Which Personality Type are You?

Tags

color code, hartman, life, personality, psychology

Last year I read a couple of books on personality written by Taylor Hartman (I found them today when I was cleaning)– The People Code, and Color Your Future. The main idea is basically that there are four personality types, which the author calls – red, white, yellow and blue. If you “live” your color you can walk the “charactered” way – become yourself, and take benefit (to a bigger extent) to all the things that life offers. If you walk the charactered way you can also stretch to match and communicate better with people who has different “colors” because you know your own core color, and that works as a solid ground. (Sometimes I like to read about things that universities (in Sweden) would call crap).

Then I read another book, in which it said there are four basic personality types – red, yellow, green and blue. This makes me think of Jung’s theory on personality, and the Myers-Briggs type indicator of course (that give you a four letter combination i.e. INFJ). Not to talk about the Big Five personality traits. The latter ones feel very old-fashioned. I know that there are newer test, of course there are, but.. 

Ok, so what we call personality is something stable, that doesn’t vary over time. What I find pretty interesting is the thought; some people adopt easily and melt into a group easily – they are like (color) chameleons, some don’t. Some say that these people who are “chamelons” don’t know their personality, some mean they have social competence. I think I would prefer the latter, even though I know people who would agree with the first statement.

Think about this: Take a person who you would describe as kind and put him/her on an island (alone) – how can we then tell that person is kind? To some extent we form our personality in other people’s company. Maybe kind wasn’t a very good example, because I guess kind is not really a personality trait, or is it? Anyways, I’ll give you an example. If I’m together with people who have very strong opinions I become a real bitch (yes, that’s right) because I think it’s kind of less clever to judge too much and too soon. If I’m together with someone who is a “leader”, who is very energetic I can become really calm. That is two very different sides of me. Maybe I should say that I prefer my less “bitchy” behaviour, ha ha! – why, because that doesn’t feel like me.. (I think I just gave myself the answer, didn’t I? And in that case it’s all about staying in your own “type” and act though that – stretch to reach the other person’s color so you can “match”.. at least that was a thought..).

I started thinking about this because more and more I have started to become interested in how we communicate with each other. And if you think about it, how someone communicates with you can make you respond in very different ways. There are millions of ways to say one thing, but in some of the ways sound better. And I think I mean that you, when you do this, can deliver your message so the receiver interprets it (the message) like you wanted him/her to do.

I guess I’m thinking about this because I’m so incredibly good at meaning one thing, but saying something that the other person/people interpret as something completely different. After all, even though there are a bunch of test I guess they have the same meaning,  to describe something and make it concrete, so we can understand the abstract things easier. To do silly test is at least fun :).

Clarify Your Role – Save Time and Energy

Tags

Beyond Reason, books, life, negotiating, psychology, shcool

What is it with these books and articles that promise us a solution in ten days, or even better directly! It’s something with it that makes us want more - it’s possible for us to estimate ten days, and we can see our goal and everything seems so easy. Yah!

Today I read a book, Beyond Reason, Using Emotions as You Negotiate. In the introduction the author says that it took them five years to finish the book, five years. To simplify too much is never good if you ask me – something that’s done through the book (I have the two last chapters left, so I can’t say the whole book yet, if I should be accurate). It says that there are five core concerns that have to be “met” to create a good negotiation. They are: appreciation (to show Appreciation), Affiliation (to show affiliation), Autonomy (it has to do with freedom to make choices), Status (which status you have in the negotiation), and Role (the role you have should be fulfilled). These are the basic things that matters in a negotiation, if I understand this right. I just wonder if these five topics are enough (let me find a person and let him/her think about that for five years and we’ll see :)..). If we should take an example: if I don’t show you appreciation during a negotiation you’ll become angry etc. and that’s going to block us from coming to a conclusion. (Just a thought: to negotiate is something you can learn, and I guess there are many ways in which you can explain the same thing (how to negotiate in an effective way)), it’s just that you use different words. Then it’s not only a question about how good the book is, but also about how well the words and the explanations  matches your perception on how things “are” /should be- how you want to see things. And then it’s more complicated..hrmm.. I would say that 90% of what we learn at the university is not usable in real life, BUT I guess you can use what you learn there to get more information about other things – There is hope for the future :) )

One thing that I found pretty interesting was the chapter about Role. In that chapter they describe how you can clarify your role, and if you change what it says there just a little I guess you can use this in your daily life to save time and energy . Listen… There are four steps:

1. Name your current role.
2. List current activities within your role.
3. List activities that make your role more fulfilling.
4. List activities that prevents you from fulfilling your role.

Let’s take an example.

1. One of my roles is to be a student, so the role is therefore student.
2. Activities are reading books, reading books, reading books, listening to lectures, doing exercises, working in groups with other students, writing essays, writing exams.
3. Things that improve my role are: setting aside time for studying while I’m at home, taking short breaks while reading, prepare myself so I have all the material I need, sleeping well at night so I have the energy to listen to the teachers, eating good stuff that doesn’t make me a “real, true student” etc.
4. Things that I shouldn’t do while I have my role: check Twitter and Facebook every other minute, clean my apartment, eat something, drink tea, drink coffee, play the guitar, find 10 000 other things that I find more important than reading the most interesting books on earth, thinking about how much I LOVE the lectures at the university, thinking about 23615362561357213 other things, daydreaming, baking muffins, eating more than one muffin, thinking about that I need to go running, go running, taking a shower, looking for a nail file, lying on the couch being tired, check Twitter and Facebook.. I think you get it.. :)

What conclusions can I draw from this? If I want to be a good student and fulfill my role as a student I should: set aside time for studying when I don’t do 10 000 other things. If I do that I can focus, and then I’ll be less tired which also means I’ll have more time over for things I really want to do, like go running. I might also improve my grades and I guess I would like school more than I do today. Next step? To write it down, set the goal, and make the plan. Can you see how I can save time and energy through clarifying my role :).

Saying Is the Same Thing as Doing.

Tags

life, psychology, thoughts

And when we say something we also reveal what we think. That’s what I’ve learned today, so far. The clock is 09:40 in the morning.

I’ll give you a couple of  examples: When I say something, whatever I say has some kind of meaning in the context. Even though I just say the word frog. Maybe I wanted to be funny, and I made my self funny through the word frog. If I say: I like you. I do something. I change the way you and I might think and feel about each other. The word means something that makes you think (maybe) and whan you think, you feel, and when you feel you might do something, like saying I like you too, or maybe say I hate you.

When I say something I also reveal what I think. Let’s say I see a man walking across the street. I say: Oh look at that boy! What I though was a boy might have been a man for you. When use the word boy I associate him with things that means he is not a man. What that ‘kluddigt’? Anyways. You might have a title at work. Let’s say you’re a doctor, then a patient comes up to you and says something like: excuse me nurse. That says what the patient thinks bout you, or maybe not thinks but how that person interprets you. Isn’t that kind of  weird?

There Is NO Such Thing as Destiny..

Tags

goals, life, Napoleon Hill, psychology, thoughts

..We build our bridges to the future…

Today I started reading a new book, and almost finished it too. It’s called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Makes me think of Napoleon Bonaparte (is that how you spell his name?). In that book you can read about a guy who bought a new dictionary and cut out the word impossible. Isn’t that pretty funny. It’s fun to play with the thought If everything was possible. If think about what we want to achieve the chance is so much bigger we achieve them. And if someone like you have done what you want to do,  isn’t it possible for you too? Sometimes our thoughts stops us. It’s like when we say: that guy puts me in a really bad mood. Is it the guy or is it you who put you in a bad mood? Doesn’t that also mean that we can choose more than we think? So if that guy, or girl or your neighbors or whoever it’s about didn’t stop you, what would you do? Think about that!

How to Set Realistic Goals: Self-Coaching Part 2

Tags

coaching, health, life, psychology

Sometimes we think about doing things, but we never get there. Why? The answers are probably many, but another question you can ask yourself is: What can I do next time to do it better? One of the things could be to set a realistic goal, a goal you want to reach.

 Ok, you want something. Think about what you want and try to put that together in a sentence. It might have to do with your health, a trip you want to make etc. Try to remember that.

One way of seeing this is: Pretend that you’re standing on the ground and there’s a big hole in front of you. On the other side of that hole, is your goal. There is like a wooden sign there, and it says goal on it. Everything in between you and that sign is what you have to do to reach your goal.

You might think, eehh!? But why do I need to set a goal. Have you ever driven for 5 hours? Did you remember how it felt like to have arrived? Pretend that you drove for 5 hours, but you didn’t think of where you wanted to go. Is there a difference? Which of these alternatives feels better? There could of course be an alternative like: I want to drive for 5 hours to see things I’ve never seen before, but that’s different, isn’t it?

So when you stand there on one side of the hole, and you want to the other side, you can’t leave 10% of yourself on that side. 100% of you have to be on the “goal side” if you want to reach it. This might sound weird. But if you tell 100% of your cells that THIS is what I want to do. You will also have all your cells with you. That is also what we need.

Sometimes our brain plays a trick on us. As I have written before. Our brain doesn’t understand the word Not. Ex: Do not think about candy. You think about candy anyway, because you have to think about candy first, before you do not think about it. Ok.

Next step is to formulate your goal so you’ll have 100% of your cells with you. There are three qualities a good goal formulation should have. It should be:

• Positive – be something you actually want, YOU want, not your mother, or boyfriend, husband etc. Something that will make you feel better, something that’s good for you.

• Realistic – be something you actually can manage, do. To take a step on the moon might not be realistic, but don’t be too sceptical either, it shouldn’t be too easy. Think: Have anyone like me done this before? If yes, go for it!

• Concrete – you should be able to say when you have reached your goal. It’s a difference between saying, I want to run faster, and I want to run 5km in 30 min. You can’t measure when you run faster, because when you can run faster, you probably can run even faster.

So do you remember what you thought of a couple of minutes ago, if you thought of something you want to accomplish. Try and see if it passes these qualities. Ex: If I said I won’t eat any candy for one week. That might not be a very good formulated goal. But if I instead said: For one week I’ll eat food that is healthy for me. That would be better. That would be what you tell your brain, and all your cells. Is it positive? If you want it yes, is it realistic? are you going to have money to buy the food, time to cook, time to prepare and plan everything? If yes.. yes it works. Is it concrete? Define for yourself what healthy food is for you, and yes it’s concrete – we are talking about one week.

When you have written down your “goal”, because that’s the best thing to do, you have already taken the first step to reach it. Isn’t that good?

This is going to be continued with a part on how you can find the motivation to reach your goal, and one part on what you can do if you try and try, but never get there (this pretty much has to do with the fact that sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do).

And while I’m writing I could as well write something about something else, so if someone wants to know anything I might know. Or if you have like a specific question about something concerning these kinds of topics, feel free to tell me, and I’ll try to answer, even though my English could be better. I need to use everything I have learned during the last couple of years. It feels like my head is full..lol!

Ehh.. so this is one theory on how it works?

Tags

psychology, thoughts

It’s pretty funny, but I started reading a book for this course I’m taking, and it’s about.. pretty much how people work, think and behave.. or at least something like that. I know this is just one theory, of many, but it’s interesting. If I should try to explain it easily:

When we are 4 years old we have pretty much decided how the world works, when we are seven we absolutely have decided how the world works. We form a picture of this through how our parents treat us or other people of importance near to us. So let’s say that your mother never liked to have you near when you were a baby, somewhere in your brain the information is stored and you “think”, draw the conclusion, ( your mother doesn’t want to have you near). Then when you’re grown up you think that is reality because that is how you decided how the world worked when you were little – no women want to be near me.

People are lazy, and therefore we want things to be simple. Just as said when we are little we decide how the world works. It’s like a theater we write our own manuscript. Think this way, you’re an actor and you have the manuscript in your hand, suddenly one of the other actors starts to improvise and talk about things way off topic. How would that feel? Yepp.. that is how it works in our brains. We want the world to fit in to our manuscript and we do anything to make it fit. If we go back to the example – the person would avoid women because women don’t want to be near him/her. The question is does the person know that is true?

The stupid thing is that what WAS true when we were babies, AREN’T always true when we are grown ups, right? We walk around in life andd think that things are true, but we don’t even have proof for it. Let’s call it voices, haha! So if that was your child’s voice of telling you how you should behave – that is actually how you behave – if your manuscript says “women don’t want to be near me” you’ll run and hide (a behaviour) to make this true, there is also a parent’s voice.

The parents voice is echos from what your parents or other people of importance kept on telling you was true when you were little, maybe those things were things they had learned from their parents. Often you can know if it’s your parents voice because there is a You in what it says. For example: You should always eat up.. blah blah.. You must be strong etc. (not I must be strong, I have to eat up) then it would have ben you who said something to yourself. Isn’t that strange? (check it with yourslef and try to remember the last time you said: “you sholdn’t do that..” “you have to work to blah blah” etc.  and try to remeber if you have heard your parent say the same thing) haha! It’s scary! lol”

We do a lot of weird things to fit everything into our manuscripts. The basic idea is that everyone wants “attention” or rather to be seen and valued, there’s another word but I can’t remember it right now. That is the goal. It’s like we want that when every scene ends in our play. We can get it through different ways because there are different kinds of attention. A scene could be – A girl tells her friends “look at me I’m SOO fat” her friends says nooo - “she won because she got the attention”. Some people are really shy because they’re afraid they will be without – it’s safer to not bet anything, but on the other hand, neither can you win.

This is pretty complicated, and I have to say kind of embarrassing because I can really see how some situation have shaped me in one way or another. The good thing is that we can rewrite our manuscripts and break old patterns. I don’t know if I explained this very well, but hopefully I’ll learn more so I can explain it better.

What I have learned today – or some facts about emotional release

Tags

emotions, health, life, psychology, talking, writing

Did you know this (it might sound very natural, but..).. researches  did tests on people who had gone through difficult situations, such as physical abuse, traumatic accidents, family tragedies etc. They wanted to see if to talk to someone about it helped. They took a blood sample before  and after the session, and it showed that after the session, the people had an enhanced immune system functioning. The people who talked to someone (some didn’t) had 50% fewer visits to a health care centre (during the 6 following months), compared with the other test group.

Traumatic experiences lead to stress, but to talk to someone reduces stress. This is because of the ”shared emotions”, and that is just the thing, isn’t that weird. It’s good to share emotions. When we share emotions or seek social support, we get a higher “level” of endorphins (our body’s morphine) which also reduces pain. Another interesting part in this is that they found that instead of talking about whatever had happened, they let some people write about the traumatic event instead. One month later they found that the people who wrote about the event (in comparison with the ones who did nothing) was less stressed and “depressed” after a month.

The  more aroused the people became when writing about the event, the healthier they were, both physically and psychologically after a month. Isn’t that strange too? In that case, if you can write something down and really be emotionally involved, it’s something good if you have been through some kind of stressing situation. The thing is that when we are exposed to something when writing/talking that exposure allows extinction to occur – and that means reducing the stimuli’s emotional impact, and we are not as stressed as we would have been if we hadn’t talked written about the event.  

I think though that I would like to add that if you eally have been through something traumatic it’s important to talk to the “right” person, someone proffessional. I think that it’s better to do that early, than to wait and just think that everything is going to be all right. Sometimes we do that, but we don’t have to be so good at everything all the time. To ask someone for help is nothing wrong.

What I have learned today: some everyday psychology

Tags

2010, boyfriend, brain, life, love, october, psychology, school, wise

In school we have to read a huge 1400 pages book about psychology. I’m writing something here because I have to learn, hopefully something can be interesting for you to read. People are just strange, not strange, but we have our ways, I can tell you I have learned that by now ;)

• Wise or not? We often say old and wise, but that doesn’t have to be true. Between the age of 13 and 25 wisdom rises and then stays stable until the age of ~75. Wisdom is the knowledge we have about life, relationships, the strategies we use for making decisions, and how good we are at handling uncertainties. This proves that you can be young and wise! Good for everyone under 75!
• The danger of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The way you act towards others makes them behave in the way you expected them to, . For example if you think someone is angry with you, it’s easy for you to behave in a way that makes the other person act as if he/she really was angry ie. not talking to you etc.  That is scary.
• We tend to interact with people who are physically closer, if you sit in a bar you talk more to the people next to you. In a class room you tend to become friends with the people who sit next to you. The more we are exposed to something the more we like it – it doesn’t matter if it’s a class mate or photograph (but you have to like the things/people in some way from the beginning).
• Birds of a feather flock together. We tend to like people who look/are like ourselves – appearance, values, attitudes etc.
• Opposites do not attract they repel, at least when it comes to people. When people who are dissimilar become a couple their relationship usually don’t last long – we starts to dislike the dissimilarities over time. This is scary, but in some way I can understand that it’s true to some extent. Some people we meet become out best friends, some don’t. We have more in common with best friends than with other people, sometimes you almost know what the other person is thinking – probably because you are so alike that you can predict what you would have done in the same situation.
• A basic factor that influences a relationship is how a couple deals with anger. If you can deal with anger in a good way, your relationship will (according to theories) last longer. I think this is true to some extent too. It’s just sad with couples where one person have to stay quiet and the other one don’t listen to him/her, and then let that be a way of solving a discussion etc.
• We are attracted to people with symmetric faces (how do you know if you have a symmetric face? take a picture of you, taken “from the front”, cut it in 2 and make a copy of one of the sides, reverse it and “glue” it together.. then you can see). This is just a weird idea, I didn’t know about this. I don’t dare to do this either! For commercials they sometimes take many faces and make one face of it, like layers in Photoshop  to get the perfect face that we’ll like and that’ll make us buy make-up or whatever it’s about.
• Guys care about appearance when it comes to chosing a girlfriend, even though it sounds harsh, researches say it’s true. But what someone thinks is good-looking or not is another question. On the other hand, people who care much about their appearance tend to find friends/bf/gf who care as much as they do. For example a person who don’t care at all, usually have a bf/gf who doesn’t care either. Usually! I don’t say that it’s true.
• If you want a boyfriend/girlfriend, it’s not good to play “the game” and try to play hard to get. It doesn’t work. Ok, why do I always do this? I think a man did this research.
• If you are angry it’s not good to “vent” the anger through activities that involves even more anger, because it’ll only get worse. But this is just if you don’t have some kind of over controlled anger = never show anger. Then it can be good to do some sport or in some other way get rid of the anger.
• And to end this, if you are going to perform in the near future this might be interesting to know, or terrifying ;) . If you are very good at what you are doing and you have practiced a lot so the skill is “automatic” you are going to perform better. If you haven’t practiced that much, the chance is bigger that you are going to perform worse than when you rehearsed. This thing is caused by the arousal we feel in these kinds of situations and how the brain handles information.

And did you know that there is something called cognitive dissonance. When we do something or read something that don’t fit to our value norms – what we like or think is good/bad, we can either change our minds, OR try to find external justifications, or find excuses that we are right. Things that contradict creates dissonance and we strive to reduce it. Ie. someone tells you to lie (this is against your values) afterwards you feel bad, but then (automatically) think, oh, someone told me to and then I did something good because I did what someone asked me to do, or you might think: but it was fun, so everything is fine - even though you didn’t think so at all. We change our thought patterns to reduce the dissonance, and that is just how the brain and the thoughts work. It can also be explained like: that you see yourself doing something and then interpret the situation afterwards. I did this – then I must have felt this or that way, and that is why I did it – even though it wasn’t like that at all. Our brain can certainly play a joke on us. We are influenced by people around us, our thoughts about others and even ourselves all the time, and this makes us behave in certain ways.

What motivates people, some everyday psychology.

Tags

2010, life, motivation, personalities, psychology, school

This week we are learning about motivation and emotions (about genes and intelligence too, but I’m not going to write about that now). The book we are using, Psychology the Science of Mind and Behaviour, is written by Passer and Smith et.al. According to this book we are motivated by different things, and I really want to understand this. I tried ti find more information online, but I couldn’t find much. I don’t know if this is a way on how you can interpret it.

According to one theory there are two kinds of motivation systems (neural systems). The behavior activation system (BAS) and the behavior inhibition system (BIS). BAS is roused to action by signals of potential reward and positive need gratification, and BIS responds to stimuli that signals potential pain or i.e. punishment. BAS produces feelings that makes us motivated to work towards positive goals, and things we want, and produces hope and happiness. BIS produces fear and inhibition of behavior, but also escape and avoidance behavior. People can have different degrees to which they show most activation or inhibition. BAS people prefer changes, and BIS people familiar things. These systems are a part in how we seek pleasure and avoid pain. Some people are sensitive to rewards and some to punishment, and this shapes the personality. Some really seek adventure, and some prefer the familiar, I think everyone knows one person of each category.

As I interpret it, either is the BAS system dominant or the BIS system. You are either (most) motivated by positive things or by negative things. But I’m not sure I understand this correctly. Let’s take an example if I hear about something fun, my BAS system is activated and I feel motivated, and happy and that makes me do things that will take me closer to my “goal”. If I hear about that all students that won’t pass on their exams will have to pay a fee, my BIS system is activated and I’m going to be motivated to study harder. If people have one system that is more dominant than the other, does that mean that one person can be more motivated and work harder if he/she is afraid (if he/she is BIS-dominant) than if a positive reward is announced? In that case it would mean that if you know which of the motivation systems are most dominant you know how to best motivate a person. Not that it sounds very funny to threaten someone. But if someone for example wants to lose weight that person might be most motivated to do so if either he/she is informed about all the dangers with overweight OR about how much better you feel when you are “thinner”.

Another part of this is why we affiliate, or what motivates us to do so. There are theories for this too, and some are based on a homeostasis theory – it’s like a thermostat, if your inner thermostat says “I like it best when I have few friends” you will seek solitude if you feel you have too many etc. According to a Craig Hill we affiliate for four different reasons: to get positive stimulation, receive emotional support, gain attention, and permit social comparison. This last reason is because through comparison we can judge our own abilities, and behavior and through that determine if we are ‘normal’. I think that is pretty interesting since I wrote about this the other week, that often people just want you to tell them that they are ‘normal’.

 BUT, What I wanted to say was that this is also something that affects your personality, if you are a person with many friends or fewer.

Researches show that people who have a great need for affiliation make more friends that people who don’t. These people also think more about friends and how much they want to be with people. But because of this homeostasis people with lower affiliation seeks social contact, just like they with higher affiliation seeks solitude, but we seek either of these periods with less or more social contact when our body/brain? Tells us so.

Another thing that I find interesting is that fear-inducing situations we seek social contact, and then it’s easier to bond with strangers. When people are afraid they prefer to be with people who already have been through what they are going through, or with them who are going through the same thing. I wonder if this has something to do with why teenagers have so many friends, I know some people think that the teenage years were very frightening, then it’s not that strange that they tend to be with people who are going through the same thing to find support.

This also makes me think if it’s true that people who thinks that life is more threatening than others do, also have more friends, and like to be with people who are like them. If they also are BIS-dominant it wouldn’t be that strange, because then they seek the familiar, but are also motivated by fear. It also says that people who are BIS-dominant seek either real challenges that they never will accomplish or really easy tasks that will make them look good, because often these people are afraid of failure (that’s what motivate them). They have an ego-approach – they are motivated because they are afraid someone else is going to be better than them, or that they won’t look as good as the others. This can also be a reason to why they might have so many friends, they need to compare themselves, and to create some kind of “collective” identity.

I know that this is a simple way of explaining something that is so much bigger, and as I usually say, everything is relative. Something seems to be corrects one moment and totally wrong the other, and people see things from different views which gives all things millions of aspects.

I like to learn about things like these because it shows how different we are, and that we are different is not strange. There are thousands of ways to explain things, and I think people like to find explanations because we prefer to fees safe, and to have some kind of way to interpret the world. What really interests me is different personalities, and I hope we are going to learn more about this later on.