In our previous article, we touched on personality Styles—extroverted and introverted—focusing on how individuals receive information from their environment and beyond.

Discover how personality styles influence information reception and interactions with stubborn or harsh personalities, and learn strategies to enhance understanding, communication, and decision-making in both professional and personal contexts.

Each of us utilizes our five senses to experience tastes and visuals around us, and also relies on our intuition for future planning.

How do you receive external information?

The Sensory-Reliant Person

• Utilizes the five senses to confirm facts, like seeing or hearing them.
• Focuses on facts and details.
• Lives in the current moment (logical and realistic).
• Trusts proven facts and generally dislikes fantasy.

The Intuitive Person

• Trusts inspiration and inference, creating new steps.
• Uses phrases like “I feel,” “I anticipate,” and “I sense.”
• Employs analogy and symbolism.
• Grasps the overall meaning and connections between things.
• Leans towards imagination and creativity (the “sixth sense”).

Typically, humans base their decisions on rational facts, making them logical thinkers, or on values and emotional connections, making them feelers.

Thus, decisions are made either through reason or emotion.

We all become thinkers when doing the right thing regardless of feelings, like when buying only one garment of the same color because another isn’t necessary. Conversely, we all act emotionally when purchasing something merely because we love it, without logical reason.

What are the characteristics of a thinker?

• Listens and analyzes.
• Emotionally neutral, rational, and fair.
• Critical, always spotting flaws and rarely satisfied.
• Honest to a fault, lacking diplomacy.
• Often seen as heartless, although they value emotions when they are logical.
• Energetic and enthusiastic.

Characteristics of the emotional, poetic person

Driven by mood swings and emotions more than by the reasoning of logic, math, and practical considerations, this person is:

• Easily affected
• Quick to excite
• Sensitive, poetic, and dreamy
• Imaginative and romantic
• Kind-hearted
• Quick to anger but also quick to forgive and reconcile
• Sociable and loves people
• Well-intentioned, trusting everyone
• Generous by nature, often putting others before themselves
• Occasionally sharp-tempered, but quickly calms down and stabilizes, with forgiveness and tolerance prevailing.

Now, dear reader, do you identify more as a thinker or a feeler?

How do humans organize their surroundings? 

We all act as “judgers” when we make to-do lists for tomorrow, and as “perceivers” when we delay decisions while exploring alternatives and react spontaneously to events (like procrastinating).

• To determine which of the two groups you lean towards, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you make decisions quickly and decisively, or do you procrastinate?
• Do you prefer a definitive choice, or do you like to keep options open?
• Do you prefer controlling events, or do you let others decide?
• Are you punctual and value time, or are you often late and struggle with time management?
• Are you organized, or do you find it difficult to manage your surroundings?
• Do you prefer to work first and relax later, or do you often delay duties?

The judging or decisive person

• Likes to settle matters and feels great satisfaction after making decisions.
• Prioritizes work first, then relaxation and leisure.
• Sets goals and actively pursues them.
• Is decisive and seldom hesitates.
• Consistently perceives time as limited.
• Is strict with schedules.
• Adheres to a timed plan for tasks, systematically organizing them as 1, 2, 3.

The perceptive or impressionistic person

• Always keeps options open and enjoys investigating and gathering information.
• Are indecisive and changes goals as new information becomes available.
• Lives by the principle: Enjoy first, then attend to work later as there’s plenty of time ahead.
• Is flexible and adaptable, quickly adjusting to new circumstances and environments.
• Focuses on the process of execution rather than the final outcome.
• Is slow in execution, enjoying starting projects more than finishing them.
• Maintains a flexible life open to all possibilities, with very flexible schedules.
• Loves surprises and often delays everything until the last moment, spontaneous and impromptu.

Remember, dear reader: The diversity in personality Styles and individual differences are crucial for effective teamwork.

Dealing with Stubborn and Harsh Individuals:

Harshness kills creativity. The harsh individual suffers from this, and those who are harsh to others reap the same results.

• The stubborn individual does not easily change their mind.
• Refuses to accept blame, and does not listen to others, only their own thoughts.

How to Deal with the Harsh and Stubborn:

• Stay calm, control your nerves, and avoid getting angry.
• Allow the stubborn person to finish speaking. Exercise patience.
• Be objective and do not take harsh words as a personal insult.

• Define your goal, and focus your thoughts and dialogue on achieving it. When you are able to start the conversation, explain the mutual benefits for all viewpoints, and offer alternative solutions.

• Tell the person you are addressing: “The proposal I am presenting offers the following benefits…” and enumerate them.

• Say to them: “I am confident you will agree with this proposal because it solves the specific problem and provides the following benefit.”

• Present documents, when necessary, as they prepare the harsh person for understanding and make the stubborn person reconsider their stubbornness.

• Ensure that everything you present is carefully thought out, and that you have sufficient data for the proposal. Have your proposal in written form so that when agreed upon, you can request formal approval.

• Be clear that one person’s acceptance of another’s opinion does not mean a victory over the other; this is not a war, but rather, you are together in the same boat, and the decision affects both of you.

• Despite being harsh or stubborn, they need a friend. Be that friend, use humor when possible, and help them to see the spirit of thought more than the literal interpretation of rules.

Author: Mahmoud Alsaloum, Leader of School Education at Masarat Initiative