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…of personality types, behavior and inertia: the Wakefield Doctrine (theory of 3 personality types)

January 14, 2012 By

Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )

Warning!! The thought supplanting1 today’s Post Title is more a framing of the question (and) description of the obstacle encountered (or to be encountered ) by all of us attempting to employ the Wakefield Doctrine as a system of self-improvement.  While the Post Title implies that there will be specific suggestions (composed of ways and strategies meant to over-come this inertia), if you don’t read exactly what you are hoping to find, please do one of two things:

  1. …keep reading. Read tomorrow’s Post and next week’s Post(s).  (Better yet), read some of the Pages of this blog, listed at the top of the page, these will contain most of the knowledge about personality types and behavior, as currently accepted by the Doctrine  (or),
  2. …write a Comment! If you are reading this, you are familiar, or at very least, conversant with the principles and precepts of the Wakefield Doctrine. Write a Comment, share with the other Readers what you have encountered in your own life as it pertains to the ‘the problem’ i.e. the inertia of old habits. We want to hear what you have experienced, good or bad, useful or useless. We all totally know that the better the understanding of ‘the problem’ the more likely the solution will be found.

So what is this ‘inertia of habits/behavior’?
Our elegant phrase, inertia of habits/behavior, is meant to describe the tendency to repeat what you have (repeated) previously. All people behave certain ways in certain (typical) life situations, (nothing new there). We also maintain the same types and styles of behavior over time ( in the parlance of the Wakefield Doctrine we are clarks or scotts or rogers). And we all have met with the same frustration when, for one reason or another, we have wanted to change our behavior.  You know that when you encounter a person who acts a certain way, lets say, for example they are too aggressive (or too non-aggressive), whatever. Despite your desire to change how you interact (with this type of person), despite your best efforts to alter your own responses to this person,  you invariably ‘forget’ and revert  to your typical style of response. This is the ‘inertia of habits/behavior’. Now some of you might say at this point, “Yeah well what do the physicists say? Huh?”,

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object’s mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by applied forces. Inertia comes from the Latin word, iners, meaning idle, or lazy. Isaac Newton defined inertia as his first law in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which states:

The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia )
See?  Even the  rogers fear and/or respect inertia!
Since we are on the subject of rogers, it might be helpful to describe my experience with a new computer. I am currently typing away on the keyboard of my new iMac. This computer and (all other Apple products) are remarkable by virtue of the fact that they are clearly of a rogerian nature! By this I mean, when I first got the computer after years of PC’s (see inertia of habit/behavior, above); and after allowing for having to adjust to a different OS, I begin to notice a certain…rationale(?),  a view?, lets call it ‘the underlying premise of the experience of using a computer’, about the way the iMac was designed to function. The fricken design of these good-looking but aggravating computers is totally rogerian!
In terms of the topic of today’s Post? My new computer has a ‘spellcheck’ function as do most other brands, but there appears to be an enhancement to this handy writing aid that I don’t recall in my PCs. When I type a line,  the ‘correct’ word shows up right next to the word that I am either: 1) mistyping or b) making up a whole new word, for purposes that I am comfortable putting in place of a ‘real’ word.
Well, here on this rogerian computer, the ‘correct’ word will replace your ‘incorrect’ word, by default. You must go back and ‘force it’ (sometimes twice, if the new word is really weird) before it will  let you use the ‘incorrect word’.
Needless to say, that got me to thinking about how the  inertia of habits/personality may work within our lives. It is not that we ‘forget’ that we want to act differently, it is just that a part of us keeps track of how we have always behaved and if we divert from the norm, it will step in and superimpose the proper way to behave (or respond or react etc). Whether you want to or not. Now this, like spellcheck is very helpful and useful, it enables us to maintain continuity without constant distraction. And!…and maybe it (this process) is part of how it is that we can live in different realities! The three characteristic worldviews of clarks, scotts and rogers are apparently maintained and otherwise given continuity by this function of ‘supplying the correct word’ or in this case, ‘supplying the correct (for our individual personality type) interpretation of the reality that is our dominant worldview!  Damn! (this could be useful)!
We might then suggest that, much like the way we have to go back and ‘correct the correction’ we might develop strategies that allow us to, say for example, keep track of my clarklike style and anticipate where a scottian or rogerian response might be desired and beat that damn auto-correct at it’s own game! Clearly much work is necessary to refine the concept and create efficient and effective strategies.
Not quite the bullet point list! lol I know that some of you out there would like us to simply list the concise plan that will allow you to:
  • put on those high-heeled shoes and get those rogers to drop to all fours when you walk in the room (or)
  • find a secret way of actually having that scottian girl in psych class acknowledge that you sit behind her (and have for the last month) and maybe even be able to talk to her in way that doesn’t a) make you think you are reading from the wrong page of the Michelin Easy Phrases for the Tourist who really, really needs to use the bathroom and then order a Gourmet Dinner or b) have her reaching into her pocket for the speed dial on her cell phone (or even)
  • stop falling for the rogerian bullshit or the predatory groping of your scottian best friends… (hey, we’re not talking about you…these are true other rogers and scotts…heh heh
 Hey…I kinda hate to repeat myself with the song picks, but I have had this Alan Jackson song in my head all week, and it do have some fine pedal steel in it!
1) a modest and (hopefully ) successful attempt at a rogerian expression.

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clarkscottroger About clarkscottroger
Well, what exactly do you want to know? Whether I am a clark or a scott or roger? If you have to ask, then you need to keep reading the Posts for two reasons: a)to get a clear enough understanding to be able to make the determination of which type I am and 2) to realize that by definition I am all three.* *which is true for you as well, all three...but mostly one

Comments

  1. Clairepeek says:
    January 14, 2012 at 11:40 am

    Hello…

    I cannot resist this one because it comes back the a question I asked in my Blog (or in a comment on a WD’s post) and to which the doctrine has not yet found an answer (or so I was told :D)

    The frame of a question leading to the main question… hmm! okay, to the point if possible…

    You talk about typical behaviours (according to each personality type) in typical/critical (maybe) situations… no matter how hard we try – regardless of personality types – to change our behaviours to what we wish they were, it is a lost cause… we inevitably revert to the old habit of how we use to behave in such a situation. I can relate, I did that loads of times… BUT less and less…

    Would we still do that (revert I mean) if we were aware our old behaviour?
    Awareness of ones behaviour in a given situation, but most importantly what triggers that particular behaviour in that particular situation should help tremendously to get the wanted behaviour.

    It is possible because I did it, probably not with all the situation that provoke my unwanted behaviour (shameful in regard to who I am when I think of it afterwards… that is what unwanted means here), but many of them anyway… it has to be an conscious work on oneself and a lot of stubbornness… almost like psychoanalysis but without the psychoanalyst… am I off subject?

    What I really wanted to see is this: if you know the cause then you might have a better chance to understand the consequence, which ultimately enables one to adjust the outcome when comes the same cause again… maybe not what I wanted to say completely… I said that before but I will repeat it: “It is such a mess up there; I would not like to live there even with running water!”

    Therefore, I ask again
    Why, oh why, do we settle at an early age into one of three personality types?
    What does predispose an individual towards one or the other or the third?
    I think it is an important question, to understand even better some of the inertia factors in each of the three types…

    Now, I believe I have brain damage for the rest of the weekend… so I have to sign off for a bit :D
    Letting you ponder, I wish you all a great weekend!
    /Claire

  2. clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:
    January 14, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    hello… clark!! (lol)

    Your concerns and questions, Claire are welcomed and, in fact, they are what we need to further the Wakefield Doctrine! By virtue of my being a clark, I feel comfortable saying, “I am fairly certain I know what you mean”

    I will endeavor to address your questions, with the understanding that the medium of email/Comment/Reply is limited by the skill of the writer, which I will try to compensate for by the use of repetition and hyperbole. lol
    I also expect some of the others will weigh in, Molly and DS#1 and Ms. AKH are totally on their game and with any luck we might get the attention of the progenitor roger.

    The easy one first: “Why, oh why, do we settle at an early age into one of three personality types?”
    ” What does predispose an individual towards one or the other or the third?”
    We don’t know…yet.

    The not so easy one next: “if you know the cause then you might have a better chance to understand the consequence, which ultimately enables one to adjust the outcome when comes the same cause again… maybe not what I wanted to say completely… I said that before but I will repeat it: “It is such a mess up there; I would not like to live there even with running water!”

    I read this as referring to the persistence of our behaviors and our (apparent) stubbornness when it comes to altering behavior, even ( or especially when) an improved outcome is the goal!
    (Right here is what I dislike about this medium, the following will be useful only if I correctly understand your “question”. But what the hell, someday I may get paid by the word, so I better not stint now.)

    My suggestion is to ‘re-visit’ the core concept of the Wakefield Doctrine, which is that we are not clarks or scotts or rogers because of our habitual behaviors and reactions and such. I am a clark because I live in the world of clarks, scotts are not predators because they are naturally sexy or ridiculously pushy, they are because they exist in the world that is best described as predator-prey and rogers (they) are looking around their world, they see the herd and they understand that, just as they can count the individual members of the herd, all the world is quantifiable.
    The thing of it is: we are all acting reasonably. We are all acting appropriately to the nature of the reality that we find ourselves in (and have since some time in early childhood).
    That may sound like bad news, but it is not…
    ….think of it this way: if it were not for the need for income or the necessity to successfully interact with non-clarks you would not have an issue… (er maybe not such a good example). lol
    All three personality types have (apparent) weaknesses and (sometimes not as apparent) strengths, we clarks have the weaknesses that we do when trying to work with the world at large, but we are the funny ones and we are the ones with the never ending curiosity (both a good thing and a bad thing) but most of all we are the ones who are creative! The real creative, not the ‘re-package old parts’ creativity of rogers or the “HEY! THIS IS NEW” creativity of scotts, but the genuine article. We (can) create the new thing.

    I am getting a bit off topic. I will come back later after some of the other Comments show up.