Personality Types

Real people have complex personalities, molded by genetic endowment, life experience, cultural roles, human relationships, and social situations. Yet the resulting human "types" fall into recognizable personality types rather than random agglomerations of character traits and behaviors. We all develop some awareness of this and (unconsciously) classify or evaluate people we meet or interact with. However, writers and dramatists face the unique challenge of creating and describing consistent, lifelike characters. These characters must "hang together" for the resulting narrative to work for the reader. The audience's implicit sense of the limited variety of real human types thus constrains how writers fashion their characters.

This limitation holds for non-fictional historical narratives as well as fictional ones encountered in literature. A biographical sketch that does not present a "believable" portrait of the subject fails in the eyes of the reader because the sketch is inaccurate and incomplete. Only a plausible or lifelike character works for the reader, whether in fiction or history. In both cases the writer aims to communicate something about human experience or, more simply, to tell a story using their characters. In sum, having a working knowledge of personality types helps the discriminating reader understand and evaluate the characters in a narrative.

The following list of general personality types and character traits is summarized from The Writer's Guide to Character Traits, by Linda N. Edelstein, Ph.D. (Writer's Digest Books, 1999). Dr. Edelstein is a practicing psychologist and an associate professor of psychology. Page numbers given below are from the book. I have grouped the personality types she presented in the book into three categories below. Certainly one could classify personalities differently; while useful, this is just one possible list.

Adventurer - thrill seeker, competitive, leader, skirts rules, seeks the spotlight; assertive and independent but possibly impulsive.

Bossy - competitive and confident but dogmatic; gets things done but wants things done her way, not inclined to intimacy, low tolerance for frustration.

Hyper - overactive risk-taker with big ideas and lots of energy; possibly careless and unstable.

Man's Man - one-dimensional, as any "feminine" of soft characteristics are suppressed; demanding, ambitious, coarse, rather inflexible, hides any doubts or weaknesses.

Ultra-Femme - is to women what Man's Man is to men; stereotypic feminine behaviors.

Show-Off - undercontrolled and aggressive, craves attention and admiration; outgoing but immature and often oblivious.

Conventional - lives by the rules and prefers familiar, established ways of doing things; very loyal, seeks security.

Creator - produces new ideas or products; artistic, intuitive, unconventional, but forgetful and undependable outside area of focus.

Extrovert - outgoing, talkative, optimistic; friendly and expressive, among the most "normal" of personality types.

Personable - calm, cooperative, easygoing, and flexible, makes a good friend or colleague; but not creative or inclined to take risks and liable to be directed by stronger types.

Problem-Solver - resourceful, reliable, an achiever; goal-directed but likely to take on too much (trying to solve everyone else's problems), burnout candidate?

Resilient - remarkable ability to bounce back from losses and disappointments; happy, productive, good sense of humor.

Conformist - a follower, sticking to the rules and going along. Essentially an exaggerated Conventional type. At the extreme, can be rigid, closed-minded, and preachy.

Dependent - his world revolves around having his needs met; lacking in self-confidence, possibly anxious or fearful, clingy, needs regular reassurance and support, but quite capable in clerical work.

Eccentric - self-absorbed and impractical, socially inept, strange behaviors; gravitates toward solitary or abstract work.

Fall Guy or Gal - always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; gullible, overly trusting, gets taken advantage of.

Fearful - driven by inhibitions and fear of rejection; moody and self-deprecating.

Loner - a directionless drifter with few attachments; indifferent to social approval, mingling brings pain not enjoyment.

Passive-Aggressive - hostility gets suppressed so passivity is what is observed; hates anyone having authority over them, sulky, resentful, periodic bursts of anger.

Victim - weak, pessimistic, and burdened; an unsuccessful Dependent that gets yoked to abusive or failing relationships.

The following are not general personality types, but are disordered types (ranging from mild to severe) that develop in some individuals.

Narcissistic - grandiose, shows off, low self-esteem, lacks empathy, needs admiration; projects own inadequacies on others, adopts extreme views (others are purely good or wholly evil). "Religious careers are good because there is a built-in audience" (p. 93).

Bipolar Disorder - formerly manic depressive; normal periods punctuated by extreme mood swings that last days, months, or years.

Delusional - delusions can be bizarre or reasonable; danger, love, jealously, body or disease, grandeur.

Suspicious - evasive, anxious, preoccupied, guarded, unforgiving, controlling, litigious; can't tolerate criticism, interprets honest mistakes as intentional harms, misinterprets jokes, holds grudges, likes simplistic formulations. Fine for corporations or law where adversarial relationships abound.

Psychopathic - amoral, aggressive, reckless, alienated; lacks guilt, rationalizes own behavior, resents authority, may be quite charming initially.

Groups can have a powerful effect on their members. "Groups create come traits and also evoke traits in people" (p. 269, emphasis in original). While we generally come to identify with the groups to which we belong, a basic tension hangs over all group membership commitments: How much of myself do I surrender to the group? How much individuality and autonomy do I give up in taking on the group's norms, values, and beliefs?

Groups include family, school, corporation, union, church, government, military, club, team. Attributes of groups include autonomy (functions independently of other groups), cohesiveness, control, flexibility (rigid or informal procedures), tone (pleasant or not), homogeneity, intimacy, participation, permeability, polarization (one goal for all members), potency (group power over members), size, stability, and stratification (clear hierarchy) (p. 273). "When groups are good, they are creative and can generate more ideas than an individual. When groups are bad, people may behave less competently, make strange alliances (often unconscious), projections take over, and scapegoating occurs" (p. 276).

Within groups, "roles reduce anxiety; scripts make it easy to know how to behave, but become one-dimensional" (p. 277). Leaders are charismatic, visionary, inspirational, and confident, but may be narcissitic, crave control, and use others to achieve their own personal goals. Group members take on many of the following generic roles (p. 279):

Clown - relieves tension with jokes or silliness but distracts the group from more serious matters.

Oppressor - wants things her way; exaggerates respect shown to superiors, sense of authority over inferiors.

Nurse - usually a woman, tends to everyone's needs, concerned about other, hides anger, jealousy, and competition.

Scapegoat - "the most dramatic behavior of a group in exploiting an individual" (p. 280). Rather than sharing responsibility, the group deposits or projects unwanted feelings (e.g., guilt or failure) onto an individual, who may thereafter be excluded or exiled from the group.

The author discusses a few specific groups, but not religion or religious organizations in particular. The closest she comes is the following paragraph on cults (p. 287).

A Cult is a group of individuals who follow a living, usually male, leader. The group leader makes extreme claims about his person or abilities; for example, he is God's agent, all-knowing, or has the absolute truth. Membership in the cult requires complete acceptance of the leader's claims, complete obedience to the rules, and complete loyalty to the leader.