THE SOLITARY SCIENTIST’
We all make sweeping judgements about people. Him over there is arrogant, her in the corner is needy, and as for her friend … well, where do I start?
The truth is that many of the judgements we make about personality are instinctive and say as much about us as they do about the person we are judging. The study of personality can never amount to an exact science. However, there is a body of long-established research into personality that gives us a good basis for discussion. So how does your personality type match up against that of Holmes?
The founding father of the psychological classification of personality types is Carl Jung, who published his landmark study Psychological Types in 1921. He outlined two pairs of cognitive functions. On the one hand, the ‘perceiving’ (or ‘irrational’) functions of sensation and intuition, while on the other hand, the ‘judging’ (or ‘rational’) functions of thinking and feeling. In layman’s terms, sensation is perception as derived from the senses; thinking is the process of intellectual and logical cognition. Intuition is perception as derived from the subconscious while feeling is the result of subjective and empathetic estimation.
As if all this weren’t quite complicated enough, Jung threw in another element: an individual’s personality may be classified as extrovert (literally ‘outward-turning’) or introvert (‘inward-looking’). In Jung’s analysis, each individual has elements of all four functions to a greater or lesser degree, with each manifesting in an introverted or extroverted way.
Jung’s philosophy was subsequently developed by many different parties over the years. Among them were the mother-and-daughter team of Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, who developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a trademarked assessment first published in 1962 that categorises personality into one of sixteen types based on four dichotomies:
Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I)
Sensing (S) – Intuition (N)
Thinking (T) – Feeling (F)
Judging (J) – Perception (P)
Personality types are represented by a four-letter code comprising the relevant abbreviations noted above. Of course, Sherlock Holmes never underwent such a personality test because he pre-dates them, is fictional, and would have had no truck with psychobabble. However, others have retrospectively attempted to assess him, with a broad consensus that he would probably lie somewhere between an INTP and ISTP classification: introverted, favouring intellectual reasoning over reliance on his feelings, and generally acting in response to information gathered rather than pre-judging a situation. The question of whether he best fits the sensing or intuition classification is much less clear. Incidentally, it has been suggested that Watson’s profile best fits an ISFJ classification.
But what about you? Are you more of a Holmes or a Watson? Surely not a Moriarty? The MBTI test can be undertaken under the supervision of registered practitioners but there are many other Jungian-based tests that are free on the internet and can be self-administered. However, it is worth noting that personality testing should not be treated as a game nor as an exact science. Answering half a dozen questions on the internet cannot define your personality, for better or worse! But using a reputable personality test might offer you some useful insights into how you operate.
Developing an Agile Mind
‘I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.’
‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE’
While Holmes’s personality and motivations are endlessly interesting enigmas, were it not for his remarkable intellectual capacity, you would not be here reading about him. There are plenty of interesting characters in life and literature, but very few able to solve an apparently unsolvable riddle like the Great Detective.
Alas, few of us can ever hope to match Holmes
We all make sweeping judgements about people. Him over there is arrogant, her in the corner is needy, and as for her friend … well, where do I start?
The truth is that many of the judgements we make about personality are instinctive and say as much about us as they do about the person we are judging. The study of personality can never amount to an exact science. However, there is a body of long-established research into personality that gives us a good basis for discussion. So how does your personality type match up against that of Holmes?
The founding father of the psychological classification of personality types is Carl Jung, who published his landmark study Psychological Types in 1921. He outlined two pairs of cognitive functions. On the one hand, the ‘perceiving’ (or ‘irrational’) functions of sensation and intuition, while on the other hand, the ‘judging’ (or ‘rational’) functions of thinking and feeling. In layman’s terms, sensation is perception as derived from the senses; thinking is the process of intellectual and logical cognition. Intuition is perception as derived from the subconscious while feeling is the result of subjective and empathetic estimation.
As if all this weren’t quite complicated enough, Jung threw in another element: an individual’s personality may be classified as extrovert (literally ‘outward-turning’) or introvert (‘inward-looking’). In Jung’s analysis, each individual has elements of all four functions to a greater or lesser degree, with each manifesting in an introverted or extroverted way.
Jung’s philosophy was subsequently developed by many different parties over the years. Among them were the mother-and-daughter team of Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, who developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a trademarked assessment first published in 1962 that categorises personality into one of sixteen types based on four dichotomies:
Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I)
Sensing (S) – Intuition (N)
Thinking (T) – Feeling (F)
Judging (J) – Perception (P)
Personality types are represented by a four-letter code comprising the relevant abbreviations noted above. Of course, Sherlock Holmes never underwent such a personality test because he pre-dates them, is fictional, and would have had no truck with psychobabble. However, others have retrospectively attempted to assess him, with a broad consensus that he would probably lie somewhere between an INTP and ISTP classification: introverted, favouring intellectual reasoning over reliance on his feelings, and generally acting in response to information gathered rather than pre-judging a situation. The question of whether he best fits the sensing or intuition classification is much less clear. Incidentally, it has been suggested that Watson’s profile best fits an ISFJ classification.
But what about you? Are you more of a Holmes or a Watson? Surely not a Moriarty? The MBTI test can be undertaken under the supervision of registered practitioners but there are many other Jungian-based tests that are free on the internet and can be self-administered. However, it is worth noting that personality testing should not be treated as a game nor as an exact science. Answering half a dozen questions on the internet cannot define your personality, for better or worse! But using a reputable personality test might offer you some useful insights into how you operate.
Developing an Agile Mind
‘I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.’
‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE’
While Holmes’s personality and motivations are endlessly interesting enigmas, were it not for his remarkable intellectual capacity, you would not be here reading about him. There are plenty of interesting characters in life and literature, but very few able to solve an apparently unsolvable riddle like the Great Detective.
Alas, few of us can ever hope to match Holmes
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