The Personality Related Sites

[ygolo]

I realize these have been around a long time. But it may be interesting to find out member-histories, if people care to share them.

• When did you become aware of/interested in various personality theories?
  • Which ones?
  • How and/or why did you become interested?
  • What are your opinions (in summary, I suppose) of these theories?
• When did you join a forum, mailing-list, or other such thing?
  • Which ones?
  • How and/or why did you become interested?
  • Were you an "active" member?
  • Which one(s) do you use most often now?

I'll post my own answers once things get going...

 

[quietgirl]

I realize these have been around a long time. But it may be interesting to find out member-histories, if people care to share them.

• When did you become aware of/interested in various personality theories?
  • Which ones?
  • How and/or why did you become interested?
  • What are your opinions (in summary, I suppose) of these theories?
• When did you join a forum, mailing-list, or other such thing?
  • Which ones?
  • How and/or why did you become interested?
  • Were you an "active" member?
  • Which one(s) do you use most often now?

I'll post my own answers once things get going...

1. I became interested in personality theories after being tested during family counseling & being floored at how much I related to the INFJ description. My mother also has a psychology background and is familiar with MBTI. I was initially interested in MBTI. My opinion is that they are valuable tools for understanding yourself and others, but are in no way definitive of how an individual should act. I use my knowledge of MBTI & more recently Cognitive Functions to improve my relationships with others in my life while fully accepting that they are different from me. It's helped me to understand that you cannot change an individual, but you can work with one another's strengths to find a common ground and have a healthy relationship.

2. This is the first forum in which I have participated. I have no idea how I found this place; I think I was just clicking around various MBTI websites and stumbled here accidentally. I lurked for a month or so and then found a topic that I felt comfortable enough to participate in... and now I'd consider myself an active member! I only post at this forum.

 

[alcea rosea]

Interesting thread.

When did you become aware of/interested in various personality theories?
3 years ago although I have been interested with psychology for 18 years already.

Which ones?
Only MBTI at the moment.

How and/or why did you become interested?
Crisis when turning 30 + some other stuff going on that time. I wanted to know myself again.

What are your opinions (in summary, I suppose) of these theories?
MBTI is good tool to understand people and the differences between us.

When did you join a forum, mailing-list, or other such thing?
The first forum 3 years ago. MBTIc some 3 months ago (or something).

How and/or why did you become interested?
The crisis made me search for myself and I needed a tool to help in that search.

 

[Totenkindly]

When did you become aware of/interested in various personality theories?
I always had an on/off interest but things took root around 1995-6 when I discovered MBTI. But even as a child, I remember being fascinated by LaHaye's "the four temperaments" book (which now I consider to be pretty awful).

Which ones?
MBTI, Big Five, Oldham, Enneagram, DISC, humours, ANSIR, and any other system I could get my grubby little paws on.

How and/or why did you become interested?
I spent much my life trying to understand how people worked. Personality theory is just part of that. (Psychology, Religion, Culture, Physiology, and other topics are all just part of that for me.)

Is it because I had no natural connection with people that I had to find a path to understanding using other methods? I don't know. But I think my need for security, for connection, and for understanding all contributed.

People just amaze me, and I love recognizing patterns and noting deviations from them. Are they just deviations... or as-yet-undiscovered patterns?

What are your opinions (in summary, I suppose) of these theories?

• Enneagram: Some useful archetypes, but some not as useful as others. Biggest contribution - directions of integration and disintegration and various "levels"
• MBTI: Useful to determine general approaches to dealing/communicating with people
• Big Five: More validity of traits... but not as useful in terms of dealing with people.
• Humours: Pretty much suck. Not very usable. If someone doesn't fit squarely into one of the four types, it doesn't work. I don't find the combos of types useful either; the system itself is flawed.
• DISC: Haven't used it / read about it a lot, due to having to spend good money to even get hold of the materials.
• Oldham: Interesting. Some nice archetypes, and they tie into personality disorders (assuming that disorders are just extremes of valid behavior). But it's still an archetype system, not a function system like MBTI. The archetypes are but one facet of the person, and even if you assign a primary and secondary archetype, the theory offers no sense on how the types intermingle predictably.
• ANSIR: Not sure. An interesting idea... but seems to be somewhat arbitrary to me.
• Keirsey: I lump him in with MBTI, although there are differences.
• Socionics: I dabble in socionics. I like MBTI better -- the extroversion of the J/P factor is more useful to me in identifying type.

When did you join a forum, mailing-list, or other such thing?
I visited lots of personality forums over the years. INTPc was the first I truly "joined" (in fall 2006).

Which ones?

• INTPc
• MBTIc (founding member)
• INFPgc (brief stay)
• INTJForum (sparse participation)

How and/or why did you become interested?
I loved the discussions on INTPc... and finally felt I was in an environment where I no longer had to cushion everything.

Were you an "active" member?
Yes. I even received the coveted status of "Postwhore," conveyed to me by Hustler himself. (I talk too much. I noticed today I have the most posts here too... twice as many as cafe, the runner up. )

Which one(s) do you use most often now?

• MBTIc
• INTPc

I've been going back more to INTPc, because of the discussions being more in-depth. But my blog is here.

 

[Athenian200]

[*]When did you become aware of/interested in various personality theories?

Sometime around 2003, I think. (Could have been earlier, but definitely by then.)

[*]Which ones?

I started with Keirsey's "Please Understand Me," and eventually moved from there to learning about the regular MBTI, Socionics, and the Enneagram. I've moved into others occasionally, but those three are the ones I focused on mostly (mainly because I didn't want to invest money in this).

[*]How and/or why did you become interested?

Well, I was trying to understand what was different about me. Why I have trouble figuring how to do things like navigate, organize my stuff consistently, and work myself into a social network. Yet was so articulate, well-behaved, did good work, and had everything in on time.

[*]What are your opinions (in summary, I suppose) of these theories?

MBTI - Needs refinement of definitions and descriptions of function relationships, good framework though.

Enneagram - Fair to good, I suppose. Doesn't seem to add much compared to MBTI, but has other uses.

Socionics - Seems very good, but needs more English material and a way to differentiate itself in people's minds from MBTI.

[*]When did you join a forum, mailing-list, or other such thing?

I've joined and left many technical-type (computer/video game) forums after around 30 posts (asked for specific advice, advised a few other people myself to reciprocate, and left). This has been since 2003. But the first personality related forum was in 2006 or so. I followed mostly the same pattern as on technical forums, and don't even remember which site this was.

[*]Which ones?

The ones I remember include INTPc (very briefly, two posts), this forum, and INTJ Forums (30 or so posts).

[*]How and/or why did you become interested?

I had seemed to have exhausted all the information available online, and now wanted answers to questions that weren't written there. I thought I could ask someone on a message board and find out.

[*]Were you an "active" member?

On here, yes. On the others, no.

[*]Which one(s) do you use most often now?

Just this one for now.

 

[Ezra]

When did you become aware of/interested in various personality theories?

When I was about fourteen. My dad introduced me to the Enneagram. I then found my way to MBTI without his help shortly after, and then to socionics quite recently (within half a year).

Which ones?

Besides the aforementioned theories above, I like studying Oldham and Keirsey, and the less well-known systems.

How and/or why did you become interested?

I've always had a long running interest in studying people, and in introspection. It provides me with a lot of satisfaction for some reason. It could be to do with managing to compartmentalise everyone into sixteen, nine or more different types, or that could just be a side effect. I think what's more appealing is that there's a myriad of theories that can be used to my advantage.

What are your opinions (in summary, I suppose) of these theories?

I've always put my faith in their correctness. I rarely doubt their questionability. It's a case of building up my knowledge base, and then, if two things conflict, being able to distinguish between the good quality, well thought out system, and the bad one.

Specifically, I think socionics is the most logical, and I prefer it over MBTT. However, I still like discussing MBTT for purely intellectual stimulation. Type theory isn't as important, but it's fun trying to find out your own type, and helping others try to find theirs. I expect a lot of people feel like this. Keirsey and Oldham I like reading about and correlating with the different types. Enneagram has been my oldest interest. I refuse to believe that people do not have one of nine basic motivations, and one alone. I've encountered people who are either difficult to type, or who pretty much refuse to fit themselves into a type, but I believe they're confused, rebellious or simply disinterested. Even deep similarity between two types can be remedied; even if one says "I know I am both", they will have a base motivation.

I think I derive most interest out of those theories with a practical value. The Enneagram and socionics have practical value in my eyes. Keirsey does to some extent. Although I may not use the theories to their full capacity, I generally enjoy studying them.

When did you join a forum, mailing-list, or other such thing?

I've been joining them since I joined EIDB in 2006 I think.

Which ones?

I've tend to join ever forum on personality theory that is remotely active. As of yet, I haven't found an Oldham one. But I'm a member of similarminds.com, personalityzone.com, socionics.com, socionix.com, the16types.info, EIDB and this one. I also signed up at Dave's Enneagram Community, and continued to check for about two days, then gave up.

How and/or why did you become interested?

I thought that since I was so into personality systems, instead of blathering on to people who, quite frankly, couldn't care less, I should find some place to discuss what I thought about each theory. Forums are the best way of meeting likeminded people.

Were you an "active" member?

Currently, I'm an active member of this site, EIDB and The16Types. I stopped posting at the rest of them because they were either boring, unproductive or inactive.

Which one(s) do you use most often now?

The ones I'm active at.