TEMPERAMENT

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a personality instrument which attempts to identify which of four temperaments, and which of sixteen types, a person prefers. Hippocrates, a Greek medic who lived from 460-377 B.C., proposed the four humours, which are related to the four temperaments. These were sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic. In 1978, David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates in the book Please Understand Me reintroduced temperament theory in modern form and Keirsey renamed the four temperaments in the book Portraits of Temperament (1987) as Guardian, Artisan, Idealist, and Rational. As he was developing modern temperament theory, Keirsey discovered the MBTI in 1956, and found that by combining intuition with the judging functions, NT and NF, and sensing with the perceiving functions, SJ and SP, he found that grouping those Myers types correlated to his four temperaments. The chart below compares modern and ancient aspects of the theory:

c. 400 B.C.	Hippocrates's four humours		blood	black bile	yellow bile	phlegm
-->		Season:	spring	autumn	summer	winter
-->		Element:	air	earth	fire	water
-->		Organ:	liver	gall bladder	spleen	brain/lungs
-->		Characteristics:	courageous, amorous	despondent, sleepless	easily angered	calm, unemotional
c. 325 B.C.	Aristotle's four sources of happiness		hedone (sensuous pleasure)	propraitari (acquiring assets)	ethikos (moral virtue)	dialogike (logical investigation)
c. 190 A.D.'	Galen's four temperaments		sanguine	melancholic	choleric	phlegmatic
c. 1550	Paracelsus's four totem spirits		curious sylphs	industrious gnomes	changeable salamanders	inspired nymphs
c. 1905	Adicke's four world views		innovative	traditional	doctrinaire	skeptical
c. 1914	Spränger's four value attitudes		artistic	economic	religious	theoretic
c. 1920	Kretchmer's four character styles		hypomanic	depressive	hyperesthetic	anesthetic
c. 1947	Erich Fromm's four orientations		exploitative	hoarding	receptive	marketing
c. 1958	Myers's cognitive function types		SP - sensory perception	SJ - sensory judgement	NF - intuitive feeling	NT - intuitive thinking
c. 1978	Keirsey's four temperaments		artisan	guardian	idealist	rational
Keirsey, David [1978] (May 1, 1998). Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, 1st Ed., Prometheus Nemesis Book Co. ISBN 1885705026.

Describing the temperaments

Artisans (SPs) seek freedom to act and are concerned with their ability to make an impact on people or situations. Their greatest strength is tactical intelligence, which means that they excel at acting, composing, producing, and motivating.

Guardians (SJs) seek membership or belonging and are concerned with responsibility and duty. Their greatest strength is logistical intelligence, which means that they excel at organizing, facilitating, checking, and supporting.

Idealists (NFs) seek meaning and significance and are concerned with finding their own unique identity. Their greatest strength is diplomatic intelligence, which means that they excel at clarifying, unifying, individualizing, and inspiring.

Rationals (NTs) seek mastery and self-control and are concerned with their own knowledge and competence. Their greatest strength is strategic intelligence, which means that they excel at engineering, conceptualizing, theorizing, and coordinating.