8 Apr 2003 @ 10:48, by Craig Lang
I recently went to a talk on a new personality typing paradigm called "psychogeometry". It reminded me of many other personality typing schemes that I had read about, but it had a different twist. This one recognized avant-garde explorers, and people in transition, as personality types in themselves. This was the first I had seen that actually seems to do this....
There were the three basic types that we have all known and loved:
- The "square" was the analytical type: The engineer, accountant, or other detail/numerical specialist. These folks get things done, and keep it organized. Generally they are very conservative in outlook. Another "typing" theory has referred to this as having a "need for achievement".
- Another was the "triangle" - the leader and the power person. For better or for worse, these are the "bosses" in life. This was referred to as the "need for power"
- The third was the "circle" - the holistic, spiritual, creative personality type. These are the folks that see and think in terms of relationships - very attuned to personal feelings. In the other theory I had read about, this was referred to as the "Need for affiliation".
But added to this were two more types:
- The squiggle: This is the avant-garde, artistic, no-rules-apply type of personality. It is the very creative person who is always at the forefront of new ideas. They are not real great with details, but are incredible at synthesizing new ideas. They hate cubicles.
- Last but to me probably the most important, was the Rectangle: This was the transitional type - one becoming another. It was characterized by the sense that it has characteristics of all four of the others. "rectangles" are exploring and changing - big time. As such, they experience difficulty in conformist environments (such as Corporate Cubeworld). They also feel alot of self-generated life-stress (!!!!!)
This was where I immediately recognized many transitioners like myself - and it was the first "bin" that I had ever seen for this particular phase of life. Before that, people who were "en route along the path" seemed to be "noise" in these category schemes. So now we have a bin - I feel so much better now... :-)
So, in summary, this was a whole new way of "typing". While I haven't ever felt comfortable putting people into bins like this, it does make an interesting personality analysis paradigm. The feeling I got was like reading an accurate horoscope, or recieving a psychic reading that's bulls-eye accurate. In that sense, it was very useful. For me, it broke some brand new ground.
And as I look out the window from my new rectangular bin, I find I like the layout. It's not like my corporate cubicle in that the walls tend to shift around alot. Also, the view from my rectangle is magnificent.
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