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Five temperaments is a theory in psychology, that ex- (factor analysis), and his research led him to believe that
pands upon the Four Temperaments proposed in ancient temperament is biologically based.
medical theory.
The development of a theory of five temperaments begins 1.1 Development of related “two factor”
with the two-factor models of personality and the work
of the late William Schutz, and his FIRO-B program. It
models and the regaining popularity of
is a measure of interpersonal relations orientations that the ancient temperaments
calculates a person’s behavior patterns based on the scor-
ing of a questionnaire. Although FIRO-B does not speak
in terms of “temperament”, this system of analysis graded
questionnaires on two scales in three dimensions of inter-
personal relations. When paired with temperament the-
ory, a measurement of five temperaments resulted.[1]
1
2 1 HISTORY AND THE ANCIENT FOUR TEMPERAMENTS
longer response. The melancholy and choleric, however, Schutz was emphatic that all FIRO scores in themselves
shared a sustained response, and the sanguine and phleg- “Are not terminal — they can and do change”, and that
matic shared a short-lived response. That meant that they “Do not encourage typology” [10] (and thus contra-
the Choleric and melancholy both would tend to hang dicted the notion of inborn temperament). However, the
on to emotions like anger, and thus appear more serious four ancient temperaments were eventually mapped to the
and critical than the fun-loving sanguine, and the peace- FIRO-B scales, including the three separate temperament
ful phlegmatic. However, the choleric would be charac- grids for individuals’ scores in each area.
terized by quick expressions of anger, while the melan- A Melancholy tends to be an introverted loner, and in the
choly would build up anger slowly, silently, before ex-
area of “control” such a person would exhibit a low need
ploding. Also, the melancholy and sanguine would be sort to control others, and also have a low tolerance of control
of "opposites", as the choleric and phlegmatic, since they
by others (i.e. “dependency”). In the areas of inclusion
have opposite traits. and affection, such people would display a low need to in-
As the twentieth century progressed, numerous other in- clude or be close to others, and a low need to be included
struments were devised measuring not only temperament, by others.
but also various individual aspects of personality and A Choleric, however, is an extroverted "leader"-type who,
behavior, and several began using factors that would cor- in the area of control, has a high need to control others,
respond to the delay and sustain behaviors; usually, forms but a low tolerance of others controlling him. He also
of Extroversion and a developing category of people ver- has a high need to include or be close to others, but a
sus task focus (eventually embodied as "Agreeableness"). low level of "responsiveness" (used as another term for
Examples include DiSC assessment system and Social “wanted” behavior) to them. He tends to be a “user”, and
styles. In both of these, the four behaviors or styles re- only relates to people according to his own terms, which
sembled the key characteristics of the ancient four tem- are usually goal-oriented.
peraments: the Choleric’s extroversion and seriousness;
A Sanguine is an extrovert who has a high need to in-
the Melancholy’s introversion and seriousness; the San-
clude and be close to others, but unlike the Choleric, the
guine’s extroversion and sociability, and the Phlegmatic’s
Sanguine genuinely likes being around people just for the
peacefulness.
sake of socialization. The Sanguine also “swings” be-
As personality typing increased, Christian writer and tween both control and dependency.
speaker Tim LaHaye helped repopularize the ancient
temperaments beginning in his books.[7][8][9]
Another addition to the two factor models was the cre- 1.3 From four to five
ation of a 10 by 10 square grid developed by Robert R.
Blake and Jane Mouton in their Managerial Grid Model The low scores in both “wanted” and “expressed” would
introduced in 1964. This matrix graded from 0 to 9, correspond to the Melancholy. A high score in “ex-
the factors of “Concern for People” and “Concern for pressed” with a low score in “wanted” corresponds to
Production”, allowing a moderate range of scores, which Choleric. A high score on both scales corresponds to the
yielded five “leadership styles”. The Thomas Kilmann Sanguine.
Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) used a version of this
So the temperaments were divided between introverts,
with “Assertiveness” and “Cooperativeness” as the two
extroverts, and in the other dimension, "relationship-
factors, and an intermediate score in both scales likewise
oriented", and "task-oriented". In the older model, the
resulting in a fifth mode directly in the center of the grid.
fourth temperament, Phlegmatic, had generally been re-
garded as “introverted” like the Melancholy, yet more
“agreeable”, like the Sanguine. For example, the “slow
1.2 The FIRO-B connection
response/short-lived sustain” of the original conception,
FIRO-B was another such two-factor system, originally where it shares one factor with the Sanguine, and the
created by Dr. Schutz in 1958, using the same scales cor- other with the Melancholy. In the other instruments us-
responding to extroversion/introversion and people/task ing people/task-orientation, the type that holds the corre-
focus. The difference now was that there were three such sponding place in respect to the other types (such as So-
matrices. These three areas of interaction are Inclusion, cial Styles’ “Amiable” or Adler’s “Leaning”) is also gen-
Control, and Affection. Note that these areas include erally correlated with the Phlegmatic in comparisons.
the two familiar scales: how you want to relate to others However, while the Phlegmatic is not as extroverted as
(called "expressed behavior”), and how you want them to the Sanguine and Choleric, nor as serious as the Melan-
relate to you (called "wanted behavior”). Scores in these choly and Choleric; he is neither as introverted as the
scales range from 0 to 9. In 1977, “locator charts” were Melancholy, nor as relationship-oriented as the Sanguine.
produced for each area by Leo Ryan, providing a map of This created a problem whereby a “middle-of-the-road”
the various scores, following the Managerial Grid model; temperament was needed to complete the list of tem-
with unofficial names assigned to different score ranges. peraments. A new temperament was created as a neu-
3
3 See also
5.2 Images
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