Preferences

Discussions about preferences | Preference scales | Typing systems | So what?

What makes us different? One way of classifying people that appears in many systems of personality profiling is to determine a person's preferences in terms of how they perceive and respond to the world.

Discussions about preferences

Preferences are more than just making decisions

Nature vs. Nurture: Are we born with preferences or do we learn them?
The Context Effect: Our preferences change with the environmental context.
Types and typing: Combining preferences into character types.
Culture: Cultural models here are often based on shared preferences.
Four Types: Four classifications that have appeared through history.
Control-Identity types: Based on two key needs.

Preference scales

There are many scales of preference. Note that there are two styles that are commonly used. The first is an absolute score on a single scale ('How happy are you?') and the second is a position along a spectrum between (usually two) alternatives ('How happy or sad are you?').

Here are just a few (also see beliefs about people).

Attraction vs. Avoidance: We may be driven more by fears or desires.
Blame vs. Explain: When things go wrong, we blame others or the context.
Contrarian vs. Conformist: Go against what is asked or follow all the rules.
Extraversion vs. Introversion: Motivation that comes from either people or thinking.
Head, Hands and Heart: We are driven cognitively, behaviorally or affectively.
Imperative: Response to command may be conformance, independence or contrariness.
Judging vs. Perceiving: Living a structured or unstructured lifestyle.
Risk bias: preference to take or avoid risks.
Pain thresholds: Where action is triggered.
Sensing vs. Intuiting: Attention and meaning based on immediate data or deeper thought.
Similarity vs. Difference: Focusing on what is the same about things or what is different.
Subjectivity vs. Objectivity: Viewpoint when perceiving the world may be engaged subjectivity or detached objectivity.
Task vs. Person: Getting the job done by task or person focus.
Thinking vs. Feeling: Deciding based on logic or consideration of others.
Threat forecast: We may predict the future as negative and threatening or positive and hopeful.

Typing systems

There have been typing systems going back to the Greeks and probably before. Here are some of the better-known ones:

16PF: Cattell's sixteen basic personality factors.
Belbin Team Roles: Nine roles people play in teams.
Margerison-McCann Team Performance Wheel: Eight roles that people take on in teams.
Big Five factors: A simplification to five factors from the 16PF.
DISC Types: Four simple types.
Jungian Type Inventory: The oldest modern system.
Kolb's Learning Styles: Four learning styles based on two preference dimensions.
MMPI: Clinical psychiatric conditions.
Type A and Type B personalities: Prone to heart attacks or not?

Also:

Blevins' family roles: As played in family groups.

So what?

Don't push rope. Find the other person's preferences and play to these, rather than messing about at the other end of the spectrum.

Preferences

Discussions about preferences

Preference scales

Typing systems

So what?

See also