Personality types vs. behavior

We all know that there are no two people with identical personalities – everyone reacts to a particular situation different and have different perspectives, motivations. Personality is a tricky thing to traverse. We think that we know a person close to us – parents, friends, siblings and even ourselves – quite well, however, there always will be situations that will require decisions and actions that we never think they or we would do.

Each type of behavior is characterized by particular behavior and manners. There are many classifications made by many psychologists and philosophers – Ancients Greeks came up with four “humors”, Sheldon’s three somatotypes, Block’s personality types etc. The most known and widely used are the Jungian personality types, which are the groups of these traits:

· Extroversion (E) - Introversion (I)

· Intuition (N) - Sensing (S)

· Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)

· Judgement (J) - Perception (P)

Using the letters above, it is possible to have a unique 4 letter code to indicate each of the 16 Jungian personality types, e.g. INJT.

It is easy to state that the person is an extrovert because he or she is outgoing, sociable, creative etc. Conversely, if a person is shy, loner and often distant from the others then he or she is an introvert. However, there is much more complex difference in manners between people.

We all realize that there are manners that is more acceptable for the society than are others – yelling, being rude, and not following the rules of etiquette – are not tolerated behavior to express being among people. We have been taught to be polite and humble. Although, these rules are shaped in us from when we were children, it is hard to change one’s personality. Bossy person most of the time will be manipulative, strict and imperative, and it will be difficult for an introvert to be the soul of a company and a dominant person. On the other hand, different situations, especially situations which we cannot avoid, may lead to shaping our behavior. Shy person can take over the leadership when it is needed and unavoidable, and rude person may learn to say things in his or her head instead blurring them out.

So, as we can see, our inner world is much more complex than we can imagine. Our personality is a product of massive components and manipulating one of them may change not only our behavior, but also our perception. Also, there is no one way to determine how a person will behave and react to a particular situation, even if we think we know this person very well.