Personality-based Sort - Impact on House Rivalry (was Re: CHAPDISC:

[happyjoeysmiley]

No: HPFGUIDX 185655

>>Bruce wrote:

>I wonder if JKR knows anything about these, and if they had any 
impact on her sorting? Meyers-Briggs breaks people down into 16 
different groupings, and that is divisible by four.

Joey:

It is possible that JKR knows at least about Myers-Briggs because it 
is, for the most part, a certain topic for college students who study 
the subject of Organizational Behaviour. She might have also taken 
some pains to understand the various theories that explain human 
emotions, needs, etc. to supplement some of her views or ideas. As 
per me, every fiction writer will have to be adept in some aspect of 
human psychology for him / her to do well.

What I had imagined was that JKR mulled over the various significant 
personalities (and related incidents) that made her life (especially 
school life) and derived the characters. For example, Hermione, Ron, 
Lockhart are some of the personalities that she derived from people 
whom she met in her life (including herself :-)). In the process, she 
might have also noticed that some of the personalities are somewhat 
alike when it comes to some key traits. And then, she might have 
wondered how it would be to group similar people together. I'm saying 
this because I've done that myself during many a self-introspection 
and have ended up grouping my friends under various categories! May 
be she got the pensieve idea also while she was doing this "mulling 
over" stuff. Just my imagination, of course. Only JKR can 
validate! :) 

Cheers, 
~Joey :)