by Anne Bogel
(For those of you who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the corresponding types are ESTP, ISFP, ISTP, ESFP.)
Guardians (SJs)
Words: concrete
Tools: cooperative
Guardians comprise 40–45 percent of the population,9 outnumbering all other temperaments. Sensible and judicious, Guardians are the sort we think of as the pillars of society. These reliable, dependable, and consistent types uphold (or “stand guard over”) the status quo: they care deeply about protocol and tradition. They are creatures of habit who love their routines. Guardians are intensely logical, innately modest, and known for their common sense. They’re focused on the present—on what is—and not on what could be.
Guardians are straightforward in their speech and precise in the way they describe what’s happening. They love facts and are good at remembering details: names, birthdays, anniversaries, social events. This makes them good at administration, seeing that everything is in its proper place.
They are hard workers with a strong work ethic. Give Guardians a job to do and you can count on them to do it. Guardians take care of many of the world’s “thankless jobs” and often volunteer in their communities and churches.
In relationships, they’re a stable influence and make “loyal mates, responsible parents, and steadying leaders.”10
Guardians seek responsibility and are apt to be military officers, CEOs, and judges. They often study business, law, and other practical fields. According to Keirsey, nearly half of the US presidents have been Guardians.11
Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables provides a wonderful example of a Guardian in action. Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert think they’re adopting an orphan boy to help on the farm, but the neighbor sent to fetch the child from the orphanage shows up with Anne instead. The only reason Marilla doesn’t send the poor girl straight back is that keeping her seemed “a sort of duty.”12 Marilla greatly respects tradition, propriety, and the status quo. She’s a hard worker and a creature of habit. In Anne’s young life, Marilla is a responsible and steadying influence. Many of the story’s funny moments come from the stark juxtaposition of Marilla’s Guardian temperament with Anne’s Idealist one, as in the following exchange:
Anne: “Marilla, I dreamt last night that I arrived at the ball in puffed sleeves and everyone was overcome by my regal . . .”
Marilla: “Regal, my eye. You’re dripping dirty, greasy water all over my clean floor!”13
(The corresponding MBTI types are ESTJ, ISTJ, ISFJ, ESFJ.)
Idealists (NFs)
Words: abstract
Tools: cooperative
Keirsey estimates Idealists make up 15–20 percent of the population.14 Insightful, imaginative, and empathetic, Idealists care deeply about finding meaning and significance in the world, particularly in their relationships. They’re great idea people, interested in possibilities and unseen potential, and they are able to draw connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. As opposed to Artisans and Guardians, who focus on what is, Idealists are focused on what could be.
Idealists adore metaphors and have a penchant for hyperbole. They are extremely good at putting themselves in someone else’s shoes. They are sensitive to nuance and good readers of body language and facial expression. They trust their intuition, their first impressions, and their feelings. As a group, they’re generally positive, highly emotional, and prone to wishful thinking.
Idealists believe everyone is unique and special in their own way. It’s true that Idealists probably see themselves as special snowflakes, but the truth is they see you as one too. This is why out of all the temperaments, Idealists are most likely to go gaga over personality typing of any sort. They are fascinated by identity and devoted to pursuing, identifying, and understanding their own. They need to understand themselves and strive to understand others as well.
In relationships, Idealists make “intense mates, nurturing parents, and inspirational leaders.”15
Idealists excel at sharing ideas through words and tend to be speakers, writers, teachers, and communicators. You’ll find Idealists in mental health services, missionary work, and ministry.
Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail shows us what an Idealist could look like in action.16 She is idealistic, hopeful, and personally attentive to the people in her life—both her friends and her customers. Despite trying to adopt Joe Fox’s mantra—“It’s not personal, it’s business”—Kathleen cannot help but be personal in her relationships. She is sure her store will pull through even when the balance sheets indicate it won’t. When she breaks up with Frank, she tells him there isn’t someone else, but there is the “dream of someone.” She is optimistic, imaginative, and intent on finding meaning in her life and her work. These are all strong Idealist tendencies.
(The corresponding MBTI types are ENFJ, INFP, INFJ, ENFP.)
Rationals (NTs)
Words: abstract
Tools: utilitarian
Rationals focus on the imaginable as opposed to the concrete, what could be instead of what is. Keirsey’s guess is that they make up no more than 5–6 percent of the population,17 yet they fill a valuable role. These intelligent, logical, and contemplative types are excellent at envisioning solutions to problems real, imagined, or hypothetical. They’re experimental, open-minded, and flexible and don’t care one bit about social politics, political correctness, or tradition.
Rationals have zero interest in trivial matters and therefore aren’t interested in small talk. They’re not comfortable with bragging or self-promotion. They also don’t waste words; Rationals rarely repeat themselves and take pains never to state the obvious, assuming that what is obvious to them is obvious to everyone. They care deeply about defining things precisely and run into trouble when others perceive this as being nitpicky.
These curious and analytical types love to build theories and solve problems. They care about assembling coherent arguments and are driven to understand how things work so they can figure out how to make them work better. They care about being efficient, which means they are always on the lookout for inefficiencies in the system. They are skeptical and always searching for errors in order to fix them (if only in their minds).
Rationals are pragmatic to the core—utilitarian about going after what they want. They appear cool, calm, and collected, making them prone to being mistaken as cold and distant.
According to Keirsey, “Rationals make reasonable mates, individualizing parents, and strategic leaders.”18
Fitzwilliam Darcy, the gentleman in Pride and Prejudice with an income of more than ten thousand British pounds a year, is a wonderful example of a Rational in action.19 He hates small talk, is unsurprisingly terrible at it, and offends everyone with his awkward manner at the first Netherfield ball. He’s pragmatic to the core, as evidenced by his advice to Bingley about Jane’s disinterest, and utilitarian about going after what he wants, whether it’s securing Elizabeth for himself or persuading Wickham to marry Lydia, despite being personally repulsed by the match. His character changes throughout the novel, to be sure, but he’s eventually able to persuade Elizabeth to marry him because she becomes acquainted with what’s going on beneath the surface of his cool, calm, and collected demeanor.
(The corresponding MBTI types are ENTJ, INTP, INTJ, ENTP.)
Putting This Information to Work in Your Own Life
Which of the four temperaments best describes you? Many people can confidently type themselves after reading through the short descriptions in this chapter. But if you are not sure or just want to confirm your answer, I recommend using Keirsey’s Temperament Sorter II.
Get Comfortable with the Four Temperaments
If you want to put this information to work in your own life—and I certainly hope you do—spend some time familiarizing yourself with the temperament descriptions. Many people have experiences similar to my own, meaning they immediately recognize they’re an Idealist, their child is a Guardian, they’re married to a Ra
tional, or their boss is an Artisan. Let it soak in that, yeah, these people are different from you, and they’re supposed to be.
When I start talking about temperament with people, sometimes they’ll ask, “But which temperament is best?” My answer is always, “Best for what?”
Each temperament has certain characteristics; we cannot be all things to all people. Each temperament has great strengths, but no one temperament has every possible strength. We can’t be traditional and cutting-edge, detail-oriented and big-picture-oriented, staid and spontaneous.
Illustrating delicate points is often easier using fictional characters, so let me pull an example from a wonderful novel. In Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess, a relationship begins to dissolve because, after many years together, a man begins to feel that his partner is boring—predictable, traditional, never wanting to try new things. But what the man doesn’t perceive—but the author wants the reader to see—is that his partner is also dependable, trustworthy, and loyal, and this man adores his partner because of these very traits. Divakaruni guides the reader to see what her character cannot: this character wouldn’t want to forgo the admirable traits, and it’s highly unlikely—if not downright impossible—for one individual to be both risk-seeking and steady or bubbly and serious. Reality check: no one individual can meet all our needs. It’s like wanting your spouse to be tall, except on the days you’d rather they be short.
No Ordinary People
The thing to realize about understanding temperament is that it changes more than your perception of one particular facet of your personality, or your relationship. As you become more aware of the amazing variety of people and experiences, your worldview changes, making you more humble, more open, more aware of the possibilities in each person you encounter. I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis’s marvelous essay The Weight of Glory. He writes, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” In light of Lewis’s eternal view of life after death—heaven and hell—he explains, “All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all love, all play, all politics.”20
In our everyday lives, we encounter people who aren’t like us all the time. Sometimes our poor little brains don’t know how to handle these differences, and we behave badly. Instead of being grateful that we live in a world that contains artists and attorneys and musicians and managers and teachers and taxi drivers and chefs and people who do any number of things, we encounter these people and freak out because they’re not like us. Perhaps we even wish they were more like us. Thinking this way is a totally normal impulse—but be careful what you wish for.
When You Wish Someone Were More like You
It’s human nature to make a fleeting wish for someone to be more like you. However, when you try to make that person become more like you—intentionally or unintentionally—well, Keirsey calls that a “Pygmalion project,” and you do not want to be involved in one in any way, shape, or form. Although, if I had to bet, I’d say you probably have been involved in one in some way or another. Most of us have.
The phrase “Pygmalion project” comes from the Greek figure Pygmalion, who is best known from his appearance in Ovid’s poem “Metamorphoses.” In the poem, Pygmalion is a sculptor who carves his perfect woman out of ivory and then falls in love with her. When Aphrodite grants his wish to bring the sculpture to life, he marries her.
The 1964 Audrey Hepburn film My Fair Lady shows a Pygmalion project in action. In fact, the film was originally called Pygmalion. Hepburn plays Eliza Doolittle, a young working-class flower seller with a thick Cockney accent. Rex Harrison plays arrogant phonetics scholar Henry Higgins, who makes a bet of sorts that he can “transform” the roughest raw material—in this case, Eliza Doolittle—and pass her off as a duchess at a royal ball by training her to speak differently. His experiment is a success. Higgins receives heaps of praise, while Eliza receives none—and, whoa, did she hate being treated as an experiment.
We may watch Higgins on screen and think, I would never do that. But it’s easy to take on our own Pygmalion project, attempting to similarly sculpt a loved one into our ideal image (which often looks like our image) instead of accepting them for who they are. Just flip back to the beginning of this chapter and you’ll see what I mean.
It is especially easy for parents to play Pygmalion with their children, without even realizing they are doing it. We want to raise our children “right,” except our natural understanding of what this means may be right for us but not right for them. And parents aren’t the only ones who make this mistake.
While Idealists are the most apt of the types to undertake a Pygmalion project, we all make these kinds of mistakes—especially when we don’t perceive the wide and beautiful variety of human temperaments. Thankfully, if we know there are sharp curves ahead, then we can be better prepared when we take the wheel.
I once caught a glimpse of a Pygmalion project in action in my own backyard—although this time I wasn’t the instigator. My husband and I were hosting friends for dinner, a couple we knew casually from a class we were teaching at church. We’d had plenty of conversations with them before but never in this intimate a setting. We didn’t know the couple, who had just celebrated their first wedding anniversary, that well, but we liked them a lot.
As we all sat around the table in our backyard by the grill, a conversational pattern became increasingly and painfully obvious. It went something like this.
Wife: We were in the Dominican Republican four years ago—
Husband: It was five years and four months ago.
Wife: Well, when we were in the Dominican Republic and we had those really great fried bananas—
Husband: They weren’t bananas. They were plantains.
Wife: And we were with our friends Mark and Hayley—
Husband: But Hayley didn’t come until later . . .
He fact-checked everything she said in real time and corrected every single unimportant detail that came out of her mouth. It was second nature to him but exhausting to us.
I found a gentle way to ask the husband about it there at the table (Idealist that I am, who values preserving harmony above all). I was embarrassed for the both of them—her for being corrected and him for being rude. I tried to gently say so. “I’d just like to hear the story!” I said.
“Yeah, but I always help her get the details right,” he said. “Everyone wants to get the details right!”
That is the belief of a Guardian type who is detailed, factual, and logical and who loves facts and cares about precision.
His wife was not a Guardian.
And thereafter followed an enlightening conversation. The non-Guardians of the world will not be surprised to hear that the wife did not enjoy having her husband, the self-appointed Fact Police, correct her every factual slip in conversation both between themselves and in front of others. He thought he was trying to help her be a better person, but, really, he was trying to make her more like him. He was doing it out of love, but it didn’t seem loving to his wife. Months later, my friend—the wife in this couple—called me to say that once they understood the dynamics at play, they were able to adjust accordingly, and the adjustment made both of them happier. Will and I were happier too because their conversations no longer wore us out!
The Point: Improved Empathy
The point of the four temperaments isn’t to put people in boxes or to definitively describe all human behavior. The point is to get us out of the boxes we’re trapped in by helping us grasp the insights we need for improved empathy through better understanding. When we understand what’s happening with regard to people’s varying personalities, we can appreciate their differences—and the fundamental need for those differences—instead of doing what we usually do, which is
get all crazy about them.
Instead of trying to force someone else into a box they don’t belong in or lamenting why we can’t be more like somebody else, we can learn to understand the different points of view we all bring to the table. When we better comprehend our differences, we can appreciate them for what they are—even if that’s no guarantee they won’t drive us bonkers every once in a while. It’s still important to understand what’s going on—and why.
Not a Roll of the Dice
When it comes to temperament, the world needs all four types. We wouldn’t want to be without Artisans, Guardians, Idealists, or Rationals. And all four types can and do go together in work, play, love, or whatever—although each pairing has its own strengths and perils. According to Keirsey’s framework, or any of the others in this book, two reasonably well-adjusted people can build a relationship that works well for them, no matter their temperaments. The key is to understand the factors at play, appreciate each person’s strengths and weaknesses, and enter the relationship with realistic expectations.
I’ve come to believe that old parenting book I mentioned earlier was wrong. I no longer believe “goodness of fit” is a roll of the dice. A good match isn’t something you’re given; it’s something you make. Any combination can be a good fit if you accept the other person for who they are and lovingly support them in becoming the best person they can be.
Remember that temperament only begins to describe who we are. Understanding and appreciating one another seem easy enough, of course, but can be brutal in actual practice. It’s tough to learn to see things from someone else’s point of view. While it is work to learn about and better communicate with another person, it’s the best kind of work. And in my experience, understanding Keirsey’s four temperaments has made it significantly easier.
6
Type Talk
the myers-briggs type indicator
A few years ago, my family decided to try a new vacation spot. Will and I thought about visiting any number of cities and small towns within three hundred miles of home. Once we narrowed it down to the shores of Lake Michigan, I was in charge of choosing the spot and booking a place to stay.