Some Terms for Describing Your Reflective Persona

Here is a supplementary list of terms you can consider for describing your reflective persona. Most of these "types" or descriptors can be thought of as positive and negative. These terms are also useful for helping you coin new words that help with your description.

The Debater

The Debater always seems to find two sides to every question and usually wants participants to adopt strong views (at least for the sake of the discussion) and try to defend them.

The Factchecker

The person who calls people on factual claims that seem false. This can be thought of as a useful trait since factual premises are important, but some "factcheckers" take things too far.

The Generalizer

This personality trait in discussion involves a tendency to argue from generalizations to particulars claims. The Generalizer is right to notice that this is often an effective pattern of inference, but can overuse this particular pattern.

The Knitpicker

The Knitpicker is the participant who focuses on smaller issues, often ignoring the larger questions in a discussion. Attention to detail is useful, but the Knitpicker is someone who takes this too far.

The Lurker

The Lurker is extremely quiet and avoids calling attention to himself or herself. The Lurker can be a good listener, but doesn't get much opportunity to try our their thinking with others. The Lurker is often conflict averse.

The Mediator

This a persona (or aspect of one) which involves an emphasis on finding common ground and trying to show that everyone in a discussion really agrees about alot of things. Again, this is a useful characteristic. Some people think The Mediator can place too much emphasis on agreement, ignoring sometimes the real differences that separate people.

The Skeptic

Skeptics doubt the reliability and extent of human knowledge. As a trait in a reflective persona, The Skeptic can play a useful role in reminding us of our tendency to overestimate our knowledge. Like any trait, skeptic doubt can be taken too far or used in a way that makes progress in the discussion difficult.