Every discussion about temperament and it’s influence on everything you do in life, and also how to leverage on it to better your life and develop yourself personally will be a futile effort if you do not know the primary temperament you’re born with. Temperament is an uncommon and unfamiliar subject to most persons in this modern time, as some of them keeps asking this rhetorical question about influence of temperament on someone.

Temperament was first propounded by a Greek physician, Hippocrates who strongly believes in the theory of humorism. He divided humans into four major categories based on their individual traits. He categorized every human being into: air, 🔥 fire, earth and water as relatable nomenclature for easier understanding in his days. He described sanguines and Cholerics as air and 🔥 fire respectively, while melancholies and phlegmatics are also represented as earth and water respectively.

These four temperament were further classified as extroverts and introverts by a Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung. He classified sanguines and Cholerics as extroverts, while phlegmatics and melancholies as introverts. But there seems to be a new third classification called the “ambiverts” these are persons who are neither extroverts nor introverts but are intermediate. It’s yet uncertain who proposed this third category since it is a relatively new concept. But it’s obvious it came from the knowledge of twelve blends of temperaments or combinations.

However, because the subject of temperament had not been in the front burner since its discovery by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, a lot of persons are unaware of its influence on our behaviours. Some persons may have also very limited knowledge about its influence in all humans behavioural patterns and traits. Temperament is a very wide and important subject that ought to be given utmost attention by various education regulatory bodies of all the countries of the world. Since it has an overwhelming influence and control on the behavioural pattern of every individual.

Temperament controls everything we do in life, from the way you do things as an individual to how you relate with others. You can’t do anything outside the temperament you’re born with. Although, education, parental upbringing, environment and maybe personal experiences in life may try to change or tweak the natural way you were born to do things but it rarely changes the temperament you were born with, which you inherited from your forbears, as you’ll often be seen yielding to its influence.

Let’s go into the nitty-gritty of discovering your temperament:

Which Temperament Are You Born With?

There are three proven ways, which could also be combined to help you discover your personality. By self- evaluation, that is evaluating your strengths and weaknesses: by also allowing others, friends, colleagues, neighbours and relatives evaluate you: and finally by taking a test, that is temperament test. Let’s begin with the first:

Self evaluation is the process of personally analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, and then categorize yourself into one of the temperament categories. You know yourself, at least on a simpler level. You know what you can do and what you can’t do, or things you easily and frequently find yourself doing without being clumsy or mechanical with it. On the basis of this, you can self-evaluate and analyze to determine the temperament you’re born with.

How to do this:

Make a list of your basic strengths and weaknesses, be sincere about it, don’t be too critical or hard on yourself when making the list. With sincerity, write down everything about yourself especially your weaknesses, since every temperament has one form of weakness or another. Write from how you cook, clean, read, drive, shop etc.

Are you thorough or lackadaisical in the way you do them? To how you relate with people, are you expressive or conservative, do you often like to dominate a conversation, are you a fast or slow talker, do you always keep to yourself and wait for people to come to you? You need to write down a whole lot of things you know about yourself.

After making the list, give it to your friends, or someone you’ve related with for a very long time, this person might actually know you better than anyone else, ask them to tick a good number of who they think you are from the list. Do this with two or more friends, if they tick almost or exactly the same things, then that’s who you are.

Head back to the four temperament categorization, to categorize yourself in one of them. You could find out that you combined different categories, based on the things they ticked or who they perceived you to be, but there must be a primary or dominant one which has more influence on you than the rest.

The second way is to let others evaluate you by allowing them make a list of your character. This is also important since you may not be able to list everything about yourself. Ask two or more of your friends to write down in the list everything they know about you. If they write similar things about you, and you can pick out 7 or 8 out of 10 things they’ve written down, then that’s who you truly are.

Now, let’s look at the last, which is conducting a temperament test on yourself. From the list I’ll make below, you will be able to determine your primary temperament by answering yes or no to the questions. Remember you could have two or more of these temperaments combined in you in varying proportions, but we’re only considering your predominant or temperament, which has got more profound influence in making you who you are. From the list below, answer “yes” or “no” to the questions.

1. Are you an extrovert, introvert or ambivert?

2. Are you a slow, fast or moderate talker?

3. Do you often like to dominate a conversation?

4. Do you unknowingly hurt people with what you say that you’ve got to frequently apologize?

5. Do you relish being with friends all the time?

6. Are you a vocal and expressive person?

7. Are you domineering?

8. Do you easily get angry?

9. Do you often motivate others with your speech?

10. Are you inconsiderate about the feelings of others?

11. Do you often keep to yourself?

12. Do you love details and analysis?

13. Do you easily lapse into different moods?

14. Do you love routines?

15. Do you ignore and keep away from those who attempts to hurt you?

16. Do you always need the support and backing of people before taking a drastic decision?

17. Do you love perfection?

18. Do you get depressed easily?

19. Do you find it difficult venturing into something new that you’re not familiar with?

20. Do you often have inner resentment against those who hurt you?

21. Do you find it difficult sticking with your decision?

If you answered yes to 1 and 2 that you’re an extrovert and a fast talker respectively, and yes to: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 21 then you’re primarily a sanguine.

If your answer is yes to 1 and 2 that you are an extrovert and also a fast talker, and yes to: 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 then your primary temperament is choleric.

If you answered yes to 1 and 2 that you’re an introvert and a slow talker respectively, and yes to: 11, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 18 then your primary temperament is melancholy.

If your answer is yes to 1 and 2 that you’re an introvert and also a slow talker, and yes to: 11, 14, 16, 19, 20 and 21, then, you are predominantly a phlegmatic.

And if you answered yes to 1 and 2 that you’re an ambivert and also a moderate talker respectively, and yes to from 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, and sometimes to: 7 and 21, then you’re obviously an ambivert.

This is just a brief and simple way for you to begin to have an inkling into the temperament category you might fall into. But for further reading and also a more detailed discovery of the particular temperament category you might belong, I want to recommend to you understand your temperament by Gilbert Childs. Order it now for more insight into the temperaments.

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