PERSONALITY MAKEOVERS Just your type?

By STACEY BURLING
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- The epiphany came when psychologist Kevin Leman was watching one of those daytime talk-show makeovers in which a mousy woman was transformed in 45 minutes into an anchorwoman-type.
Why not write a book about a "personality makeover?" It'd be no sweat for a guy who'd already written 21 books on marriage, teenagers, and the subject for which he may be best known: the effect of birth order on personality and behavior.
Six months later, he'd finished "The Real You: Become the Person You Were Meant to Be" (Fleming H. Revell Co., $19.99).
In town recently for a speaking engagement, Leman said his book is more about changing behavior than underlying personality, so it probably won't transform the office nerd into a social butterfly.
"The grain in this wooden table," he said, rubbing a coffee table from side to side, "it runs this way. You can buff it and you can sand it, but that basic grain doesn't change."
But Leman does think he can help a control freak think twice before bringing his critical eye to his wife's cooking or his children's homework. He can help people make better choices about mates or how to treat the boss.
This boils down to learning more about yourself, then taking small steps to bring the real you and the you you'd like to be closer together -- not exactly a novel idea in psychology.
Figuring it out
For Leman, self-awareness can be had by finding one's place in the sorts of simple categories that are hard to resist, even when you know better: four birth-order types, four personality types, five "love languages."
The book falls squarely in the pop-psychology category. The meager footnotes are not from scholarly journals but from articles, many about celebrities, in publications such as USA Today and People.
And much of the book consists of personal stories from Leman, a 59-year-old last-born child who was fourth from last in his high school class and went on to become a writer who sold millions of books (including "The Birth Order Book," "The New Birth Order Book" and "Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours") and no longer has time to teach or treat patients at home in Tucson, Ariz.
His sensible first-born wife, Sande, to whom he has been married 35 years "in a row," also figures prominently.
"Life has worked out mighty fine for me, and it can for you, too," he writes.
Criticism
He concedes that the idea that birth order significantly affects personality is controversial. It's not hard to find a critic.
Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied birth order, said it has a "barely detectable" effect on people. Far more important, she said, are family size and economic status or whether children are raised by single parents.
"Some people look at birth order as something like a horoscope or astrology," Falbo said.
Frank Sulloway, a behavioral scientist at the University of California at Berkeley who has written about birth order, thinks it is an important contributor to personality. When told how Leman described people based on their birth order, Sulloway said there were "kernels of known fact from research mingled with statements and claims for which there's simply no research at all."
OK. You've been warned. So what are what Leman calls the "four pillars" of the real you?
Oldest, middle, youngest?
First, birth order.
"You've got three or four little cubs and they come out of the same den, and I can guarantee you those cubs are going to be different," said Leman, who is a bit of a name-dropper -- Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Barbara Walters, Lara Flynn Boyle and more in the course of an hour -- and hands out ruby-red plastic business cards.
He thinks birth order explains why he was such an early failure. He had to be different from a high-achieving older sister and an athlete-scholar older brother. "I was the best at being the worst," he said. That's not unusual for last-borns, who are often more interested in fun than achievement, he said.
First-borns are natural leaders but can also be moody and intimidating.
Only children are what Leman calls "super-firsts" -- perfectionist, scholarly and well-organized. Middle kids are "people pleasers" who hate confrontation and tend to be less ambitious than first-borns.
Gender can affect where one falls in the categories. A middle child who's the first son may act more like a first-born, for example.
Additional criteria
Then there's personality. Leman chose groupings that have been around for centuries, and there's a lot of overlap with birth order. Last-borns tend to be sanguines: popular, funny, but not detail-oriented. First-borns generally are cholerics -- confident and power-hungry, hard-working but intolerant. Melancholies -- often only children -- are analytical, idealistic and loyal, but also easily depressed. Then there are the phlegmatics, peace-loving pleasers who are popular and adaptable, but can be low on energy and enthusiasm.
Think of three early childhood memories. These, too, tend to fall into categories, determined by how we see ourselves. A first-born may remember a time when he broke a rule or achieved something important. Middle-borns are likely, Leman said, to "remember a time when somebody else got in a fight and ruined everything."
Last but not least is your "love language," a concept Leman took from author Gary Chapman. This is what makes you feel loved. It may be time together, gifts, hugs and kisses, words or "acts of service" such as cleaning the kitchen counter till it gleams. The problem is that people rarely marry someone with the same love language but often assume they have.
If you want a relationship to work, Leman said, it's crucial to try to see through your partner's eyes. "What I've learned," he said of his wife, "is if it's important to her, it's important to me."
As for changing -- becoming the real you -- Leman said people need to examine the behavioral ruts they've gotten into, set goals for different behavior and then take small steps. Don't expect to be perfect, he said: Change will take practice.