Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

I'm trying to process some conflict I've experienced, both in jobs and in my personal life. One synthesis I'm converging on is the idea that there are "story-based" people, and "fact-based" people. I self-identify as "fact-based", so I'm trying to articulate this while adjusting for my bias towards fact-basis :)

story-based: think in terms of whole narratives; have trouble evaluating statements without knowing where they fit in some story, whose case they help or hurt. Tend to be good at articulating vision and goals; tend to think that it's wrong to pierce a valuable story with contrary facts. Not great at anticipating problems where reality disobeys the intended story, but good at rolling over bumps and keeping eyes on the prize.

fact-based: strive to assess truth and falsehood irrespective of who it helps or hurts. Tend to put foot in mouth by saying things at the wrong time; perceived by others as indelicate. Tend to struggle to articulate vision and goals, given all the things that can go wrong; see nothing wrong with piercing a narrative with contrary facts. Good at anticipating problems, but can be too fixated on obstacles.

Does this ring true for others? How would you revise or amend this?

Sure, as a mental model- it's wrong but has value when it comes to communicating effectively to an audience. Specialist communication within a domain implies a shared narrative and context, so can focus on granular details (facts). Generalist communication across domains and up or down the status hierarchy always requires storytelling, to establish context, before presenting any facts.

So people themselves have to do both, what and how they emphasize depends on the specific domain and circumstance.

Pro tip: if you think of yourself as fact based, work to understand what narratives form your grounding fabric for fact interpretation, so much so that you don't even think about it.

This does not ring true. You are associating too many traits with each personality type. It sounds to me like you are defining more of a "me vs. others" list than building up something universally true across people.

There may be some value to that on a personal level - self-knowledge is a good thing. But I don't think that can be extrapolated out to the general population. There is far more variety between humans that that.

I think you're mixing epistemic theories and social harmony. On the epistemic side, there are definitely ideologues who rely on really broad models of reality that overrule low level facts, like Lysenkoism, and others who fixate on low level facts and miss patterns. But most people don't really have a epistemic foundation at all, and just passively absorb "facts" socially without seriously considering their truthiness. All of this is kind of orthogonal to how you express yourself though; ideologues can be just as disagreeable in my experience.