Personality Temperaments

Part of the Temperament/Social media series in collaboration
with Elemental Truths. You can find all of the relevant articles
linked at the bottom of the Introduction.

C holerics: goal oriented, independent, problem-solving leaders of .. well… everything. They want (and need( to be in charge - in charge of themselves, in charge of their environment, in charge of others.

They like affection, appreciation and attention well enough, but only when it’s offered on their terms, and generally, they’d prefer start a group, rather than join someone else’s. But don’t be fooled - they aren’t afraid to gate crash either, and are happy exert their influence and divert existing communities to their own purposes.

What’s the Web2.0 appeal for a Choleric?

Social Media is filled with endless communities, networks and discussions ready to be taken over, subverted, and bent to the Choleric’s will. Alternately, Cholerics can just create their own community, reigning over it as Grand-Emperor-Virtual-Poohbah.

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Part of the Temperament/Social media series in collaboration
with Elemental Truths.

With low needs for socialization and attention, Melancholies may not be the stars of social networking, but they may find it an attractive medium all the same.

The Melancholy personality is motivated by a drive towards intimacy- not necessarily romantic intimacy, but the sort of intimacy that comes with the transparent mythical sharing and baring of the soul of poetry and art… the intimacy of kindred spirits.

And in the search for kindred spirits, social media offers countless benefits.

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Part of the Temperament/SocialMedia series  with ElementalTruths. 

Since we started this series, a lot of folks have been asking for an online 5 temperaments test. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t one I could send you to… until now!

Reg has agreed to make a version temporarily available here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfs7hphz_304ctkffrcp

Its old fashioned pen and paper - which, personally? I think makes it more likely to be accurate since it engages the brain differently. Anyway, you’ll need to print it out. For the best accuracy, you’ll need to ask two of your friends to fill it out for you, too.

Please keep in mind this is a rough version. Reg would really appreciate your feed back about how well it works/doesn’t work, or anything that’s confusing.   If we get enough positive feedback, we’ll work together and try to technologize it for a web version, so leave a comment and let us know if you try it

…and thanks Reg, for making it available!

MindTweak: “The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”                                                      -  Tom Bodett

Part of the Temperment/Social media series in collaboration
with Elemental Truths.  You can find a list of the relevant articles in the MindTweaks Sidebar, or linked at the bottom of the Introduction.

Sanguines: entertaining, outgoing, responsive, warm, and friendly - that’s just part of Reg’s description of Sanguines. They thrive on attention and affection, they love being included, and they go out of their way to include others. So social media should be a breeze for those with strong Sanguine traits, right?

Well, yes and no.

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Part of the Temperament/Social media series in collaboration
with Elemental Truths. You can find all of the relevant articles
linked at the bottom of the Introduction.

When Reg suggested we kick off this series by looking at the Supine temperament, I got excited. As a Supine/Sanguine, I can vouch for the difficulty that the Supine temperament presents when dealing with social media.

Most obviously, there’s the somewhat wacky Supine approach to socialization. As Reg puts it in his post,

“They have very little need to initiate association or socialization, but have a high need to be approached by many people for association and socialization.”

MMhmm. It’s against the Supine nature to reach out to others - we want others to approach us.

But most popular Social Media sites reward an aggressive style of socialization. To build a network of friends on services like Twitter, Facebook or you need to promote yourself heavily… it means inviting (and even nagging) people to join the service, and use it actively. It means talking to strangers, even when the strangers don’t talk back.

See the problem?

Social networking services just don’t work in ways we Supine types socialize.

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Ok, so it’s not as addictive as The Brain Button, but still pretty darn cool

(Click the image above to launch the page. Flash required)

Part of the introduction for the Temperment/Social
media series with Elemental Truths

(written in my most serious of voices. ahem)

The most modern interpretation of Temperament Theory (as outlined by Drs Phyllis and Richard G Arno) recognizes 5 temperament types: Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholy, and Supine. These elemental types come together in of our individual natures, making each of us a unique and complex blend of needs, wants and drives.

Below is a rough overview of each temperament in it’s idealized form:

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Choleric: Control-Oriented Leaders
Motto: “When I say jump…” [click to continue...]

This post is the first in a collaborative series between MindTweaks and Elemental Truths . The goal is to take a look at temperament/personality types over the next week, and see what solutions and suggestions we can come up with.

Social Media is a current hot topic just about everywhere. People are scrambling to “join the conversations” on the various services, but also finding themselves frustrated (see “Why I suck at social media” . )

One aspect of that frustration may be explained through personality temperaments. Each temperament (and combination of temperaments) has a different approach to technology, different needs when it comes to socialization, different desires for approval and attention.

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When I was about 18, my library-addicted mother brought home yet another self-help book “for the family”. A collective groan went up. We were weary of her self-help experiments in “fixing us” over the years, the worst offender an ill-advised episode of tough-love-gone-wrong involving chicken wire and duct tape. (Don’t ask. Trust me!)

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Yes, I hear you cheerleaders in the audience stroking my ego, telling me how I am oh so popular and loved and shouldn’t feel bad. Enough of that! I’m done with denial, ready to walk into a group meeting, and loudly declare the truth.

“Hi, My name is Deaux (hi deaux!) and I
suck at Web-Two-Point-Oh.”

I mean well enough, you know. With the best of intentions (and some nagging from a tech-addict friend) I’ll jump on the bandwagon and sign up for the latest, greatest social service. I connect to a few friends, make contacts with a few people I don’t know, and swallow my allotted bit of spam, dutifully expanding my network. I work hard at commenting, twittering, stumbling, digging, commenting, linking, friending or whatever the in ing-thing is. [click to continue...]