Thank you all very much for this input--and please keep it coming!
@ Jennifer:
A week or two ago I did google this subject, but I didn't find as much as I would have liked. Still, it did lead me to Typology Central, and these replies have been way more helpful than google was!
@ the INTP from Finland:
Why can't personality type change? No matter where a person stands on the nature-nurture debate, either environmental conditions or chemical-related gene-expressions could produce changes in behavior, and thus theoretically change their personality.
(My theory on what happened to me in high school, which I cobbled together from two evolutionary psychologists' descriptions of stress-response as well as Helen Fisher's temperement theory, is that I adapted to the overpowering coercion of a stronger social group by increasing my reliance on emotional negotiation while decreasing my reliance on intellectual attack. This adoption of "tend-and-befriend" behavior lowered my testosterone levels, switching my personality from that of the NT Rational to that of the estrogen-drenched NF Idealist.)
@ Orangey and Perterk:
I hadn't really thought about that before; there's no theory at the bottom of the OCEAN! The dimensions it uses to describe people may be the most accurate, but not most useful.
Lol, maybe the Big 5 needs an abbreviation system like MBTI does: something like "OCEAN xxxxx," where each x equals a number between 1 and 3, to indicate the degree of each trait. Still, this does seem kind of cumbersome . . .
Anyway, Helen Fisher's last book, as far as I know, is
Why Him? Why Her?, and she also has her own website:
Dr Helen Fisher - Biological Anthropologist - Home Page
Also, the basic premise of her personality theory is that the behaviors of Artisans, Guardians, Rationals, and Idealists (whom she calls Explorers, Builders, Directors, and Negotiators) are based on the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen systems, respectively.
Based on what you guys have said, she may have more empirical evidence than Kiersey does, although still not enough to make
SciAm Mind happy (I read an article last year that critiqued her findings).
@ ObliviousExistence (or anyone who wants to comment):
What would you suggest be done to make MBTI and other temperment theories more scientific?