What makes people fall in love? Biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher has spent her life studying this question. She’s the author of Why Him? Why Her?: Finding Real Love By Understanding Your Personality Type.

Despite the saying that “opposites attract,” Helen Fisher says (and we all know) that people tend to seek out mates who are similar to them in many ways:

“Psychologists have determined that men and women tend to fall in love with individuals from the same ethnic and socioeconomic background; with those of a similar level of intelligence, education and physical attractiveness; with individuals holding similar religious, political and social values; and with those who have a similar sense of humor.”

But beyond these factors, matchmaking involves a huge element of personality. Is there any rhyme or reason to what personalities we find attractive?

Geneticists have been able to map many traits to our DNA, and Helen Fisher says they’ve learned that our genes act together to create behavior syndromes.

“For example, if you have a biological appetite to seek novelty, you are also likely to be energetic, spontaneous, risk taking, curious and creative. If you are predisposed to be traditional instead, you are also likely to be loyal, cautious, respectful of authority and eager to make plans and follow schedules. We express constellations of related biological traits, creating what are commonly called personality types.

…

In fact, after doing extensive research on the biological underpinnings of personality types, I have come to believe that each of us expresses a unique mix of four broad basic personality types. Moreover, our primary personality type steers us toward specific romantic partners. Our biological nature whispers constantly within us to influence who we love.”

These four broad personality types are associated with four specific neurotransmitters and hormones: dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen.

I haven’t read the book, and I’m not entirely clear on how this works. I know that both men and women have both testosterone and estrogen, but don’t men always have more testosterone, while women always have more estrogen? She talks about inheriting particular genes in the various hormone systems, so I guess it’s not necessarily that people have more of these neurotransmitters and hormones, just that they have genes that cause them to be more heavily influenced by them. Therefore, the personalities associated with testosterone and estrogen can be found in both men and women.

Anyway, she says we’re all a unique combination of the four types, which she calls the explorer (risk-taking, associated with dopamine), the builder (calm, traditional, associated with serotonin), the director (analytical, tough-minded and decisive, associated with testosterone) and the negotiator (emotionally expressive and empathetic, associated with estrogen).

Although she didn’t say one word about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in the articles I read, I noticed a striking (though not perfect) correlation between these types and the MBTI temperaments. Below we see the types, the associated neurotransmitter or hormone, the associated temperament (in my opinion), and the corresponding traits.

So which types attract each other? Fisher says that explorers go for other explorers, and builders go for other builders. But directors go for negotiators, and vice versa.

For now, I’m not convinced about this. I’ve always considered the MBTI to be useless for selecting jobs or partners. It’s great for understanding people, but not for filtering them. So if these four types can be mapped to Myers-Briggs types, my instinct is that they wouldn’t be good relationship predictors.

Then again, I haven’t spent a lifetime studying it. Maybe there’s something to this.

Dr. Fisher admits that types aren’t everything. She observed a “test date” between two explorers, who should be a good match based on type. But he says he’s into sports, while she calls herself a cultural woman. Having the right type isn’t enough unless the people have common interests, or at least a willingness to learn about each other’s interests.

Enough talk. Let’s find out what you are.

WhyHimWhyHer.com redirects to the test at chemistry.com (a sister site of match.com). Allow about 15 minutes for this. It’s a bit of a pain to get started, but worth it.

You have to create a username and password, but since you don’t ever need to log in again, you can just use random letters. I was going to say you can use Mailinator to get a throwaway email address, but the test gives you the results right there in the web page, so you can just make up a fake email.

The test is pretty interesting. The very first question is the only one about physical attributes. Specifically, the relative lengths of your index and ring fingers. I guess this is influenced by the neurotransmitters and hormones in question.

There are two items about visual perception, where you have to make one thing bigger or smaller until it’s the same size as another thing. The rest of the questions are normal personality questions.

I expected that the test would find me to be a director, and I was right. But it determines both a primary and a secondary type. I was a director (testosterone) for the primary, and a negotiator (estrogen) for the secondary. I don’t know if I’m thrilled about my secondary type being associated with estrogen, but the description does match me partially.

Do you think Dr. Helen Fisher is right? Do you think explorers are best matched with explorers, builders are best matched with builders, and directors are best matched with negotiators? If you’re married and willing to share what types you think you and your spouse are, that could be interesting.

You know how sometimes you come across a website that’s offering a freebie you want, but they ask for your email address, so you change your mind? Mailinator is a wonderful tool for those situations.

Anytime you need a throwaway email address that you’re only going to use once, Mailinator can provide one. That saves you from having to opt in to a list, when you just want to get the free download.

It’s very easy to use. Go to mailinator.com. You can make up any email address you want, but I just use a random one. On the left side below “Can’t think up an address,” they’ll have a link to a random address. Right now it says jrcvdgesgazwa@mailinator.com. Click that link and it takes you to the inbox for jrcvdgesgazwa@mailinator.com. The account is automatically created, and you don’t need to sign up for anything.

Now, when you want to download a free report and you need to give them an email address, you just give them jrcvdgesgazwa@mailinator.com. Then when you refresh the Mailinator page, you’ll see you have an email with a link to your free report. Meanwhile, your real email address remains free of spam. jrcvdgesgazwa@mailinator.com might get spam, but it doesn’t matter because you’ll never use that address again.

But you only need this when dealing with a potential spammer!

Mailinator is very useful when you don’t know who you’re dealing with, and you don’t know what they’ll use your email address for. But there are plenty of legitimate email lists out there that don’t spam you. They may offer a free report as a sweetener, but the list itself delivers value, not just sales pitches.

I tend to trust real people a lot more than faceless companies. If you know a person, and they’re offering a free ebook, in exchange for your email address, and they tell you what they’re going to email you, that’s probably fine. I’d be likely to opt in, if I know this person and I like their work.

Many people with legitimate mailing lists use AWeber, which has a very strict anti-spam policy and guarantees that you can opt out at any time. I’m never afraid to give my real email address to AWeber, and that’s what I use for my own newsletter. Besides, AWeber is smart enough to know about Mailinator, so they won’t let you use mailinator.com addresses.

To see if a mailing list is run through AWeber, just click the submit button without entering your name or email address. You’ll get an error of course, but you can see if it’s an AWeber error. If so, you can click the back button and enter your info. I’m sure there are other services with strict anti-spam policies, but I don’t know who they are.

Mailinator will set you free! Go forth and download free reports with reckless abandon!

Photo by duncan

Are rules just arbitrary hoops to jump through, meant only to demonstrate power and mete out punishment? Or are they necessary to prevent everything from slipping into anarchy and chaos?

Here’s one more post on this line of thought from Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes.

When rules are necessary

I’m really not “anti-rule” per se. I think that sometimes it’s essential to have very strict rules with no exceptions. A great example is anything about security.

Back when they were putting the post-9/11 security measures in place, a lot of objects that used to be perfectly fine on a plane were no longer allowed. There was even a pilot–not a passenger, but a pilot–who was stopped from bringing a fairly harmless item on board.

I don’t remember what the forbidden item was, but let’s say nail clippers. The pilot thought it was crazy that nail clippers were considered too dangerous, when there was an axe in the cockpit. Let’s just use some common sense. Shouldn’t they have let the pilot on board with the nail clippers?

Actually, no, they shouldn’t. In this particular case, the rule seemed pointless. But the problem is that once you start allowing people to bend the rules according to their judgment, you’re opening the floodgates for security breaches.

I worked at a company where we had to pick a password that contained a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and numbers. It couldn’t be based on a dictionary word, it couldn’t be one we’d used before, and we had to change it very frequently. They wanted our passwords to be almost impossible to crack.

But do you know what the biggest cause of compromised passwords was? People were simply revealing their passwords when a stranger called them and asked nicely.

“Hey, this is Bob from tech support. We’re working on the network and trying to fix a problem that’s making everything run slower than normal – maybe you’ve noticed that. Can we take a look at your account real quick? What’s your password?”

And people were giving their passwords away like this. Yeah, it sounds like an obvious scam when you think about it, but many people would fall for it. It’s called the rule of authority: if someone seems like an authority, people won’t question them. That link points to Dean Rieck’s post about a TV reporter who staged a bank scam as an experiment, fooling 10 out of 10 customers, just by looking authoritative.

So if you’re a security guard, and a pilot wants to bring his nail clippers on board, you have to stop them. What if they’re not really the pilot? Maybe they just stole an ID card and managed to get someplace they’re not supposed to be. Maybe they’re going to leave the nail clippers for their friend to pick up, while they go for the axe. You need to do your job by serving as an additional safeguard. Besides, if you make one exception, it’s easier to make the next one. You only have to be wrong once for disaster to strike.

Photo by zzellers

When rules get in the way

On the other hand, many rules aren’t so necessary. In Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes, I talked about a supervisor who made up a pointless rule to enforce. They wanted an employee with ongoing health problems to provide two doctor’s notes per visit: one confirming that the appointment was made, and one confirming that the appointment was attended.

This wasn’t the company’s rule, but something the supervisor made up because they thought it was a good idea. It wasn’t. Even human resources didn’t understand the need.

Was it a doable request? Sure. Getting doctor’s notes isn’t hard. The problem is that it’s creating a needless hoop to jump through, while conveying a lack of trust.

But wait–without this rule, wouldn’t people abuse the system? Yes, some people might. Some people just want to coast through their job, doing the bare minimum not to get fired. Maybe they’d get a kick out of scheduling doctor’s appointments and not showing up, just to get out of work.

But why not address the problem directly? Why not fire the useless employees, instead of trying to control everyone with excessive rules?

I used to work at a company that had a clearly stated internet policy. Brief personal use of the internet was allowed, but you should make it quick and then get back to work. Fine. That’s how it should be, right?

Then one day they decided that some people were spending too much time on the internet, so they were thinking about disabling internet access for everyone. I thought that was a terrible idea.

First, it would have repercussions. People who used to spend five minutes a day scanning the news would instead be spending four hours a day bitching about how they had no internet access.

Second, it wouldn’t fix the problem. People who used to waste time on the internet would simply find a different way to waste time.

Instead of imposing this rule on everyone, why not tackle the problem directly? If someone’s spending a lot of time on the internet, why is that? If they don’t have enough work to do, then find out where they can help out. If they just don’t want to work, then fire them. This is not complicated.

Just today I spoke to someone who joined a company as VP a few months ago. He said one of the first things he did was get rid of the obvious underperforming employees. OK, that’s a good thing, but why were they there in the first place?

I worked at a company where I wasn’t allowed to remap my keyboard to the Dvorak layout (a more efficient alternative to QWERTY that greatly reduces hand strain). I had to actually get a doctor’s note saying it was medically necessary before they let me do it. So I eventually got around it, but it was a pointless hoop to jump through. Why would they make up a rule just to slow me down and give me carpal tunnel syndrome?

I worked at a company where someone got in trouble for installing Firefox, which was not the company’s “official browser.” Why did they care what browser he used? But anyway, if it was that important to them, they could have just asked him to uninstall it. Instead, they removed his adminstrative rights. That kept him from installing Firefox, but it also kept him from installing the applications his job specifically required. He couldn’t even set his clock to the right time.

And then there’s the whole ROWE vs. TOWE thing.

Of course, everyone needs to put up with some rules. But some rules are helpful, and some aren’t. Companies need to stop valuing compliance with pointless rules over performance. They also need to stop paying people who do nothing but slow their employees down. Companies make money by getting stuff done, not by following rules.

When rules appear to be pointless, but aren’t

I worked at a company where people weren’t allowed to install anything on their computer without getting it cleared by network support first. Some people thought this rule wasn’t important, and they decided to go ahead and install whatever they wanted.

But the rule was there for a good reason. A lot of the programs people were installing were introducing viruses into the network. And then network support had to waste a lot of time cleaning up this problem that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, if people had just followed the rules.

So what did the company do? They sent out periodic emails to everyone. These emails reminded people about the rule, but more importantly, explained why the rule was necessary.

Instead of treating people like children and saying “You’re going to do this because I said so,” it came off more like “This causes a lot of extra work for us, so we’re counting on you to help us out by simply asking before you install anything.”

If you need to start a rule, (1) make sure it does more good than harm, and (2) explain to people why it’s necessary, and get them on board with it. I see a lot of people in power failing at both of these.

When I saw the different reactions to Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes, I was reminded of a story that illustrates how different personality types would react to a bomb threat.

But first, a trip back in time. For thousands of years, there have been ways of classifying personality types into four different temperaments. And while these temperaments have had different names over the years, they’ve described roughly the same behavior.

In 590 BC, Ezekiel called them ox (sturdy), lion (bold), eagle (far-seeing), and man (humane).

In 400 BC, Hippocrates called them somber (black bile), cheerful (blood), calm (phlegm), and enthusiastic (yellow bile).

In 340 BC, Plato called them sensible (pistic), artistic (iconic), reasoning (dianoetic), and intuitive (noetic).

In 325 BC, Aristotle called them material (propraietari), sensual (hedone), logical (dialogike), and ethical (ethikos).

In 185 AD, Irenaeus called them historical, spontaneous, scholarly, and spiritual.

There were many more names over the years, but you get the idea.

The current names for the temperaments come from David Keirsey’s work in 1998. He called them guardians, artisans, rationals, and idealists.

By then, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator had been well established. And it came as a big surprise when Keirsey discovered that the 16 Myers-Briggs types could be mapped perfectly to the 4 temperaments, as follows:

(This is a 4 to 1 mapping. For example, the guardians correspond to any MBTI type containing SJ, meaning ESTJ, ESFJ, ISTJ, and ISFJ.)

Not only do SJ, SP, NT, and NF map to the temperaments, but these 2-letter MBTI snippets happen to be the 2 letters that say the most about a person. Group people into these 4 temperaments, and you’ll get the starkest behavioral differences.

Isabel Briggs Myers protested incorporating temperaments into the MBTI theory, but it happened. (As you’ll see below, the temperaments often go by different names in an MBTI context.)

I find temperaments to be a very convenient way of describing someone’s personality in a nutshell. Without getting into a whole lot of details, we can look at the differences between the temperaments by going back to the bomb threats.

If you were in an office building when someone called in a bomb threat, what would you do? Here’s what’s likely for the different temperaments.

SJs (The Traditionalists):

SJs will whip out their procedure manuals, if they didn’t already have them memorized. They’ll follow the rules to the letter, making sure they did exactly what they were supposed to do in the event of an emergency.

SPs (The Experiencers):

SPs will spring into action, taking charge to make sure everyone gets evacuated. After getting a read on the situation, they’ll know what they have to do, and they’ll keep updating their plan on the fly as they get more information.

NTs (The Conceptualizers):

NTs will be fascinated by the situation. They’ll be less interested in evacuating the building than in discussing the possible motives for the bomb threat, whether it’s an effective strategy, and what the response should be.

NFs (The Idealists):

NFs will be terribly saddened that anyone would do such a thing. They’ll reflect on the state of humanity, what this world is coming to, and how they can help.

Now, do these blurbs really predict exactly what everyone would do? Of course not. In reality, a lot of people would probably just panic if there were an actual bomb threat. But this shows the theoretical differences in behavior. You’d be surprised how consistent people are in acting according to their temperament.

Back to the comments on Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes. I don’t like to type non-famous people without their consent, because some people don’t like it. However, Akemi from Yes to Me previously identified herself as an ENFP, while Dot from Deeper Issues identified herself as an ISTJ, and I’m an INTP.

As an NT, I was talking about how absurd this “two doctor’s notes per visit” policy is, and why they should change it.

As an NF, Akemi observed that the employee was giving away his power to others, and he needs to realize that he has the power to create his own reality.

As an SJ, Dot was saying that the rules exist for a reason, and it’s the employee’s responsibility to support the company’s policy.

All of which was perfectly predictable. Not that there are never exceptions, but people are almost always true to form. Escaping your temperament is about as likely as escaping your shadow.

What about you? What would you do during a bomb threat?
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