Fine-tuner of the four temperaments
David Keirsey Ph.D., born on August 31, 1921, was a renowned clinical psychologist, author and professor at California State University, Fullerton. He specialized in family counseling and conflict management and developed the Keirsey Temperament Sorter which identifies 16 personality types.
Keirsey’s most notable contribution was his combining of Kretschmer’s model of four temperament types with Isabel Briggs Myers‘ Jungian model of eight function types. He noted that the four types with N & F preferences share similarities, that the four types with S & P can be grouped and so on. The result was a more useful set of temperaments in which each of the 16 personality types fit into.
Note that on Personality Max we give the temperaments different “nicknames” than Keirsey.
| Temperament | Preference Combo | Primary Objective | Keirsey’s Name | Our Nickname |
| SJ | Sensing + Judging | “Security Seeking” | Guardians | Protectors |
| SP | Sensing + Perceiving | “Sensation Seeking” | Artisans | Creators |
| NT | Intuition + Thinking | “Knowledge Seeking” | Rationals | Intellectuals |
| NF | Intuition + Feeling | “Identity Seeking” | Idealists | Visionaries |
Keirsey has authored several excellent books. We highly recommend Please Understand Me and Please Understand Me II. See David Keirsey’s Books at Amazon.com
Learn more about Temperaments or read another biography by clicking below.
- Carl Jung – Founder of analytical psychology.
- Isabel Briggs Myers & Katharine Cook Briggs – Personality type researchers.
- Howard Gardner – Developer of the theory of Multiple Intelligences.
Personality Max has no connection to and is not in any way endorsed by David Keirsey.
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