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Temperament-Style Groupings

stellar renegade

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We all have our different ways of grouping items and people together. I think it'll be interesting to explore this topic and examine whether we all really talk like this or not, along with coming up with more groupings for each temperament.


This is Keirsey's word on what kinds of groups each of the four temperaments like to talk about (which I find to be true):

Guardians (SJ) - clusters/bunches/stacks - (flock of geese, pool of cars, bunch of grapes, grove of trees, crowd of demonstrators)

Artisans (SP) - sets/arrays/varieties - (golf clubs, knives, office furniture, football players, acting cast, wines)

Rationals (NT) - sorts/distinctions/categories - (differing arts, differing sciences, differing philosophies, differing personality types)

Idealists (NF) - classes/genres/types - (canine animals, evergreen plants, Westerners, indie music)


Explanation:

SJs talk about groups of similar or indistinguishable groups because they're the measurers of society, measuring time, taking inventories, sorting goods into containers, etc. They're also the temperament best at organizing.

SPs talk about sorts of things such as various wines because they're the artists of society and the masters of variety and spotting opportunities. Thus they can pull together the strengths of various items, using them interchangeably like a ninja warrior twirling nunchucks one second and throwing chinese stars the next.

NTs talk about sorts of things because they take great pains to distinguish one type of thing from another so as to not get them confused. Their distinctions can get deeper and deeper, creating more efficiency and thereby evoking accusations of splitting hairs. :newwink:

NFs talk about classes of things, grouping things together, especially humanity, claiming that we are all essentially the same (and thus have become the greatest civil rights speakers). They stress similarities and love to see the ties that bind, such as Jane Goodall studying chimps and admiring the similarities between them and humans.
 

stellar renegade

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Dr. Keirsey said:
Then there are the Rationals, who tend to speak more of difference than of similarity in both kind and degree. Thus, while Rationals are busy differentiating ideas, Idealists are just as busy integrating ideas; while Rationals are segregating ideas, Idealists are aggregating ideas; while Rationals are analyzing ideas, Idealists are synthesizing ideas. Thus Rationals are into sorting, while Idealists are into classifying.


What other kinds of groups can we come up with? (I came up with some of those mentioned in the first post.)


Sorts:
  • the members of the band Arcade Fire
  • wardrobe of clothes
  • set of tattoos
  • the smileys on the right panel of the post input box
  • different browsers (Firefox, IE, Opera, Chrome)
  • the different cities in the US (wild L.A., all-business NY, upbeat Austin, crazy Seattle)

Clusters:
  • Asians
  • floor space
  • product inventory
  • working hours
  • amount of cash

Sorts:
  • different countries
  • male and female genders
  • trigonometry vs. geometry

Classes:
  • the human race
  • indie music
  • the green movement
  • locally grown produce
 

OrangeAppled

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I'm having trouble distinguishing the difference in all of these....it's almost too concrete for me; the examples are too specific. I'm finding they all sound very similar, and so I see myself in all of them to varying degrees.
 

Eric B

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I've heard of this "differential vs integrative thinking" difference before, and it was even once used to suggest that I was an NF because I liked to match up and combine the different theories. But then that's also what Keirsey himself, and Berens, whoo follows him have done, and in their case (as well as mine), I would attribute that to Ti's identifying of underlying frameworks. That perspective will naturally tend to bind things together. They are the same principles, under different names, or rearranged somewhow.

So there may be some truth to this somewhere, but it is a matter of sorting out in which cases it applies.
I would imagine NTJ's might more strictly fit the "differential" mold, and NF's integrating might be regarding more personal, ethical, emotional topics, rather than logical structures.
 

Jaguar

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I'm having trouble distinguishing the difference in all of these....it's almost too concrete for me; the examples are too specific. I'm finding they all sound very similar, and so I see myself in all of them to varying degrees.

Agreed. I use all of them.
 

skylights

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yeah... i feel like in certain areas of life some groupings are more applicable and some groupings are less.

i understand what you're getting at and i think it's cool, but i think it's at a much more subtle level than this. like, how we classify our own thoughts and feelings might run this way, but i don't think keirsey was trying to say this is how we talk so much as this is how we tend to separate and cluster info in our own minds.


btw all your NF stuff just strikes me as fluffy/emo :laugh: a clusterfuck of bunnies, etc.
 

stellar renegade

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yeah... i feel like in certain areas of life some groupings are more applicable and some groupings are less.

i understand what you're getting at and i think it's cool, but i think it's at a much more subtle level than this. like, how we classify our own thoughts and feelings might run this way, but i don't think keirsey was trying to say this is how we talk so much as this is how we tend to separate and cluster info in our own minds.
Actually, Keirsey is definitely saying that this is the way we speak. He capitalizes on observable behavior, because stuff inside your head can't be nailed down and is of little to no use (that is, thinking about one's thoughts).

Of course everybody talks about all these different types of groupings for different reasons all the time. The good doctor is just talking about preferences. For instance, a Guardian might talk about their collections (which tend to be sets) sometimes.

The thing here is, I know that I prefer to talk about sets of things. I love to talk about variety, and dwell on topics about weird, mixed-up teams of different races and genders like on Captain Planet, or the different albums I own, or different parts of the city. I love to drink of life's deep varieties. :D

Next, I'd rank my preferences this way:

2) Sorts
3) Clusters
4) Classes

Clusters interest me next to last because they ignore variety and harp on dull similarities. That's why for me, sorts are next because they provide distinctions. And classes interest me the least because on top of talking about same-old similarities, they talk about them in the abstract, further giving me a headache.

I find Idealist talk to be too fuzzy for me.

btw all your NF stuff just strikes me as fluffy/emo :laugh: a clusterfuck of bunnies, etc.
That's the way a lot of you think, though. hah. I getcha, though.
 

KDude

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What category does "Family Rodentia" fall under? I used that in a sentence once and an ESTJ has never let me live it down.
 

angelhair45

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Interesting. I'm an NF, but I definitely relate to the NT classification the most. I am a sorter to the extreme as much as it bothers me sometimes. I can go on for days about differences between things.
 

IZthe411

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What category does "Family Rodentia" fall under? I used that in a sentence once and an ESTJ has never let me live it down.

Yeah I know an ESTJ who runs jokes into the ground. I really really really wish he would let it go.

I guess his Si is telling him when he says it- it gets laughs. I'm about wreck his Si.
 

Synapse

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I go all over, the NT and NF states I am naturally more predisposed to than the ST and SF states however there is a cross section or overlap where I have delved in the thought patterns across the board. While naturally comfortable where the heart is.
 

stalemate

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I'm having trouble understanding the groups in the OP. The S stuff and the N stuff are obviously different, but I can't distinguish SJ from SP and NT from NF.

How are golf clubs and bunches of grapes 2 different things? Or football players and a crowd? I'm not really following.

Same thing with evergreen trees... isn't that just a way to describe how those trees differ from other trees? Differing species I guess. Same deal with canines, or indie music.

Eh... I don't get it I guess. :shrug:
 

angelhair45

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I'm having trouble understanding the groups in the OP. The S stuff and the N stuff are obviously different, but I can't distinguish SJ from SP and NT from NF.

How are golf clubs and bunches of grapes 2 different things? Or football players and a crowd? I'm not really following.

Same thing with evergreen trees... isn't that just a way to describe how those trees differ from other trees? Differing species I guess. Same deal with canines, or indie music.

Eh... I don't get it I guess. :shrug:

What I derived was NFs focus on the similarities when grouping whereas NTs focus on the differences. I don't really think it's accurate though.
 

stalemate

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What I derived was NFs focus on the similarities when grouping whereas NTs focus on the differences. I don't really think it's accurate though.
I thought of that too, but I thought finding the similarities and finding the differences are really the same thing, so maybe I'm just being NF and looking at the similarities between the two styles. :)
 

Hirsch63

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We all have our different ways of grouping items and people together. I think it'll be interesting to explore this topic and examine whether we all really talk like this or not, along with coming up with more groupings for each temperament.

Artisans (SP) - sets/arrays/varieties - (golf clubs, knives, office furniture, football players, acting cast, wines)

SPs talk about sorts of things such as various wines because they're the artists of society and the masters of variety and spotting opportunities.

I am intersted in aesthetic analysis of artworks. deconstructing works of all sorts to gain an insight into their eventual appearance...the casting of films and even the various crew members involved in productions lead to a deeper understanding of the overall work and directorial vision...otherwise it is just another "movie". While not very interested in knives as such, cutting tools both hand and power are always something I am involved with and I find that a knowledge of their particular history and evolution informs my productive use of them. Tools and materials carefully arranged in any discipline are appealing; the "compare and contrast" dialouge I find engaging to the point of distraction...I cannot help but want to know and understand more and more of those subjects that catch and hold my interests. Can make me a bit narrow I'm afraid....and capable of glazing over the eyes of even my best friends...and you too I expect...if you have managed to read this far and stay awake....
 

stellar renegade

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Me too, Hirsch. If it's a topic I know something about and have a good deal of interest in, I can ramble on and on about endless distinctions and details. Even just about everyday experiences, I'll keep going down different rabbit trails talking in-depth about each aspect of the story.

I'm having trouble understanding the groups in the OP. The S stuff and the N stuff are obviously different, but I can't distinguish SJ from SP and NT from NF.

How are golf clubs and bunches of grapes 2 different things? Or football players and a crowd? I'm not really following.
With golf clubs, you have different types of clubs. A 5 iron, 8 iron, 9 iron, putter, etc. With a bunch of grapes, you just have... grapes. Have you ever differentiated between individual grapes? :huh:

You're just being a typical NF and classifying each group. ;)

The difference is, an SP loves variety in groupings, and an SJ prefers to organize and count. For instance, my SJ girlfriend will sort her skittles out by color and count the groups. I just grab a mixed handful and shove 'em in my mouth. In fact if there's not enough variety sometimes I'll interchange a few. ;)

Same thing with evergreen trees... isn't that just a way to describe how those trees differ from other trees? Differing species I guess. Same deal with canines, or indie music.

Eh... I don't get it I guess. :shrug:
Not necessarily, no. If you were talking about ALL trees, you could list tons of similarities between them. And though the grouping might not exist without distinctions from other things, you're not focusing on that. In fact, NFs often go on to talk about the whole universe and many of them speak about how all is really one.
 

stellar renegade

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Interesting. I'm an NF, but I definitely relate to the NT classification the most. I am a sorter to the extreme as much as it bothers me sometimes. I can go on for days about differences between things.
I don't know you, so don't take offense, but how sure are you that you're an NF? You might have tons of other traits that point to that, so forgive me if I'm wrong. But I've found that the current typology here can be full of holes and it's a lot tougher to figure out one's type because the definitions can be so wishy-washy.
 

Aleksei

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I'd say my preference goes as follows: Sorts, Clusters, Sets, Classes.
 

Donna Cecilia

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stellar renegade said:
NTs talk about sorts of things because they take great pains to distinguish one type of thing from another so as to not get them confused. Their distinctions can get deeper and deeper, creating more efficiency and thereby evoking accusations of splitting hairs.

I see myself doing this everyday. For some things I take pain, but for others I do it without effort.
 

angelhair45

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I don't know you, so don't take offense, but how sure are you that you're an NF? You might have tons of other traits that point to that, so forgive me if I'm wrong. But I've found that the current typology here can be full of holes and it's a lot tougher to figure out one's type because the definitions can be so wishy-washy.

Man that would throw me if ended up being an ENTP. If you look at my function order my Ti is very low, so I'd be a pretty unhealthy ENTP if I was one... I'm pretty certain about my type, as certain as anyone can be about type, I guess. I do think I was in an ISTJ shadow or stuck in some kind of loop many years (I'm in process of researching these concepts to determine).
 
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