Psychological typologies

Modeling of systems of psychological types

In modeling of psychological systems the systematization and classification play a very important role. With the development of statistics in the description of weight of the trait (or type) in society, the character of the trait (type) distribution becomes very important. It is also important, if the distinctions of trait have a quantitative or qualitative character for the adequate interpretation of practically every research in the field of differential psychology, understanding of certain fundamental statistical concepts is required. "There are at least three various theories of the psychological types worked out by psychologists. Some authors represent types as separate classes that exclude each other. Some others psychologists accept the theory of types as more or less detailed trait theory, defining the types as poles of one and same continuum between which people may be ranked by the law of normal distribution. The adepts of the third view believe that the types differ from the traits by having multimodal distributions in which the people are grouped with in definite points, representing pure types". Stagner, 1948.

Distribution of the traits

The normal distribution is fundamental and does not depend on cultural factors. The majority of measuring instruments (tests) are constructed so that the trait could be normalized with the normal distribution term, if distinctions are to have quantitative character. For instance, the traits which enter the base of the personality named the Big Five have a normal distribution.

Example: Extraversion/introversion. Most people have ambivalent characteristics on this scale.

Strict sets

If characteristics have qualitative rather than quantitative distinctions, they are usually described as strict sets.

Example: Right-handed people and left-handed people. The deaf and the hearing. Types in Socionics.

Nonstrict sets

It is very seldom that a certain quality is consistently absent in a psyche. Therefore, in most cases, it is useful to use mild classifications which reflect the real character of the distribution more precisely.

Example: Typology by Ernst Kretschmer or William Herbert Sheldon.

Complex models

More complex and systematized models take into account the fact that they may meet both quantitative, and qualitative distinctions or traits. The distributions of these traits have clear connections and may form types which in term will have a constant distribution in society.

Example: Psycosmology model in the context of the general, typological and individual.

System classifications

The system classifications proceeded from the postulate that the whole is not a sum of its parts, but rather, a system of higher organization. This classification is frequently based on the laws of the functioning Universe. The properties of this classification are: strictness (everyone belongs to one and only one class and remains in it for the whole life), quantity of classes determined by laws of the Universe, and the organization of the psyche as a part of a more general system of a functioning Universe.

Examples: Astrological (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, the Classical antiquity), astro-musical system of types (India).

The foundation of development of practices, known nowadays as "the western astrology", was the Mesopotamian astrology whereas the Chinese tradition became a core of systems so-called "Eastern astrology". As to astrological systems of meso-American Indians and druids, they haven't survived till present time in the living tradition and are now reconstructed only some with some degree of authenticity. Original astrological systems arose, probably, in other regions of the world as well, but they were quite regional (astrology of inks or original Javano-Balyiskian astrology, based on a "vuku" calendar.

An interesting development of this idea can be found in Johannes Kepler's works which continued the traditions of astro-musical systems, having joined physical and mental laws in the theory of resonance.

"In his exposition astrology became similar to the physical theory of resonance. The stars themselves do not influence the destiny of people, but the soul of person at the moment of a birth imprinted the angles between the stars and the following life reacted to them in specific ways".

A somewhat different approach to problems of astrological knowledge can be observed in Carl Jung's works. Astrology, as Jung believed, "is the top of all psychological knowledge in antiquity", the gist of which is in imprinting the symbolical configurations in the form of collective unconscious. "Astrology as collective unconscious to which the psychology addresses, consists of symbolical configurations:" planets "are Gods, the symbols of power unconscious".

Domination of one of the four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition) is the basis for the classification that Carl Jung theorized from his clinical experience. This typology was expanded by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė (Socionics) and Isabel Briggs Myers with her mother, Katharine Briggs (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator).

Specific classifications

The classification more often touched on the characteristics connected with the sphere of social interaction. They were built as a set of bipolar traits in which the dominance of certain traits were accentuated in the person's character. The characteristics of specific classifications are the absence of a clear borders between classes—the person can pass from one class into another under the influence of the external and internal forces. The number of classes depends on the position of the author of the classification.

Examples: Socially-characterological (Theophrastus), sociopolitical (Plato).

The Characters by Theophrastus contains thirty brief, vigorous and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a picture of the life of his time, and of human nature in general.

According to Plato, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline from an aristocracy (rule by the best) to a timocracy (rule by the honorable), then to an oligarchy (rule by the few), then to a democracy (rule by the people), and finally to tyranny (rule by one person, rule by a tyrant).

Plato's is one of the first typologies, based on his values. Plato singled out the following types:

1. aristocratic characterized by dominant of the higher side of soul, aspiration to true search;
2. timocratic characterized by strong development of ambition and inclination to struggle;
3. oligarchic characterized by greediness, restraint and thrift;
4. democratic characterized by moral instability, and aspiration to constant change of sensual pleasures;
5. tyrannic characterized by dominant of lowest animal attraction.

The specific classifications are often build by practical workers on the basis of concrete activity. Within any activity one can find many very different classifications.

Basis of classification

The theoretical analysis and empirical verification of the classification systems of the psyche have been undertaken by a number of authors in the 20th century (C. Jung, H. Eysenck, R. Meily, V.S. Merlin, L.N. Sobchik, L.Ja. Dorfman, E.P. Ilyin, N.L. Nagibina and others).

Bodily and formal-dynamic characteristics as grounds for classification

These classifications are more often used by the clinical psychologists and the psychiatrists.

Example: The Hippocratic school held that four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm consists the basis for the four types of temperaments.

Example: Kretschmer's classification system was based on three main body types: asthenic/leptosomic (thin, small, weak), athletic (muscular, large–boned), and pyknic (stocky, fat). (The athletic category was later combined into the category asthenic/leptosomic.) Each of these body types was associated with certain personality traits and, in a more extreme form, psychopathologies.

Example: American psychologist William Herbert Sheldon associates body types with human temperament types.Sheldon proposed that the human physique be classed according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements, somatotypes, named after the three germ layers of embryonic development: the endoderm, (develops into the digestive tract), the mesoderm, (becomes muscle, heart and blood vessels), and the ectoderm (forms the skin and nervous system).

Sheldon's "somatotypes" and their supposed associated physical traits can be summarized as follows:

Ectomorphic: characterized by long and thin muscles/limbs and low fat storage; receding chin, usually referred to as slim.

Mesomorphic: characterized by medium bones, solid torso, low fat levels, wide shoulders with a narrow waist; usually referred to as muscular.

Endomorphic: characterized by increased fat storage, a wide waist and a large bone structure, usually referred to as fat.

Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification

Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification become popular in the 20th century.

Table 1. Some examples of classifications based on concrete methods of receiving and processing information.

Values and motivational characteristics as grounds for personality classifications

The sphere of personality values and senses is situated at the crossing point of two large areas of psychic: motivation on one side and the world outlooking structure on the other. The sphere of values and senses with its unique picture of the world is the core of personality. Most bright psychological ideas concerning the sphere values and senses are presented in the work of Erich Fromm, M. Rokeach, Abraham Maslow and others.

For example, Rokeach treats the values as a kind of steady conviction that a certain goal or way of living is preferable to some other. The human values are characterized by the following main properties:

1. The whole number of values of a person is relatively small.
2. All people have the same values, although in different degrees.
3. The values are organized in systems.
4. The sources of human values can be tracked down in culture, society and its institutions etc.
5. The influence of the values can be traced practically in all social phenomena, deserving studying.

Rokeach distinguishes two classes of values – terminal and instrumental. He defines the terminal values as convictions that a certain final goal in individual life (for instance, happy family life, peace in the whole world) from the personal and the social point of view is worth to be pursued. The instrumental values are beliefs that a certain way of performance (for instant, honesty, rationalism) is from personal and social points of view preferable in any situations. In fact, the distinction between the terminal and instrumental values coincides with already existing, rather traditional differentiations of values-goals and values means. The system of personality values orientation as well as any psychological system can be represented as "multidimensional dynamic space".

Example: Erich Fromm describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things ("assimilation"), and reacting to people ("socialization"). These orientations describe how a person has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also considered that people were never pure in any such orientation. These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive.

Example: N.Losski picked out three types of characters.

1. Hedonistic type with domination of lower, sensual drives suppressing all higher aspirations. The people of this type are completely under the influence of the biological nature. Their self is not yet mature.
2. Egoistic type. Their self is quite mature and decorates all the striving deeds and feelings. The Self (I) prevails in their consciousness and they are striving to broadly expose it in their activities.
3. Superpersonal type. Their aspirations similarly to those of the first type, are as if given outside, but their source is not in the physical needs of the body, but in the factors of higher order, namely: in higher religious, scientific and aesthetic strivings. Such people act as if not on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of the higher will, which they recognize as the rules of their deeds.

Losski points out that it is impossible the sharp boundary between the three types, as there are intermediate types, that are transitional from one category to the other.

Bounded complexes of cognitive characteristics, values and motives as ground for personality classifications

Example: E. Spranger distinguishes six types of personality, which connect cognition and values correlating the personality type with cognition of the world.

• The Theoretical, whose dominant interest is the discovery of truth. A passion to discover, systematize and analyze; a search for knowledge.
• The Economic, who is interested in what is useful. A passion to gain a return on all investments involving time, money and resources.
• The Aesthetic, whose highest value is form and harmony. A passion to experience impressions of the world and achieve form and harmony in life; self-actualization.
• The Social, whose highest value is love of people. A passion to invest myself, my time, and my resources into helping others achieve their potential.
• The Political, whose interest is primarily in power. A passion to achieve position and to use that position to affect and influence others.
• The Religious, whose highest value is unity. A passion to seek out and pursue the highest meaning in life, in the divine or the ideal, and achieve a system for living.

One dominating value corresponding to every type.

Contemporary problems of psychological classifications

The problems of psychological classifications are caused the high complexity and mobility of psyche. To classify the objects of the material world is more easy a task.

In psychology we study consciousness with the help of consciousness. Here new possibilities are opened and the same time new limitations occurred, in part, due to the subjectivity and the necessity to overcome it as it is known, in the psyche there are conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. They often take place separately, as two different means to get knowledge (information) about situations in the world. Because of this, for instance, estimations of personality characteristics with the help of projective tests (which are addressed mostly to unconscious properties) often contradict the results of self-estimations made with help of questionnaires (which are based on consciousness).

For determining of psychological type of a person, it is important to have a measuring instrument (test, inventory etc.), that is calibrated to reveal not the present and actual situational characteristics, but the opens which are typical, repeating with higher probability in the course of life. That is why the methods, which allow to see the present characteristics through the prism of the person whole life: biographical, structured talk, longitudinal observation in real situations) are very important for the psychologists. Such methods are well developed in the clinical psychology. In the work with healthy people the use of these methods is rather narrow.

Example: The program of personality measuring by A.F. Lazurski.

Training qualified specialists in the field of research and diagnostics of psychological types is a particular problem. Here a whole complex of specific knowledge and skills is required. For measuring psychological types it is important to have the ability to see not separate fragments of the psychic reality but operating with the systems (cognition, motivation, values, will, emotions, self-consciousness) and taking into account their holistic character, to master the knowledge of steady variants of these systems and skills to compare their properties. The comparing and estimating the systems are more difficult in the absence of the reliable methodological base: there is not a generally accepted opinion on what to compare and how to estimate.

For investigation the types it is necessary to be able to use both the qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical reality research, taking into account the following factors:

1. The scale and the complex character of research (the possibility of keeping under control several plans of different scales).

2. The character and specificity of distribution of properties and characteristics in the studied environment.

3. The adequate number of sub-scales, not violating the completeness and the constructive validity of a psychological traits.

List of important theorists of psychological typology and differential psychology

• Alfred Adler
• Anne Anastasi
• Claudio Naranjo
• Raymond Cattell
• Hans Eysenck
• Sigmund Freud
• Franz Joseph Gall
• Francis Galton
• Hippocrates
• Karen Horney
• Edmund Husserl
• William James
• Carl Jung
• Ernst Kretschmer
• Oswald Külpe
• Karl Leonhard
• Cesare Lombroso
• Isabel Briggs Myers
• Ivan Pavlov
• Nikolai Lossky
• Grigory Ivanovich Rossolimo
• Plato
• Théodule-Armand Ribot
• Hermann Rorschach
• William Stern
• Theophrastus