The Wakefield Doctrine is based on the premise that behavior is a response to perception. Within individuals, these behaviors tend to repeat themselves over time, and with repetition become a defining and characteristic type of behavior, in other words, personality.

The Wakefield Doctrine proposes to describe personality on the basis of perception rather than the behavior that results (from perception).

The three characteristic ways to perceive the world are identified as: clarks, scotts and rogers. It is a given that we all start our lives with the potential to perceive the world as any of the three. However at some point in our early, early childhood  we become predominantly a clark, a scott or a roger. How we perceive the world around us becomes established, we establish our personal reality, our predominant worldview.

We become clarks, scotts or rogers.

…clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel…

clarks.

The ‘initial behavioral metaphor’ for a clark is that of the ‘outsider’;  whether or not it is supported by the perception and opinion of the people in their lives, clarks see themselves as different, separate from everyone in their lives. Without an identifiable cause, no memory of being marked as apart from the family or the social environment, what makes a clark a clark is that they see the world and everyone in it as ‘out there’ and themselves as…. not a member, not like, not like the others… here.

To a  clark  the world is an indifferent, ( essentially ) hostile environment, filled with people who appear to enjoy life, family members who seem comfortable with their place (in the family), classmates who have friends and do not seem overly concerned with fitting in; as they all (to the clark) appear to already be ‘a part of’, sharing in a (social) membership,  the clark (personality types)  suspects they may have had an opportunity to join, but missed the chance and now must work to cover-up this failing, lest the society that (the clark) does not belong to holds him/her accountable for being outside the group. To a clark,   their only hope is to learn (about) and think (and discover) that which the others appear to share and to try to anticipate the thoughts and actions in time to ‘fake it’.

To a clark, information/knowledge is the thing of highest value in the world. Ironically, this belief is the flaw from which most of the behavior, the ‘personality’  (of a clark) flows:

• If I know everything I can understand why I feel different.
• If I understand why I feel different, I can change and then not feel different.
• Then I can be like other people.

Being an ‘Outsider’, clarks are driven by the need to understand.  This drive to acquire knowledge is the central feature of the subjective experience of the clarklike personality type. In fact, this drive to secure a  ‘value in factual information’ results in a replacing and substitution of the  emotional aspect of the personality with a more single-focus of the intellectual/rational view of the world.  The end result/purpose of acquiring this knowledge is not to identify with the world but to learn enough about the structure of the world to find their proper place in the society.

By definition, clarks are the ones that think up shit, like this theory of clarks, scotts, rogers  thing.  This ‘theory of personality’ owes it’s existence to the fact that all clarks think and believe that there is an answer, that there is information to be found/understood/discovered that will make sense of the world as they (the clark) see it.

clarks believe that if they think enough they will understand why they are not a part of the world and can then become a part of the world, no longer different.

If you are still reading this, two things are most likely true: you are a clark and you have already devised a system (like this or better) to do this thing.

another, more…’back of the Menu, keep-you-occupied-while-the-waitress-fends-off-the-advances-of-the-scottian-cook, while-trying-to-encourage-the-clarklike-busboy-to-step-up-and-make-his-move’, description of clarks would be:

curious, easily bored, interested in anything that poses a question, insatiable people-watcher, friendly when not feeling threaten, confident when discussing ideas, totally tropistic for any information, however useless and obscure that they (the clarks) believe will give them insight into how they should feel, aggressive when dealing with ideas, passive when dealing with real people, (except friends…who they value more than anything), fearful, un-afraid (not the contradiction it would appear to be), the hard workers you could ever under-pay and self-less to an extreme, egotistical beyond imagining and willing to do anything for a chance to be accepted, except be-themselves.

If you are a clark, you have by now come up with some (mental) construct to manipulate the knowledge that you have been acquiring since before you can remember; be it based on astrology or religion, philosophy or mythology, you have a system.

Try this:

• clarks live inside their own heads because it’s all much better in there
• clarks are the only (one of the three personality types) to sincerely entertain the idea that it would be better to be someone else
• clarks read a lot and to say that clarks daydream a lot is to totally go redundant
• clarks work very hard at whatever they do but, since they are so easily bored, do not do well at jobs that involve repetitive tasks
• clarks are the creative one(s) of the three personality types
• clarks share with others, to a fault
• clarks believe that if they work hard and help others unselfishly at some point they will no longer be different
• clarks maintain, at a very high cost that ‘knowledge is power’

It can be said that clarks can believe anything and therefore believe in nothing. (If you know what that means, you are a clark).