In this episode, we talk about personality! Harp and Maura start by talking about introverts and extroverts, and the positive and negative qualities of both. They also discuss astrological signs. Do you think that when someone is born can determine their personality? Can a person’s personality change over their lifetime? Listen to this episode to hear what Harp and Maura have to say about it.
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Expressions included in the learning materials
- Cut and dried
- The Perks of being a Wallflower
- To strike up a conversation
- To come off as something
- A hermit
- To hit the nail on the head
- The Myers-Briggs personality test
- Technically
- Zodiac signs, astrology, and horoscopes
- Blood type
- It goes to show
- Like
- It’s not an exact science
- To come out of your shell
Sample transcript
Harp: Yeah. Today we’re doing an interesting Chatterbox. Well, they’re all interesting, but this one’s different.
Maura: That’s right. This time we’re going to talk about personalities, so, how we can describe people and the way that they act and behave.
Harp: Yes. We’re gonna start with talking about personality types and the different ones.
Maura: And then we’re going to talk about a way that you can interpret personality types, which is through astrology and horoscopes.
Harp: And then we’re going to talk about acting like yourself, and your personality.
Maura: Right. We’re gonna talk about our own personalities, too. If you’ve been listening to a while, you might already have a sense of my personality, and Harp’s personality, too.
Harp: Yeah. You probably do. All right, let’s get started, Maura.
Maura: All right. So first we’re gonna talk about personality types. Now, there are really just two basic personality types: introverted and extroverted.
Harp: Yeah. Introverted and extroverted.
Maura: They’re usually treated like opposites. Introverted describes a kind of person who is more focused on their own thoughts and feelings, and is not as interested in talking and socializing with other people. So introverted people are usually quiet people, thinking people.
Harp: Yeah. And an extroverted person is usually more confident and lively. They like social situations. They like talking a lot.
Maura: Right. And if you think about the words, introverted, intro-, is like looking inside of the person, so a person who is introverted is inside themselves. And extroverted, extro-, is like outside, so an extroverted person likes expressing themselves and communicating with people.
Harp: Yeah. And, like you said, they’re usually talked about in terms of opposites. Someone is usually either introverted or extroverted, but sometimes it depends on the social setting.
Maura: Yeah. That’s true. It’s not always so cut and dried. So someone who is introverted might be seen as socially awkward because they don’t talk to other people and they’re not really friendly people.
Harp: Yeah. They’re shy. They’re usually in the corners at parties. They’re not the life of the party at all.
Maura: Yeah. That’s right. They’re often soft-spoken, which means that they don’t speak loudly when they do talk. They’re the kind of person who doesn’t feel comfortable being loud and drawing attention to themselves.
Harp: Yeah. Again, if you think about a party, they’re usually the wallflower, which means they always hang out in the corner, or in the back, or on the side. They’re not in the middle, in the centre of attention.
Maura: Harp, have you seen that movie that came out recently called The Perks of Being a Wallflower?
Harp: I haven’t seen it, but it looks really good.
Maura: Yeah. I saw it just a few months ago and it was really good. This movie, I’ll say the title again, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is about a person who is very introverted, so, who is a wallflower. He’s very quiet, he doesn’t have very many friends, he’s very intellectual. But in this movie, he makes some friends and learns to be more social.
Harp: It seems like a really nice movie. I’m gonna watch it soon.
Maura: Yeah. You should. It’s actually a book as well.
Harp: If we talk about extroverted people, they’re very outgoing. They’re usually telling jokes or stories, and people are listening to them. They really like being the centre of attention. They like other people’s attention to be on them.
Maura: Yeah. These kinds of people are the life of the party. They’re friendly. They don’t feel shy about striking up conversation with a complete stranger.
Harp: Sometimes they can come off as a little bit of a show-off, ’cause they always want to talk about themselves and their stories.
Maura: Yeah. There are really pros and cons to both of these personality types. If you’re extroverted, you’re very friendly, but you can also seem, maybe, loud- mouthed or arrogant. And introverted people are thought to be more intellectual, but you could also seem, maybe, rude because you’re quiet all the time, or people might think you’re a hermit because you stay in and don’t go out very much.
Audio/Learning Materials: Culips