"Girl"

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I was having a long discussion with a long time friend (my only one) about autism and how it effects me. Part of the conversation was a way he categorizes people according to a specific model so he can effectively communicate with the. The model is a circle divided into 4 quadrants, Dominant,Inspirational,Sensitive, and Calculating. Without going into great detail, suffice it to say that when he meets a person for the first time, he figures out their place in this model and adjusts his communication style to fit. He's a people person and it seems to work for him. So he's trying to get me to see how this could work for me and we start talking about how I see the people around me. I tried to explain to him that I don't see the differences in people's personalities with enough detail to be able to categorize them like this. Only when someone obviously fits into one of these slots am I able to apply it. We brought up some of the staff in my office, 4 of front office people. He asked me how I see them. After some thought, I said simply "girl". That was my category for them. It's hard to describe, but on a fundamental level, I think of each of this four individuals as "the same thing". It was very strange because it was clear as day in my mind that I have this very limited capacity for differentiating people's communication styles and personalities. I can only do this in the most general terms.

Apparently, this type of personality assessment is something NTs are quite capable of and also are able to utilize successfully for socialization.

Does this make sense to anyone?

I don't see where I would ever find the resource to categorise people part of the way through a conversation, I'm usually struggling enough just to be present in the conversation (and don't always succeed).

I don't think I categorise people at all. They're just people.

I was never told about this kind of explicit way of categorizing. But whatever I "naturally" do, I do too much. At least when it comes to patience. I tend to think a given person is either way way way too patient, or not patient at all. So whenever they fall into the first category I tend to exploit their patience. Then by surprise they shift to the second category, and at that point I can't do anything about it since it is too late. They don't like me any more.

I think I apply some kind of categorization to people, based on their perceived personalities (within the restraints of the given circumstances). It takes quite a time to put someone I meet first time into one of those categories I haven't worked out explicitly so far. Most of the time I see individuals, not categories, but yes, I can see how advantageous it would be.

I find it very hard to categorize or describe people. (Describing usually involves categorization.) I don't think I could categorize people like your friend describes. But I do think I adapt how I communicate with people/relate to people depending on the individual person. I'm not really sure how I do this or how well I have to know someone before I adapt my communication with them away from my default.

I do this too but his model will not work for you because it requires ToM and other "reading" abilities. I focus on 2 things. Smart/Stupid - Friendly/unfriendly. I can tell these two thing relatively easily and within about 5 min of talking with them. After this I have two other designators I can usually get from people. Anything more than that requires ToM and great work. I will PM you my picture diagram of how I relate to people and the filters that happen as a result of my judgment. I just shared this with my "little" who got it right away and will benefit tremendously from it.

I can discover people's personalities but it takes me a long time and it's like swimming in treacle. I wouldn't easily trust such a set of categories as being particularly useful, and would have a lot of trouble trying to use the ones specified. I can't really put people into neat compartments like that, they can be dominant in one context but not in another. I'm more interested in how they interact with me, which can be different from how they behave to others.

Even so, I believe it's very important to work out what the people around me are like. Just that it's slow, and I'm aware that I'm probably missing tons of it.

On the most basic of levels, I usually categorise people by element... agressive or boisterous or leader types get Fire, emotionally sensitive types get Water. Thinky types are Air, and practical people are Earth. It's similar to your friend's quadrant model.

Upon knowing someone a bit better, I usually assign a planet and sign to them... Some people seem to embody more of the qualities of Mars and some people are particularly 'Neptunian'... I see myself as 'Uranian'. I usually assign people a sign as the area they are most 'active' 'in'... For example, someone who was into aggressive artistic expression would be assigned Mars and Leo.

Wow. It would appear we all have this thing going on.

One of the things me and my friend talked about was how when I say something about how my perceptions work, the people here at Wrong Planet "get it" and nobody else really does. We went around and around, me trying to explain my perceptions and him trying to explain how "easy" it is to use this type of model. It was an epic battle of NT vs Aspie. No winner emerged. Friendship remained intact.

He was astonished when I told him that I have no 'sense' of things like trust and friendship. I trust him as a friend not because of some feeling that evolved and grew but because there is a continual conscience assessment of how he has behaved towards me over the years. I am able to deduce that he is trustworthy as a friend, but even after knowing him for 20+ years I have no feeling of trust. He was actually great about the whole thing. Basically I told him I know you are my friend but I don't feel you are my friend. He took it in stride, which tells me that my deduction of friendship is very likely correct. But it is still a deduction, not a proof, so to speak. I suspect that at some point, most NTs assume such friendship as a fact, a chunk of inviolate reality. I have great difficulty getting to that pure acceptance.

Very strange. People are actually different from each other (well DUH! say the NTs). Who'd have thought?

at my work with the canadian government, we have to take training to learn to understand people's communication style. it is divided into colours: blue/green/yellow/red.

i haven't taken the training yet, but i am actually looking forward to it a little as it may help me to understand other people better. i tend to communicate in a one-size-fits-all way with everyone.

I can kind of use this model because my family has discussed it a lot. I still don't get the nuances of it, but I know if someone is really energetic they are usually a D or an I, and if they are calmer than they are an S or a C. Everything else I discover by listening to key words while talking to them. Like if someone talks about taking charge then they are a D, if someone talks about how they need to study/clean/organize then they are a C, if someone talks about how excited they are about the next party or ho much they love meeting people they are an I, and if they try to get you to talk and see how you feel they are an S. Lol.

I worked for a couple of years with a company that helped with recruitment, selection and especially entrepreneurism by personality, and this is the exact model they used. It was two years in a hellhole and the boss was a narcissistic a***hole. But I digress. The model is called DISC and it's similar to the Myers Briggs model. Sensitive/Calculating? I don't think the latter, especially, is a politically correct choice of word, and DISC calls it Stability and Compliance. And, make of this what you will, but I scored at the extreme high end of the scale for S and C traits and extreme low end for D and I traits, especially I. On the Big 5 aka OCEAN test, too, I score at extreme ends for most traits.

D = Fire
I = Air
S = Water
C = Earth

The model is ultimately based on the Four Temperaments.