The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a self-assessment that sorts people into four temperaments — Artisan, Guardian, Idealist and Rational, names Keirsey drew from Plato's four kinds of character — each subdivided into four role variants that map onto the 16 MBTI types. American psychologist David Keirsey introduced the model in the 1978 book Please Understand Me (co-written with Marilyn Bates) and expanded it in Please Understand Me II (1998), grouping people by their observable behaviour, values and communication. Our free course helps you find your temperament and see how it relates to the MBTI letters — a popular self-report tool rather than a validated test.
Like the MBTI it draws on, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a popular self-report instrument that is not considered scientifically validated by mainstream personality psychology. (David Keirsey, Please Understand Me (1978))