Typology is the study of types. Typology may refer to:

See also

Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences between people, whereas traits might be construed as quantitative differences. According to type theories, for example, introverts and extraverts are two fundamentally different categories of people. According to trait theories, introversion and extraversion are part of a continuous dimension, with many people in the middle.

Clinically effective personality typologies

Effective personality typologies reveal and increase knowledge and understanding of individuals, as opposed to diminishing knowledge and understanding as occurs in the case of stereotyping. Effective typologies also allow for increased ability to predict clinically relevant information about people and to develop effective treatment strategies. There is an extensive literature on the topic of classifying the various types of human temperament and an equally extensive literature on personality traits or domains. These classification systems attempt to describe normal temperament and personality and emphasize the predominant features of different temperament and personality types; they are largely the province of the discipline of psychology. Personality disorders, on the other hand, reflect the work of psychiatry, a medical specialty, and are disease-oriented. They are classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), a product of the American Psychiatric Association.

Typology in Christian theology and Biblical exegesis is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. Events, persons or statements in the Old Testament are seen as types pre-figuring or superseded by antitypes, events or aspects of Christ or his revelation described in the New Testament. For example, Jonah may be seen as the type of Christ in that he appeared to have emerged from the whale's belly and from death. In the fullest version of the theory of typology, the whole purpose of the Old Testament is viewed as merely the provision of types for Christ, the antitype, or fulfillment. The theory began in the Early Church, was at its most influential in the High Middle Ages, and continued to be popular, especially in Calvinism, after the Protestant Reformation, but in subsequent periods has been given less emphasis. One exception to this is the Christian Brethren of the 19th and 20th centuries, where typology was much favoured and the subject of numerous books. Notably, in the Eastern Orthodox Church typology is still a common and frequent exegetical tool, mainly due to that church's great emphasis on continuity in doctrinal presentation through all historical periods. Typology was frequently used in early Christian art, where type and antitype would be depicted in contrasting positions. The usage of the terminology has expanded into the secular sphere, as in for example "Geoffrey de Montbray (d.1093), Bishop of Coutances, a right-hand man of William the Conqueror, was a type of the great feudal prelate, warrior and administrator".