The fun part is that you couldn't even have this conversation without those frameworks. That nuance you're able to tease out where the boundaries aren't perfect is because there are boundaries. The bigger issue people have is where the archetype is forced vs. used as a model. The same thing with stereotypes. Even racial stereotyping, done well, is called social graces. Done poorly, it's called racism.
I've been thinking about Jonathan Haidt's Rider & Elephant metaphor to try to understand the issues with how we engage with these tests. The problem is that such questions ask the Rider (our rational mind) to predict or reflect on how we act, while in each moment, our Elephant (the emotional, instinctive mind) is more responsible for our behavior. When we ask the Rider, it is excellent at crafting a logical, coherent narrative that sounds perfectly reasonable to everyone, including ourselves. As you mention, Kit, everything is often situationally dependent, and there's something deeper in our Elephant's preferences that holds the pattern, and we're interviewing the wrong guy in our heads to explain it.
I tell my trauma clients that we can KNOW something is true intellectually, and yet we make decisions from emotion, where we FEEL like that something is not actually true. The elephant/rider analogy is pretty apt.
The fun part is that you couldn't even have this conversation without those frameworks. That nuance you're able to tease out where the boundaries aren't perfect is because there are boundaries. The bigger issue people have is where the archetype is forced vs. used as a model. The same thing with stereotypes. Even racial stereotyping, done well, is called social graces. Done poorly, it's called racism.
All models are wrong; some are useful. Personality tests are very useful!
I've been thinking about Jonathan Haidt's Rider & Elephant metaphor to try to understand the issues with how we engage with these tests. The problem is that such questions ask the Rider (our rational mind) to predict or reflect on how we act, while in each moment, our Elephant (the emotional, instinctive mind) is more responsible for our behavior. When we ask the Rider, it is excellent at crafting a logical, coherent narrative that sounds perfectly reasonable to everyone, including ourselves. As you mention, Kit, everything is often situationally dependent, and there's something deeper in our Elephant's preferences that holds the pattern, and we're interviewing the wrong guy in our heads to explain it.
I tell my trauma clients that we can KNOW something is true intellectually, and yet we make decisions from emotion, where we FEEL like that something is not actually true. The elephant/rider analogy is pretty apt.