Assessing Personality

To introduce you to trait theory and the controversies surrounding it, this exercise asks you to visit the Keirsey Temperament Web site (http://keirsey.com/). You will take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, a personality test similar to the Myers-Briggs Inventory (described in the text) that includes four scales assessing the dimensions of extraversion versus introversion, intuiting versus sensing, feeling versus thinking, and judging versus perceiving. This categorization parallels Carl Jung's effort to classify people according to specific personality types.

The Web site provides an introduction to personality typing and its rationale, a comprehensive description of sixteen personality types (created by the scores on the four scales), and an explanation of how these types can in turn be categorized into four recognizable temperaments.

1. What specific temperaments does the Keirsey Temperament Sorter identify? List the personality types that are identified by the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and explain how they are derived from these temperaments.

2. Identify one historical figure or current celebrity that exemplifies each of the basic temperaments identified by the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Explain why this individual's personality "fits" a specific temperament.

3. After taking the test yourself, do you agree with your scored profile? Why or why not?

4. The scientific validity of some "trait tests" of personality (such as the Myers-Briggs) has recently been questioned. Is there reason to believe that the Keirsey Temperament Sorter has greater validity? Does the site offer empirical support for its claims?