Relative Type

[UniqueMixture]

So I've been thinking for awhile about this concept of relative type. What if people don't have actual types but just relatives stages of development relative to one another and as you act in different ways you develop new skills/ways of being/mindset and shirk others/possibly develop new weaknesses even in areas of former strength. I base this in the idea in psychology that behavior/action modifies neurology more strongly than thoughts modify behavior, so you tend to justify new actions that you take and alter your thoughts rather than being exposed to a new concept radically altering your mindset and states of being especially as you age because you have a larger "basket" of conepts/events/states to which you have been exposed. This is all to say that introversion, extraversion, Ni, Fe, happiness, thoughtfulness, etc are not discretes but rather traits you have in proportion to one another internally and in conjunction with others. So for example your percetion of another as having a particular type is more a relational statement based on how that person makes you feel rather than a truth statement. In other words person x is more introverted than I thus they are an introvert. All of this being modified of course by emotional perception of personality traits. For example, I perceive a multifaceted personality as fun and it makes me feel good so I actively identify with it more try to surround myself with such people and view positively people use words or behaviors I connote as triggers with being multifaceted such as traveling, positivity, high activity level, words like discoverer, or entrepeneur, etc. So people's types may not be actual but more of a social-emotional call and response to the places we find ourselves in life and the relationships we've had/wish to have with these people/situations/events and the archaic symbols they represent. Any thoughts? Another example I would say, would be someone becoming more extravert if they won the lotto because they could afford to party incessentlt etc. So type is a sort of "clothing" we wear to relate to the people we wish and avert the people who do not make us feel GOOD.

 

[Such Irony]

I have often wondered about stuff like this. For better or for worse I have a tendency to type by comparison, using myself as a reference point. After all, no one knows me better than me. For example, I can observe John Doe and ask myself how he compares in extraversion relative to me. If he appears more extraverted than me, I am likely to type him as an extravert. Of course, I'll mistype alot of people using this method because I am strongly introverted, so someone more extraverted than me, could still be an introvert overall. They are just less pronounced in introversion compared to me. So instead, I'll compare John Doe against a mental picture of the general population of people I've ever encountered with and figure out how he ranks in terms of certain traits.

 

[garbage]

Same. Although, I personally prize pragmatism over precision.

I go with the model that's most useful in a given situation. Even if I'd regard someone else to be the same type as me 'in reality,' it's often more useful to think of how they are in relation to me--because lumping us together doesn't actually make any strides in solving the problem that I have (in this case, trying to 'figure the other person out') in the first place; it's not a useful assumption to start with.

Some people tease out differences by defining subtypes or relative strengths; I tease them out by shifting my perspective, assumptions, or mental models in a way that allows me to see possible differences.

Replace "me" with "another person I know" in the above as well. After all, it holds just as well if I'm trying to compare two other people.