The Keirsey Temperament Classifier is a tool used in the field of personal growth and Human Resources. It allows to know what type of personality one has, and to relate it to a useful role in daily life.
This questionnaire is interesting because it starts from the ancestral idea of temperament, already described by the classical Greeks, although reformulated from a modern perspective. Let’s take a closer look at this interesting and complex model.
- Related article: ” The main theories of personality“
Keirsey’s Temperament Sorter – What is it?
Keirsey’s Temperament Sorter is a model and quiz designed to help people understand themselves. It was prepared by the North American psychologist David Keirsey , who was inspired by such ancient concepts of temperament as the proposals of Hippocrates and Plato, as well as more recent ones, such as that of Myers-Higgs and Ernst Kretschmer.
In this model, Keirsey has a somewhat particular vision of what temperament would be. Although temperament is traditionally seen as a personality style, relating it to the emotional reaction that a subject can face to different types of events, Keirsey’s conception also includes aspects related to intelligence and preferences , something related to the dimension from the openness to the experience of the model of the five great factors.
The questionnaire used consists of 70 questions, each one with two answer options in which the preferences of the person are measured. Although it is related to the concept of intelligence, it does not measure it, nor does it measure how well we are given specific skills.
Upon completion, the subject who has done it will have feedback on what their most performed behaviors are . These behaviors allow us to know what oneself is like, in addition to understanding in the first person how one behaves. It also shows what your strengths are, not in terms of measured capabilities, but what you think is stronger yourself.
This questionnaire is normally used individually, and it is very easy to use. Some organizations, such as the United States government, educational centers and even large corporations such as Coca-Cola or the Bank of America use it to have an elaborate profile of the person who applies for a job offer.
- You may be interested: ” The 5 great personality traits: sociability, responsibility, openness, kindness and neuroticism“
The Keirsey Rings
Before going into more detail about the temperaments proposed by Keirsey, it is necessary to explain his proposal based on four levels, which he calls rings as if they were those of a tree trunk. These structure and configure each of the temperaments, roles and variant roles that make them up .
- Outer ring: abstract and concrete
According to Keirsey, everyone has a knowledge of the world made up of two processes that are not necessarily mutually exclusive: observation and introspection.
Within the model, observation is understood as the collection of information from outside, objectively and captured by the senses. For example, when we are looking at a painting, eating an apple or listening to a melody, we would be observing according to the model.
Introspection would be that the subject shares his internal world, his ideas . That is, he creates something that does not exist, to shape it in the real world himself.
There are people who resort more to the outside world, which is more objective and concrete, while others choose to resort more to their abstraction.
The most concrete people would be those with their feet on the ground , focused on concepts that refer to very specific elements of their environment, while those who are more abstract would be those with their heads in the clouds, focused on general and broad concepts.
- Second ring: cooperative and pragmatic
The most cooperative people are those who are concerned about the opinions and thoughts of others, taking special interest in their emotions and concerns.
Pragmatic people, on the other hand, focus more on their own thinking , and focus all efforts on using methods that really work before knowing the opinion of others when taking a certain action.
They are the first and second rings of this tree proposed by Keirsey, which make up the four temperaments of the model: rational (pragmatic and abstract), artisans (pragmatic and concrete), idealists (cooperative and abstract) and guardians (cooperative and concrete).
- Third ring: proactive and reactive
In the third ring, a distinction is made between those who communicate with others informing them about an action to be carried out, the proactive ones, from those who give orders and direct, the reactive ones to inform. Each of the four temperaments have these two roles. This means that there are up to 8 main roles in the model.
- Fourth ring: expressive and attentive
Finally we have the fourth ring, in which we can find the variant roles, which are two for each general role of the model , which makes a total of sixteen of them.
The expressive role refers to who chooses to express, that is, to clearly show their intentions, while the attentive ones choose to work more covertly.
The 4 temperaments of the model
Having seen the structure of temperaments, we proceed to explain, in more detail, each of them:
- Craftsman
From the Keirsey model, the “craftsman” temperament is defined as that of a person who tends to adapt to the situation and is directed to carry out a specific action . They are pragmatic and concrete. Artisans require constant stimulation, and they want to improve their abilities to become virtuous in what they like. They want to stand out for what they like to do.
They tend to be good at working with their hands, in addition to having good mental agility to adapt to changing environments and situations. They are good at problem solving.
The proactive artisan role is that of the operators, whose most notable skill is exploration , and their two variant roles are the ‘crafters’ or artisans (attentive) and promoters (expressive.)
The artisan reactive role is that of artists or ‘entertainers’, who are good at improvisation. Their two variant roles would be that of composers (attentive) and that of performers (expressive).
- Guardian
Their behavior is organized rather than intuitive, and they seek security . They are cooperative and concrete. They feel a great need to belong to someone, to be linked to another person. Responsibility and duty are extremely important to guardians. They are very good at organizing, checking, and are a good source of trust for others. They need to have well organized schedules. Its greatest strength is logistics.
The proactive guardian role is that of administrators, who are very good at regulating and organizing. We have within this role the inspectors (attentive) and the supervisors (expressive).
The reactive guardian role is that of conservatives, whose most developed ability is to support others . Roles within it we have the protectors (attentive) and the providers (expressive).
- Idealist
Idealists are cooperative and abstract. For them, the most important thing is the meaning of oneself. They seek their personal identity, their growth as individuals . His most developed natural ability is diplomacy. This temperament is typical of people who inspire confidence, who inspire.
With an idealistic proactive role, we have mentors, who are in charge of helping others to develop. Among them would be the counselors (attentive) and the teachers (expressive).
In the idealistic reactive role we have the promoters, who are very good at mediating. Within them we have the healers (attentive) and the champions (expressive).
- Rational
Rational people are pragmatic and abstract. For them, the important thing is knowledge and competence . They want to be good at what they are doing, and they work to master what they would like to do without the need for pressure from others. They are good at strategy, theorizing, coordinating projects, developing concepts, and are good with engineering.
With a rational proactive role, we have coordinators, who are good at ordering. Within them we have the masterminds (attentive) and the quarterbacks or commanders (expressive).
In a reactive role we have engineers, whose most developed ability is to build. Inside we have the architects (attentive) and the inventors (expressive).
