Watch any film or read any book and you see various personality archetypes emerge.
Take 90s TV hit Friends. There’s the joker (Chandler), the sensible geeky one (Ross), the neat and tidy one (Monica), the emotional “quirky” one (Phoebe), and so on.
But did you know that there are six fundamental personality types that create a matrix of different personalities with common behavioural patterns?
Psychological research dating back to the 1980s has found six main personality types, or “adaptations”. All organisms, including people, adapt to their environment. Humans start adapting as soon as we are born in order to get what we need in our families and the world around us. These behaviours go back so far, and we’ve been doing them for so long, that they become ingrained as our personality.
Read on to see if you recognise yourself and your friends in these descriptions. Knowing your mix helps you understand your response to life, leadership and its challenges.
Each of the below “types” encompasses behaviours associated with a particular style of functioning that we learnt as kids.
The Enthusiastic Over-Reactor
The life and soul of the party. Energetic, attentive, emotionally responsive and high energy, the Enthusiastic Over-Reactor engages through feelings, by being nurturing or playful, and openly need others to care about their feelings.
The Responsible Workaholic
High achieving, conscientious, responsible and bright. The Responsible Workaholic can be reluctant to pass on responsibility, often believing "If you want it done right, do it yourself." They work hard to accomplish and may struggle to take a break without feeling guilty.
The Playful Resistor
Engaging, funny, enjoy being in a group, but often prefer others to initiate contact. The Playful Resistor has lots of child energy and likes to have fun. They can tend to sulk - and stubbornly resist direction from others.
The Brilliant Sceptic
A clear, sharp thinker, the Brilliant Sceptic is bright, sensitive and perceptive. They seldom miss a thing, are good organisers and like to maintain control. Generally they like to be alone, or with one or two others.
The Creative Daydreamer
Deep thinkers who don’t like small talk. The Creative Daydreamer, as the name suggests, often has a creative side and is kind, supportive and respectful of others’ space. Stoic and low maintenance, they are happy on their own and prefer others to initiate contact.
The Charming Manipulator
Charismatic and engaging, the Charming Manipulator is energetic and articulate, someone who makes things happen. They can easily seduce, but may also intimidate. They love excitement, with all the gusto of life, and have a need for external stimulation.
Let’s dive into a bit more detail…
Most of us display at least two of these personality types:-
“Performing” mode – where we try to meet others’ expectations
“Survival” mode – which we adopt in response to stress.
(Performing)
The Responsible Workaholic is high achieving, conscientious, reliable, capable, and grown up.
The Responsible Workaholic can be reluctant to pass on responsibility, often believing "If you want it done right, do it yourself." They work hard to accomplish and may struggle to take a break without feeling guilty. They are conscientious, reliable, dependable, and responsible. They are happy to be on their own, relate better one to one, and will initiate relationships in this way.
They were most likely parented with an emphasis on achievement, equating worth, value and performance with approval, with a major emphasis on ‘doing things right’ and perfection. They learnt to believe that their parents will think more of them if they are achieving.
Problems occur when they are overly responsible, overly inhibited and tense. They are anxious if not busy, their own worst critic. Sometimes they have rituals, and can expect perfection from others. Their response to challenge is usually to be super reasonable. They want to “Be Perfect” and are driven by “shoulds” – and so their needs often go unmet, as they did in childhood.
Their main areas for personal development are:-
Accepting they are good enough; perfection is impossible.
Learning how to simply “be”; how to relax and have fun. They need to realise how hard they are being on themselves and allow the child in them room to play, as well as recognition for simply existing.
They often obsess instead of feeling: getting in touch with their emotions and allowing themselves to express them is key.
(Performing)
The Playful Resistor has lots of child energy and likes to have fun. They are engaging, funny and enjoy being in a group, but often prefer others to initiate contact. Their dress may be a bit sloppy or incongruous.
The Playful Resistor tends to see what is wrong, including with themselves. They criticise themselves internally and then fight back against themselves. Their response to threat is to whine, complain and struggle. They often pout or sulk, and resist any direction from others – they hate being told what to do!
They were probably parented in a manner that was over-controlling and probably quite competitive. The child experienced life as a struggle and learnt to do things their way. Therefore problems can occur when they engage in pointless power struggles; they fight control even when there is none. Their behaviour can be aggressively passive.
They often want to be taken care of but don’t make their desires clearly known and then complain when they’re not responded to. They can be passive and dependant in relationships, liking lots of attention but often getting it in negative ways – substituting bickering for intimacy.
Areas for self-development are:-
Lessening their ‘either-or’ viewpoint – learning that common ground and cooperation can be found.
Understanding they do not have to struggle but rather that they can ask for what they want.
Allowing themselves to grieve the loss of parents not meeting their needs is powerful, and can allow them to let go of power struggles and look for people and ways to co-operate instead.
Developing a sense that they are free to be different and still be OK.
(Performing)
The life and soul of the party. Enthusiastic over-reactors are imaginative, emotionally responsive with high energy. They makes great hosts and great mates to have around.
They engage through feelings and it is important to them that others care about their feelings. They engage through feelings, by being nurturing or playful, and openly need others to care about their feelings. They probably walk with a slight bounce to their step, or a smooth swing.
Their main driver is to please others – they equate attention with love. They were most likely parented with an emphasis on socialising and keeping people happy, and so learnt to be emotionally responsive and pleasing, and discount their thinking.
Problems can occur when they are over-reactive, emotionally unstable, lose themselves in others and have inappropriate boundaries. They meet problems with feeling rather than thinking or acting so they can be seen as immature, self centred, and vain. They are often uncertain of their own reasoning. They may hide anger for fear of hurting others, and their response to challenge is to escalate feelings.
Their main learning areas for personal development are:-
Realising they can be important and loved when not getting attention, and when others have space to shine as well.
Learning that feeling or sensing something does not necessarily make it true.
Learning to feel good about thinking and therefore start to claim their personal power. They need recognition for thinking and accomplishment as they often feel more lovable than competent.
(Surviving)
They are clear, sharp thinkers, organisers and like to maintain control. They are bright, highly sensitive and perceptive.
The Brilliant Sceptic seldom misses a thing, and are good organisers. Their clothing is generally conservative and immaculate. Generally they prefer to be on their own or with one or two people.
They often having unrealistically high expectations of themselves that actually cover feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Their belief is that if they can control themselves and others they will be OK; therefore they spend lots of energy in being careful and trying to control everything.
They were parented in a manner that was inconsistent, and unpredictable, and often their boundaries were intruded upon. So, as a child they learnt to become cautious and wary, therefore they tend to make contact with others and then pull away. They can also be aggressive, competitive, grandiose or rigid in their thinking. They may tend to project and blame and can be a little envious and suspicious. If scared they attack; their response to challenge is to attack with razor sharp intellect.
Problems occur when they misperceive stimuli and assume their perception is true and then develop or act on it. They are attempting not to feel embarrassed or humiliated and are usually trying to do the right thing. Because they equate criticism with shame they attempt to do everything in a way that no one will find fault. This can make them uptight, disapproving of playful behaviour and afraid to relax.
Key learnings for the Brilliant Sceptic are:-
To reality-check their perceptions rather than assume they’re true.
They may struggle with emotional intimacy, perceiving being close as dangerous so protect themselves or feel that they have to protect others from them.
Practising and learning to trust and relinquish some control.
Learn to relax and enjoy themselves.
(Surviving)
They are deep thinkers who don't like small talk. They are creative, artistic, kind, supportive and respectful of others’ space. Low maintenance, they are happy on their own and prefer others to initiate contact.
Their main driver is to “Be Strong” - stoic and undemanding. They don’t like small talk but like non-verbal intimacy.
They can, however, get lost in daydreams; they may be overly compliant or behave with withdrawn passivity. They are often in dependant relationships and can take on the role of carer.
They were likely parented in a manner that was underdone, tentative, so as a child they withdrew to avoid placing demands on their parents (the parents may have been overwhelmed or preoccupied and the child somewhat emotionally neglected). So they grow fearful of making demands; their fear is that if they reach out the other person will be overwhelmed by their needs. Their response to threat is to keep a low profile.
Their main self-development areas are
Learning to assert themselves and their right to take up time and space.
Learning that it is ok to feel and have needs.
Realising that they have a right to be heard and for others to take them into account.
(Surviving)
Charming and charismatic, they intimidate and seduce. They love excitement, with all the gusto of life, and have a need for external stimulation. They may dress to seduce, shock or impress.
Their childhood message was most likely that in order to be OK you need to be one step ahead of others. Problems can therefore occur when this leads to manipulating and taking advantage of others. They were likely parented in a manner that was overdone, competitive, where the parent put their own needs first, or was anticipatory; so the child learnt to expect constant stimulation, so may grow up with difficulties self-starting.
They may be actively aggressive and have an underlying fear of abandonment, of being left to survive on their own. So they cope by making others look bad, or intimidating and seducing to avoid it happening again. They may therefore have developed difficulties with emotional intimacy – seducing and then abandoning before they are abandoned.
Their dilemma is between closeness and freedom – they can be commitment phobic and fear control. Having learnt to be tough and appear that they do not care, they are afraid to trust that anyone will be there for them.
The Charming Manipulator’s key development areas:-
Learning that we cannot be abandoned as an adult – we can always be available to ourselves in the here-and-now.
Learning it’s safe to be real, and that they can get their needs met cooperatively.
Grieving the neglect or abandonment of parents helps learn to acknowledge the root and trust again, form real attachments and join in genuine human connection.
***
Which of these sound familiar? We can all recognise our friends or family in these “types” – but it may not always be so easy to recognise ourselves.
Exploring our patterns of behaviour and why we act like we do can help offer us more options for how we want to behave now. Recognising old family patterns that led to us adapting in these ways helps us move on to more freedom and satisfaction now in our current friendships, family ties and relationships.
Self-awareness helps us be more authentic in expressing ourselves, in showing what we really think and how we really feel. So we can really be, and bring, ourselves.