The Keirsey Temperament Sorter(KTS) is a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves, first introduced in the book Please Understand Me. KTS is closely associated with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) however there are significant practical and theoretical differences between the two personality tests and their associated different descriptions.

Historical development

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David Keirsey developed the Temperament Sorter after being introduced to MBTI by a friend; however, Keirsey traces the idea of temperament back to the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates, a Greek medic who lived from 460-377 B.C., proposed the four humours, which are related to the four temperaments. These were named and promoted by Galen: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic. Keirsey extensively fleshed out the characteristics of the four temperaments in books Please Understand Me(1978) and Please Understand Me II(1998), and renamed them as Artisan, Idealist, Rational, and Guardian in his book Portraits of Temperament(1987). The chart below compares modern and ancient aspects of the theory:

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c. 400 B.C.

Hippocrates' Four humors

blood

yellow bile

black bile

phlegm

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