Category Archives: Personal Growth

Determining Your Child’s Personality Preferences

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Personality type significantly affects the choices we make throughout our lives from the toys and games we favor as toddlers, to the subjects we enjoy in school, to the careers and lifestyles we aspire to as adults.

Parents generally envision their children will be similar to them in personality and temperament. For example, a couple that are outgoing, talkative, and solidly grounded in reality are understandably inclined to think their children will also exhibit these characteristics.

While there are many families in which the children do have the same personality characteristics and values as their parents it is also very common to find families in which the children have personality characteristics and values that are vastly different from or even totally opposite of those of their parents.

Whether a parent and child have similar or dissimilar personality characteristics an understanding of the fundamentals of Personality Type Theory and awareness of your child’s personality type and your own provides powerful insight into how to adapt your parenting style to successfully enable your child to develop positive self-esteem and reach his / her full potential.

The nucleus for Personality Type Theory is based upon the research and theories outlined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in his 1921 text publication Psychologische Typen, or Psychological Types .

Rudimentary to Personality Type Theory is the concept that every child is born with a specific set of psychological preferences which remain constant throughout his or her lifetime. Psychological preferences determine a person’s most natural way of taking in information, making decisions, and navigating their environment.

There are eight psychological preferences: Extraversion, Introversion, Sensing, Intuition, Thinking, Feeling, Judging, and Perceiving. Each of the eight psychological preferences is grouped into one of four distinctive dichotomies.

The first dichotomy Extraversion / Introversion relates to how a person focuses his / her attention.

If your child has a preference for Extraversion he/ she most likely…

  • Is outgoing and active
  • Talkative and easy to know
  • Finds it easy to express their feelings and interest to others
  • Would rather spend time in the company of others than be alone
  • Enjoys social situations and interaction with others

If your child has a preference for Introversion he / she most likely…

  • Often appears to be quite, shy, and reserved
  • Dislikes interruptions
  • Thinks things through before answering
  • Has a small circle of close friends and enjoys individual or small group activities
  • When in a social setting tends to observe and wait before getting involved

The second dichotomy Sensing / Intuition relates to how a person takes in information.

If your child has a preference for Sensing he / she most likely…

  • Responds best when given well defined step-by-step instructions
  • Notices small details and remembers facts
  • Likes toys that mirror real life
  • Focuses more on the past and present than on the future
  • Likes well defined examples and models to follow

If your child has a preference for Intuition he/ she most likely…

  • Enjoys tasks that require imagination
  • Favors toys that are unique and games that involve finding new ways of doing things
  • Is resourceful when dealing with new and unusual experiences
  • Is future oriented
  • Focus more on the concept of an idea than the application

The third dichotomy Thinking / Feeling refers to the kind of criteria your child uses when coping with decisions making.

If your child has a preference for Thinking he/ she most likely…

  • Relies upon hard data and cause and effect analysis
  • Values individual achievement more than group cooperation
  • Critiques easily and enjoys debate
  • Places a high value on competence
  • Employs logic when attempting to state a point of view

If your child has a preference for Feeling he/ she most likely…

  • Places a high value on relationships and is emphatic towards the feelings of other’s
  • Looks for and easily gives encouragement and appreciation
  • Enjoys pleasing people
  • Needs positive feedback and praise about their performance
  • Fosters harmony and relies upon tact and diplomacy went attempting to sate a point of view

The fourth dichotomy Judging / Perceiving relates to how a person deals with their external environment.

If your child has a preference for Judging he/ she most likely…

  • Starts projects well in advance
  • Appreciates order and structure
  • Dislikes diversions or surprises
  • Makes decisions quickly and easily
  • Finds it difficult to adjust to last minute changes in plan

If your child has a preference for Perceiving he/ she most likely…

  • Likes surprises and takes things as they come
  • Lets work accumulate and then accomplishes a lot with a last minute flurry of activity
  • Functions comfortably in chaotic and disorganized environments
  • Welcomes changes in schedules and finds rules and structure limiting
  • Has a tendency to starts more projects than he/ she can finish

The Strong Interest Inventory General Occupational Themes

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The Strong Interest Inventory is an assessment used to help people make educational and occupational choices .The inventory is a carefully constructed questionnaire that inquires about a respondent’s level of interest in a wide range of familiar items (i.e. words or short phrases describing occupations, occupational activities, hobbies, leisure activities, school subjects, and types of people). For each of the 317 items, the respondent is ask to indicate his / her preferences among three response categories on an answer sheet. The answers are then analyzed by computer to derive scores on measures of interest type, called scales. The results are then printed on a report called a profile, which presents the scale scores in an organized format and offers interpretive information. 

The assessment was introduced in 1927 by E.K. Strong, a researcher at Stanford University. Since that time the Strong Interest Inventory has been revised and improved, including the addition of Holland’s RIASEC theory, which added general occupational themes to improve the quality of the instrument. Because the instrument is constantly updated, the scores received by an individual today compare that person’s interests with those of people who have responded to the inventory recently and who may be in occupations that did not exist in Dr. Strong’s day.

 

The current Strong Interest Inventory offers several advantages over other methods of data gathering. The first section of the profile reports results on six General Occupational Themes:  

 

CONVENTIONAL: Indicates an interest in problem solving through organizing. Individuals that show high scores in this occupational theme enjoy activities that permit organization of information in a clear, orderly fashion.

 

    REALISTIC: Indicates an interest in solving problems by hands-on activity. Individuals that show high scores in this occupational theme enjoy working with machines, tools, objects, and animals.

 

  INVESTIGATIVE: Indicates an interest in abstract problem solving. Individuals that show high scores in this occupational theme tend to be methodical, original, and logical.   

 

 ENTERPRISING: Indicates interests in solving problems by persuading. Individuals that show high scores in this occupational theme Seek to use  words, and feelings in dealing with people to motivate, persuade, manage, and sell things or promote ideas.

 

SOCIAL: Indicates interests in solving problems by helping. Individuals that show high scores in this occupational theme enjoy working with people to inform, enlighten, or cure.

 

ARTISTIC: Indicates interests in solving problems through creativity and innovation. Individuals that show high scores in this occupational theme enjoy being original, independent, self-expressive, innovative and unstructured.