Distinctive Traits of Psychological Types
1. Histrionic Personality Type
Demonstrativeness. What does demonstrativeness mean? It’s when I put myself at the center of everyone’s attention, almost admiring myself and showing off both my positive and even negative traits to everyone around me. I constantly seek attention—every second, every minute, every hour, every day. The attention must be total. Total! Everyone else deserves less attention and shouldn’t even try to compete with me.
The histrionic type doesn’t wait to be appreciated for their merits. They fish for compliments. They also draw everyone into their own suffering. The aesthetics of daily life, clothing, manners, and image play a huge role in the life of a histrionic. Fashion isn’t just a way to present themselves—it’s a lifestyle. They love external order or even disorder, as long as it helps focus attention on themselves.
“A city histrionic woman speaks artistically; a provincial histrionic woman speaks theatrically.” In any case—it’s all about flirtation.
2. Epileptoid Personality Type
The epileptoid loves power, loves to be in charge, and enjoys being listened to and obeyed. But they rule according to established order and “pecking order,” never exceeding their authority and not letting others exceed theirs toward them or others.
For the epileptoid, it’s more important to show themselves, rather than others, how grateful they are—unlike the histrionic, who wants to demonstrate their gratitude to others. The epileptoid is a reliable person who keeps their promises. They are also loyal friends. Their friendships are strong and can last a lifetime, often forged in tough circumstances like military service. Epileptoids don’t change or betray friends, unlike hyperthymics and paranoiacs. They might cheat on a spouse, but never on a friend. If a friend betrays them, it’s a real drama—what can you believe in then? They help each other in trouble, in joy, and in career advancement.
3. Paranoid Personality Type
This type is characterized by heightened, and therefore more pronounced, goal orientation. The paranoid type is a perpetual motion machine, a person who sets many people in motion around them. They are absolutely intolerant of any normal objections, comments, or even the slightest hints of negative feedback about their idea.
Unlike the epileptoid, the paranoid is more of a cosmopolitan than a patriot. Their ideas go beyond a single country or nation—they think about all of humanity. This could mean world revolution, the end of the world, or a desire to convert “outsiders” to their faith. But if their concept includes patriotism, they can be patriots too. They care about results, not the process—unlike the schizoid, who is the opposite.
4. Emotive Personality Type
They don’t like to lie and respect other people’s feelings. Emotives are very responsible people—hyper-responsible! Many people can manipulate them because of this sense of responsibility. Compassion, compassion, and more compassion. They feel sorry for everyone, and people often take advantage of their compassion. They are ready to feel sorry for the whole world, help everyone, and listen to everyone.
Unlike histrionics, they love naturalness and dislike heavy makeup—they prefer natural beauty.
5. Hyperthymic Personality Type
For the hyperthymic, a constantly good mood is a permanent trait. Their cheerfulness, of course, comes from their hyperactivity, but it’s worth highlighting as a separate trait, especially since the term “hyperthymic” implies cheerfulness. They are always cheerful, and their cheerfulness is reckless. They have fun all their lives, without rest, just as the paranoid works all their life without rest.
The hyperthymic is a sworn enemy of order. If the epileptoid brings order, the hyperthymic brings disorder everywhere. They are insensitive to others’ misfortunes, but strangely, this is combined with responsiveness. The hyperthymic can’t refuse a request if they’re able to fulfill it. They are good-natured and kind. If they see someone in obvious need, they’ll cross the whole city on foot to help. They are neither selfish nor egocentric. They are genuinely generous and don’t require praise.
Hyperthymics are talkative. Communication is their number one value.
6. Schizoid Personality Type
Their main trait is a tendency toward theorizing. This is a person of formulas, a person of schemes—a thinking type. For them, thought prevails over action and image.
In general, schizoids are indifferent to clothing and are about ten years behind fashion. They are interested in the process, not the result. They can dig into a topic, books, papers, wires—combining, rearranging, admiring, making notes, losing them, recreating them, and forgetting about time in the process.
Schizoids are idea generators. They have lots of ideas, often unrelated to each other. As mentioned, they can develop completely opposite ideas in parallel. Schizoids don’t care about contradictions in their concepts. Schizoids are the intellect of humanity.
The main thing in schizoid creativity is paradoxical thinking. “And genius is a friend of paradoxes.”