Introduction
Why hello there! This is a site about Personality Types. Yes, that's right. Personality types. Now there's a phrase that's sure to elicit a knee-jerk reaction from most people!
But people are too complex to be defined by simple labels!!!
...I hear you scream, your mouth foaming and your clenched fists tearing savagely at your hair. Well! This frustratingly common reaction is entirely correct! We human beings are very complicated entities, full of quirks and eccentricities that make us all unique. Only a fool would deny that.
HOWEVER!! While each of our details may differ, certain patterns can be observed which, if learned, can go a long way towards understanding why yourself or others act in certain ways. If a person's mind or soul is a glorious, multifaceted, rainbow-coloured snowflake, each of these words - these 'labels' - only attempts to give a general impression of how it usually looks from one specific angle. None of them try to explain every single aspect of a person with 100% accuracy, nor do they claim that the person acts in a certain way 100% of the time, without exception. That would be absurd!
About this site
Personality psychology fascinates me deeply. I spend so much of my time reading about it and trying to explain it to others, and I keep track of various personality type websites that contain descriptions of various different personality systems.
I thought it'd be interesting to try and collect all the information I've learned in one place, and to explain why I find it useful. It'll be fun for me, and maybe someone will get something out of it too!
I'm probably not going to be able to provide thorough, in-depth detail on all the systems... Rather, I'll provide introductory explanations of their most important aspects, so then you can understand HOW they work on a conceptual level, and what they're meant to be used for. I'll include links to sites that explain the nitty-gritty details for those who want to delve deeper.
But why should I bother?
I don't know about you, but I always used to worry about being different from other people... I felt like my thoughts and behaviours didn't match up with the people around me, and I didn't know why. It frustrated me, and led to me feeling uncertain about myself. I was also upset when people just couldn't seem to see where I was coming from when I tried to explain my needs or preferences to them.
So for me personally, personality types allow me to explain in detail why I think the way that I do, and why other people don't behave like I do. It's very soothing for someone like me who worries about these things. Knowing the why of things just gives me a certain comfort.
Personality types allow you to understand why you act the way that you do, which can significantly boost self-esteem. Knowing that you're not defective or broken is a very calming thought for many people. It also allows you to better understand your natural strengths, which can help you to decide which path through life you'd be best suited to.
Another big thing is that they allow you to understand other people. Importantly, they allow you to realise that other people don't react like you do to things, so perhaps it's not the best idea to criticise them for reacting differently to how you would, or to expect them to 'fix' themselves if they are incapable of something that you do naturally.
For example, many people in Western society feel relieved to learn that they are an introvert, as it explains their frustration at trying to behave like an extrovert as society expects them to. If the extroverts would understand this, they might be more considerate of the introvert's specific needs rather than trying to force them into situations that bring them stress.
Notes about personality types in general
Personality types are set in stone from birth, for the most part. They don't change.
This doesn't mean that they're rigid and static, however! Rather, the personality type defines a wide area that you can grow and change within. Two people with the same type might have many, many differences due to growing in different ways, but they'd still share at least some things in common.
They also describe what you are like most of the time. This is important! You don't break the mould simply by acting against the supposed traits of your type occasionally.
About the models
There are several personality models (or systems or whatever; I'm not sure what to call them!) that I cover on this site. Each one explores a different angle of our multifaceted personalities, and they all stack nicely on top of eachother without any 'overriding' the others (for the most part, anyway).
They have different levels of hard scientific evidence supporting them, but that's not important to me. I find them useful based on practical experiences, and that's reason enough to at least learn about them, I think.
These are the models explained on this site:
A note about astrology...
I'd like to address these two astrology-related things:
Why don't you include astrology?
These systems are no better than astrology.
Astrology is a system that starts with a conclusion, and tries to fit observed facts to that conclusion. These systems, however, instead derive their conclusions from the observed facts.
As such, I see no value in astrology. I don't think that your personality type would be determined by the stars. Instead, I think that personality type labels should just be a way of summarising observations.