Typology is a shorter term for Jungian Psychological Type, Myers-Briggs Personality Type, Keirsey's temperements, Hippocrates' Humoralisms, Platos types etc... I always use the term Typology because it's really hard to google Personality Type isn't it? You get a lot of unrelated junk when you do that so I champion the idea of assigning one term to Personality Type that can be searched online. I propose we use the term Typology. So from here on out that's what I'll call it.



So on with the meat of this article. Typology is a system of categorizing people. Or if it makes you uncomfortable to be categorized you can think of it as a system of observing traits in people. Does that feel better? People are so funny when you try to "put them in boxes". People insist that they are too complex to be categorized and take offense to the very notion of it. In my not so humble opinion people are simple creatures that have grown to be just smart enough to know we exist but not smart enough to keep from destorying ourselves so it's just a little arrogant to think we can't be classified. Anyway I digress, I'll save the philosophical meanderings for the philosophy section of this site.

The point is we classify other people all the time. When talking about some hot headed girl's attitude we may say "well she's a redhead" and everyone listening understands what you're getting at. We might say she's a... or he's a... followed by some category. Does this mean stereotypes are true? Of course not because stereotypes are based on a persons perception of a small sampling of the subjects. Although stereotypes may have their basis in some sort of truth they are not scientific evidence that should be use to draw a conclusion. Stereotypes can't be trusted and are in themselves dangerous. So what's all this talk about classifying people have to do with Typology then?

Definition: Typology - a method of classifying people based on synaptic preferences concerning decision making, lifestyle orientation, energizing and information gathering.

What this means is you have preferences in your brain as to whether you'd like to use your left hand over your right, your left foot, eye etc... You also have preferences as to whether you will make decisions based on logic or feelings, how you gather information, where you get your energy and how you organize the environment around you. These preferences started to grow the minute you were conceived. They are genetic and they are part of you just as your big toe is part of you. No offense to those of you without big toes. You can try to be a different type but there is about a 99.9999% chance you will fail. The healthy attitude would be to learn about who you are and understand why you do what you do. It's also very beneficial for you to learn about the other types as well so you can enrichen your relationships with others and possible understand the actions of others when in the past you couldn't