Please note this section is part four, you can find the third part here: The Individualist.

 

I am currently reading the book Personality Types by Don Richard.

It is quite a fascinating book that goes in-depth of character types that are common throughout civilisation.

In this series I will summarise each type and what makes them unique.

I thought it was fun to learn more about myself.

The book describes which activities you should avoid according to your personality, and which activities will be healthy for you to grow.

 

 

 

Personality Type

The Investigator

The fourth type is The Investigator

This is the innovator.

The one who becomes obsessed with whatever has caught their interest.

And they will not stop studying this interest until they know everything about it.

"Knowledge is Power" is their motto, and they never feel like they know enough.

 This is often the person who creates break-throughs in their occupation as they are able to use their vast knowledge to come up with novel solutions.

In this personality lies both the genius and the madman.

At the highest level The Investigator is a genius, and may seem mad because they are thinking so far ahead but is still in touch with reality.

At their lowest level The Investigator is a madman who is truly delusional and has gotten out of touch with reality.

The Investigator is a scholarly person who enjoys studying, reading learning just for the sake of it.

They can spend hours being deeply engrossed in thought and they love to think.

Their security depends on how much they think they know, only when they know enough do they feel able to act and come up with solutions.

Example of The Investigator: Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger, Isaac Newton

 

Healthy Level

 

At a healthy level The Investigator is a genius.

They are able to think far ahead, using their knowledge to make predictions and innovative solutions.

Thinking far ahead is why The Investigator is often described as "The Visionary" and seem to have prophet-like skills.

They see patterns where some see nothing but confusion and disorder.

In other words; they connect the dots.

Healthy Investigators also do not impose their own "truths" about the world, but are constantly revising their theories based on the evidence that is continuously presented to them.

Because they see the world is a neutral state and is open to gain new insight, they are able to have massive insights combined with their studious approach to life.

At this level The Investigator thinks so clearly their thoughts seems, in hindsight, "obvious".

Like gravity seems "obvious", it was not obvious before it was discovered.

Seeing the world so clearly, The Investigator is also able to explain their thoughts at a level so clearly that any child would understand it.

Being able to see things clearly and seeing "the bigger picture", The Investigator is able to predict which future solutions the world will need.

 

Normal Level

At a normal level The Investigator starts to feel they never know enough.

They must continuously study and never acts.

They start to turn toward their thoughts and bounce from one idea to another, never truly exiting their minds to see reality clearly.

The Investigator starts to cling to their ideas and assumptions of how the world works and become closed off to revising their theories.

By closing off themselves from the world, their ideas and theories is now more fragile and prone to errors as they are based on their assumptions rather than evidence from reality.

The Investigator now also increasingly acts less and thinks more which leads to them being more reclusive.

But by being reclusive they cannot see the bigger picture and starts to lose touch with reality, as they are not in touch with the world.

By disconnecting from the world their ideas and concepts are increasingly flawed and this leads to further feelings of incompetence and "I need to learn more".

Theories will always have flaws, but by refusing to accept this, ironically, the theories of The Investigator will start to have even more flaws.

 

Unhealthy Level

At this level The Investigator is highly out of touch with reality.

And therefore, their ideas are highly flawed.

When anyone points out to them the flaws in their ideas, they become aggressive and resentful.

They start to use their profound intellect to find and poke holes in the ideas of others.

At this level they become highly isolated and seeks to minimise their amount of relationships.

To justify isolation, The Investigator at this level become cynical and nihilistic about relationships; "People will just let you down anyway, why bother?"

Through this isolation they further decrease their amount of contact with the world, while at the same time become increasingly frustrated and terrified by their own ideas.

 

 

 

 

An Overview Of The Investigator

What The Investigator truly wants and cares about is knowledge.

In knowledge they feel security.

With knowledge they feel like they can understand the world, their own fields of expertise and make predictions, which, if right, gives them increasing confidence and sense of security.

 

When The Investigator is learning, they feel at home.

They love to tinker with ideas, conceptualise and discover novel solutions.

 

 

Parental Orientation

 

As a child, The Investigator felt ambivalent to both of their parents.

They searched for a niche they could occupy within the family-system, but felt there was no place for them to fit in.

As a result of this they started to go on a search for a skill that could help them fit in.

Further, they wanted to master this skill so intensively that they could be dependant upon their knowledge of this skill.

This would allow them to "bring something to the table" within the family.

Their underlying fear to being incapable and helpless and they have identified being an expert as the solution to this.

The Investigators felt growing up, that they did not have enough time to learn.

But the world is a complex place and one cannot learn everything.

By having these feelings they made an unstated bargain with their family; "Don't ask too much of me, and I won't ask too much of you".

Because of this, Investigators are highly sensitive to others "taking" their time, as they see time as precious, because there is always more to learn and they feel like they do not know enough.

Generally, by not receiving proper love and nurture, The Investigator felt neutral towards their parents and therefore also neutral towards the world.

They felt at peace within their thoughts, and the outside world only seemed to give them anxiety.

 

 

 

 

Ego Orientation

The Investigators ego is dependant on being knowledgable.

One of their greatest fears is lacking knowledge and being unable to deal with the unpredictability of the world.

 

If they cannot explain something, they do not truly know it and therefore they must study it until they can clearly explain it. 

At Their Best

At their best The Investigator is a genius.

And they may very well accomplish feats of historic dimensions.

When The Investigator allows the outside world in, and combines it with their high levels of expertise, they are able to create some of the most elegant solutions through their capacity of thinking through complex thoughts and ideas.

They are able to take in complex information and simplify it to the most important components.

But doing this is far from simply, it is a highly complex process of discarding any information that is not useful, to arrive at the "essence".

Others may state their ideas are "obvious", but only in hindsight.

 

 

At Their Worst

At their worst The Investigator becomes increasingly isolated and diminishes their needs.

They start to avoid reality and become trapped in their minds with their ideas.

They become increasingly fearful of their ideas being flawed and therefore have increasingly flawed ideas as they are never tested and reiterated.

They only absorb knowledge but do not put this knowledge to use and thus feels increasingly incapable and helpless.

In order to get more "time" to "learn" more, they minimise their needs (materialistic, relationships and even food).

 

 

 

What To Avoid

 

Learning, observing and absorbing information is what The Investigator is best at.

However, if they become stuck only learning and not applying what they learn, they start to become increasingly isolated and frustrated with the world.

When they become frustrated they start to increasingly isolate themselves making things only worse.

The Investigator must also avoid clinging to their ideas and assumptions, as this increases the flaws in their ideas and models.

 

 

 

 

What To Do

The Investigator never feels like they know enough.

But knowledge without application is useless.

Once The Investigator starts to interact with the world, they will understand they are probably one of the most knowledgable people within their field.

However, The Investigator must become increasingly better at acting and getting in touch with reality.

They must have the courage to put their ideas and thoughts into action.

The Investigator must also learn to detach themselves from their ideas and concepts, and see them as works in progress where putting them into reality is a necessary step in order to make them even better.

By doing this, they learn to see flaws and mistakes not as signs of their incompetence and helplessness, but rather as part of the process of creating break-throughs.

They must become better at putting their thoughts, ideas and knowledge into action.

They must seek to constantly engage with the world and allow new evidence taken from reality to revise and improve their concepts and ideas.

By neutrally observing the world and acting, The Investigator is able to come up with some of the biggest discoveries that will help propel humanity toward the future.

 

 

Major Subtypes of The Investigator

 

The Iconoclast

 

The Iconoclast subtype of The Investigator is the more creative version.

They tend to use the creativity part of their mind more.

Often, they are in creative fields such as filmmaking, music, composing, writing and design.

Being an Investigator, whichever field they engage in, they are obsessive about learning everything there is in order to master their field.

What interests them is their chosen field, and nothing else.

This subtype tends to use their imagination more, puts less emphasis on data and more emphasis on intuition.

This subtype is also more interested in the humane aspect of the world and loves exploring things that evokes feelings.

They are the more sociable subtype as people fascinate and interests them.

 

The Problem Solver

 

This subtype is the quiet obsessive person.

They are fascinated by, yet also frightened by being overwhelmed by the world.

Therefore they tread extra carefully.

They love to observe and discover.

Facts, science and data is what is most important to them.

This subtype is much less in touch with themselves, their feelings and the relationships around them.

This can cause deep frustrations with the people close to them; "I just don't know what goes on inside your head", if it is any comfort, they don't know what goes on, either.

They single-mindedly focus on whatever has caught their interest and they will not use the slightest ounce of energy on things outside of this.

This subtype may seem more extroverted and they focus their attention externally to find problems that needs solutions.

They are much more system and process oriented than the other subtype and prefers to use the analytical and rational part of their mind.

 

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

As we can see The Investigator is the born problem solver and highly complex thinker.

At their best, they are able to truly see the world for what it really is and how it works through their neutral lens.

By their intense focus and obsessiveness, that can take in vast amounts of information, play with it and come up with innovative and novel ideas.

Finally, by putting their ideas into action they are able to create discoveries that in hindsight, seems to simple, like the discovery of gravity, but discovering it was anything but simple.

Everything written here is my understanding and simplification of this personality type.

If you truly want to understand this personality type in depth, I highly recommend reading the book Personality Types by Don Richard where this information is extracted from.

The pages for this personality type is 173-215.