Keirsey temperament classifier: what is it and what categories does it contain

Keirsey's 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 American psychologist David Keirsey, who was inspired by such ancient concepts of temperament as the proposals of Hippocrates and Plato, as well as some 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 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 of 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 on an individual basis, and it is very easy to use. Some organizations, such as the United States government, schools, and even large corporations such as Coca-Cola or the Bank of America use it to have an elaborate profile of the person who is presented to an offer of job.

• 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 the trunk of a tree. These structure and configure each of the temperaments, roles and variant roles that make them up.

1. 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 turn 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 the ones who would have their feet on the ground, focused on the concepts that refer to very specific elements of their environment, while those that They are more abstract, they would be the ones with their heads in the clouds, focused on general and broad concepts.

2. 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 they 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).

3. Third ring: proactive and reactive

In the third ring, a distinction is made between those who communicate with others by informing them about a action to be taken, the proactive ones, those who give orders and direct, the reagents. Each of the four temperaments have these two roles. This means that there are up to 8 main roles in the model.

4. 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 those who choose to express, that is, clearly show their intentions, while the attentive 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:

1. Craftsman

From the Keirsey model, the "craftsman" temperament is defined as that of a person who tends to adapt to the situation and is aimed at taking a concrete action. They are pragmatic and concrete. Artisans require constant stimulation, and 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, as well as 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. Its two variant roles would be that of composers (attentive) and that of performers (expressive).

2. Guardian

Their behavior is organized rather than intuitive, and they seek safety. 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 give support to others. Roles within it we have the protectors (attentive) and the providers (expressive).

3. Idealistic

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).

4. 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 outside. They are good at strategy, theorizing, coordinating projects, developing concepts, and are good with engineering.

From a rational proactive role we have the 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).

Bibliographic references:

• Cattell, R.B., (1947). Confirmation and clarification of primary personality factors. Psychometrika, 12, 197-220.
• Keirsey, D. (1978). Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence (1st ed.). Prometheus Nemesis Book Co. ISBN 1-885705-02-6.