PERSONALITY TYPES
The fact that humans differ from one another has stimulated many interesting theories of personality types. Respected thinkers in the fields of ðsychology, sociology, and philosophy have produced different theories of personality. Let's start with the most familiar of the traditional types, the extrovert and the introvert.
The concepts of Extroversion and Introversion were introduced by Carl Jung to designate two opposite types of personality. Many people think that an extrovert is a person who is courageous, outgoing and not at all shy. They believe that an introvert is someone who is shy, retiring, and fearful. These are misconceptions. Actually, psychologists define an extrovert as a person who needs the ñîøðàïó of others to become energized, while an introvert is the kind of person who needs to be alone to become energized.
There is a third category people may fall into: that of the ambivert. This is a person who is energized sometimes by others and sometimes by being alone. He gets activated by the stimulation of others and becomes quite outgoing. But there are other times when he needs to be alone to reenergize. Many of us, perhaps even the majority, are probably ambiverts.
There's another way of classifying people. In “The Presidential Character,” historian James Barber classifies presidents into four personality types: active-positive, active -negative, passive-positive, passive-negative. However, Barber's categories might be applied to anyone, not just to presidents. Let's consider each of these.
First, the active- positive person is the type who acts on the world and derives pleasure from doing so. He or she is one whom others regard as a take-charge leader who gets things done. Active-positives are people who regard the world as their oyster.
Second, the active-negative is a person whose behavior is similar, to that of the active-positive in the sense of acting on the world. However, active-negatives feel negative about themselves and the world in certain ways, they don't get much inner satisfaction from what they do though they put a great amount of effort into their work.
Third, the passive -positive is the kind of individual others regard as a “nice person.” They usually have a lot of friends and are always agreeable, which is what people like about them.
Fourth, passive-negatives are similar to passive-positives in having a negative self-image and in allowing the world to act on them. However, they tend to view the world as a place where unfortunate things are likely to happen. Passive- negatives often try to compensate for the world's unpleasantness by getting involved in service to others and by stressing moral principles.
2. What are the main personality types being defined in the text?