Representational Systems Quiz Debrief
Thank you for completing the Representational Systems Quiz! You found the quiz different, didn’t you?
To have come to this page, it means that you are curious to know more about yourself and how you make sense of the world. It also means that you are ready to get in touch with how you might be building better rapport with others, communicating effectively and understanding your love language.
I received feedback from some participants about their experience with the quiz. Some found it super easy to complete and breezed through it. Others found it hard to make sense of the instructions, keyed in their responses incorrectly, and were asked to re-do the quiz. Some found certain questions to be more challenging to answer as the options seemed rather similar to each other while others found the options clearly different.
SAME test, SAME instructions, yet different people made sense of the quiz differently!
Before you go on, you will find it useful to read my blog-post here. The blog-post explains why it is important for you to understand what are representational systems and how people use them to make sense of the world.
In this article, I provide a meta-view of the traits of people using the Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic and Internal Dialogue representational systems. While we all have a main one that we use most often, it is also possible that you might use a different one in specific contexts so it is important that you reflect on how you are using your preferred representational systems in your life.
Visual Representational System
Visual people like to see actual things or visualise things in their mind.
- Learn best using visuals such as images, diagrams and charts. Use pictures, flowcharts or mind-maps when teaching a visual person or getting them to understand an idea or concept.
- Make decisions easily using visualisation or images. Let them see the BIG PICTURE first before giving them the details. Avoid distracting them with visual clutter as they tend to be organised and neat.
- Prefer face-to-face meetings because they like to see the other person and their reactions. If your boss or clients are visual people, scheduler in-person meetings or audio-video calls to get their attention.
- Build rapport faster when you communicate with them using visual-specific language such as “see”, “insights”, “notice”, “picture”.
- Be organized, neat and well-groomed. Avoid distracting them with visual clutter.
- Like receiving gifts as their love language.
Auditory Representational System
Auditory people like to listen to different sounds and tonalities. They tend to:
- Learn best by listening and asking questions. Able to remember instructions more easily.
- Make decisions by talking through issues and have people around to serve as their sounding board.
- Prefer discussions and communicating by speaking rather than in writing as they need to be heard.
- Build rapport faster when you communicate with them using visual-specific language such as “see”, “insights”, “notice”, “picture”.
- Be more sensitive and responsive to changes in one’s tone of voice. Avoid distracting them with noise
- Like words of affirmation as their love language.
Kinaesthetic Representational System
Kinaesthetic people are usually in touch with their feelings, instincts and the sensations that they experience. They tend to:
- Learn best by doing, moving or touching.
- Make decisions based on their feelings. They are less likely to make quick decisions as they rely on what their feelings are telling them.
- Speak slower than most people as they need to get in touch with how they feel about something.
- Be more sensitive to their bodies, feelings and respond to physical touch. They are also likely to stand closer to you because they want to feel the other person’s energy.
- Build rapport faster when you communicate with them using kinaesthetic-specific language such as “feel”, “sense”, “in touch”, “picture”.
- Dress and groom themselves more for comfort than how they look.
Internal Dialogue Representational System
Internal Dialogue processing is about the language and actual words that we use to describe what is going on in our other senses. A person using the Internal Dialogue representational system converts the information from his or her senses into language.
They tend to:
- Learn best by working things out in their mind using data or logic. They like steps, procedures and sequences.
- Make decisions by thinking things through in their head using logic, facts and figures. They like to figure things out, or to understand things using the thinking process.
- Talk to themselves or hold a conversation with other people in their head. Some may experience a lot of inner chatter.
- Build rapport faster when you communicate with them using non-sensory specific language such as “I understand..”, “that makes sense…”, “that’s logical”, “factual”.
Self-reflection and awareness
Some self-reflection questions for you:
- What are you noticing about your preferred representational system in relation to your learning style, communication style and love language?
- How are you using your preferred representational systems?
- What is different for you now that you are aware of your preferred representational systems?
My preferred representational system is Kinaesthetic, followed closely by Visual. For decision-making, I use the Kinaesthetic representational system in my personal life and the Internal Dialogue representational system at work. My learning style is Visual and I absorb information best by writing things on paper repeatedly. For relationships, I am Kinaesthetic. You will often hear me say: “I enjoy being with this person because of how he or she makes me FEEL!” I value experiences and that’s the key element I use when evaluating whether training workshops and lifestyle choices.
Over to you.
Next steps
Now that you are more aware of how you are making sense of the world, you are wondering how you might know the preferred representational systems of people around you.
There are a couple of ways. You could ask them to do the Representational Systems Quiz here. Alternatively, hit me up for a virtual coffee chat and I will give you some tips! Did you just notice my use of a Kinaesthetic word?