I'm a red and yellow idiot

More psychobabble courses for work, they have the greatest of intentions but you have to filter out a lot of the crap before you can truly gain anything from it.

This course is about 'motivating' students, and apparently human beings, rather than being complex and unique are actually easy to categorise and colour code. In the exercise they gave us you start with six random cards, all colour coded, all featuring words like 'writer', 'mathematician', 'conservative', 'controlling'. Then you have to mingle with the group trying to swap the cards which don't describe you for ones that do. The idea is that once you have collected 6 cards which describe you the colour of those cards tells you everything about your personality.

The trouble is, the cards have clear social value. Everyone wants the red cards because they say more socially endearing things, like 'sensitive to others' and 'people orientated'. No-one wants the green or blue cards because they say things like 'administrative' and 'likes charts'. Honestly, when being asked to choose whether you want to be known as someone who likes charts or buys flowers, which one would you be?

Of course in the end the experiment doesn't quite work - some people are actively seeking out the descriptors which they want rather than have, and others are trying to rid themselves of those cards which everyone else knows has them down to a tee.

At the end most people have a range of colours, and this doesn't sit well with the course leader, he wants us to choose one colour right now. No messiness allowed, just assign yourself one colour, place your bets now before I tell you that you're a wannabe serial killer because you picked up a yellow card instead of a red one.

I ended up with two green and two red, but the description of the yellow people was more accurate. In the end I gave up my two green cards and settled myself in the red camp. Here are the descriptors so you can see for yourself. In bold are the things that I consider describe me more accurately.

Blue

Analyzes, quantifies, logical, critical, realistic, likes numbers, knows about money, knows how things work, fact based, quantitative, intellectual thinking, problem solving, technical, numerical, mathematical, they know better, show me the figures first, reacts unemotionally, appreciates a good debate, efforts to spend time wisely, likes charts, presentation in allignment with corporate goals, wants precise facts, problem solving - analyzes the facts logically. 

Green

Takes preventative action, establishes procedures, gets things done, reliable, organises, is neat, timely, plans, likes details, safekeeping, conservative, traditional, controlled, speaker, reader, administrative, makes things happen, reacts cautiously, punctual, alignment with well established proceduures, very low risk, written communication before meetings, likes scheduled appointments, in family photographs, will notice things other than people, organises facts

Yellow

Imagines, speculates, takes risks, impetuous, breaks rules, likes surprises, curious, playful. intuitive with solutions, conceptual, metaphoric, artistic, visual, original, imaginative, thrives on chaos, creative, society tries to stop them, likes freedom to explore, long term objectives, connection to the bigger picture, minimal details, visualises the facts and deals with them intuitively

Red

Sensitive to others, likes to teach, touches a lot, is supportive, is expressive, is emotional, talks a lot, feels, interpersonal, empathic, people orientated,  writer, caring and loving, gossip, spiritual, teamworker, nicest people in the world, makes everybody tea, buys flowers, reacts spontaneously, likes involvement, good attitude, eye to eye contact, respects others feelings, feels the facts and deals with them expressively. 

You can see from this how flawed it is. There are eleven statements within the yellow area which I think apply to me, but I HATE surprises. I like to be able to visually script things (hence the visual, writer and imagines tags) and if I can't then I can't deal with them very well. Similarly there are a lot of red words that apply to me but I don't think I'm that emotional or sensitive to others. Predictably there is nothing in the blue category that I associate with, but in the green area, which is the same side of the brain we see my natural tendency to organise people and things. 

So, probably all a load of old balls pedalled by pop psychologists looking for quick and easy ways to categorise people. What do you think?