by Anne Bogel
If your relationships could stand to be better, then take it on yourself to make the first step, if only for your own sake. It’s a fact of life that people tend to get what they give. Start experimenting with expressing appreciation to others in various ways—using all five languages—and see what happens. Which language do the various individuals around you respond to best? You won’t know until you try.
Specific Help for How to Love
Our old house was easy to find, just one block off a major street. If I told you to get off the highway, find my street, and turn right, those directions would be accurate. But if you were coming to that house, those aren’t the directions I would give you.
My directions would go more like this: Stay in the left lane as you exit the highway, headed north. You’ll pass a Home Depot, then a church as you enter a residential area. When you pass another church, slow down—you’re getting close, three or so more blocks. The street sign is hard to see because the neighbor’s tree hangs down low; that’s where you hang a right. If you reach the stoplight (the one with yet another church on the corner), you’ve gone too far. Your GPS will say our house is in the middle of the block; your GPS is wrong. We’re the last house on the left—stone with a white fence.
I’d tell you all this because I would want you to get to the right place, and even though the simpler directions seem straightforward, I am keenly aware of all the ways people have screwed up those directions in the past. They didn’t realize they had headed south instead of north; they turned too early because they felt like they’d gone far enough; they turned too late because they couldn’t see the sign. I have had people call me from my neighbor’s driveway down the block because their GPS said they had arrived, but they didn’t see my dog in the yard. There are many ways to go wrong.
Similarly, the love languages provide us with detailed information about how to show love. Plenty of people, never having heard of the love languages, navigate by simple directions, such as “show your love to the people you care about.” That seems straightforward enough, but experience has shown there are plenty of ways to screw that up. The detailed directions tell you more about the landscape you’re moving through. You know what to expect. You know what trouble spots to watch out for. And you know how to tell if you’ve gotten off course before anything disastrous happens.
I give my friends careful directions to my house to spare them a little frustration. Because getting off course is no fun, not even if you’re just stopping by for coffee. With a little extra information, they make it to the right place almost every time. And if a few extra directions—in the form of the love languages—can help me understand how to help the people I love feel my love for them, then I say bring it on! It’s easy to screw up seemingly simple things—in my neighborhood or in my relationships—and I’ll take all the help I can get.
5
You’re Not Crazy, You’re Just Not Me
keirsey’s temperaments
A few years ago, I was concerned about one of my kids. For the purposes of this story, this kid’s name is Bronte. Because I’m sure I embarrass my kids enough already without putting their names in books, I turned to a random baby name generator online,1 and Bronte’s what I got. I appreciate its literary heritage, plus—according to this baby-naming website—it’s gender neutral, though it’s more commonly used for girls. So Bronte it is.
Bronte was born cautious. She wants advance notice for everything. If we’re going to the beach in August, she wants to know in January. She wants to know on Sunday what we’re having for dinner Friday night. She doesn’t love the idea of taking a new way home from Grandma’s house. I worried about these sorts of behaviors, wondering if my child was too rigid or inflexible, particularly when it came to schoolwork and organizing the house and daily routines. I considered scheduling a checkup with our family therapist to probe the behaviors I was seeing because I couldn’t make sense of them.
It’s no wonder I couldn’t understand her behaviors; Bronte and I often feel like opposites. My child embraces routine; I fight it. When I implement structure, I do so reluctantly. I don’t like to make plans too far in advance. I enjoy improvising in the kitchen.
When I was a new mom, I read something in a parenting book that’s haunted me ever since. The author said something to the effect that “goodness of fit” between parent and child is an essential factor for the success of that relationship, yet it’s difficult to control. Getting a good match is pretty much the luck of the draw.
I was concerned that when it came to Bronte and me, I was dealing with a less-than-ideal match. I considered consulting a professional because I needed a confidence boost. I wanted someone outside the situation to verify that I was nurturing this important relationship well. I wanted to hear that I wasn’t screwing up my kid. I wanted to learn what I could do to help ease any anxiety Bronte might have and to ensure I wasn’t fueling it.
My husband calmed me down. He said, “You don’t completely understand Bronte. I don’t completely understand her, either. But I think she’s okay. I just don’t think she’s like you. Or me.”
I wanted him to be right, but I wasn’t sure.
Not long after, I happened to pick up Please Understand Me II by clinical psychologist David Keirsey, the book that led to the aha! moment I write about in chapter 1. The book explains complicated personality concepts in an accessible way, especially as they relate to personal relationships. Keirsey outlines four basic temperaments—four distinct, foundational combinations of characteristic attitudes, values, and talents. Each one of us can be sorted into one of these four temperaments. Keirsey focuses on how different types interact with one another, for good and for ill. He identifies what’s likely to cause conflict and how to manage those issues. He describes how different types are apt to relate as spouses and as parent and child. He also explains how each type is likely to complement another and how they’re likely to drive one another crazy.
I flipped straight to the chapter on parenting and found myself nodding along as I started reading. It was clear Bronte is a little “Guardian” type, as Keirsey calls it, an SJ type (Sensing + Judging, but if that makes no sense to you, that’s fine; we’ll talk all about it in the next chapter) who has a security-seeking personality, builds her self-esteem on her dependability, and is prone to guilt. This kind of person responds happily to well-established, clearly defined routines that bring her predictability.
I know my Guardian did.
I recognized myself in the book’s pages too. I resonated with the description of the “Idealist” type, an NF (Intuition + Feeling) type. Idealists value harmony and hate conflict. They love to have deep, meaningful relationships with a small circle of people, which can include their children. In stark contrast to Guardians, Idealists are good with innovative ideas and spontaneous plans.
The paradigm was eye-opening. Guardians seek security, uphold tradition, and protect the status quo. But Idealists seek possibilities, imagine alternative futures, and love to ask, “What if?” These fundamentally different viewpoints affect everything from the way you make a grocery list to the way you schedule your day to the way you choose your career. It’s no wonder Bronte and I were frustrating each other.
Unfortunately, all parents project themselves onto their children to one degree or another, and we expect them to resemble us more than we ought. It’s a hazard of being human, and of being the authority figure in that particular relationship. It’s especially easy for Idealists to do this because this type sees possibility and potential everywhere. Because of their intense focus on personal growth—their own and that of others—Idealists are especially apt to try to make over their children in their own image.
Even though I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing, I was still doing it. As I paid closer attention to my interactions regarding my child, I realized where I was going wrong. I told Bronte “Just don’t worry about it” when she asked at 8:00 a.m. what was for dinner that night or when she wanted
to plan ahead for the weekend on Monday or in a hundred other situations where she wanted structure and I was reluctant to provide it. I didn’t operate that way, so why should she? (I know, I know.)
I was lucky to stumble on this personality framework and on its description of the Guardian-Idealist parent-child matchup, which captured my own relationship with my child with uncanny accuracy. My behavior wasn’t healthy, but it was unhealthy in a very normal way. Once I could see what was actually happening between us, we could move past it. And that could happen almost immediately.
Keirsey writes that for this pairing to work, the Idealist needs to understand that their little Guardian is a “both-feet-on-the-ground little person who is unusually concerned about responsibility, security, authority, and belonging, but who displays little of [the Idealist’s] romanticism or enthusiasm.”2 In other words, my child was acting exactly like herself, and not like me. I was projecting my own temperament onto her, but she already had her own. Bronte didn’t need fixing. She was growing into the person she was born to be. I could encourage her to be who she was—even help her become a better version of herself—but I shouldn’t try to change her into someone she wasn’t. I especially shouldn’t try to change her into someone like me.
The more I paid attention to the way we interacted, the clearer it became that the real thing that needed fixing was my point of view. I needed to accept my child for who she was. While I’ll admit this was frustrating at times (I need to take into account someone’s need for structure for the rest of my parenting days?), it was tremendously freeing.
What You Need to Know about Keirsey’s Temperaments
The idea that there are four basic temperaments found in human personality has ancient roots. Some scholars believe the first mention of the temperaments can be found in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, thousands of years before Christ. In chapter 1, Ezekiel has a vision (which might be familiar to anyone who sang “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” as a child) in which he sees four living creatures in the fire—a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle, each with a human face. Some scholars believe these four faces are references to the temperaments.
Hippocrates is often credited with introducing the four temperaments, as he incorporated the four “humors” into his medical theories in 400 BC. He believed each individual’s personality and behavior were influenced by these four humors, or bodily fluids: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.3 One’s dominant humor most influenced their behavior.
Ancient literature and culture are steeped in the temperaments, as we find references to the humors in the writings of Aristotle, Chaucer, Montaigne, Johnson, Hume, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Lawrence . . . and the list goes on and on. In The Republic from 340 BC, Plato writes of “four kinds of men,” each with different strengths, roles, and ways of thinking. Shakespeare demonstrated a great familiarity with the ancient temperaments. Lady Macbeth was a powerful choleric, Sir John Falstaff a phlegmatic, Viola a sanguine heroine.
One of Shakespeare’s most famous characters—and perhaps the most famous melancholic in all of literature—is Hamlet. At the play’s opening, Hamlet’s mother—noticing his darkening disposition—impels him, “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off.”4 Hamlet suffers from a serious excess of melancholy (also evidenced by Shakespeare’s many references to “black bile” in a time when any excessive imbalance was a sign of poor health). As the play progresses, Hamlet descends deeper and deeper into grief, then madness, until he eventually destroys himself and those around him. To Shakespeare’s original audience, the implications of his melancholy were clear: this was a tragedy.
Throughout history, these temperaments have been referred to in various ways: blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm. Sanguine, choleric, melancholy, phlegmatic. Air, fire, earth, water. Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, Rational.
David Keirsey developed his temperament framework in the 1950s and codified his theories into a tool known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II. I encountered Keirsey’s temperament theory years after I first discovered the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator but understood it years sooner. This is no surprise, since Keirsey’s theory has fewer moving pieces, which makes it much easier for a layperson—and a newbie at that—to grasp.
Despite their differences, Keirsey and the MBTI do overlap, and understanding Keirsey is a great foundation if you want to understand the more complex (and slightly different) Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. While there are sixteen MBTI types, Keirsey’s framework has only four core temperaments. Keirsey’s limited list of temperaments makes correctly identifying your own type—and the types of the people you love—doable.
Determining your temperament is straightforward, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy.
Two Factors that Determine Temperament
Under Keirsey’s framework, two factors determine temperament: how we use words (what we say) and how we use tools (what we do). According to Keirsey, all of us lean toward being concrete or abstract in our word usage and are either cooperative or utilitarian in our tool usage.
The way these two factors interact is plotted on a two-by-two matrix, which indicates how the four temperaments are likely to act and use language. (I don’t want to lose you here. This is really fun, but it is like learning a new language. Thankfully, it’s a simple—and useful—one.)
Those with concrete word usage—Guardians (SJ) and Artisans (SP)—are most concerned with things that can be seen, touched, and handled. They are literal, factual, and detailed in their communication. They focus on—and verbalize—what is.
In contrast, those who are abstract in word usage—Idealists (NF) and Rationalists (NT)—don’t need to anchor their communication in the touchable and tangible, preferring instead to deal in the realm of ideas, possibilities, and the imagination. They focus on—and verbalize—what’s possible. These people are in their element when they theorize, philosophize, and hypothesize. They love metaphors and superlatives.
The concept of tool usage is harder to grasp. To Keirsey, a tool is anything that can be used to effect action. An espresso machine is a tool, but so is a highway or a house or the Democratic Party or the PTA. A tool is something, anything, that gets things done.
There are two basic approaches to tool usage: utilitarian and cooperative. Those with a utilitarian approach to tool usage want to do whatever works. They don’t care if it’s traditional, socially acceptable, or aesthetically pleasing, as long as it gets the job done. Those with a cooperative approach to tool usage want to do what’s right. They value cooperation and social conventions, so much so that they prioritize these things over effectiveness.
The combination of these two traits—word usage + tool usage—produces four possible temperaments. Some people are able to immediately recognize whether their communication is concrete or abstract and whether their actions are utilitarian or cooperative. Others need to read more descriptions of how the combination of these two factors practically plays out in everyday life. (Keirsey’s official Keirsey Temperament Sorter II is in his book Please Understand Me II or is available free online.)5
The following descriptions will help you further understand the types.
What Each Temperament Is Like
The four temperaments provide a foundational understanding of four different types of people.
It’s fascinating to discover how the types flesh out and how they interact with one another. As you read the descriptions of the four temperaments, it’s easy to see how misunderstandings could so easily erupt between different types due to nothing more than each person’s fundamentally different way of seeing the world. In the abstract, it’s clear that the world needs all four types, but in the day to day, the variety in personalities causes all kinds of conflict when we don’t understand why someone else doesn’t see things our way.
Artisans (SPs)6
Words: concrete
Tools: utilitarian
Artisans make up a significant percentage of the population (30–35 percent
).7 They’re artistic, adaptable, and easygoing. They have a real talent for enjoying life because they live in the moment and are thoroughly grounded in the real world. They accept reality for what it is instead of daydreaming about what it could be. They’re fun-loving, open-minded, and tolerant. They’re right-brained makers and creators.
Artisans are great with machines and tools of all sorts. They have a strong aesthetic sense, but more than just appreciating beauty, they want to create, whether they’re making works of art or more practical things.
More than any other temperament, Artisans love excitement and hate being bored. They prefer variety over the familiar. Artisans are people of decisive action—they’re impulsive. They think quickly on their feet. They’re confident, and they trust their instincts.
They will try anything once and are fans of trial and error, which leads to some great experiments with smashing results. Artisans are often innovators, putting their tactical intellect to good use.
Keirsey sums up Artisans by saying, “Artisans make playful mates, creative parents, and troubleshooting leaders.”8
Harry Potter is a good example of an Artisan in action. Harry is passionate about the things that matter to him. He has good instincts about people. He’s well-liked by most. He can be reckless and impulsive, living very much in the moment, and he’d always rather be chasing an adventure than tidying up the details, which he happily leaves to Hermione. Luckily for the reader, Harry’s madcap adventures make for great reading.
