Psychological typologies
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Psychological typologies are classifications used by psychologists to describe the distinctions between people. The problem of finding the essential basis for the classification of psychological types—that is, the basis of determining a broader spectrum of derivative characteristics—is crucial in
differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...
.


Historical background


Logic of development of classification hypotheses in psychology

The entire history of human studies from the system-classification position reveals itself as an arena of struggle of two opposite methodological directions, the goals of which were: 1) to "catch" the central organizing link, some kind of motor of all design, and to distribute people by the qualitative specificity of these central links;
"The typological approach consists in the global perception of the
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
with the following reduction of variety of individual forms to a small number of the groups uniting around the representative type" (Meily, 1960).
2) to decompose the
psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...
to its components in order to understand the work of its parts and to create a classification based on the differences in the structure and quality of the parts.
"It is necessary to reduce all the
personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, m ...
character traits to the elementary mental elements and to the elementary forms of the basic psychological laws, revealing the nature of the discovered ties" (Polan, 1894).
At present there are several thousand various psychological classifications that point to these or other distinctions between people, or mental characteristics, as such. The classifications may have different ground scales of generalizations, degrees of inner strictness.


Classification of people and psychological characteristics

The
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
of psychological classifications development demanded a parallel existence of two scientific approaches: one of which was named "psychology of types", and the other—"psychology of traits". In the course of time both approaches shifted towards each other: the psychology of types—in attempts to understand the structure of psychological traits of every type, trait psychology—in attempts to achieve a higher system of generalizations.
«As soon as the fact that the observable traits do not correspond to separate essential psychic characteristics and rather are only aspects of the personality and behavior, received general recognition immediately appeared as the necessity to reveal the fundamental factors behind the traits. Haimans and Virsma as well as other scientists after them tried to solve the problem. However all these researches had a fragmentary character, their results have been caused by preliminary hypotheses, and the choice of traits as a rule was determined by the personal view of the
researcher Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...
» R.Maily
''An example of trait psychology development (stages):'' # Singling out the types of love as psychology of traits. In the Antique time the
typology Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...
of the kinds of love was very popular, these comprised: *
Eros In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; grc, Ἔρως, Érōs, Love, Desire) is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the ear ...
– a passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of
romantic love Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions. The ''Wiley Blackwell Ency ...
*Ludus – a love that is played as a game or sport; conquest * Storge – an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity ( kindred to Philia ) *Pragma – love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative * Mania – highly volatile love; obsession; fueled by low self-esteem *
Agape In Christianity, agape (; ) is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God". This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a deep and profound sacrificial love ...
– selfless altruistic love; spiritual; motherly love # Every person, as a rule, possesses all the possible types of love, but in different proportion. Which can be expressed by the profile characteristic with ups and downs. # The Types of people with similar profile characteristics combined into classification of higher level. ''Examples of type-psychology development (stages):'' # Singling out groups of people that have obvious dominance of
conscious Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
cognitive operations— "Rationals" or
unconscious Unconscious may refer to: Physiology * Unconsciousness, the lack of consciousness or responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli Psychology * Unconscious mind, the mind operating well outside the attention of the conscious mind a ...
operations —"Irrationals". # The specific cognitive abilities connected with rationality and
irrationality Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. ...
. # A network for the profile characteristic is worked out which is typical for rationals and irrationals. In the course of the development of psychology as a
science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
and a practice, the understanding has developed that the individual is a " microcosm", which has all traits, properties, and characteristics, but they are distributed according to certain systemic laws, which have yet to be discovered.


Psychological type scales


Cosmologies

Systems of views about the material and mental world is based on principles of harmony, common universal laws of the
nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
and mind, and those with the greatest scale and orderliness. Everything including the principle of psychological classification, has mathematical accuracy and clearness. The typology has the subordinated role, it reflects the natural belonging to cosmic laws. Example: Psycosmology


Formal typologies

Classifications that included stable types singled out on the basis of some psychological or anatomo-physiological traits refer to formal typologies. The formal typology may have quote varies scale. Often these are typologies are based on the behavior of particulars in a certain activity. Example: Witkin in 1954 singled out the types of people as field dependent and field independent. The field dependent do not see a simple figure in a complex geometrical background. The field independent can single out the figure from a complex geometrical background.


Dynamic typologies

The dynamic typologies are connected with change and transformations of people, and with going through stages in their development (biological, psychological, social). Example: From the psychoanalytical point of view, the child in her development undergoes a number of psychosexual stages which creates a particular make up of the
soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
and mind, and, being a sort of psychological type. The developing person is viewed as an auto-erotic creature that receives sensual pleasure from stimulation of
erogenous zones An erogenous zone (from Greek , ''érōs'' "love"; and English ''-genous'' "producing", from Greek , ''-genḗs'' "born") is an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response, suc ...
of the body by the parents or other people during the process of rearing. Freud believed that for every such stage there is a particular erogenous zone. The person goes through certain studies in the development of
self-consciousness Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness that ...
in the search of Self.
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...
considered the
Self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhoo ...
to be a central
archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...
, the one of order and wholeness of personality. Jung called ability of humans to self-cognition and self-development as
individuation The principle of individuation, or ', describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinct from other things. The concept appears in numerous fields and is encountered in works of Leibniz, Carl Gustav Jung, Gunther Anders, Gilbert Sim ...
confluence of her/his conscious and unconscious. The first stage of the individuation is the acquisition of the element in the structure of the personality psyche called - person or mask, hiding the real self and the unconscious, called the shadow. So, the second stage of the individuation is awareness of the shadow. The third stage is meeting still other components of the psyche – called Anima and Animus. The last stage of individuation – development of the Self, that which becomes the new center of the soul. It brings unity and integrates a conscious and unconscious material. All the mentioned stages intersect. The person constantly and repeatedly returns to old problems. Individuation may be depicted as a spiral in which the person continues once and again to deal with the same fundamental problems, each time in a more subtle form.


Modeling of systems of psychological types

In
modeling A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...
of psychological systems the
systematization Systematization ( ro, Sistematizarea) in Romania was a program of urban planning carried out by the Romanian Communist Party under the leadership of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu was impressed by the ideological mobilization and mass adulation ...
and classification play a very important role. With the development of statistics in the description of weight of the trait (or type) in
society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...
, the character of the trait (type) distribution becomes very important. It is also important, if the distinctions of trait have a quantitative or qualitative character for the adequate interpretation of practically every research in the field of
differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...
, understanding of certain fundamental statistical concepts is required. "There are at least three various theories of the psychological types worked out by psychologists. Some authors represent types as separate classes that exclude each other. Some others psychologists accept the theory of types as more or less detailed trait theory, defining the types as poles of one and same continuum between which people may be ranked by the law of normal distribution. The adepts of the third view believe that the types differ from the traits by having multimodal distributions in which the people are grouped with in definite points, representing pure types". Stagner, 1948.


Distribution of the traits

The normal distribution is fundamental and doesn't depend on cultural factors. The majority of
measuring instruments A measuring instrument is a device to measure a physical quantity. In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and events. Establ ...
(
test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
s) are constructed so that the trait could be normalized with the normal distribution term, if distinctions are to have quantitative character. For instance, the traits which enter the base of the personality named the Big Five have a normal distribution. Example: Extraversion/introversion. Most people have ambivalent characteristics on this scale.


Strict sets

If characteristics have qualitative rather than quantitative distinctions, they are usually described as strict sets. Example: Right-handed people and left-handed people. The deaf and the hearing. Types in
Socionics Socionics, in psychology and sociology, is a pseudoscientific theory of information processing and personality types. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on '' Psychological Types'' with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism. Socio ...
.


Nonstrict sets

It is very seldom that a certain quality is consistently absent in a psyche. Therefore, in most cases, it is useful to use mild classifications which reflect the real character of the distribution more precisely. Example: Typology by
Ernst Kretschmer Ernst Kretschmer (8 October 18888 February 1964) was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology. Life Kretschmer was born in Wüstenrot near Heilbronn. He attended Cannstatt Gymnasium, one of the o ...
or William Herbert Sheldon.


Complex models

More complex and systematized models take into account the fact that they may meet both quantitative, and qualitative distinctions or traits. The distributions of these traits have clear connections and may form types which in term will have a constent distribution in society. Example: Psycosmology model in the context of the general, typological and individual.


System classifications

The system classifications proceeded from the postulate that the whole is not a sum of its parts, but rather, a system of higher organization. This classification is frequently based on the laws of the functioning Universe. The properties of this classification are: strictness (everyone belongs to one and only one class and remains in it for the whole life), quantity of classes determined by laws of the Universe, and the organization of the psyche as a part of a more general system of a functioning
Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...
. Examples: Astrological (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, the Classical antiquity), astro-musical system of types (India).
The foundation of development of practices, known nowadays as "the western astrology", was the Mesopotamian astrology whereas the Chinese tradition became a core of systems so-called "Eastern astrology". As to astrological systems of meso-American Indians and druids, they haven't survived till present time in the living tradition and are now reconstructed only some with some degree of authenticity. Original astrological systems arose, probably, in other regions of the world as well, but they were quite regional (astrology of inks or original Javano-Balyiskian astrology, based on a "vuku" calendar.
An interesting development of this idea can be found in Johannes
Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws o ...
's works which continued the traditions of astro-musical systems, having joined physical and mental laws in the theory of
resonance Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied Periodic function, periodic force (or a Fourier analysis, Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system ...
.
"In his exposition astrology became similar to the physical theory of resonance. The stars themselves do not influence the destiny of people, but the soul of person at the moment of a birth imprinted the angles between the stars and the following life reacted to them in specific ways".
A somewhat different approach to problems of astrological knowledge can be observed in Carl Jung's works. Astrology, as Jung believed, "is the top of all psychological knowledge in antiquity", the gist of which is in imprinting the symbolical configurations in the form of collective unconscious. "Astrology as collective unconscious to which the psychology addresses, consists of symbolical configurations:" planets "are Gods, the symbols of power unconscious". Domination of one of the four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition) is the basis for the classification that Carl Jung theorized from his clinical experience. This typology was expanded by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė (Socionics) and
Isabel Briggs Myers Isabel Briggs Myers (born Isabel Briggs; October 18, 1897 – May 5, 1980) was an American writer and co-creator with her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, of a personality inventory known as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and based on ...
with her mother, Katharine Briggs ( Myers-Briggs Type Indicator).


Specific classifications

The classification more often touched on the characteristics connected with the sphere of social interaction. They were built as a set of bipolar traits in which the dominance of certain traits were accentuated in the person's character. The characteristics of specific classifications are the absence of a clear borders between classes—the person can pass from one class into another under the influence of the external and internal forces. The number of classes depends on the position of the author of the classification. Examples: Socially-characterological (
Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routle ...
), sociopolitical (
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
). The Characters by Theophrastus contains thirty brief, vigorous and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a picture of the life of his time, and of human nature in general. According to Plato, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline from an aristocracy (rule by the best) to a
timocracy A timocracy (from Greek τιμή ''timē'', "honor, worth" and -κρατία ''-kratia'', "rule") in Aristotle's ''Politics'' is a state where only property owners may participate in government. More advanced forms of timocracy, where power deri ...
(rule by the honorable), then to an
oligarchy Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
(rule by the few), then to a
democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
(rule by the people), and finally to
tyranny A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to ...
(rule by one person, rule by a tyrant). Plato's is one of the first typologies, based on his values. Plato singled out the following types: # aristocratic characterized by dominant of the higher side of soul, aspiration to true search; # timocratic characterized by strong development of ambition and inclination to struggle; # oligarchic characterized by greediness, restraint and thrift; # democratic characterized by moral instability, and aspiration to constant change of sensual pleasures; # tyrannic characterized by dominant of lowest animal attraction. The specific classifications are often build by practical workers on the basis of concrete activity. Within any activity one can find many very different classifications.


Mixed classifications

*This section needs editing. It is disjointed and unclear.* The characteristics of the classifications: combination of strictness and flexibility. There are laws of Universe, which determine strict classifications and there are earthly laws which act on another level, not destroying the strict classification, and creating variations within one class, contributing the system flexibility. The person as a part entered more general systems—the Universe, the
Society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...
. However the person himself was an independent system with his own inner world, with his contradictions, unique way of life and experience, a disposition and levels of development of inner selves. The philosophers looked upon the person from a far distance, doctors had to see the particulars his physical and psychical organization. The typology of
Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
become a combination of theoretical ideas and practical methods. Remaining on the positions of cosmologists concerning the nature of human soul, he raised the questions about the structure and functioning of different psychical and physical organizations of humans as social creatures, and developed the typology of
temperament In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes. Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
s. Contemporary systemic classifications are represented by works of
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...
, Hans Eysenck, Ludmila Sobchik, Leonid Dorfman, Natali Nagibina and others. The authors of contemporary systematic conceptions try to generalize as much as possible the results of empirical research of individual characteristics within the frameworks of one typological
model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...
. Such a model, as a rule, is the center of the construction uniting the general, typological and individual psychological characteristics of humans. As examples of such systematic classification may serve the Theory of leading tendencies by Ludmila Sobchik, Psycosmology by Natali Nagibina, the Concept of the meta-individual world by Leonid Dorfman. The theory of leading tendencies laid in the basis of methodology of psychodiagnostical research, allows to understand the complex construct of personality in all its completeness. According to this theory, the integral image of the personality includes emotional sphere, individual style of cognition, the type of interpersonal behavior, strength and direction of motivation. The comparative analysis of the psychodiagnostical indicators received in successive studies of different levels of self-consciousness (objective unconscious, actual-subjective and ideal "
Self The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhoo ...
"), reveals the zone of the inner conflict, level of self-understanding and ability of the individual to
self-control Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one' ...
".L.N. Sobchik. ''Psychology of
Individuality An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...
''. 2005, p. 15


Basis of classification

The theoretical analysis and empirical verification of the classification systems of the psyche have been undertaken by a number of authors in the 20th century (C. Jung, H. Eysenck, R. Meily, V.S. Merlin, L.N. Sobchik, L.Ja. Dorfman, E.P. Ilyin, N.L. Nagibina and others).


Bodily and formal-dynamic characteristics as grounds for classification

These classifications are more often used by the clinical psychologists and the psychiatrists. Example: The Hippocratic school held that four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm consists the basis for the four types of temperaments. Example: Kretschmer's classification system was based on three main body types: asthenic/leptosomic (thin, small, weak), athletic (muscular, large–boned), and pyknic (stocky, fat). (The athletic category was later combined into the category asthenic/leptosomic.) Each of these body types was associated with certain personality traits and, in a more extreme form, psychopathologies. Example: American psychologist William Herbert Sheldon associates body types with human temperament types.Sheldon proposed that the human physique be classed according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements, somatotypes, named after the three germ layers of embryonic development: the endoderm, (develops into the digestive tract), the mesoderm, (becomes muscle, heart and blood vessels), and the ectoderm (forms the skin and nervous system). Sheldon's "somatotypes" and their supposed associated physical traits can be summarized as follows: Ectomorphic: characterized by long and thin muscles/limbs and low fat storage; receding chin, usually referred to as slim. Mesomorphic: characterized by medium bones, solid torso, low fat levels, wide shoulders with a narrow waist; usually referred to as muscular. Endomorphic: characterized by increased fat storage, a wide waist and a large bone structure, usually referred to as fat.


Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification

Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification become popular in the 20th century. Table 1. Some examples of classifications based on concrete methods of receiving and processing information.


Values and motivational characteristics as grounds for personality classifications

The sphere of personality values and senses is situated at the crossing point of two large areas of psychic: motivation on one side and the world outlooking structure on the other. The sphere of
values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...
and senses with its unique picture of the world is the core of personality. Most bright psychological ideas concerning the sphere values and senses are presented in the work of Erich Fromm, M. Rokeach, Abraham Maslow and others. For example, Rokeach treats the values as a kind of steady conviction that a certain goal or way of living is preferable to some other. The human values are characterized by the following main properties: # The whole number of values of a person is relatively small. # All people have the same values, although in different degrees. # The values are organized in systems. # The sources of human values can be tracked down in culture, society and its institutions etc. # The influence of the values can be traced practically in all social phenomena, deserving studying. Rokeach distinguishes two classes of values – terminal and instrumental. He defines the terminal values as convictions that a certain final goal in individual life (for instance, happy family life, peace in the whole world) from the personal and the social point of view is worth to be pursued. The instrumental values are beliefs that a certain way of performance (for instant, honesty, rationalism) is from personal and social points of view preferable in any situations. In fact, the distinction between the terminal and instrumental values coincides with already existing, rather traditional differentiations of values-goals and values means. The system of personality values orientation as well as any psychological system can be represented as "multidimentional dynamic space". Example: Erich Fromm describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things (" assimilation"), and reacting to people ("
socialization In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cul ...
"). These orientations describe how a person has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also considered that people were never pure in any such orientation. These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive. Example: N.Losski picked out three types of characters. # Hedonistic type with domination of lower, sensual drives suppressing all higher aspirations. The people of this type are completely under the influence of the biological nature. Their self is not yet mature. # Egoistic type. Their self is quite mature and decorates all the striving deeds and feelings. The Self (I) prevails in their consciousness and they are striving to broadly expose it in their activities. # Superpersonal type. Their aspirations similarly to those of the first type, are as if given outside, but their source is not in the physical needs of the body, but in the factors of higher order, namely: in higher religious, scientific and aesthetic strivings. Such people act as if not on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of the higher will, which they recognize as the rules of their deeds. Losski points out that it is impossible the sharp boundary between the three types, as there are intermediate types, that are transitional from one category to the other.


Bounded complexes of cognitive characteristics, values and motives as ground for personality classifications

Example: E. Spranger distinguishes six types of personality, which connect cognition and values correlating the personality type with cognition of the world. *The Theoretical, whose dominant interest is the discovery of truth. A passion to discover, systematize and analyze; a search for knowledge. *The Economic, who is interested in what is useful. A passion to gain a return on all investments involving time, money and resources. *The Aesthetic, whose highest value is form and harmony. A passion to experience impressions of the world and achieve form and harmony in life; self-actualization. *The Social, whose highest value is love of people. A passion to invest myself, my time, and my resources into helping others achieve their potential. *The Political, whose interest is primarily in power. A passion to achieve position and to use that position to affect and influence others. *The Religious, whose highest value is unity. A passion to seek out and pursue the highest meaning in life, in the divine or the ideal, and achieve a system for living. One dominating value corresponding to every type.


Contemporary problems of psychological classifications

The problems of psychological classifications are caused the high complexity and mobility of
psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...
. To classify the objects of the material world is more easy a task. In
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
we study consciousness with the help of consciousness. Here new possibilities are opened and the same time new limitations occurred, in part, due to the subjectivity and the necessity to overcome it as it is known, in the psyche there are conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. They often take place separately, as two different means to get knowledge (information) about situations in the world. Because of this, for instance, estimations of personality characteristics with the help of projective tests (which are addressed mostly to unconscious properties) often contradict the results of self-estimations made with help of questionnaires (which are based on consciousness). For determining of psychological type of a person, it is important to have a measuring instrument (test, inventory etc.), that is calibrated to reveal not the present and actual situational characteristics, but the opens which are typical, repeating with higher probability in the course of life. That is why the methods, which allow to see the present characteristics through the prism of the person whole life: biographical, structured talk, longitudinal observation in real situations) are very important for the psychologists. Such methods are well developed in the clinical psychology. In the work with healthy people the use of these methods is rather narrow. Example: The program of personality measuring by A.F. Lazurski. Training qualified specialists in the field of research and diagnostics of psychological types is a particular problem. Here a whole complex of specific knowledge and skills is required. For measuring psychological types it is important to have the ability to see not separate fragments of the psychic reality but operating with the systems (cognition, motivation, values, will, emotions,
self-consciousness Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness that ...
) and taking into account their holistic character, to master the knowledge of steady variants of these systems and skills to compare their properties. The comparing and estimating the systems are more difficult in the absence of the reliable methodological base: there is not a generally accepted opinion on what to compare and how to estimate. For investigation the types it is necessary to be able to use both the qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical reality research, taking into account the following factors: 1. The scale and the complex character of research (the possibility of keeping under control several plans of different scales). 2. The character and specificity of distribution of properties and characteristics in the studied environment. 3. The adequate number of sub-scales, not violating the completeness and the constructive validity of a psychological traits.


List of important theorists of psychological typology and differential psychology

*
Alfred Adler Alfred Adler ( , ; 7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, family constellation and birth orde ...
*
Anne Anastasi Anne Anastasi (December 19, 1908 – May 4, 2001) was an American psychologist best known for her pioneering development of psychometrics. Her generative work, ''Psychological Testing'', remains a classic text in which she drew attention to the ...
*
Raymond Cattell Raymond Bernard Cattell (20 March 1905 – 2 February 1998) was a British-American psychologist, known for his psychometric research into intrapersonal psychological structure.Gillis, J. (2014). ''Psychology's Secret Genius: The Lives and Works ...
* Hans Eysenck *
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
*
Franz Joseph Gall Franz Josef Gall (; 9 March 175822 August 1828) was a German neuroanatomist, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain. Claimed as the founder of the pseudoscience of phrenology, Gall was an ea ...
* Francis Galton *
Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
* Karen Horney *
Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
*
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
*
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...
*
Ernst Kretschmer Ernst Kretschmer (8 October 18888 February 1964) was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology. Life Kretschmer was born in Wüstenrot near Heilbronn. He attended Cannstatt Gymnasium, one of the o ...
*
Oswald Külpe Oswald Külpe (; 3 August 1862 – 30 December 1915) was a German structural psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Külpe, who is lesser known than his German mentor, Wilhelm Wundt, revolutionized experimental psychology at his t ...
*
Karl Leonhard Karl Leonhard (21 March 1904 – 23 April 1988) was a German psychiatrist who was a student and collaborator of Karl Kleist, who himself stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke. With Kleist, he created a complex classification of psychotic illnesse ...
* Cesare Lombroso *
Isabel Briggs Myers Isabel Briggs Myers (born Isabel Briggs; October 18, 1897 – May 5, 1980) was an American writer and co-creator with her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, of a personality inventory known as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and based on ...
*
Ivan Pavlov Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( rus, Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов, , p=ɪˈvan pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈpavləf, a=Ru-Ivan_Petrovich_Pavlov.ogg; 27 February 1936), was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist, psychologist and physio ...
*
Nikolai Lossky Nikolay Onufriyevich Lossky. (; – 24 January 1965), also known as N. O. Lossky, was a Russian philosopher, representative of Russian idealism, intuitionist epistemology, personalism, libertarianism, ethics and axiology (value theory). He gave ...
* Grigory Ivanovich Rossolimo *
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
*
Théodule-Armand Ribot Théodule-Armand Ribot (18 December 18399 December 1916) was a French psychologist. He was born at Guingamp, and was educated at the Lycée de St Brieuc. He is known as the founder of scientific psychology in France, and gave his name to Ribot's ...
*
Hermann Rorschach Hermann Rorschach (; 8 November 1884 – 2 April 1922) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His education in art helped to spur the development of a set of inkblots that were used experimentally to measure various unconscious parts of the s ...
* William Stern *
Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routle ...


See also

*
Hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate ...
*
Heterophenomenology In the thought of the philosopher Daniel Dennett, heterophenomenology (" phenomenology ''of another'', not oneself") is an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness and other mental phenomena. It consists of applyi ...
*
Personhood Theory A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
*
Differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...
*
Phenomenology (psychology) Phenomenology within psychology, or phenomenological psychology, is the psychological study of subjective experience. It is an approach to psychological subject matter that attempts to explain experiences from the point of view of the subject via ...
*
Philosophical Anthropology Philosophical anthropology, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person. History Ancient Christian writers: Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ...
* Personology * Psychological types *
Personality psychology Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include: * construction of a c ...
*
Psychometrics Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...
*
Socionics Socionics, in psychology and sociology, is a pseudoscientific theory of information processing and personality types. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on '' Psychological Types'' with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism. Socio ...
* Rationality *
Irrationality Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. ...
*
Personality type In psychology, personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tenden ...
*
16PF The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) is a self-report personality test developed over several decades of empirical research by Raymond B. Cattell, Maurice Tatsuoka and Herbert Eber. The 16PF provides a measure of personality and ca ...
*
Adjective Check List The Adjective Check List (ACL) is a psychological assessment containing 300 Adjective, adjectives used to identify common psychological traits. The ACL was constructed by Harrison G. Gough and Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr. with the goal to assess psycho ...
(ACL) * BarOn EQ-i *
Big Five personality traits The Big Five personality traits is a suggested taxonomy, or grouping, for personality traits, developed from the 1980s onward in psychological trait theory. Starting in the 1990s, the theory identified five factors by labels, for the US English ...
* Birkman Method * CPI 260 *
DISC assessment DISC assessments are behavioral self-assessment tools based on the 1928 DISC emotional and behavioral theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston. The tools are designed to predict job performance. However, the scientific validity of DISC has b ...
*
Enneagram of Personality The Enneagram of Personality, or simply the Enneagram (from the Greek words meaning "nine"and meaning something "written" or "drawn", is a model of the human psyche which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interco ...
*
Interpersonal compatibility The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...
*
Keirsey Temperament Sorter The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) is a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves and others. It was first introduced in the book '' Please Understand Me''. It is one of the most widely used pers ...
* Kingdomality * List of personality tests * Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) * Myers-Briggs Type Indicator * NEO *
OCEAN The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...
* Strong Interest Inventory * Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument * Jungian Type Index * Jung Type Indicator


References


Bibliography

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Retrieved
2006-11-05. 4. Daniels, David; and Price, Virginia (Updated and Revised 2009). The Essential Enneagram: Test and Self-Discovery Guide. HarperOne. . 5. Furnham, A., & Crump, J. (2005). Personality Traits, Types, and Disorders: An Examination of the Relationship Between Three Self-Report Measures. European Journal of Personality, 19, 167-184. 6. Kagan, J. (1994). Galen's Prophecy: Temperament in Human Nature. New York: Basic Books. 7. Keirsey, David (May 1, 1998)
978 Year 978 ( CMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Battle of Pankaleia: Rebel forces under General Bardas Skleros are defeated ...
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11. Myers, Isabel Briggs with Peter B. Myers (1980, 1995). Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type. Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black Publishing. pp. xi–xii. . 12. William H. Sheldon, The varieties of human physique: An introduction to constitutional psychology (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940). 13. William H. Sheldon, Atlas of Men. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954. 14. Jung, Carl (1976). Campbell, Joseph. ed. The Portable Jung. New York, NY: Penguin Books. pp. 178. 15. Jung, C.G. ( 9211971). ''Psychological Types'', Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . In German language Ernst Kretschmer Körperbau und Charakter. Untersuchungen zum Konstitutionsproblem und zur Lehre von den Temperamenten. Springer Berlin 1921
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External links

* Arikha, Noga (2007)
Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours
* In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)br>episode on the four humours
in MP3 format, 45 minutes * Rudolf Steiner


The System of types - Psycosmology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Psychological Typologies