The 3 types of “types of people” people
Discover your meta-personality type!
I recently discovered the “meta model” of human psychology - I find it to be a really compelling categorization of human personality, so I wanted to share it!
The framework suggests that there are just three types of people: “believers”, “complicators” and “sociopaths”.
The three types are distinguished by how they react when they learn about a new personality typology (e.g. Myers Briggs, Jungian archetypes, Hogwarts houses, enneagram, magic the gathering, the meta model etc.).
See the descriptions below to figure out which you are!
Believers
Believers love the framework! Suddenly their social world makes perfect sense!
“OMG have you read about [typology]!? - it maps perfectly onto human psychology! Some smart people produced it with some kind of clever factor analysis/vibes/magic! Obviously there are minor exceptions, but this system captures something deeply true about the broad groups that humans naturally fall into. I understand myself so much better now! And if you reject this model, that would be a classic Type 5/Leo/Ravenclaw move…
Complicators
Complicators think that it might be a little more nuanced than that…
“Eugh, actually it’s really not so simple! The map is not the territory… Reality doesn’t come in categories, humans create them. It’s continuous gradients and bell curves all the way down! These systems just give the illusory sense of sociological understanding, while barely explaining anything! Besides, a lot of these typologies are merely reflecting implicit socio-political goals and projections of the system's creators! Which personality test you find compelling says as much about you as the results themselves... Like - oh!? You find the framework that tells you that you’re an “Adventurer” compelling?! Fascinating…
Honestly, I1 avoid categorising anything anymore!”...
Sociopaths
Sociopaths think that the model is “useful bullshit”, a tool they can use to achieve their (likely nefarious) goals.
“Yeah, I’m a left-brained, ENTJ, creator type”... they say, knowing that this is an identity they are actively constructing even as they utter the words. When they answer personality quiz questions e.g. “do you prefer more alone time than others?” they silently ask themselves “do I want to identify more as an introvert or extrovert?”. When pressed they might say something like: “All conceptual frameworks are pragmatic constructions of our culture and biology. These narratives, ideas and models only ever roughly approximate the nebulous patterns in reality. Personality is no different. The important thing is that we identify the frameworks that are most helpful in making actual decisions…” - which is deeply suspicious.
Even as they read this very set of typologies, they are scheming… “which personality type would make me seem most trustworthy and competent to my peers?” they probably ask themselves. There is no ground truth any more, just ideas built upon ideas built upon some motivation to meet some (likely sinister) human need…
So that’s the meta model of human personality!
Which are you?
By “I” they are referring to the whole, undifferentiated, self-perceiving universe
I'm somewhere between a skeptic and a believer in that I believe successful personality typologies generally know *something* about the human experience, and it's worth asking "why does this resonate with people? what is it doing right?" – but the truth they contain may not be what they think it is, and they often heavily overpromise.
I believe that a nuanced approach is necessary to meet my nefarious ends.
Maybe there's a chameleon type. Can I be a bad STBJ subscriber?