What kind of person are you?
Representational Systems (or Rep Systems for short) consist of four categories that can be used to describe the way that the majority of people in this world function, communicate, and generally make sense of what is going on around them. Of course, not everyone fits neatly into boxes. Most people do have a dominant rep system, but many people are a combination of two, such as Visual/Kinaesthetic, or Kinaesthetic/Audio Digital.
Visuals - about 40% of the population
As the name suggests, these people pay most attention to what they see. Because we receive the most information through our eyes, and at the fastest speed, you often find that these people are quite hectic. They often speak quickly and you may notice that they breathe mainly from the top of their chest because they are in such a rush to communicate what they are thinking that they don’t have time for a full breath in between. We all tend to do this when we are communicating using the visual system. Visuals really will “believe it when they see it”. And not unless they do.
Kinaesthetics (Feelers) - about 40% of the population
Kinaesthetics can be incredibly sensitive to the physical conditions around them, to their level of comfort, to the emotional feelings of themselves, and in many cases, the feelings of others. Often they pick up practical things very quickly but can be slow to understand verbal instructions and can forget something they are told just minutes after being told it. Often they will speak quite slowly, the exteme K being the type that makes you want to finish their sentences for them. Because they take longer to process their thoughts and respond, their breathing tends to be low in the stomach. If they are high Kinaesthetic and low Visual they will get lost going somewhere new, and they may have had a difficult time at school because the education system doesn’t support them well. They may have an inferiority complex about their intelligence following their negative expereince at school.
Audio Tonal - about 10% of the population
They are all about sound. They are the people who sit in the middle of the cinema because you get the maximum benefit of ’surround sound’. Music is likely to be important to them. Often they are great chatterboxes and can remember entire conversations word for word, and yet they can’t follow a map unless it is read to them. Some need to hear their thoughts on the outside as if they are unsure of their thoughts otherwise. Have you ever known someone who, when asked a question that requires a 10 word answer, speaks uninterrupted for 5 minutes? These are people who say “Can I ask you a question?”, then proceed to talk about a problem without you having any real input, and then say “Thanks, that really helped”. Thee are Audio Externals. It’s just their way of thinking. They ae not empty chatterboxes, or people who love the sound of their own voice, it’s just that they don’t know what they think unless they hear it outside of their own heads. However, some appear to hear perfectly well inside their heads. Both types may not like silence much and will always prefer to be surrounded by some kind of sound, so the radio or TV will always be on in the background for company. Because they are good at processing their thoughts at the speed of sound, their voice speed tends to fall midway between Visual and Kinaesthetic, and their breathing mid-chest. Often their voices are quite measured or they use a singsong rhythm.
Audio Digitals (Thinkers) - about 10% of the population
Do you hear a voice inside your head? Some people think by talking to themselves, and have a constant conversation going on in their head. Sometimes you can’t count the number of times people have interrupted you because they didn’t realise you were having a perfectly good conversation with yourself. AD people sometimes have trouble sleeping because they can’t ’switch off’ the volume at the end of the day. Being AD could be the result of a decision we made when we were younger. It may be the consequence of not liking what we were seeing / hearing / feeling at the time, or over time, and so we disassociated from it in order for it not to hurt any more. The downside to being AD is that they tend to think about how they feel rather than just feel it. So they forget to be in the ‘now’, and can be quite oblivious to their comfort/discomfort.
There are a few people who could be described as having Olfactory (smell) or Gustatory (taste) rep systems, but these are few and far between.
Knowing what rep system you are can be very useful in lots of things. To find out what, exactly, you’ll have to wait for the next post…
June 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I would say i fall into all of these categories at some time or another. but predominantly the first and the last.
Sometimes when I’m speaking to people, I’ll just have so many things going on in my head, I’ll digress and segue into all sorts of sub-topics and sidelines, and I usually find if I’m nervous or talking to someone im not familiar with, I’ll often stumble over my words.
Likewise, sometimes I cant switch off my brain and tend to overthink a lot of things. Sometimes if im worried about something, I can have entire fictional conversations or run the situation through my head and try to map out the way I think things will probably go, but most of the time I put TOO much thought into it and see things that arent there.