Amused.

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I've been doing some research lately on personality types, and applying the different types to people I know either personally or professionally.

Rather than go through a simple site that explained all of them, I gathered all of the types and went through a few of them via google.* Why? Because this doesn't narrow the results to just personality types; instead, searching for them individually includes articles, blogs, professional development, and biographies. Have you ever taken a personality test to determine which one you are? Feel free to leave your personality type in the comments section... I'd love to see if I'm right about you :)

This site needs to be updated, but the information is sound and it gives a basic, general idea of the 16 personality types.

It's pretty interesting to look through the different types and see your friends, family, or acquaintances in each one of them. It really changes conversational dynamics when you can communicate to someone who is vastly different by becoming familiar with how they think. One can actually learn to speak and empathize with others on a deeper level by "saying what they can hear." I think Gary Chapman brings a Christian emphasis to this in his Love Languages series.

I found it amusing when I arrived at the ENFP type in my google* search. One researcher calls them "global learners," "story tellers," "very bright," and yet.... "intellectuals with at 'silly switch.'" ENFPs are probably the most communicative of the personality types, but with a twist: almost everything is deeply meaningful to them and very personal. I found blog posts titled "I'm an ENFP!" and "So I took a personality test, and I'm an ENFP!" Hello, world!

One researcher even went so far as to say that some ENFPs will spend time convincing others that he/she (the ENFP) is a wonderful and fascinating person. Which may partially explain the blog posts- although what I found is that the blog writers were actually trying to convince the readers of something that was wonderful or fascinating to them, even if it appeared small or trivial. So very different from, say, the ENTJ, described as "I don't care to sit by the window on the airplane. If can't control it, why look?" (How sad for him. Sir, trade seats with me so I can look out the window at all the fascinating things down there?)

ENFP/Champions are a sub-category of ENFPs; sort of like ENFPs on a triple-shot-latte. They make up about 3% of the population, and the main difference is that they tend to be a little more effective (publicly, anyway) in their causes and efforts they "champion" for. Emily Yoffe speculates that Obama is an ENFP/Champion in her article.

Very interesting stuff!

So what do you think? Which one are you?

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*at-her-risk (ha, ha)

I refuse to capitalize the "g" in google from now on, because it just doesn't seem right.