Background Information
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a self-assessed personality assessment designed to help people better understand themselves and the world around them. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter was created by David Keirsey in 1978 in his best selling book, "Please Understand Me." The Keirsey closely resembles the MBTI, however the tests have theoretical differences, and the descriptions of the results are different. David Keirsey based his temperament work on the work of famous Greek philosophers, Plato and Hippocrates. Also the Keirsey assess more how people behave while the MBTI assess how people feel and think.
When the Keirsey was introduced up until 1996, the test was used mostly by psychologists, educators, and faith based organizations. This soon changed in 1996 when the Keirsey became available for millions to take online thorugh the Keirsey.com website.
How the Assessment Works
On the sorter, there are 71 forced answer choice questions. Once the online test is complete, you will be able to see your result, and you can also have your results emailed to you or a friend. The only drawback with this is that a professional does not help you interpert the results, so someone may not get the full impact of the assesment if they take it at home and do not have access to a professional to help interpert the results. The test may also be taken on pencil and paper in the Please Understand Me II book.
There will be additonal reports on the website, but these will cost you money to take them.
The Results
The Keirsey measure eight bipolar personality preferences (Sensing vs. Intuiting), (Thinking vs.Feeling), (Judging vs. Feeling), and (Extroversion vs. Introversion). This is similar to the MBTI. Then the Keirsey takes another step and organizes these perferences into four temperaments.
4 Temperaments
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| Famous Guardians |
The Artisian:(SP)- Artisians are the temperament with a natural ability to excel in any of the arts, not only the fine arts such as painting and sculpting, or the performing arts such as music, theater, and dance, but also the athletic, military, political, mechanical, and industrial arts, as well as the "art of the deal" in business.
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| Famous Artisians |
The Idealist: (NF)- Idealists are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.
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| Famous Idealists |
The Rationals: (NT)- Rationals are the problem solving temperament, particularly if the problem has to do with the many complex systems that make up the world around us. Rationals might tackle problems in organic systems such as plants and animals, or in mechanical systems such as railroads and computers, or in social systems such as families and companies and governments. But whatever systems fire their curiosity, Rationals will analyze them to understand how they work, so they can figure out how to make them work better.
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| Famous Rationals |
Then each temperament has four types based on the 1st and 3rd letter of your personality score, and these letters will break down your temperament to a role variant which is correlated with the MBTI results. This gives you more description on your personality type.
Reliability/ Validitly
The coefficients appear to be respectable, but because the measurments of each item is not presented you have to take the intperpertation of the tests results on faith. Also the temeperaments have not been measured for reliablity or validity. This is an implication that further research needs to be done on the Keirsey.
References:
Keirsey, D., & Alpine Media, C. (n.d). Keirsey Temperament Sorter II. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
