Looking for Personality: Perception, Translation, Meaning

Looking for personality Perception, translation, meaning Recently I met someone at a friend’s place I don’t know whether it’s come back (or The freewheelin’ who asked me what I did. My reply, ‘I teach whether it ever left in other places), but I Peter Geyer people about personality’ was met with, found it really valuable. In type terms it’s ‘You mean, how to get more?’ probably introverted thinking (which may account for my enthusiasm for it), but it’s I found I couldn’t respond to that in any essential for understanding type constructs, detail, in part because ‘personality’ had and for comparison with other psycholog- for each of us quite a different meaning, ical, sociological and popular ideas. and I didn’t want to launch into a complex explication. The gap seemed too much, and This is because, when it comes down to it, the situation didn’t seem appropriate. So I psychological instruments are translation replied that what I did wasn’t much like devices. We ask a leading question, or a what she’d said, and left it at that. series of them, and speculate on or define the responses. Hopefully this is done in a I also made a personal judgement on how non-coercive atmosphere, some of which open this person seemed to be to ambiguity, can be deceptively benign, such as com- abstraction, and the ability to listen. That pleting a survey or an MBTI or similar may, of course, have been incorrect, but product in a training or counselling setting. I’m trying to learn more about when to open my mouth and when to keep silent The answers, in any case, may not be real: about what I do and what it is. there has to be a good translation. However, as Umberto Eco points out (2004), this is One of the difficulties of teaching type is not as simple as it seems. Translation has that different meanings have to be provided its own difficulties: we still need to know for its terms. So ‘personality’ is not about something else, perhaps a lot of something, ‘more’ or ‘less’, nor even ‘having’ such a and Eco provides some entertaining and thing: all these relate to the public person, appalling examples of where translation the world of celebrity, fame and notoriety has gone awry. perhaps, but also the expression of affect, dominance (e.g. an ‘imposing’ personality), A friend of mine, whose family origins are and suchlike. in Croatia, said to me that the translations of film dialogue in that language on SBS In the same way, ‘extraversion’ is not like are not actually what she hears the actors extroversion—a more social view—but say and often miss the point of what’s being about personal energy, in tension with the said. Perhaps they’re going for meaning, opposite in introversion; ‘thinking’ is not rather than a larger slab of words infused about intellect; ‘feeling’ not about emotion, with the cultural interpretation. and so on. It doesn’t mean that the other definitions are wrong: they simply have Even amongst the various Englishes, this is different presumptions and uses, and clarify an issue. It’s well-known that American and or mislead in their own ways. British humour are different. In Australian literature on management and organisation, Some definitions can be more useful than I promise you, I won’t leave a clue the emphasis seems more on American than others, of course, and some presumptions British approaches, notwithstanding our No tell-tale remark, no print of my shoe may be wrong, or off-beam. Looking for cultural affinity with Britain. Have I reached the point definitions and meanings seems to be a rare where I should take my cue activity these days. At school, that sort of In our everyday language (particularly thing was identified as ‘critical thinking’, amongst women, it seems), ‘bathroom’ And follow you and your signs? part of English studies; but it disappeared now denotes a toilet, even when there’s from the curriculum soon after I completed no bath to be seen. Peter Hammill school. Australian Psychological Type Review Vol 6 No. 2 July 2004 25 Even within Australia, many variants of Mobile phones have their own etiquette (for standard terms exist, and it’s interesting want of a better term). Any place will do, how many people presume that their words it seems. Recently I witnessed someone are the only ones. engaging loudly in a mobile conversation whilst purchasing food at a counter. They In the 1950s, when I went with my family were quite unselfconscious about it, and to Melbourne’s Williamstown Beach we all oblivious to others. I couldn’t believe it. wore our ‘togs.’ Later, for reasons that are unclear to me, they became ‘bathers.’ And And anyone will do it. It seems to be the now the Sydney term ‘cossie’ seems to be norm that people answer phones and make winning out, perhaps because newspapers calls anywhere they choose. I haven’t yet and magazines use spell-checks, rather than experienced someone engaged in a call knowledge about ‘something.’ from the ‘bathroom’, but I expect it has occurred. So, in using language, we need to know something about culture. And in doing My point in making this observation is that that, we need to know that culture changes: a few years ago, using a mobile in this way and not because of workshops and other would be seen as an example of extravers- Shane Warne processes that have that aim. The ebb and ion. But now it isn’t; it’s general behaviour. flow of approaches to life is an example of Not using one might not be introversion, human adaptability, as well as a sign that, either; it might be social circumstances, if we really want to find out about people, money, and so on. we should look past specific behaviour or We have to take these considerations into attributes. account when trying to see type in others. Socio-economic frameworks that focus on It also depends on what someone says or description come to mind, particularly the writes: you need cues to see where the ‘Generations’ (Baby Boomers, Generation information is leading you. X, Y, etc). This has recently been a theme Ricky Ponting, captain of the Australian of discussion in the Melbourne Age, cul- cricket team, recently compared the two minating in an editorial which questioned leg-spinners in his team, Shane Warne the usefulness of such generalised terms. and Stuart MacGill. ‘You can make out a From my point of view, this is progress of little about their personalities by the way a sort: partly because the Generations don’t they bowl’, he said: stand up well under critical scrutiny, but also because of the broad range of people Warney is a lot more outgoing with the way You can make out who publicly expressed unease at these he talks and acts around the dressing room. terms (of whom I was one). He likes the group environment and atmos- a little about their Today we may think of Sydney, rather than phere. That brings out the best in him, whereas Melbourne, as an extraverted place; but in Stuie keeps to himself a fair bit and interacts personalities by the late 19th century and afterwards, the more one-on-one than in a group situation. reverse was the case. Melbourne was seen the way they bowl as more brash, more ‘American’ (Blainey That’s a fairly good brief description of 2003). The positioning of ‘major events’ in extraversion and introversion. Ponting Melbourne today has also enabled a more goes on further to say about MacGill: extraverted expression of life than was the case when I was growing up there. I’ve never seen anyone read as many books as he does during a cricket tour. If we’re It’s not that there were fewer extraverts batting, he’ll pay a bit of attention to the then, simply that there weren’t places in cricket but he’ll often be sitting there reading the public eye where it was acceptable to express extraversion. Here, social etiquette his book, something that is not one of comes into play. Warney’s favourite pastimes. A simple example is the side of the path We might want to know more about what or street you walk on. Historically, it’s MacGill reads, but you’d speculate that been the custom in Australia to walk on there’s an indication of intuition. Finally, the left, and people did so without thinking Ponting says: about it. In the USA and Europe, however, people walk on the right, and this practice Stuie’s really well prepared with all his gear. seems to be now in favour, or coming into Stuart MacGill He’s always got his little sweat towels. His favour. It’s always interesting to me to see whites are always folded and his boots are people of my age group look confused when well looked after. I come along on the left side of the footpath. 26 Australian Psychological Type Review Vol 6 No. 2 July 2004 Warney’s over in the corner with his gear An indication here of T perhaps, rather than Note all over the place. Jocks and odd socks, F. Later on in this statement Doogue talks A more sophisticated version of ‘ebb sweat bands and gloves and things every- about her struggle in this way. and flow’ is the idea of saturation and where. compensation, which uses the Jungian I like ideas, I find discussing ideas and view of tension of opposites.

Load more