Please Understand Me II Temperament Character Intelligence David Keirsey

358 Pages·2009·6.19 MB·English

111. PI.Is.III111.rsflllll M. Phenomenon
Keirsey and Bates's Please Understand Me, first published in 1978, sold nearly
2 million copies in its first 20 years, becoming a perennial best seller ~ll ov~r ~he
world. Advertised only by word of mouth, the book became a favo~te tralmng
and counseling guide in many institutions-government, church, buslnes.s-and
colleges across the nation adopted it as an auxiliary text in a dozen dIfferent
departments. Why?

Perhaps it was the user-friendly way that Please Understand Me helped people
find their personality style. Perhaps it was the simple accuracy of Keirsey's
portraits of temperament and character types. Or perhaps it was the book's essential

messag~: that members of families and institutions are OK, even though they are
fundamentally different from each other, and that they would all do well to
appreciate their differences and give up trying to change others into copies of
themselves.

Now: P"IS' IllIIrstalllll H

For the past twenty years Professor Keirsey has continued to investigate
personality differences-to refine his theory of the four temperaments and to
define the facets of character that distinguish one from another. His findings
form the basis of Please Understand Me II, an updated and greatly expanded
edition of the book, far more comprehensive and coherent than the original, and
yet with much of the same easy accessibility.

One major addition is Keirsey's view of how the temperaments differ in the
intelligent roles they are most likely to develop. Each of us, he says, has four
kinds of intelligence-tactical, logistical, diplomatic, strategic-though one of
the four interests us far more than the others, and thus gets far more practice than
the rest. Like four suits in a hand of cards, we each have a long suit and a short
suit in what interests us and what we do well, and fortunate indeed are those
whose work matches their skills.

As in the original book, Please Understand Me II begins with The Keirsey
Temperament Soner, the best selling personality inventory in the world, and the
most popular on the Internet. But also included is The Keirsey FourTypes Soner,
a new short questionnaire that identifies one's basic temperament and then ranks
one's second, third, and fourth choices. Share this new sorter with friends and
family, and get set for a lively and fascinating discussion of personal styles.

A Prometheus Nemesis Books
~
Box 2748, Del Mar, CA 92014

-Dr. Stephen Montgomery, editor

ISBN 1-885705-02-6

51595

9 781885 705020

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Please
Understand
Me
II

Temperament
Character
Intelligence

David
Keirsey

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© Prometheus Nemesis Book Company 1998

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without
permission in writing from the publisher. All enquiries should be addressed
to the publisher. Published in the United States by Prometheus Nemesis
Book Company, Post Office Box 2748, Del Mar, CA 92014.

Printed in the United States of America
First Edition

ISBN 1-885705-02-6

Foreword

"The point of this book," writes myoId friend David Keirsey, "is that
people differ from each other, and that no amount of getting after them is
going to change them." The point is also, David might have added, that the
important differences between us are our natural birthright, arising in just
a few distinctive patterns. Recognizing these patterns can vastly enrich our
sense of who we are, of who others are, and of how much we can learn
from one another about the problems of life.
No person that 1 know of has studied temperament in action more
persistently and more brilliantly than Keirsey, and no one is in a better
position to speak to us about it. Keirsey has been "people watching" for
almost fifty years, and his interest in temperament as an organizing principle
stretches back almost as far. If Please Understand Me was a valuable
report on his progress to that time (1978), Please Understand Me II serves
to present a report on what he has worked out in the interim twenty years,
and also the valuable addition of his ideas about the relationship of temper-
ament to intelligence.
1 have known David for almost thirty years now. During those years 1
have had the pleasure of teaching and writing and learning with him, and
the even greater pleasure of arguing with him. Our time together has been
filled with logical discourse and theoretical speculation, and, at the same
time, good, old-fashioned hair-splitting debate (including the use of devious
debate tactics and other trickery to see if we could catch the other napping).
We are both Rationals, and as you read this book you will understand why
we Rationals treasure collecting various skills, exercising ourselves with
logical investigation, but also finding delight in argumentation, logical
trickery, and (I confess) terrible joke~as long as they are clever plays on
words. You will also see, by the way, why non-Rationals will-each tem-
perament for its own reason~find what is so rewarding for us Rationals
to be intolerable!
What 1 find remarkable about Keirsey's empirical investigations is
which of the many problems in psychology he has chosen to investi-
gate-intelligence, madness, personality-each a very complex problem,
and each with a checkered history. And 1 find his treatment of each unique.
His theory of intelligence is like no other, nor is his theory of madness, nor
is his theory of personality. Each is unique, true, but far more important,
each is useful to practitioners, something that cannot be said, at any rate
with much conviction, of any other extant theory of intelligence, or madness,
or personality.
From David's study of temperament 1 have learned that the great personal
differences between me and those around me were not an indication that
there was something wrong with me-or with them. 1 have learned that
the apparent deficiencies in a person's characteristic ways of dealing with
the world are offset by natural strengths in different areas. We don't require

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that a great painter be a wise teacher, nor that a trusted accountant be a
brilliant physicist. We all, according to our temperament, have our areas of
distinction and our areas of struggle. Both deserve to be respected for what
they are. So it is with temperament: different temperaments naturally show
us different patterns of intelligent behavior.

Perhaps most important, I have learned that we must not judge either
ourselves or others harshly when our (or their) values, preferences, and
style of experiencing and dealing with the world are different. There is
room for us all, and a need for us all. I am grateful that David has decided
to offer us Please Understand Me II, and I feel certain that its readers will
be fascinated and pleased with it.
Ray Choiniere

Acknowledgments

Stephen Montgomery, himself an author of note, served as my editor
not only for the first edition of Please Understand Me, twenty years ago,
but for its recent revision. Without his help over the years I would never
have finished the revision, given my penchant for continuously revising
my revisions. He was even more than helpful, going as he did far beyond
editing, by doing much of the composition. And even more than that, he
did a tremendous amount of research over the years and in the remotest
places. For instance, it was he who detected what Plato and Aristotle had
to say about the different roles the four temperaments of Hippocrates
played in the social order. And of course his years of research that went
into his four volume set, The Pygmalion Project, are embedded throughout
Please Understand Me II.
Then there was my family, my son and daughters and their spouses,
and of course my wife. They were always there to veto my more wayward
speculations and to catch me in my many errors of omission and commission.
And my former colleagues and students in the counseling department
at California State University Fullerton have been of great help in reviewing
the many drafts of the revision and in suggesting things that ought to be
inserted or deleted.
I wish especially to thank and to commend my colleague, psychologist
Ray Choiniere, for his monumental study of the temperament of our forty
American Presidents. In return for helping me complete my book on madness
and temperament, I helped him complete his book, Presidential Temper-
ament. The findings of our collaborative study of the Presidents are included
in the new version of Please Understand Me. And that is not all. Besides
his years of research on our many Presidents, his years of work on madness
and temperament, Choiniere has been a constant companion for me, assisting
me in many ways in conceptualizing Please Understand Me II.

David Keirsey

Contents

Chapter 1 DitTerent Drummers
Temperament Theory: Lost and Found
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter II
The 16 Combinations
What the Myers-Briggs Letters Mean
The Contribution of Isabel Myers
Looking Back
The Debt to Isabel Myers
How to Proceed

Chapter 2 Temperament and Character
Myers's Four Groups
Temperament, Character, Personality
Historical Overview
The Basic Dimensions of Personality
Psychological Functions vs Intelligent Roles
Chapter 3 Artisans

Plato's Artisans
The Concrete Utilitarians
The Tactical Intellect
The Interests of Artisans
The Orientation of Artisans
The Self-Image of Artisans
The Values of Artisans
The Social Roles Artisans Play
Matrix of Artisan Traits
Artisan Role Variants
.. IOThe Promoter [ESTP]
.... 0 The Crafter [ISTP]
.f. .me Performer [ESFP]
4-9 The Composer [ISFP]

Chapter 4 Guardians

Plato's Guardians
The Concrete Cooperators
The Logistical Intellect
The Interests of Guardians
The Orientation of Guardians
The Self-image of Guardians
The Values of Guardians
The Social Roles Guardians Play

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Matrix of Guardian Traits
Guardian Role Variants

... f () The Supervisor [ESTJ]
+' 0 The Inspector [ISTJ]
... 'OThe Provider [ESFJ]
... ,oThe Protector [ISFJ]

Chapter 5 Idealists

Plato's Idealists
The Abstract Cooperators
The Diplomatic Intellect
The Interests of Idealists
The Orientation of Idealists
The Self-Image of Idealists
The Values of Idealists
The Social Roles Idealists Play
Matrix of Idealist Traits
Idealist Role Variants
~ The Teacher [ENFJ]
... ~ The Counselor [INFJ]

'3 The Champion [ENFP]
j. The Healer [INFP]

Chapter 6 Rationals

Plato's Rationals
The Abstract Utilitarians
The Strategic Intellect
The Interests of Rationals
The Orientation of Rationals
The Self-Image of Rationals
The Values of Rationals
The Social Roles Rationals Play
Matrix of Rational Traits
Rational Role Variants
~ The Fieldmarshal [ENTJ]
... 1. The Mastermind [INTJ]

~ The Inventor [ENTP]
1. The Architect [INTP]

Chapter 7 Mating
Attraction
Getting Along Together
The Pygmalion Project
The Artisan Playmate
The Guardian Helpmate
The Idealist Soulmate
The Rational Mindmate

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240

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Chapter 8 Parenting
252
Maturation
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Basic Differences
254
The Artisan Child
257
The Guardian Child
261
The Idealist Child
265
The Rational Child
270
Parent and Child
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The Artisan Liberator
275
The Guardian Socializer
278
The Idealist Harmonizer
280

'The Rational Individuator
283

Chapter 9 Leading
286
Temperament and Intelligence
287
Identifying Intelligence
290

Tactical Intelligence
295
The Tactical Leader
298
Logistical Intelligence
303

The Logistical Leader
307

Diplomatic Intelligence
312
The Diplomatic Leader
316
Strategic Intelligence
320

The Strategic Leader
325

Chapter 1 Notes
331

Chapter 2 Notes
337

Bibliographies
343

The Keirsey FourTypes Sorter
348

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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps
it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to
the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

-Henry David Thoreau

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Different
Drummers

If you do not want what I want, please try not to tell me that my want is
wrong.

Or if my beliefs are different from yours, at least pause before you set
out to correct them.

Or if my emotion seems less or more intense than yours, given the
same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel other than I do.

Or if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action,
please let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will
come only when you are willing to give up trying to change me into a copy
of you.
If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or
actions, then you open yourself to the possibility that some day these ways
of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear as right-for
me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me.
Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no
longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness.
And one day, perhaps, in trying to understand me, you might come to prize
my differences, and, far from seeking to change me, might preserve and
even cherish those differences.
I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, your
colleague. But whatever our relation, this I know: You and I are fundamen-
tally different and both of us have to march to our own drummer.

As in the original Please Understand Me, the point of this updated and
expanded edition is that people are different from each other, and that no
amount of getting after them is going to change them. Nor is there any
reason to change them, because the differences are probably good.
We differ from each other in fundamental ways. We differ in our

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Different Drummers

thoughts, in our feelings, in our wants and beliefs, and in what we say and
do. Differences are all around us and are not difficult to see, if we look.
Unfortunately, these variations in action and attitude trigger in us an all-
too-human response. Seeing others as different from ourselves, we often
conclude that these differences are bad in some way, and that people are
acting strangely because something is the matter with them.
Thus, we instinctively account for differences in others not as an ex-
pression of natural diversity, but in terms of flaw and affliction: others are
different because they're sick, or stupid, or bad, or crazy.
And our job, at least with those we care about, is to correct these
flaws, much as the mythical sculptor Pygmalion labored to shape his perfect
woman in stone. Like Pygmalion, we labor to remake our companions in
our own image. After all, are we not ourselves, even with our flaws, the
best models for how humans should think, feel, speak, and act? Remember
the line in My Fair Lady (based on Shaw's play Pygmalion), when Henry
Higgins wonders why Eliza Doolittle can't simply "be like me?"

But our Pygmalion Project cannot succeed. The task of sculpting others
into our own likeness fails before it begins. Ask people to change their
character, and you ask the impossible. Just as an acorn cannot grow into a
pine tree, or a fox change into an owl, so we cannot trade our character for
someone else's. Of course we can be pressured by others, but such pressure
only binds and twists us. Remove a lion's fangs and behold a still fierce
predator, not a docile pussycat. Insist that your child or your spouse be
like you, and at best you'll see his or her struggles to comply-but beware
of building resentment. Our attempts to reshape others may produce change,
but the change is distortion rather than transformation.

Temperament Theory: Lost and Found

That people are highly formed at birth, with fundamentally different
temperaments or predispositions to act in certain ways, is a very old idea.
It was first proposed in outline by Hippocrates around 370 B.C., and the
Roman physician Galen fleshed it out around 190 A.D. The idea continued
in the mainstream of thought in medicine, philosophy, and literature up
through the 19th century.

On the other hand, the idea that people are born without predispositions
and are therefore largely malleable appears to be an early 20th century
notion. Ivan Pavlov saw behavior as nothing more than mechanical responses
to environmental stimulation. John Watson, the first American behaviorist,
claimed he could shape a child into any form he wanted by conditioning it,
provided that the child is put in his charge while yet an infa~ '.
Many investigators around the turn of the century also believed that
people are fundamentally alike in having a single basic motive. Sigmund
Freud claimed we are all driven from within by instinctual lust, and that
what might seem to be higher motives are merely disguised versions of

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Temperament Theory: Lost and Found
3

that instinct. Although many of Freud's colleagues and followers took
issue with him, most retained the idea of a single motivation. Alfred Adler,
another Viennese physician, saw us striving for superiority. Harry Sullivan,
an American physician, put forth social solidarity as the basic motive.
Finally, existentialist psychologists, men such as Carl Rogers and Abraham
Maslow, had us all seeking after self-actualization. In spite of their differ-
ences about what it might be, they all agreed that everyone had a single
fundamental motive.
Then, in 1920, a Swiss physician named Carl Jung disagreed. In his
book Psychological Types he wrote that people are different in essential
ways. He claimed that people have a multitude of instincts, what he called
"archetypes," that drive them from within, and that one instinct is no more
important than another. What is important is our natural inclination to
either "extraversion" or "introversion," combined with our preference for
one of what he called the "four basic psychological functions"-"thinking,"
"feeling," "sensation," "intuition." Our preference for a given function is
characteristic, he wrote, and so we can be identified or typed by this
preference. Thus Jung presented what he termed the "function types" or
"psychological types."

About this time, a number of other investigators revived the long prac-
ticed study of personality that philosopher John Stewart Mill had called
"ethology," and what psychologist Henry Murray would much later call
"personology." But their books, along with Jung's Psychological Types,
gathered dust in college libraries, while psychology came to be dominated
by Freudian psychodynamics on the one hand, and Pavlovian conditioning
on the other. Behavior was explained as due to unconscious motives or to
past conditioning, or to both. The idea of inborn differences in human
action and attitude was all but abandoned.
Breakthroughs in the behavioral sciences often come from outside the
field, and Jung's ideas were given new life almost by accident. At mid-century
Isabel Myers, a layman, dusted off Jung's Psychological Types and with
her mother, Kathryn Briggs, devised a questionnaire for identifying different
kinds of personality. She called it "The My.ers-Briggs Type Indicator."
Largely inspired by Jung's book, the questionnaire was designed to identify
sixteen patterns of action and attitude, and it caught on so well that in the
1990s over a million individuals were taking it each year. Interest in
personality typology was restored in both America and Europe. (By the
way, the test had been around as a research tool since the early 1950s, and
the Japanese became interested in it in 1962, the year of publication of
Myers's book, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.)
Let us suppose that people are not all the same, and that their patterns
of attitude and action are just as inborn as their body build. Could it be that
different people are intelligent or creative in different ways? That they
communicate in different ways? That they have different mating, parenting,
and leading styles? That they desire to learn different things at school?

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Different Drummers

That they will, if given the chance, excel at different sorts of work? Could
it be that such popular sayings as "to each his own," "different strokes for
different folks," and "do your own thing" express something that can be
put to good use in everyday life?
There is much to be gained by appreciating differences, and much to
be lost by ignoring them or condemning them. But the first step toward
seeing others as distinct from yourself is to become better acquainted with
your own traits of character. Of course, the best way to determine your
traits of character is to watch what you actually do from time to time and
place to place and in different company. There is no substitute for careful
and informed observation. But self examination is quite foreign to most
people, and so devices like this questionnaire can be useful in getting you
started asking questions about your preferred attitudes and actions.

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter II

Decide on answer a or b and put a check mark in the proper column of the
answer sheet on page 10. Scoring directions are provided. There are no
right or wrong answers since about half the population agrees with whatever
answer you choose.

1 When the phone rings do you
_(a) hurry to get to it first
_(b) hope someone else will answer

2 Are you more
_(a) observant than introspective
_(b) introspective than observant

3 Is it worse to
_(a) have your head in the clouds
_(b) be in a rut

4 With people are you usually more
_( a) firm than gentle
_(b) gentle than firm

5 Are you more comfortable in making
_(a) critical judgments
_(b) value judgments

6 Is clutter in the workplace something you
_(a) take time to straighten up
_(b) tolerate pretty well

7 Is it your way to
_(a) make up your mind quickly
_(b) pick and choose at some length

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The Keirsey Temperament Sorter II
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8 Waiting in line, do you often
_(a) chat with others

9 Are you more
_(a) sensible than ideational

10 Are you more interested in
_(a) what is actual

_(b) stick to business

_(b) ideational than sensible

_(b) what is possible

11 In making up your mind are you more likely to go by
_( a) data
_(b) desires

12 In sizing up others do you tend to be
_(a) objective and impersonal

13 Do you prefer contracts to be
_(a) signed, sealed, and delivered

14 Are you more satisfied having
_(a) a finished product

15 At a party, do you

_(b) friendly and personal

_(b) settled on a handshake

_(b) work in progress

_(a) interact with many, even strangers _(b) interact with a few friends

16 Do you tend to be more
_(a) factuaHhan speculative
_(b) speculative than factual

17 Do you like writers who
_(a) say what they mean
_(b) use metaphors and symbolism

18 Which appeals to you more:
_(a) consistency of thought
_(b) harmonious relationships

19 If you must disappoint someone are you usually
_(a) ~rank and straightforward
_(b) warm and considerate

20 On the job do you want your activities
_(a) scheduled
_(b) unscheduled