Dr. David M. Keirsey served as Chair and Faculty in the Department of Counseling for ten years at California State University (Fullerton). He published Please Understand Me in 1978, which introduced the Keirsey Temperament Sorter to the public. In 1998, he published Please Understand Me II, by which time his ideas on temperament theory were being widely utilized by Fortune 500 corporations, government institutions, non-profit, ... and educational organizations worldwide. He began constructing his temperament schema in the 1950's while practicing as an educational psychologist and consultant. Dr. Keirsey founded Advisor Team Inc. in 1996. This company offers solutions for conflict resolution, employee interaction, team building, team synergy, recruitment and hiring, leadership development, employee retention, customer strategy, sales tactics, marketing and messaging, customer engagement, teamwork, and organizational alignment. The company also provides assessment reports for individual, team, and organizational analysis; and Temperament Certification and the Synergy Leaders Coaching certifications, as well as consulting, training, and coaching services.
Summary of Contents
The author provides a thorough historical background of temperament theory, beginning with Plato (4th century BCE) and culminating with the work of Isabel Myers (1958). Having established a basic schema of four temperaments, Keirsey distinguishes his categorizations (Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, Rational) from the Myers-Briggs groupings (SP, SJ, NF, NT) and discusses each of the temperaments at length. The author emphasizes the danger of what he calls the “Pygmalion Project.” This is the tendency to interpret others’ differences from one’s own way of acting or approaching reality as “wrong” and as something to be corrected. This leads to furtive attempts to change other people’s natural personality and temperament, which can only exacerbate problems. The author provides a discussion of how each of the temperaments approach mating (chapter 7), parenting (chapter 8), and leadership (chapter 9). This edition features an updated temperament sorter (4-11) which allows the reader to determine his or her MBTI type. For those interested in simply discovering temperament, the author provides a sixteen question “type sorter” (341).
Summary of Contents
The author provides a thorough historical background of temperament theory, beginning with Plato (4th century BCE) and culminating with the work of Isabel Myers (1958). Having established a basic schema of four temperaments, Keirsey distinguishes his categorizations (Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, Rational) from the Myers-Briggs groupings (SP, SJ, NF, NT) and discusses each of the temperaments at length. The author emphasizes the danger of what he calls the “Pygmalion Project.” This is the tendency to interpret others’ differences from one’s own way of acting or approaching reality as “wrong” and as something to be corrected. This leads to furtive attempts to change other people’s natural personality and temperament, which can only exacerbate problems. The author provides a discussion of how each of the temperaments approach mating (chapter 7), parenting (chapter 8), and leadership (chapter 9). This edition features an updated temperament sorter (4-11) which allows the reader to determine his or her MBTI type. For those interested in simply discovering temperament, the author provides a sixteen question “type sorter” (341).
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