For many years, people have always questioned each other’s motives. People have always questioned why certain people do certain things or why certain people act a certain way. We have always wondered what makes other people tick; people besides ourselves. Watching another person perform daily tasks can raise many questions. Questions such as \” Why didn’t he do that the other way? \” or \” How can someone bungee jump? \” Temperament, Character, and Personality have mystified human beings so much, Plato, himself, wrote about four kinds of character.
By understanding each other, humankind may get a better sense of who everyone is. Stereotypes as the outcast will be better understood for what they do and why they do it. By understanding character, people will appreciate differences instead of trying to mold other people into molds of themselves. The book Please Understand Me II, by David Keirsey, is based on the questionnaire, devised by Kathryn Briggs called the \”The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. \”(Keirsey, 1998) Myers labeled her sixteen personality types with four pairs of letters.
E or I, P or J, N or S, or, F or T. E means extraverted, I means introverted, P means perceiving, J means judging, N means intuitive, S means sensory, F means feeling, and T means thinking. by \”extraverted\” Myers meant having an \”expressive\” and outgoing social attitude; by \”introverted\” she meant having a \”reserved\” and seclusive social attitude. By \”sensory\” Myers meant being highly \”observant\” of things in the immediate environment; by \”intuitive\”, she meant being \”tough-minded\” or objective and impersonal with others; by \”feeling\” she meant \”friendly,\” or sympathetic and personal with others.
By \”judging\” she meant given to making and keeping \”schedules\”; while, in the case of \”perceiving\” Myerswent her own way and opposed \”perceiving\” to \”judging. \” (Keirsey, 1998) Myers came up with four different temperaments. She came up with the Artisans, the Guardians, the Idealists, and the Rationals. Artisans can be seen as the most exciting temperament out of the four classifications. They live their lives to the fullest, and they try to do everything they possibly can. They are very impulsive and the do things for the fun of it.
Artisans can be described as \”over-optimistic, adaptable, artistic, athletic, open-minded, easy going, tolerant, unprejudiced, and persuasive\”(Keirsey, 1998). Artisans are supreme optimists and are always looking for opportunities, and the best ways to approach situations. They can be seen as the most resourceful of the temperaments. Role variants of the Artisans are divided into Promoters, Crafters, Performers, and Composers. Promoters, also known as \”smooth operators,\” do everything in their powers \”to advertise, announce, boost, convince, entice, or induce\” others to give into their endeavors.
Crafters know which tools to use for a situation and how to use the tools in the most effective manner. Performers love to perform in front of people so they excel at \”demonstrating, displaying, showing, presenting, staging, enacting, or exhibiting their artistic skills\” (Keirsey, 1998). Whereas, Composers excel in things that require improvisational skills, such as cooking. Guardians are known as relying on common sense and for holding morally correct beliefs, and they are alert to the needs and perils of others (Keirsey, 1998). Guardians are very occupied with morality.
They feel responsible for the morality of people in their lives, even if they feel they should not need to be responsible about it. Guardians care about being reliable and therefore, they are very hard working, even as small children. If there is a job to be done, Guardians feel obliged to do it. Usually they are so hard working, they forget to appreciate themselves for the work they have completed. Guardians are have learned to expect the worse from life, and are very highly prepared for precarious situations. For them, it is better to be safe than to be sorry.
The role variants of the Guardians are divided into the Supervisors, the Inspectors, the Providers, and the Protectors. \”Supervisors enforce standard operating procedures, keeping one eye on their people’s performances, and the other on the rules and regulations that govern their activities, making sure that they behave in keeping with agreed procedures and standards of contact. their business is to mind others’ business\” (Keirsey, 1998) Inspectors like working \”behind the scenes\” in jobs, such as taking inventory. Providers provide people with the basic necessities of life.
They like to be able to improve the well being of people so they take on jobs, such as catering. Protectors like to shield others from danger so they take on jobs such as care taking. Idealists have been praised for being \” accepting, adaptable, adjusted, charming, devoted, idealistic, modest, and sensitive\” (Keirsey, 1998). Idealists have an uncanny ability to read people. They have a so-called \”sixth-sense\” about people, and are able to figure out the true intentions of a person. They are very diplomatic and they use their talent to develop the potential in humans.
The role variants of Idealists are divided into the Teachers, the Counselors, the Champions, and the Healers. Teachers see themselves as instructors, and they always have the intention of \”broadening, edifying, enlightening, illuminating, improving, and refining the attitudes and actions of pupils or students. \” Counselors have a feeling for the emotional needs of others. They are very encouraging and noble. They have the best of intentions, with working with other people, only wanting to improve the well being of others.
Champions love to fight for a cause they truly believe in, in order to inspire others to do the same along side with them. Healers are very reserved, but they can make very effective leaders. They are committed to saving the health of those around them, and they do so with an exalted sense of mission. Rationals seem to be very distant and detached from others. Many Rationals are misunderstood and can often be misinterpreted as antisocial. In reality, Rationals are very caring. They just tend to contemplate about problems in their lives.
Rationals are very logical and skeptical people. They are not only \”efficient, they are also adaptable, curious, experimental, farseeing, and flexible\” (Keirsey, 1998). The role variants of the Rationals are divided up into Fieldmarshals, the Masterminds, the Inventors, and the Architects. Fieldmarshals often take the job of commander. They use resources very well in a hierarchal setup. Masterminds arrange things in intricate plans. They can anticipate everything and set up a proper plan of events based on intuition alone. Inventors are highly skilled in making models.
Functionality is their main concern and this can be seen in their job of choice, which is engineering. Architects are preoccupied with design and naturally make plans, models, and blueprints. For Architects, the consistency of what they do is what matters the most to them. Personality is something that everyone ponders about. Even though people often think others are to different to them, it can be seen with a little understanding people have a similar set of beliefs we just have different ways of going about our normal lives.
