What Gives Psychologists Knowledge Of The Typology Of Characters

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

At the dawn of the formation of psychology as a science and psychotherapy as a special practice, a lot of attention was paid to the topic of character and temperament.

Today, these aspects of the study of the human psyche have receded into the background, probably - not very justified, because in psychology too much is built on speculative concepts and bare reflection of experience, and the idea of characterology gives us, although shaky, but reliance on some kind of biological, natural basis.

Character is what is bestowed on a person by nature

The character or temperament of a person is that natural principle that lies at the basis of the human psyche and is given to him from birth. By its nature, a child may not be like his parents, but be very close in temperament to more ancient relatives, so we can say that a person's character is not just inherited from his father and mother, but is the play of genes of two ancestral lines intersecting on the child.

Character is a set of certain psychological properties (character traits) that are constantly manifested in the behavior and communication of a person with other people, as well as in the way of his thought and relationship with the world as a whole.

It is probably wrong to talk about bad or good character, character is a certain gift that a person can use in different ways. So the ability to react quickly can turn into irascibility, or it can allow him to become an athlete or a chess player playing rapid.

We can say that character is the biological substrate on the basis of which a person's personality grows. The character, as it were, sets certain traits, directions for the development of a person's personality. These traits can be strengthened or weakened, somehow balanced or brought into harmony with other personality traits, but it is almost impossible to completely get rid of them. Inborn character traits in one form or another appear in a person's personality throughout his life.

Character and personality

Character is a natural beginning, personality is what is formed on the basis of character, but under the influence of society and, first of all, the child's family environment.

It should be noted that sometimes not only social, but also cultural factors can influence the formation of personality. So some children may be impressed by some kind of fairy tale, story, cartoon, or maybe just some kind of cultural image or cultural hero.

Initially, the child's character may not be similar to that of the parent, but since mom and dad usually have a very strong impact on their children, the child copies some parental traits, that is, acquires them already at the social level. It seems to absorb in the process of communication and interaction with parents certain patterns of behavior, emotional reactions and even the specifics of managing the emotional sphere. Such traits of character absorbed in the process of communication with other people can be called "secondary", they are usually more changeable and easier to adjust.

Integrity of character and conflicting characters

Any typology of characters is conditional. It is determined by the concept and conceptual grid used by certain communities of psychologists. When these concepts are popularized, they become available to the general public. This, in turn, leads to the fact that people begin to look for and, naturally, to find around them representatives of one or another type of character. However, in practice, "pure types" are extremely rare, usually a lot of both innate and acquired during life - "secondary character traits" are mixed in a person's character.

And nevertheless, in some cases it is possible to distinguish some kind of dominant set of traits, which underlies this or that psychotype in the typologies of characters. In some cases, there are so-called "contradictory characters" or "bipolar types". That is, in a person's character there are sets of traits characteristic of two different and sometimes opposite types of character.

To some extent, the typology of characters is a specific "intellectual optics" that allows the psychologist to quickly get the ideas necessary for working with a person about the structure of his psyche. These "concept glasses" can be used by ordinary people, if they want to learn to understand what to expect from a person with this or that type of character. But at the same time, one should not forget that, using the typology of characters, you see only sets of certain psychological traits, but not a person's personality.

Accentuation of character

When determining the psychotype of a person, they often talk about character accentuation. This term appeared in the everyday life of psychologists when it was hypothesized that existing psychiatric diseases are an extreme manifestation of some specific types of character. That is, it is assumed that in the case when certain traits of a person's character turn out to be too hypertrophied or excessively enhanced, this leads to the destabilization of his psyche, that is, to the formation and development of mental disorders. Based on these assumptions at the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of psychiatrists and psychotherapists began to talk about "schizoid accentuation of character", about "epileptoids", "psychasthenics", "hysterics", etc.

It was assumed that one of the reasons for the appearance of mental illnesses is the usual manifestations of mental life, amplified to an excessive level, or some other disturbances of certain mental functions, the balance of which normally can manifest itself in a certain specific character, and if this balance is disturbed, it leads to mental disorders …

And nevertheless, when it comes to accentuation of character, it means that we are dealing with an absolutely normal person, just in his psyche there is a predominance of some certain character traits that allow us to say that he is a representative some relatively pure psychotype. Thus, if we are talking about "schizoids" or "hysterics", then this means that we are dealing with ordinary mentally healthy people, but possessing certain sets of characterological traits, and, accordingly, a certain personality pattern.

Temperament and character

Very often the term "temperament" is used as a synonym for "character", and there are some reasons for this. We can say that temperament is a dynamic characteristic of character, that is, it indicates its strength and intensity of manifestation of certain qualities in it. Temperament can be expressed in the strength and speed of certain reactions, in the stability and inertia of these reactions, or in their lability and variability.

• For example, when describing people with epileptoid traits, it is often said that they have a "viscosity" or inertness of nervous and mental reactions, as well as experiences and even thoughts.
• People with psychopathic character traits show irascibility, impetuosity, and at the same time - quick appeasement.

Thus, considering a person's temperament, we can talk about the strength and stability of a person's reactions and experiences, about their intensity, as well as about inertia and viscosity, or, conversely, about variability and instability. There are people who are able to endure long and high loads, and there are those who are capable of quick and short efforts, and there are people who can work on low energy, achieving results thanks to the constancy and ability to concentrate their forces.

What does knowledge of the typology of characters give to psychologists?

If we try to give a short answer to the question formulated in the heading of this paragraph, then we can say that possession of various typologies of characters allows the psychologist to make a quick diagnosis or identify the psychological characteristics of the person who turned to him.

As mentioned above, character is something that is given to a person by nature, and certain character traits to one degree or another are manifested in his behavior throughout his life. And a person's personality is formed on the basis of this "biological substrate", slightly transforming - sharpening or smoothing out these initially given character traits.

In many cases, the type of character of a person can be determined quickly enough during the first minutes of communication with him. And the character of a person, as well as some of his personality traits, is well manifested when conducting projective tests. Belonging to a psychotype rarely indicates specific problems or complexes that a person has, but this knowledge allows us to make plausible hypotheses about in what areas and at what levels of the psyche these complexes can be and where they should be looked for. That is, the idea of a person's character sets clear directions for the search.

To a large extent, a person's character is manifested in the specifics of his relationship to the world, to people, to society and culture, as well as to his own mental life - to that inner world, which is often used as a synonym for the word “psyche”.

There are people who are more socially oriented, others prefer "intimate relationships" and are very selective in contacts - so much so that they may prefer to live alone than to deal with people who are alien to them.

People with a certain configuration of character are prone to the development of a "hypertrophied psyche" and perceive the entire world around them only in the form of its reflection in their "inner world". Others refer to the psyche as an amateur motorist to the engine of his car, preferring never to look under the hood, assuming that the psyche is something natural that is given to him for use. For such people, rationality is important, not experiences, for them the main thing in the world is its rational life strategies and common sense, and emotions and feelings are what only help to regulate the "rules of the road" established by reason.

People with different types of character react differently to certain life situations and psychological stress. Moreover, for people of one psychotype, those situations that may turn out to be absolutely insignificant for others are significant or traumatic.

For example, a person with a hysterical accentuation of character can very sharply experience the situation of a boycott, and a schizoid will not even notice this lack of attention to his person.

Many children's psychological traumas are associated with the specifics of the child's relationship with the parents. And it is worth noting that very often local traumas and protracted conflicts that have a depressing effect on the developing personality of a child are associated with the fact that parents do not understand the fact that their child has a different type of character. They are trying to turn their son or daughter into a “normal person”, that is, into the same person as themselves, thereby leading to a strong destabilization of his psyche and closing him the opportunity to implement the methods of socialization characteristic of his psychotype.

Examples of inadequate interaction with schizoid children are given in the article, I will describe the specifics of childhood traumas in people with other types of character accentuation in subsequent articles …

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We can say that children with different types of character need different approaches and tactics of education. The pattern of a person's personality and the structure of his psyche will be all the more harmonious, the more attentively his parents were to the disclosure of the dominant traits of the child's character, as well as to their balance.

Well, and accordingly, for a psychologist, when working with a client, it is worth considering the specifics of his psychotype. In some cases, to work with one person, it is worth using a certain set of psychological techniques, and for working with another - other methods of psychotherapy.