# Are the Keirsey Temperamental Divisions Flawed?



## Endologic (Feb 14, 2015)

Helenka said:


> @Endologic
> 
> I am not sure if I understand your question, could you explain me what you mean?


You just assumed that I grouped SJs with NPs.

I didn't. That's all.


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## Endologic (Feb 14, 2015)

Epitomity said:


> You got it! Everything else other than the Big 5 is *flawed*!
> 
> And I'm not being sarcastic...


Lol, the Big 5 cannot have any flaws because it has no structure whatsoever.

It's literally just 5 spectrums.


For that matter, you ought to add an authoritarian/libertarian, a conservative/progressive, and a left-wing/right-wing spectrum into the mix.

While we're at it, we can also add the Autistic Spectrum, the psychopath spectrum, the IQ test, and Buzzfeed's "how much percent Donald Trump are you" test. Optionally, something from College Humor can also be included into the mix.


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## stathamspeacoat (Dec 10, 2016)

Funny this is a topic - I was reading Keirsey's "Please Understand Me II" two days ago and this is touched on:

"I soon found it convenient and useful to partition Myers's sixteen types into four groups, which she herself suggested in saying that all four of what she referred to as 'NFs' were alike in many ways and that all four of the 'NTs' were alike in many ways - although what she called the 'STs' seemed to me to have very little in common, just as the 'SFs' had little in common. However, four earlier contributors, Adickes, Spranger, Kretschmer, and Fromm, each having written of four types of character, helped me to see that Myer's four 'SJs' were very much alike, as were her four 'SPs.' Bingo! Typewatching from then on was a lot easier, the four groups - SPs, SJs, NFs, and NTs - being light years apart in their attitudes and actions."

He then goes on to discuss Myers explanations of each of the 4 groups as described in the latter half of that paragraph.


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## bremen (Apr 25, 2016)

I prefer to go with the socionics quadras if we group the 16 types so it would go like this:

Alpha: NTP/SFJ
Beta: STP/NFJ
Gamma: SFP/NTJ
Delta: NFP/STJ


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## Epitomity (Nov 13, 2012)

Endologic said:


> Lol, the Big 5 cannot have any flaws because it has no structure whatsoever.
> 
> It's literally just 5 spectrums.
> 
> ...


Ought to? Depends on your goals.


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## malignantmongrel (Jan 20, 2017)

No.


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## RexMaximus (Jun 29, 2016)

It's not flawed at all. It's really pretty genius. But you'd probably have to read Please Understand Me II to understand why. 




stathamspeacoat said:


> Funny this is a topic - I was reading Keirsey's "Please Understand Me II" two days ago and this is touched on:
> 
> "I soon found it convenient and useful to partition Myers's sixteen types into four groups, which she herself suggested in saying that all four of what she referred to as 'NFs' were alike in many ways and that all four of the 'NTs' were alike in many ways - although what she called the 'STs' seemed to me to have very little in common, just as the 'SFs' had little in common. However, four earlier contributors, Adickes, Spranger, Kretschmer, and Fromm, each having written of four types of character, helped me to see that Myer's four 'SJs' were very much alike, as were her four 'SPs.' Bingo! Typewatching from then on was a lot easier, the four groups - SPs, SJs, NFs, and NTs - being light years apart in their attitudes and actions."
> 
> He then goes on to discuss Myers explanations of each of the 4 groups as described in the latter half of that paragraph.


I was actually thinking of this exact paragraph when reading through this thread. 

An important thing to understand is that when making his Temperaments, he looked at behaviors, not cognitive functions.

For Sensors, they happen to be grouped by their shares sensing perceptive functions -Si and Se respectively. Taking functions into account, it is clear that SPs share their fun-loving, easygoing nature because of their shared Se. 

To me, the temperament system is inherently better the way it is grouped -much more so than any other possible grouping. The level of insight and depth he achieved simply wouldn't be possible in other groupings -particularly because they group Sensors and iNtuitives together. 

Behaviorally, the groups as they are now share much more in common than they would otherwise. 

It's also really cool to note that while Kiersey was the first to correlate his 4 temperaments with MBTI, they're not new groupings in and of themselves. The same 4 characteristic groupings, with the same common traits and behaviors, have been written about by people going back to Plato. In his book he mentions at least 7 or 8 other people who've researched and written about his temperaments before him. Look it up, it's really cool.


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