eugman comments on Let There Be Light - Less Wrong

39 Post author: Alicorn 17 March 2010 07:35PM

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Comment author: HughRistik 17 March 2010 11:51:43PM *  18 points [-]

I'm going to second the recommendation of using psychometrics to further your self-awareness.

For narrowing things down beyond what's been turned up as typical human reactions to things, you can try personality tests like Myers-Briggs or Big Five.

As the Wikipedia articles discuss, Myers-Briggs doesn't enjoy a great reputation among psychologists. Nevertheless, the INTP profile describes me, and probably a lot of people here, with freaky accuracy.

The Big Five is a great recommendation. It is very well respected in psychology, and I find especially useful for understanding disagreements with others. There is a big difference between how intelligent people who are low and high in openness view the world. Furthermore, differences in Agreeableness are a big source of interpersonal conflict.

your intelligence types,

I would stay away from this one. Gardner's notion of multiple intelligences has theoretical problems and does not enjoy empirical support.

categorize your love language

For something scientifically validated on how people handle relationships, check out the concept of attachment style. Here's a quiz. I'm convinced that a lot of relationship problems are due to differences in attachment style, rather than one person being in the right and the other person being in the wrong.

Other individual differences that are useful for self-awareness, and understanding how others think differently:

Comment author: eugman 18 March 2010 03:18:46PM *  0 points [-]

Wow, that is scary. I read about attachment style, and it was eerie how well it described my relationship.

EDIT: Actually, I think I would really appreciate if anyone had any interesting sources on attachment styles in adults.