While I don't subscribe to the "ancient theories" of personality cited by Tris, I think he is right so far as certain personality types tend to have coping strategies that better equip them for dealing with the particular stressors encountered in medicine. And jl lin is right so far as any personality assessment can only speak to trends in personalities, and not absolutes. Even the more modern personality models (that try to deal with the problems inherent in trying to pigeonhole everyone into 5 personality types by taking on a multifaceted approach to their classification) recognize that these tests can only ever describe tendencies. We all still can (and often do) choose to act "against type". As far as being "talked" into becoming a different personality type, I think Tris was referring to his own personal experience of trying to change his personality type into something he thought he should be by going to med school, only to find out that it didn't work and he was in the wrong profession.
Well, yes, obviously I don't believe that there are four physical humors in our bodies and that the dominance of one determines our personality type. But I think the classical idea of the four temperaments represents no less insight into what people are like than any other, more modern system of classifying personalities. And yes, I didn't mean that I was talked into
actually changing my personality, since I no longer believe that's possible; but for a time, I did, and I was "talked" into
trying.
I basically fell for all this talk (some of which was self-originating once the feedback loop got started, since I thought it would get me the girl) about how we have a duty, an obligation, to use the brains God gave us and since I was "smart," I was "supposed" to become a doer, a mover, a shaker, an ambitious acheiver: i.e., a choleric. Now, you could call this view--that that's what everyone's supposed to do--a choleric view. Those who naturally have this ambitious, achieving temperament seem to think that everyone is supposed to be like them, and if we're not, it's only because we're stubbornly refusing to, we're not trying, we're not working hard enough. So, while I'm not trying to be high on myself, I actually
do think that we more contemplative, ruminative, pensive, emotionally sensitive types have insight that others do not: we can see that
we are like this and
they are like that, while
they can see only what they themselves are like. I don't consider this being down on cholerics; they
are the movers and shakers, the achievers, the leaders in our social institutions like business and, well, medicine, and we wouldn't have the advanced civilization we have today without them. We melancholics would still be living in grass huts, gazing at our navels. I appreciate all that they accomplish, I really do; but no matter how much we say this, they continue to take a dim view of us.
It's narcissitic because it is self-regarding about his self-regard. He's not only introspective he's also introspective about his intrspection. "Oh, look at the beautiful boy looking at his reflection of the water. Isn't he beautiful. Isn't his looking at himself beautiful! He's melancholic just like alll the great artists of the world. He should be a great artist because he loves himself so much."
Nonsense. There have been great men throughout the ages of many personalities. Some, like Newton, Churchill, Jefferson, Carnegie, Wesley, where cholerics, others, like Lincoln, David Brainerd, etc, were melancholy. But NONE of them spent their time analyzing their own personality and complementing themselves over it. They had a job to do and went about doing it, sometimes overcoming their depression or health problems.
Tris reminds me of those silly guys who purposefully look and act like geeks because they think that it makes them appear smarter. BUt the fact is that they are just average people trying to imitate the look of someone who is out of their league.
Spoken like a true choleric. See above.
BTW, I never said that I was a Beethoven or Van Gogh, that I have produced anything of nearly as much value as they did; merely that I think we're the same personality type.
I see your point on it, but I dont believe its "personality types" that have coping strategies but people who have experience in life and have learned them. I know we all hold medicine up on a high pedestal but it does not have a monopoly on stressors. I think someone like Tris didn't get "talked into" a different personality type as much as a poor life decision and professional choice. Medicine isn't really a personality type, is what I'm saying. Being talked, or pushed into medicine doesn't really change your personality at all, otherwise we would see Tris exhibiting this kind of behavior about medicine and med school in general....
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NGSl3CldFY[/YOUTUBE]
Now that was a great demonstration of a sanguine.
