Are you Type A, Type B, or Type U?

Some notions seem to linger. The idea that you and I have either a Type A or Type B personality has lingered for more than 60 years. It’s probably time to let that go.

 

The concept arrived in the late 1950s, courtesy of two cardiologists who bid to link personality types to health outcomes. It hasn’t held up; nonetheless, it persists.

 

Journalist Lambeth Hochwald, in her piece for healthcentral.com, minces no words: “Listen up people, you need to stop saying Type A personality or Type B (or C or D, if that’s your thing).”

 

Hochwald explains: “Social categorization… happens automatically, without any thought to what we’re actually doing. And it explains a little bit why we’re so obsessed with the idea of personality types.”

 

Our penchant to categorize fellow humans is restrictive enough, but when we slap a label on ourselves? I sense it may inhibit our ability to change and adapt.

 

If I were to choose, I suppose I’d label each of us – as Type U (for Unique).

 

What’s your personality?

The Oxford Dictionary defines personality as “the various aspects of a person’s character that combine to make them different from other people.” Ah, different.

 

In the world of personality typology systems, there’s a profusion. Meditation teacher Ross Edwards describes six in his piece for deep-psychology.com: Masculine-Feminine, Myers-Briggs, The Enneagram, Astrology, Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrants, Introverted-Extroverted.

 

While each personality typology is fascinating in its own right, the test most trusted by psychologists is The Big Five.

 

The Big Five

Explains psychologist Scott Mohler: The “Big Five Factor Model (has) strong empirical support based on decades of research.” He lays out the five: Openness to Experience (curious, imaginative). Conscientiousness (reliable, organized), Extraversion (ambitious, socially engaging), Agreeableness (considerate, empathetic), Negative emotionality (pessimistic, lacking self-confidence). 

 

Can we change our personality?

Fixed at birth? Malleable until checkout time? It’s an active debate.

 

Writing for The Atlantic magazine, Olga Khazan gave herself three months to “change her personality.” She focused on the Big Five and undertook a series of challenges created by psychology professor Nathan Hudson. “I learned,” said Khazan, “that it was possible to deliberately mold these five traits, to an extent, by adopting certain behaviors.”

 

Real Change?

Said Khazan: “Perhaps the real weakness of the ‘change your personality’ proposition is that it implies incremental change isn’t real change. But being slightly different is still being different – the same you, but with better armor.”

 

More insight from Khazan: “The late psychologist Carl Rogers once wrote, ‘When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change,’ and this is roughly where I’ve landed.”

 

As a fellow Type U, I invite you to explore the possibilities.