The Sixteen Styles

 

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

The Sixteen Styles

This idea is pitched at professionals because it is too radical for most of us.

Each style is a habituated pattern of judgment about what is good and what is evil. Each page below states the root dogma of one style, the propositions that cluster around it, and the route by which they are corrected.

The propositions are false beliefs. They are set out so that a man can find his own among them.

A Style Is Not a Cause of Assent

A style narrows the search for a man’s false value judgments. It never supplies an excuse for one, and it never predicts what he will assent to next. The agent originates his assent; nothing on this site qualifies that.

The Styles

• Conscientious. Flawless performance measured against high standards is a genuine good; imperfection in any form is a genuine evil.
• Sensitive. Others’ disapproval is a genuine evil; avoiding it is a genuine good.
• Vigilant. Control over one’s environment and independence from others are genuine goods; loss of control is a genuine evil.
• Dramatic. Being seen, admired, and the center of emotional attention is a genuine good; invisibility is a genuine evil.
• Aggressive. Power is a genuine good; powerlessness is a genuine evil.
• Idiosyncratic. One’s own inner experience is the sole genuine source of truth and value; external consensus reality is a genuine evil.
• Inventive. An image of superiority over others is a genuine good; being ordinary or actual is a genuine evil.
• Solitary. Solitude and freedom from relational demand are genuine goods; others’ company and emotional claims are genuine evils.
• Leisurely. The self’s freedom from obligation is a genuine good; external demands on that freedom are genuine evils.
• Serious. The world is a harsh, dangerous place requiring constant vigilance and pessimistic preparation; optimism is a genuine evil.
• Self-Sacrificing. One’s own needs are a genuine evil; others’ needs are a genuine good.
• Devoted. Attachment to another person is the condition of completeness; separation is a genuine evil.
• Self-Confident. Being recognized as uniquely important and deserving is a genuine good; being treated as ordinary is a genuine evil.
• Adventurous. Immediate gratification and freedom from constraint are genuine goods; obligation and consequence are genuine evils.
• Mercurial. Intense emotional connection with another is a genuine good; emotional abandonment is the supreme genuine evil.
• Exuberant. Intense positive experience is a genuine good; its absence or diminishment is a genuine evil.

Where This Comes From

The style descriptions derive from John M. Oldham and Lois B. Morris, The New Personality Self-Portrait (New York: Bantam, 1995), by way of the PTypes typology. The conversion of each style’s characteristic needs into propositions, and the correction of those propositions, are the work of the corpus and not of Oldham.

The technical document behind these pages is the Character Dogma Register (CDR) v2.1, which carries the theorem chains, the provenance record for every proposition, and the record of what was struck in review and on what grounds.

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.