Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of personality that tells you about yourself when you think you are trying to figure out ‘the other’ person)
The topic of today’s Post comes to us courtesy of our Readers, their Comments and the insight they stimulate.
Lets start with 4 of the Comments we received yesterday on the topic of spousal worldviews1 It’s always fun to read Comments that portray the moment, in a Readers life, when the Doctrine starts to gain a foothold…lol
“Hey! Wakefield Doctrine people!! My spouse!! He/she is acting just like… My god!! I think he is a….!”
Yesterday’s Commentation:
Janine ( ‘Janine’s Confessions of a Mommyaholic‘ ) got us started, with this quietly encouraging Comment:
“This is truly just a way of life I suppose and even dictating how one sees, views and deals with humor…”then Amy ( ‘Adorable Chaos…’ ) decided quiet time was over:
“just realized I am married to a scott. He pushes the limits of good taste with his jokes on a regular basis to the point that I have to shhhush him around the kids. I love humor myself, but can’t tell jokes well at all. I can write with humor, but it’s a rather dry, tongue in cheek kind of thing, not roaring laughter or anything like that...”to which Cari ( ‘I have a full-time Job…Meet my Husband’ ) opined:
“I’m with Amy; I think my husband’s a scott. You read my posts, so I’ll have to ask you to confirm or deny. He’s definitely one to push the limits, though. Interesting post!fortunately, DownSpring Molly ( ‘Journey under a traveling Moon’ ) was keeping a watchful eye on things:
“When trying to determine what another person is, look not only at how they act, but how they view the world. Much of this will come out in their word choices. When I first started reading here, I thought my husband was a scott, but then he would do something that didn’t fit. When I finally looked at how he viewed the world more so than how he behaved, I realized that he is a clark. He has verified this many times.
The Wakefield Doctrine holds that everyone has a predominant worldview which is the character of the world that a person experiences.
We use the words ‘character’ and ‘experiences’ quite deliberately.
‘character‘ because each of the three worldviews have certain features and natures that imply a limit to the choices and possible course of action available to the individual (and)
‘experiences‘ because for most of us, to get through life, (to earn money, to pass our History Mid-term, to ask that girl out, to tell our boss to go to hell, to stop worrying about what happened to us at summer camp when we were 9, to believe in ourselves, to teach our children, to grieve our losses, to take care of our parents, to turn out the abusive child, to hope, to laugh, to love ), we must devise strategies and make decisions on the best approach to achieve our goals.
It follows that, as Molly makes clear in her Comment, in order to determine the predominant worldview of another person (in this case a spouse), we need to understand how they relate to the world, which in turn allows us to understand the character of the world (they are experiencing) the answer being, of course:
- the worldview of the Outsider (clarks), always curious, interested in any fact that implies a connection to another (fact), a world in which being the center of attention is a natural instinct that is offset by the fear of being discovered (to be an Outsider)
- the worldview of the Predator (scotts) active! full of life! always hungry… never stopping, with a world of potential predators they are first to challenge, with a world full of prey, they are always (well, initially) charming
- the worldview of the Herd (rogers), the world makes sense, the world has Rules, the Rules account for the sun rising in the East and for history to follow tradition, the only flaw is the nature of some people
1) ‘spousal worldview‘ a damn trademark pending on that little darling, you can betcha!
About clarkscottroger
Thanks for the shout out and the more I too think about it my husband is also a ‘Scott’ and god help me if I am wrong with him, lol!! Seriously loved this and you have such a way with how you relate this to everyday life!!
@Janine
I find myself being more challenged to explain the principles as more people read and Comment which, in a way that might sound self-serving, improves how the Wakefield Doctrine is presented. thank you… now, about the husband (lol) I expect we will hear from some of the others in the course of the day,
let me throw out one…idea… scotts are known for exploding/flaring up/and-otherwise-going-through-the roof in response to frustration and (anything else that may interrupt the enjoyment of the moment) and this can look exactly like the response of a roger
both are emotional people, capable of clearly focused intent, and (neither) are shy about expressing their feelings ( as to a clarklike spouse…lol that’s a separate Post)….but they are actually two very different reactions
the scott is blowing up because it is in their nature…it is what they are, mercurial is a great word in this case
the roger is blowing up because it is in their world, this is a fairly subtle difference but for all of the similarities of the initial event, the ‘after effects’ are quite different (from the scott’s)
Yes, the difference between scotts and rogers is quite different. scotts – emotion for emotion’s sake sometimes – spontaneous reaction(s) – here today gone tomorrow. lol
rogers on the other hand, more manipulative in the expression of emotion. They tend to “hold on” to things. Which makes sense.
@DS#1
there is a certain quality, in the rogerian reactions that makes you think of the word ‘affronted’, a semi-archaic word, but it is that kind of ‘feeling’ to their reponse which stands in greater contrast to the scottian reaction.
As always, you make me think. I’ll have to pay even closer attention to my husband’s words now! :) This certainly means that there are many more entertaining blog posts to come… :)
@Cari
…yes, there will, no doubt be more posts to come, but we should warn you and the others (I think I have already said this in a number of different contexts) that if you continue to read the blog and …’entertain’… the ideas here, there will come a time when you will start seeing the clarks and scotts and rogers in your life…without ‘trying to see them’ lol (wait! wait! it gets worse…) you will see people acting in a manner that makes you say, ‘man! what a roger!’ (or) scott/clark, but you will be startled to realize that they were not acting in any manner that we have specifically described in this blog.
Molly (who is the first of the first generation) might attest to this rather interesting phenomomen.
haha, the first time I ever read your blog, I *knew* – I just KNEW – that both my husband and I were clarks. Yes, we’re both creative, both left-handed, both introverted, both clarks. Haha. We both hate confrontation, can stay home for days writing and working on projects and loud noises drive us crazy. HEHE. That is, when we don’t want to hear loud noises. We’ll be going to a concert soon…plenty loud. HAHA.
Ooh, I just thought of something. Do you suppose more clarks are left handed than not? Food for thought. :)
@Cyndi ( I almost did not recognize you! it is earlier than usual lol)
…sounds like a couple of clarks to me! although… If you want an interesting test of clarklike nature and a surefire roger detector watch the movie ‘Slacker’ which was Richard Linklater’s first movie. from the scene in the cab onto the end, total clark-fest lol and the funny thing, rogers cannot force themselves to sit in front of this movie for more than 10 minutes max!
…all of his movies are great, I suspect that Mr Linklater be a clark, his-own-damn-self
interesting notion about the left-handedness thing… will give it some thought (well duh, clarks)
Thank you for the mention. :) I’m still convinced that my husband is a scott – the more you explain, the more I believe it to be so! He is quite charming when you first meet him. In fact most people think he is way nicer than he actually is! The best man in our wedding said in his speech “don’t trust that innocent smile, he’s usually up to something!” And it’s true…even if he is just “up to” coming up with his next inappropriate joke. It’s a good balance I think, because I am such a clark-ette. I just read Cyndi’s comment about lefthandedness…must have missed that in earlier posts…but I am too. I think Cyndi and I soul – sisters!
@Amy
Good Comment! This is very the secondary benefit (for us at the Doctrine) to have new observations about characteristics of (the three types) as well as new ‘manifestations’ of the worldviews. Especially this last, as the more we have for ‘clues’ to what kind of world the other person is relating to, the more quickly we can pick one to try out.
(And that is, in fact, how this thing works! You pick a likely worldview, watch the person (their ways and behavior) against the backdrop of the worldview, if it does not seem to resonate or there are too many jarring inconsistencies, then you try the next one and so on.
We will have to start asking about handedness. My understanding is that the percentage of sinister-carpophiles runs about 10- 13 % Anyone else heard a number?