Personology

Here's the bottom line: buy "Please Understand Me II" - it's a much better book. More practical, interesting, readable and accessible.This book is a mess. It is an attempt to take the basic premise of Keirsey's serious and valid theories as presented in previous books like Please Understand Me II, and greatly elaborate on them. Didn't work out so well. I really liked Keirsey's past works, and this was a disappointment, even though it still had lots of insight, and some good parts to it.Sadly, this book was not written for ordinary people. It was written for one of two types of people:1. People whose personality type is INTP like Keirsey's, and are versed in MBTI.2. People who're REALLY into MBTI, have read Keirsey's past works and liked them a lot, and are interested in getting some fresh ideas which expand upon Keirsey's theories.As an INTJ, I belong in the second group. I still feel as if this book is troublesome to read, to say the least. Keirsey has a fetish for words, which is an INTP thing to have. This has gone overboard. Oftentimes, one is not sure if Keirsey had been at times confused, and was writing a dictionary instead of a non-fiction book. There's a hell of a lot of discussion on words. There are many lists of words. There is much background given on the historical origins of words and the roots of words. Even as a fellow NT, this is too much. I couldn't stand it. Sometimes, it feels as if Keirsey likes his words more than he likes human beings. There are certainly more word-lists in this book than there are concrete, real-life examples of human behavior (which are generally lacking in this work for some reason).Another major problem is Keirsey's assumptions on evolutionary psychology. In general, I accept his idea with regard to the various types as they are today probably being representations of evolutionary pressures in primeval human groups. However, here again Keirsey goes overboard with his INTP thing. Instead of actually referencing some work or research in either evolutionary psychology and/or anthropology, he constructs purely from his imagination stories of how hunter-gatherer societies must have behaved, and how this all correlates with his theories. Now, his stories are well constructed and plausible, BUT HE HAS NO PROOF WHATSOEVER!! It was one thing if he were to say he's just assuming, but these stories, as well as many other assumptions in the book, are presented as "facts".There are many other issues with the book I won't trouble you with. It's a good piece of work in a messed up format, and is oftentimes genuinely lacking a human feel to it. Buy it only if you belong in one of the above-mentioned groups. Don't bother otherwise.

Keirsey takes on the immense task of diffentiating human behavior into useful categories. He has written on this before; Please Understand Me II is perhaps his most popular work, written in 1998. That book was written more for the common person, in a style that masked Keirsey's razor-sharp analysis. Granted, the book still makes a powerful analysis, but bends over backwards to make it more accessible. As a result, the ideas lose a bit of precision.In this book, Keirsey takes off the mask and shares more details and more angles of his analysis. His discovery, which inherits a rich lineage of ideas over millenia, is that there are precisely four distinct manifestations of human behavior, and they are distinct on an individual basis. One's temperament is innate. Keirsey does not apologize for this idea, since he wants to very clearly distinguish it from other views in psychology.In the task of differentiating behavior, Keirsey must articulate these differences very clearly. He is therefore forced to use words in very particular ways; ways that may seem odd to those who have never had to be so precise with human language. As a result, he faces the problem of choosing which words are most appropriate for a given idea, and often the choice is too difficult to make. So yes, Personology contains a lot of words. (It is, after all, a book). In this, I suggest that patience is necessary; the ideas are subtle, and it is not easy for Keirsey or anybody else to make such a statement without wrestling with words. Therefore accept that this is a book to savor; it is not meant to be plowed through in a few days. I find that it suits my natural reading style, which is to simply crack the book open to a random page and flip through until I find something that catches my eye.A mess? Perhaps in manifest, but not in principle; Personology represents the height of Keirsey's effort on understanding human behavior. Unlike other theories of psychology, it is coherent and consistent. It has no unnecessary parts. Yes, it would be much easier to write a book that is vague and has needless concepts, since this is the status-quo. One is certainly free to read another book and learn perhaps a hundredth of what you would learn from Personology. But if you must know, read Personology and you will know.

While not easy reading by any means, Personology is filled with amazing insights about Keirsey's temperament theory. This title contains explanation and insight you will NOT find anywhere else -- although a basic understanding of Keirsey's personality theory and temperament model is needed to fully comprehend many of the deeper concepts. The content organization in the book is a bit scattered, making it difficult to locate specific topical items -- but what IS in the book is pure gold! So glad to have purchased this resource.

If you're familiar with David Keirsey's work then this is an absolute must-read -- but definitely NOT the place to start. It is complex and challenging material and goes to a very deep level. If you start here it might actually be off-putting. "Please Understand Me" is a better introduction. After that I recommend Stephen Montgomery's books on the Artisan, Rational and Idealist in literature. Then read this. I'm still working my way through it, but it's the best thing I've ever encountered in providing a comprehensive understanding about why most people say and do what they say and do. I feel indebted to this work. But I'm an Idealist, so that's perfectly understandable.