Personality Labels
Don't put me in a box!
My typology is far rather a critical apparatus serving to sort out and organize the welter of empirical material, but not in any sense to stick labels on people at first sight.
– Carl Jung
Sometimes people misuse personality typing as a way of labeling others or putting people into boxes. Because an understanding of personality concepts helps explain many common misunderstandings, it is tempting to begin explaining every situation in terms of the personality dynamics involved. This is both the beauty and the shortcoming of type watching, it helps you understand your preferences – which influence the choices you make, yet at the same time it gives you a label to hide behind or tack onto others.
An individual’s personality is a unique blend of characteristics. The four categories (Mover, Connector, Thinker, and Planner) in the Personality Lingo system blend in a variety of ways to form endless combinations. Your personality style lineup offers clues to your psychological type preferences. It does not rigidly predict your behavior to life circumstances.
Overall, the results suggest there are more than personality type “boxes”. Rather, there is an underlying set of dynamics. When people share a dynamic, they share brain activity that helps them get along.
– Dario Nardi
It is convenient to describe yourself and others by the top or most dominant personality style in the lineup. You likely have many traits in common with others who identify with the same most dominant personality style and knowing this can be useful.
Feel free to describe yourself by your personality style labels if you are comfortable doing so, but be mindful that there are others who are not so quick to be labeled or put into a box. These individuals may have had labels put on them by others growing up and have struggled to overcome such stereotyping. We need to be sensitive to that so please be sure to ask before proceeding with using a person’s top style in conversation!
