You won't see it in any church's confession of faith. It's probably not in your Sunday School literature, and it isn't taught in seminary. But in recent years a theory of personality based on temperaments has established itself as a common teaching of American evangelicalism.
The view in question derives from the Greek and medieval European perception of the four humors, or bodily fluids, believed to determine mental health. If a person was especially irritable, easily angered, he was said to have an excess of choler (yellow bile). If he was depressed, he had too much melancholia (black bile). A cold, apathetic man was overloaded with phlegm. But if these three humors were in their proper balance, the fourth–blood–came to dominance, and the person was content, cheerful, and compassionate. This theory gave rise to the words choleric (hot-tempered), melancholy (sad), phlegmatic (emotionless), and sanguine (optimistic or supportive).
At some point in the 1970s or 1980s, evangelical Christians re-formed this theory for use as a tool for explaining behavior. I have not yet been able to trace the origins of the modern version of temperament theory, but the major works are Why You Act the Way You Do by Tim and Beverly LaHaye, and Personality Plus by Florence Littauer. Other authors who use temperament theory include Stuart Briscoe, Donna Partow, and Kevin Leman.
In its present form, temperament theory is rooted in the belief that each person has one of four personality types (called temperaments), and that these are present at birth and stable throughout life. A person's temperament determines what the person's attitudinal strengths and weaknesses will be throughout life.
Redefined, the four personality types bear only a partial resemblance to the ancient understanding:
Some related personality tests rename the temperaments to make them more "user-friendly"–dependability, analysis, leadership, and encouragement; or golden retrievers, beavers, lions, and otters–sometimes with a slight adjustment of the traits involved.
Rather than consider any one of these to be the "centered" personality, temperament teachers place all four on equal footing. There is no longer any association with bodily fluids, other than the names of the temperaments. In order to accommodate those who share traits from more than one temperament, some have proposed that we have a "secondary" personality type. The result is twelve combinations–twelve patterns of thinking and acting.
Temperament theorists have provided a number of applications for this concept. It is common to suggest that people should seek mates with opposite temperaments from their own (sanguine with melancholy, choleric with phlegmatic), and that certain child-rearing techniques work better with some temperaments than with others. Temperament is associated with what career you should pursue, or even with what spiritual gifts you might have. It has even been claimed that there are four Gospels to appeal to each of the four basic types: Matthew for sanguines, Mark for cholerics, Luke for melancholies, and John for phlegmatics.
I usually try to test church teachings on biblical grounds, but the Bible really does not address the issue of personality types. Certainly there are people to whom the Bible ascribes certain character traits, and a few seem to fit one of the temperaments. But God has left it largely to human endeavor to learn about how our minds work. Since I happen to have a degree in psychology, I'll try to explore the issue in the light of that science.
First of all, what is personality? Psychologists understand the term to refer to the patterns of thought and behavior that distinctly characterize an individual–in other words, the things I tend to think about and do that make me, me. To speak of personality types is to say that these patterns can be divided into a few categories. The "type" must be broad enough to describe all the people in that category.
No one denies that some people share very similar personalities, and we probably all know people in each of the four "temperaments" described above. The questions involved are, Do these descriptions put people in a box by giving attention to only part of their personality? Are there people who don't fit any of the types? Are important factors not considered? Do the traits in any one of the categories really belong together?
These questions could all be answered by experimentation–or even by casual observation and some careful thinking. But the temperament theory has not arisen through systematic research. When compared with personality tests and theories that have withstood the rigor of time and testing, the temperaments have the same flavor of "pop psychology" as the parent-adult-child transactional analysis model that was all the rage in the 1960s.
There are many competing views of personality in psychology. Some believe that all people are basically the same, others that everyone is so unique that personality defies categories. Existential psychology holds that we make our own identity by our actions. Rather than address all the major views, I'll present two models that have gained respect and that share some similarities with the temperament theory. (I'm writing by memory, so please forgive any minor errors.)
The MMPI (Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory) is used by psychologists to detect an individual's tendencies toward certain mental disorders. The subject answers a large number of written questions about interests, habits, attitudes, and experiences. The final score can indicate whether the subject has a tendency toward obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, generalized anxiety, or other problems–even if the person is presently healthy. But the results would not necessarily coincide with the strengths and weaknesses described in temperament theory; intellectuals aren't necessarily geared toward depression, or sanguines to mania.
On a less clinical level, perhaps the most common "good" personality test is the Meyers-Briggs. It measures personality on four axes, with sixteen resulting combinations:
Research seems to suggest that these four traits operate independently from one another, and their combination has a heavy influence on an individual's personality. As a result, the description of the archetypal ESTP, INTJ, or ENFJ is usually so accurate and specific that subjects are amazed to read the results. But the 16 types differ enough from one another that you could not arrange them into four categories or temperaments.
One criticism of these tests is that they assume the subject knows enough about himself to answer the questions, and then they simply spit the same observations back in the form of "results." But what gives the tests their usefulness is that some traits are correlated with each other; if you have trait A, you are, say, 95% likely to have trait B. The test may ask the subject about trait A, and assume B applies as well.
The question remains: are these types inborn as temperament theory says, or is personality shaped by experience and even changeable over time? Drawing from my own experience (as an introspective person more than as a psychology student), I would say the answer is somewhere in between. As with our physical bodies, some things about our minds stay constant, while others develop over time. Even from birth I have shown tendencies in behavior that remain to this day. However, since early high school I have noticed drastic changes in some respects. Whereas I was once solidly "melancholy-phlegmatic," I have become bolder, less perfectionistic, and more humorous than I once was. Yet my attitude in some situations is different than in others. I can't say that the temperaments are enduring in any absolute sense at all. But I'm still just as much the ISTJ as I ever was, and probably always will be.
There are other problems with any personality theory that assigns people to categories. For one, it assumes that people's differences are more important than their similarities. I believe the Bible indicates that, at least among Christians, the opposite is true. Also, the practical significance of personality types, especially in counseling, is highly questionable. Some areas of psychology may be helpful in pastoral counseling, but not here.
In conclusion, I think there are better avenues to take for Christians who want to explore personality. But we should take caution, lest in assigning ourselves a personality type, we fail to notice some tasks or gifts God has for us, or assume that a character blemish is an indelible personality trait for which we are not responsible. And whether the issue is personality, race, denomination, or nationality, I should not base my self-identity merely on the groups of people I am like, but on who I myself am, and who God would have me to be.
For a concise statement of my beliefs about human life, see my Declaration of Faith.
