Type A or a Type B? Introvert or extrovert! As a society, we love to categorize people, to label and pigeonhole actions, personalities, and careers. Using these frameworks, we label ourselves, we categorize and judge others, and no doubt others also categorize and judge us.
Typically, those categorizations are based upon polar extremes and are often mutually exclusive. If you are one, then you are not the other. Those dichotomous labels, following the typical good/bad construction, carry social capital. Extroverts find praise and introverts find criticism simply due to their preference for rejuvenation. Judgments are implicit throughout these systems.
Without ever taking any real personality test, I know I'm Type-A, I'm a Red, and I'm an Extrovert. Most of those labels are positive: I'm assertive, independent, driven, social, and accomplished. But because I'm a red, I am not a blue. As a result. I'm never labelled as a compassionate, peacemaking, or empathetic person.
I do have natural personality traits, but I struggle with labeling that suggests those are fixed and unchanging. I am assertive, unless I'm not. Compassion might not be my natural state, but I show compassion regularly. As an introvert, my husband might dread social events but he attends them and is often the life of the party. My son, labeled blue, is generally a peacemaker but sometimes he instigates conflict. My daughter, a type B personality, is not driven by competition, but she often wins.
At a leadership conference, I was recently introduced to another categorization system for motivation that further continues this division: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is of course privileged over extrinsic motivation. Doing something for a reward is apparently less valuable than doing something simply for the sake of doing it. I reacted the same way I always do: with skepticism (that Type-A personality of mine compels me).
Why do we feel a need to label and privilege? When I evaluate the traits that are divided up between the extremes, I see traits that are situationally dependent. Sometimes external rewards are good motivators; sometimes they aren't. In some situations, aggressiveness is valued and in others non-aggression is the more valued trait.
I decided a long time ago that I am by all accounts (and reputation) a feminist, but that I was going to more accurately label myself a humanist--again because I don't like what the label assumes. As a humanist, I am concerned about gender issues in society, but not exclusively issues tied to womanhood (as feminist might imply). I care about individuals, I believe that femininity and masculinity are equally important, and I argue both men and women can and should exhibit cross-gendered traits.
I'm tired of either/or thinking, and I believe we should rely on it less. Today, I declare myself situationally traited: I am an A and a B, a red and a blue, an introvert and an extrovert, and sometimes I'm externally motivated and other times my motivation is internal. I am all of these things ... and more ... depending on the situation.
Written June 28, 2015
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