Personality Profiles

I borrowed this great book from a friend about personality types. It was a great read. There is something about personality types that intrigues me. I was hoping if I found out more about the personality types of my family then I would know how to better build up their positives and neutralize the negatives. It gives a very detailed description of each type and the test for finding your family member types is thorough and seemed to be pretty accurate in our cases.

There are four types of personalities according to the book. They are Sanguines (popular), Cholerics (powerful), Melancholies (perfect), and Phlegmatics (peaceful).

The Sanguines tend to desire fun. Their emotional needs are attention, approval, affection, acceptance, presence of people, and activity. Their strengths are the ability to talk about anything at any time and place, bubbling personality, optimism, sense of humor, and enjoyment of people. The weaknesses are disorganized, can't remember details or names, exaggerate, not serious about much, trust others to do the work and are gullible. My middle daughter is this one completely and my husband has slight tendencies (enjoys people a lot) to this. This is the group of people that are charming and definitely enjoy people!

Next is the Cholerics. The book describes these as having a desire to have control. Their emotional needs are appreciation for all achievements, opportunity for leadership, participation in family discussions, and something to control. Their key strengths are the ability to take charge of anything instantly and to make quick, correct judgements. The weakness to this personality type is they are bossy, domineering, autocratic, insensitive, impatient, unwilling to delegate or give credit to others. They said this was the hardest type of child to raise because from the get go they want to be in charge.....of you! And yes, I have one of these too and I will vouch for them being difficult. I enjoyed reading about this personality the most because the stories that went along with it were funny, yet so true to this type.

Then there are the Meloncholies. They desire to have things right. Their emotional needs are a sense of stability, space, silence, sensitivity, and support. Their strengths are the ability to organize and set long range goals, have high standards and ideals, and to analyze deeply. Their weaknesses tend to be that they are easily depressed, spend too much time on preparation, too focused on details, remember negatives, and are suspicious of others. My husband, oldest daughter, youngest daughter, and myself all have tendencies in this one. We are the list writing, chart making kind and yikes, that can be a scary thing with four in the house.

And lastly there are the Phlegmatics. Their desire is to avoid conflict and keep peace. The emotional needs of this group are peace and relaxation, attention, praise, self-worth, and loving motivation. Their strengths are balance, even disposition, witty, and a pleasing personality. The weaknesses include lack of decisiveness, enthusiasm, energy, and a hidden will of iron. This is the other part of my personality along with my middle daughter. The book says these are the easiest children to raise since they desire peace and are eager to please. It also says that come later on this could pose a problem as they aren't highly motivational. That's why you take the good with the bad, lol.

So after reading this book we decided that we have four that require a sense of organization, one that is a control freak in general, two that are people pleasers, and two that are social bugs. How does that all fit together?

The one that lacks motivation and organization drives the other four of us crazy. Just as it drives her crazy that we expect her to have some responsibility. The control freak is my daily challenge. I wake up each morning with the anticipation of her trying to test me continually. She has a huge dominance over her younger sister and that is the largest point of my frustration with her personality. She likes to be in charge and like the book states, she picks the weakest link (typically the people pleasing personality) and that is her little sister. The two social bugs are the ones that turn the quick grocery trip into a day event with all the chatting they do. So by having all these personality types it makes life interesting- and I wouldn't have it any other way. Except do you think I could exchange the controlling personality for say a happy go lucky people person?

This book was great so that I have a better idea of why they do some of what they do and how I can help to lift them up in their strengths and possibly neutralize the negatives. It was also an eye opener for myself and now I know things I need to work on!