Winter 2013

Personality Dimensions

Determine your Personality Traits

Rebecca Thomson

Personality Dimensions is a program, created in 2003, based on human temperament investigations conducted by David Keirsey, in order to help people determine their dominant and passive personality traits. There are four temperament outcomes, each coded with their own colour: Inquiring Green, Organized Gold, Resourceful Orange and Authentic Blue. Categorizing people into these groups is not finite or perfect; some people may be more likely to identify with certain temperaments at certain points in their life. A person’s personality is also likely to contain at least a little of all four of these different temperaments, but is usually biased towards one or two colours; this is called a dominant colour.

It is not uncommon for someone to discover their dominant colour, only to find that their personality may not apply to every trait that is listed for that colour. For this reason, it is important to note that Personality Dimensions is not intended to “pigeon hole” people into a set type, but rather help people to gain an understanding and appreciation of their personality characteristics as well as the characteristics of others.

The Personality Dimensions test is normally conducted by someone with the proper training to administer and facilitate the testing and explanation, but if you do not have the opportunity to take the test in this manner, there is an informal test you can download and write yourself. Please note that if you plan on taking the test, you should do so now before you read further.

Personality Dimensions Summaries

Inquiring Green

Inquiring Greens are ruled by knowledge. They are constantly searching for answers, and want logical answers to everything. They tend to look at the bigger picture first, meticulously filling in the details later in order to create the perfect solution.

Greens constantly need to be achieving, and will even view vacation time as an opportunity to accomplish something; even relaxing needs to be efficient. They are their own main competitor and are constantly striving to better themselves. They can often be misunderstood as “cold” due to their critical nature, but they see their comments as correct and helpful.

Greens live more studious lives, and if their work is not intellectually stimulating enough, they will often pursue outside interests to satisfy their needs. Greens love to master anything that comes their way and can grasp new concepts quickly.

In the workplace, greens are good strategists as they focus on efficiency and use logic to bring a project to completion in the best way. However, they can get frustrated if they are confronted with a concept they cannot grasp or if they have insufficient information to reach the conclusion of a problem.

Organized Gold

Organized Golds are ruled by the details. They fill employment positions ranging from basic to very advanced levels of intellectual capacity, and tend to find satisfaction in doing work that involve details and planning.

Golds will continually offer to take on projects and increasing responsibilities. They expect to be held accountable, and want to make sure the job is done properly and on time. They are more interested in facts rather than ideas, and prefer someone tells them what they need to know rather than do independent research, as they are afraid they may miss something.

Golds have a need to feel a sense of belonging. They need to know where they stand in a group, wherever that standing may be. Even if they do not admire the person holding a title, they feel the title is important and respect the office.

In the workplace, golds excel at logistics. They are very organized and can get people or things to where they need to be, when they need to be there. However, they do prefer it when others conform to their image and could benefit by learning to appreciate the difference in others.

Resourceful Orange

Resourceful Oranges are ruled by excitement. They have a need to be able to act on impulse, whether that is to take a walk or to fix a car. They can be playful and are fun-loving. They do things because they are fun to do.

Oranges have instinctive knowledge of how to use a tool to its best advantage. Even if it wasn’t a tool’s original purpose, they will still use it if it gets the jobs done. They use words concretely and factually.

Oranges need variety in their lives, and will often prefer short-term projects as to long-term ones. They become distracted or bored when inserted into a restrictive environment or forced to do repetitive work. They often find formal learning tedious.

In the workplace, oranges have tactical skill. They know how to look at a situation and take action. However, as mentioned above, they tend towards impulsive behavior and can get frustrated if they feel like others are not acting quickly enough.

Authentic Blue

Authentic Blues are ruled by feeling. They are very caring and considerate, and are focused on personal growth, theirs and others. They also enjoy helping others learn.

Blues long to be authentic. They are less interested in social position, and simply wish to be accepted for who they are. They find it stressful to pretend to be someone they are not. Despite this, they have been known for taking classes or pursuing interests because they feel the subject is important to a parent or mentor.

Blues like to focus on the big picture, and are very optimistic. They are concerned about seeing that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential. They tend to be future oriented and are interested in new ideas, particularly those which relate to people.

In the workplace, blues are best known for their empathy. Regardless of their occupation they bring an element of human compassion to the workplace. However, they do have a tendency to suffer in silence if they feel they are being mistreated in order to keep harmony around them.

It is not only helpful to know your dominant colour(s) to gain a better understanding of your personality, but it can also be helpful to understand the traits of other colours in order to better interact with others around you. For example, if you are a green working with a blue, you should keep your criticisms in check and remember a blue might take your logical stance more personally than another green. If you are an orange working with a gold, remember things can’t always be acted on as fast as you might like.

Every Personality Dimension has its own pros and cons, but they can all learn to work together by bringing their unique skills to the table.

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