Personality & communication
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is probably by far the most popular personality model out there. I have seen its application in many different places, from casual personality quizzes to sophisticated studies to help people find their potential partners.
There are 4 pairs of personality functions (or dichotomies):
1. (E)xtraversion/(I)ntroversion
2. (S)ensing/i(N)tuition
3. (T)hinking/(F)eeling
4. (J)udging/(P)erceiving
While my preference for functions in group 1,2,4 is ambivalent, fickle and changes depend on the situation; when it comes to the way I gather, interpret and understand information(ie. functions in group 2), I'm a clear cut N.
This means that the way I process information is based more on my intuitive feelings, I can only get a clear sense of what facts and data mean, when I understand their relationship with other things (ie. how they fit into the big picture), and that I tend to skip unnecessary details.
Only about 26.7% of people are N's, and the majority are S's: people who like facts and details, who tend to pay attention only to things they can observe through their 5 senses.
This difference in personality trait, is the one thing that caused the most trouble in my communication with others.
Being the minority means that you have to deal with lots of S's, who, since they are the majority, have little or no awareness of the fact that people with a different thinking/communication style existed.
To be fair, not all S's are the same, some are less extreme than others, some are more observant of their audience's reaction than others, some are pretty good listeners, and some knows how to calibrate their communication depend on who their audience is.
On the other hand, some of them are seemingly...how do I put it...living in the ivory tower of obliviousness.
It's been quite a journey for me to learn to communicate with people in problems caused by this N-S clash. The Myers-Brigg model is really handy, it allowed me to understand what the fundamental problem is, and explain it to the parties involved.
It's funny though that so far I've not been able to do this verbally very often. When it comes to explaining these intricate things in details, writing proved to be much more effective.
On a side note, one study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues (eg. tonality, expressions, body language...etc). My interpretation of this statement is that, if the other party doesn't get you, meaning that they've missed out on all the subtle signal & messages you are sending, then no amount of talk is likely to change the situation.
It was an interesting epiphany for me to realise that verbal words really are just a small part of a communication, and nowadays I find that I will generally have a more enjoyable time, if I tone down the seriousness of the conversation, and focus on making it fun, fluid, interesting, exciting & engaging.
My focus had shifted from worrying about what to say, to paying more attention to what the other person is communicating non-verbally, and respond to these non-verbal cues. There's a learning curve involved, so sometimes it makes me wish that someone had taught me these things when I was younger. Why didn't they teach these in school?
Anyway, enough rambling, time to end this post.
