Part 3 of our Q and A Session with PeopleMaps Psychology Director, Anne Ellis looks at how personality might help with choosing your ideal mate - it’s all in the balance of the scales!

Q: How can you choose an ideal partner using personality?

The very first thing is to check that you do have shared values and goals - and then examine the bi-polar scales. Remember - if you have a lack of common values and goals, it’s unlikely that your relationship will be successful whatever your personality type!

Q: How does the Introvert and Extravert scale affect a partnership?

Extraverts probably get on well with their opposite introverts if for no other reason than they are not fighting each other for ‘air time’! If both partners are at the extreme ends of these scales chances are they would never meld together as they would upset each other almost as soon as they open their mouths. Fortunately most people are close to the centre of the Extravert/Introvert scale.

If both partners were extraverted there is a chance that they may both be gregarious and tend to talk at the same time. They also may want to grab the limelight, be forceful in oferring their opinions and generally be more confronting than other types.

If both partners were introverted, the silences could be long, but then they may like that? However, there could be a challenge when in company if neither of them was comfortable breaking the ice with strangers - there could be a strain on the relationship.

Q: And the Thinking or Feeling scale?

The rational preference scales of Thinking and Feeling could be tricky if a couple were extreme i.e. placed at either end. There is less evidence to show where people generally fall along this scale than with the Extravert/Introvert scale.

A person who is high on the Thinking side of this scale would be more objective, factual and task focused, however they could be very happy to meet someone from the Feeling end of the scale who was warm, friendly and people-oriented, and there are certainly very many relationships where this combination works well.

There could however be a challenge particularly if the ‘Thinking’ partner wasn’t keen to show emotion or dicuss feelings, and the Feeling partner didn’t enjoy being task focused and had to work at being objective to get on the same wave length as their partner.

If both partners had a Thinking preference then they could get on well together as both could remain objective and work together to complete tasks. They would forward plan and generally be action oriented. There could be a lack of warmth and emotion in this relationship, but hey that’s okay for some people!

If both partners had a Feeling preference they could get on well together because they would both be warm-hearted, aim to please each other and be friendly not only to each other but also to those people they came in contact with. There may not be a lot of planning taking place, but they would be happy to go with the flow. There could be an abundance of feeling in this combination that may cause them to bleed all over the carpet for any situation that upset them! On the other hand some people do fall in love with their suffering so for them this may be okay too.

Q: And the third scale of Sensing or Intuition- How will that affect things?

This scale is the most likely to be the deal breaker. Yet again life is about a balancing act and these two preferences could balance out nicely. If one partner was highly intuitive they may count on their partner being the practical one who could use their sensing to bring the intuitive back down to earth having applied a common sense view to their creative flights of fancy.

There is a mismatch between expectations of these two if they are at either end of this scale. The Intuitive is future oriented - and life is all about possibilities, potential and is really the art of the possible. The Sensing partner is more practical and down to earth - they want tangible proof for almost everything and believe in the here and now and manage to thrive without any flight of fancy.

Reconciling these two very different world views takes some doing and if in this bi-polar scale partners are opposites it is almost a certainty that this could only work if they truly shared their values and were willing to make major compromises to meet each others needs!

Q: What does it all mean? Can profiling really help improve relationships?

People are individually very complex but when you put two or more together the complexities multiply.

Relationships are not only complex, they are multi-faceted and a whole host of issues need to be confronted. What profiling does is help each and everyone of us to identify what it is that makes us tick and then be aware of what motivates others.

It really depends on the depth of the feeling that one holds for another as to how much compromising they will do in any relationship. This is true of behaviour too. In every relationship we have we will make compromises on our behaviour that sometimes we are not aware of, but instinctively we know are necessary to move the relationship forward.

If we understand our own complex personality better as a result of profiling then we will know the areas where compromise between two people is the most crucial.

Who needs to adjust - you or the other person? If you want a relationship to work then in the first place you need to adjust. If you do this successfully then you will trust that the other person appreciates the relationship enough to make their own adjustments and contribute to the greater harmony.

If you have an Extraverted preference then make sure that you take into account the needs of others around you and do not exaggerate this attitude. It is likely that someone with a preference for extraversion has to tone down occasionally and understanding the needs of others whose company you may be sharing, will dictate this for you.

If you have an Introverted preference then you may have to force yourself to be a bit more overt to enable a relationship to flow better. At first this may be uncomfortable - however practice makes perfect and it does not mean that you have to become an extravert, just a little more open and talkative.

If you have a preference for Thinking you may have to get in touch with your feelings and become a bit more tolerant of people. You may need to make some overtures such as enquiring after a person’s health or saying thank you for small kindnesses and generally share a little more emotion rather than remaining apart and objective through a meeting.

If you have a preference for Feeling you may need to get in touch with your objective side and tone down your emotions to relate better to the people who are less ‘touchy feelie’ This does not mean that you have to become cold just a bit more self contained.

If you have a preference for Sensing you may need to become a bit more imaginative, dream a little, see possibilities without needing tangible evidence and be open to ideas even those you may normally think are off the wall.

If you have a preference for Intuition you may need to ‘get real’ as the saying goes. Be less ‘head in clouds’ and a bit more down to earth and practical. Focus on reality, what’s possible now rather than well into the future. Stop day dreaming and do some planning!

Q: This all sounds a bit technical, Anne?

This is only a guide to what might be happening in our relationship with self - and then how this clashes or compliments when we are in relationships with others. A profile will enable us to see which of the bi-polar scales we use most of the time. It will tell if our attitude is Extraverted or Introverted, and if we have a rational preference for Thinking or Feeling and what are our irrational preferences for Sensing or Intuition.

The golden rule is check that you share values with a partner, put their needs before yours, offer unconditional love and there should be more joy in your life. Joy is to love, and be loved and when we are prepared to go to the trouble of modifying our behaviour to get on better with others we are trying very hard to be accused of bringing joy to another!

Part 2 of our Q and A Session with PeopleMaps Psychology Director, Anne Ellis looks at how personality affects relationships, and how it can best be used to help explain them.

Q: How can personality affect relationships?

First off, we have to consider that we have relationships with a whole host of people who may relate to the world in a different way from us - and in the process they will influence their own and our behaviour.

For example, think about how people would behave if they were at a social gathering and someone introduced themselves as a religious minister. Would this cause them to adjust or moderate their behaviour to accommodate a seemingly appropriate relationship with this person? Or would they continue as they would with someone they had met in a pub? The answer is that it would be automatic for most people - those of strong faith and none - to adjust as they believe circumstances required.

So it is worthwhile being aware that these adjustments go on all the time in relationships - in all sorts of ways, and that people are not even aware that they are making them. It is therefore difficult to ascribe fixed characteristics to people - and what profiling does is categorise how they tend to behave most of the time. This is achieved by measuring attitudes and preferences for thinking or feeling and sensing or intuition and it is the combination of these scales that enable people to be characterised within a personality type group.

According to Carl Jung - the Swiss psychologist on whose work the PartnerMaps profiling is based - these categories could by used to identify behaviour that people have in common while he still believed that every single person was unique. Their uniqueness is due to the differences to the application and extent that they use the shared characteristics - and this is the major cause of differences in relationships.

Q: Can personality be used to identify romantic partners?

It is often said that opposites attract - and this can be the case. If someone was particularly quiet and self effacing they may initially be attracted to the behaviour of someone who, to them, seemed confident and self assured - mainly because they were louder and more able to voice their opinions. The chances are that before very long this attraction would lessen, as they could not cope with such loud behaviour on an ongoing basis - and the same would be true of the reverse situation.

Marriage guidance counsellors often refer to a common statement made by people in a breaking relationship, when they ask, “What attracted you to John in the first place?”. Mary may answer “He was such good fun”. When the counsellor then asks, “Is he no longer fun then?”, Mary responds, “No, it ’s not that, it is just that he infuriates me by never taking anything seriously!”.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.”
Carl Jung

This is a case of the opposites being attracted to each other for the wrong reasons. The things that really hold a relationship together were absent and these two gradually irritated each other. In this case Mary is probably a more sober, cautious person who really values taking life and responsibilities seriously. John on the other hand, wants to treat life lightly and have a laugh. He now views her as boring, and she sees him as irresponsible.

For a relationship to work people need to share similar goals and values and without this, no matter what personality mix the relationship will flounder. There needs to be respect for each other in a relationship - and when there is, even if people have very different views or methods of achieving their goals, they will still support each other. If however there is no respect for each partner’s values, then very soon there will be no respect for the person either.

Q: How then to use personality to help relationships?

You can get the best out of a relationship through an understanding of personality type. It is obvious in the above scenario that two very different types were initially attracted. Provided that their goals and values were in sync this could have worked very well. A quieter person often depends on a noisier person to keep a conversation going - or the noisier person relies on the quieter one to bring some calm to their lives.

John the extravert and Mary the introvert were in a relationship that worked for some of the time, however there is much more at play in relationships than the bi-polar scale of extraversion and introversion. With most couples this is a common combination, but did John and Mary also differ in the scale that measures Thinking/Feeling? Many couples do - and it also works well.

However, if John irritated Mary by not taking things seriously and he also had a preference for Feeling versus her preference for Thinking then this combination is beginning to get difficult - bearing in mind that they may not have started out with any shared goals or values to glue things together.

If Mary’s preference was for Thinking, then she her focus would be on the task, it’s objective and her aim to get things done. John, we know, likes to enjoy life and have a laugh and if this is now combined with a preference for Feeling he will be guided more by his emotions - relating warmly to people rather than being objective and focused on completing the task.

“It’s better that people get along well together and can have a laugh, lighten up and enjoy life, than be an old misery to others” may be John’s take on things, in opposition to Mary’s need for action that will produce positive results. So now there is a mismatch on two of the bi-polar scales - which is common enough for many couples and does not in itself necessarily lead to a dysfunctional relationship. However, if we add the third bi-polar scale of Sensing and Intuition and find that there is a mismatch here too, the trouble could be deepening for John and Mary.

Let’s add Sensing to Mary’s introverted Thinking preferences and Intuition to John’s Extraverted Feeling preferences, and now we really do have a pair of opposite personality types. The combination that possibly causes more relationship breakdowns than any other is Sensing - V - Intuition. With Sensing, we have someone who interprets information through their senses: “If I can feel it, smell it, see it, I may believe it”. They need concrete proof of something that it is real. Whereas those with a preference for Intuition are more free spirited and believe in potential, and for some of them that potential could be enormous - but it never seems to get any closer.

If we assume that John has a preference for Intuition and pitch this against Mary’s pragmatic, down to earth take on life they will really now be getting on each other’s nerves: Mary wants logic, certainty, future planning and an affordable life. John wants fun, friendships and just knows that if only one of his big intuitive ideas in which only he sees the potential comes to fruition life will be great!

It looks like the game is probably up for Mary and John, yet there are many relationships where the partners are as different as these two - and it works. Go back to first principles. It works because there is more glue in their shared goals and values than in their mismatched personalities, and when this is the case it can work very well.

Part 3 reveals how to choose the ideal partner …

Working at PeopleMaps (the people behind PartnerMaps), we take personality profiling for granted. We use it for professional and personal circumstances - and we’re always talking about it.

It’s pretty clear that lots of people don’t understand psychological profiling at all, however. Sure, there’s a plethora of sites offering ‘personality tests’ but many of them don’t have any roots in professional psychology.

So then, is it any surprise that many people misunderstand the concept of a personality profile, and what it might tell them?

In response, I have asked Anne Ellis,PeopleMaps’ director of psychology, some questions about what profiling is - what it will tell you and how it can help you with relationships. Part one deals with apparently ‘negative’ personality aspects.

Q: Will my personality profile tell me things I don’t want to hear?

A: Personality profiling is a method of identifying personality characteristics that we each have. Some characteristics are obvious - and others are denied. Those that are uncomfortable may not be acknowledged and are most likely to be the ones denied. A professional profile will deal with your complete personality - we’re not all Saints! - and give feedback on how you best deal with both comfortable and less comfortable aspects.

Q: What is the best way to test whether my profile is accurate?

A: The test for most people is to ask someone close, someone who knows you pretty well, if they agree with your profile. Check with them if they can see any of the characteristics you don’t see - and if so, to provide an example. In most cases, they will be able to.

Q: Can you provide an example of uncomfortable behaviour?

Some people will be happy with a profile that says they are ‘direct, strong and purposeful’, yet they might take issue with a comment they perceive as a negative aspect, for instance, if the profile also warns them about ‘intimidating others’ due to their ‘direct, confrontational approach’.

“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.” Leonardo da Vinci

If asked to analyse themselves further, they will probably be able to recognise situations where they came over too strongly with someone who had a more timid nature - although they might just think they were being straight to the point: it’s all in the perception.

Most people are happy to embrace the positive aspects of their personality. What we must take into account is that most positives have a negative counterpart. It is in recognising and acknowledging that positive behaviour can be drift into negative behaviour depending on the circumstance, that people will begin to get a real understanding of self - and truly benefit from profiling.

Q: Personality questionnaire - how is it measured?

A: The PartnerMaps report profile is the feedback generated from the online personality questionnaire

The results come from measuring the respondent’s answers on bi-polar scales that are in themselves opposites. If for example attitudes of extraversion or introversion were measured on the scale and someone came close to the middle, then this would imply they were not extreme in their behaviour: however they would have a natural preference for one behaviour over the other most of the time - it depends how far along a scale people travel.

Of course this also means that in different circumstances they could display one type of behaviour more than the other. For example, If they thought of themselves as more introverted and then considered a group meeting where they appeared to be obviously more overt than the rest of the group, this could be because the others were simply further along the introverted scale than them - and they would therefore appear more extraverted.

This means that different circumstances and people impact on behaviour - and also on relationships.

Part 2 will consider relationship and personality type…