and introversion are adaptation attitudes that pertain to the relationship of an individual with the world and how they are inclined to adapt. We can picture them on an axis of their own rather than in combination with any function as the Grant stack claims, as they direct a person's attitude in a holistic way towards one or the other adaptation strategy. The Grant stack claims this attitude must change as we engage with different functions for no reason other than Christian balance of things (he wrote about the stack in a book about the Bible and after doing some Christian retreats with ppl). Also the idea that we use non preferred functions and we have them on our toolbelt is baseless and it only withstands in the mainstream because people will relate anything to functions (such as Si being memory) in an adhoc fashion and not thru understanding and observation of what each trait is really about (i.e. the preference for S is that of relying on frequent occurrences that are experienced often and felt "tangible", the beaten paths, while the preference for Introversion being that of a defensive and self-reinforcing/protective attitude). 

Yea compared to Grant I find the Jungian model more reliable. I tried to make it work for long enough but still couldn't see past all the inconsistencies. Like why would a TJ theoretically experience F the same way I do as an FP when all life experience shows me otherwise, their relationship to F is basically the opposite of mine, at least habitually. But I noticed even outside of my personal experience so called "Fi" would be described differently for FPs and TJs yet most people don't seem to notice. Then we have other inconsistencies like on one hand Ne/Se being self-adaptable to the world yet Te/Fe try to control it which shows me there's no common definition for the extraverted attitude there. Such things pushed me to search and learn more on how those systems were developed and yea it's basically an iceberg with a labyrinth of issues, underneath.


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## Ewok City (Sep 21, 2020)

I see, thanks for the explanation!

So,


Red Panda said:


> this might be why people are so attached to the Grant stack even tho it's so poorly reasoned and bad at explaining how personality develops


I believe in Grant stack model, we start with our dominant function and gradually work our way down. How would the development process in Jungian model be different from it?


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

Ewok City said:


> I see, thanks for the explanation!
> 
> So,
> 
> I believe in Grant stack model, we start with our dominant function and gradually work our way down. How would the development process in Jungian model be different from it?


There isn't really a very strict stack in the Jungian systems of how one develops except sure the dominant function comes first and it's what the ego is built around (our conscious personality, behaviors, direction of life etc). In the Jungian system we are characterized by our attitude of adaptation (E or I), our functional hierarchy and the attitudes of Rationality and Irrationality, which correspond to how much we rely on judgment or perception (regardless of the specific function relating to them). The aux is something that typically develops in our lives to bring some balance in the personality but even that may stay undeveloped in some people. The opposites of our preferences can influence us at times, mostly the tertiary and E/I but the inferior stays inferior it's not something we can just use, which is very important to our whole personality because its lack of development is what makes our dom function give us direction in life.


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