16 People, 16 Types

I promised in our welcome message to explain the significance of the 16 people pictured in the banner at the top of our blog. It’s very simple – there are 16 types of people, 4 of each temperament in Keirsey Temperament Theory. Each of the people in the banner represents one of the 16 types.

Before jumping to the rest of the article, can you determine which type is represented by each of the 16 people?

Before matching each person to their type, it should be easier to match them to their temperament. Recall the descriptions of each of the 4 temperaments:

  • Guardians speak mostly of their duties and responsibilities, of what they can keep an eye on and take good care of, and they’re careful to obey the laws, follow the rules, and respect the rights of others.
  • Idealists speak mostly of what they hope for and imagine might be possible for people, and they want to act in good conscience, always trying to reach their goals without compromising their personal code of ethics.
  • Artisans speak mostly about what they see right in front of them, about what they can get their hands on, and they will do whatever works, whatever gives them a quick, effective payoff, even if they have to bend the rules.
  • Rationals speak mostly of what new problems intrigue them and what new solutions they envision, and always pragmatic, they act as efficiently as possible to achieve their objectives, ignoring arbitrary rules and conventions if need be.

With those definitions in mind, each quartet should be easy to place:
The Guardians:

The Artisans:

The Idealists:

The Rationals:

Interested in more famous examples of the 16 Types?  Here are more Guardians, Idealists, Artisans, and Rationals.

For short video portraits of each of the 4 Temperaments (brief segments taken from the DVD Please Understand Me, click here.

13 thoughts on “16 People, 16 Types”

  1. I’m absolutely a Guardian that changes between a Protector and a Provider, depending on the situation. I’ve only recently started learning about these classifications and find the discussions very enlightening. Thanks for your service.

  2. I agree with your thoughts here and I undoubtedly love your blog! I’ve bookmarked it so that I can come back & read more in the future. Your post is very interesting. I’ve read your blog for few days now and I trully enjoy your blog. Thank you for your great work!

  3. Thanking your entire team for having this temperament information on-line. It is absolutely the BEST tool I have ever read/utilized to understand not only myself, but others as well. Been using this tool for about 29 yrs. Thanks again for all your hard work.

  4. Matching types and temperaments to people, both known and unknown, will be key to absorbing the theory and moving into a productive use of it. It’s one thing to sit back and analyze bit-by-bit what type one might think another is. But what’s that individual like in real life? What happens when each other type interacts with him?

    There used to be a now-defunct publication offering first-hand accounts. There are but few books on how to learn this. For me, effective utilization of type/temperament knowledge in day-to-day interactions will be what’s key. (Of course, if you haven’t figured it out, already, I’m an INFJ!) It’s all about utilizing the knowledge to aid in effective relationships. Look at the status of our nations and families. This is one area where the knowledge will begin at the bottom — in successful dyads — and work it’s way up.

    The new films are awesome. Thanks so much for all you do.

    Linda

    P.S. Wish there was someway I knew how to work with this!

  5. My result says I’m an Architect. To some extent, I don’t find it agreeable because I don’t think I am a smart person. I failed my Logic test just recently in school, and my common sense is so terrible that I am sometimes deemed by others stupid. But I do love reading and I am the most happiest person in the world when I learn something new. But I’m still confused. Is it just me? Please convince me that this test is genuine and not from what I think it is.

    1. First of all, your personality type does not represent the level of your intelligence, although it does influence the type of intelligence you pursue. Second, rationals are known for being extremely self-conscious and self-critical of their own intelligence; therefore, feeling smart or stupid does not determine your temperament. Third, common sense has almost nothing to do with abstract rational intelligence (I, an architect, used to look down on myself for my lack of common sense before discovering Please Understand Me II). As for the logic test, I can’t help you, but there are several factors involved there too, such as time restraints, and the type of logic involved.
      I doubt this reply will satisfy you, and I am not an expert, but I think a better reply could be formulated, given more information about how you recieved your INTP score, and in what ways it does agree with you.

      1. oh wait wait. I’m architect too. I’m reminded that sometimes, I ignore what others called common sense, or logic. But rather, I BEND all the things that I learned or accumulated in my head according to my kind of “logic”. For example, I don’t just use maths for counting, I also like using maths, in a sense, to calculate the timing in an action sequence. Maybe that’s why we don’t find ourselves having much common sense. Hope it helps.

  6. I am sure I am an INTP, not from the test but the description. I am a scholarly type who is rather lost in the Real World, but draws great joy from building or examining systems. My favorite fictions were often those that did the best at world-building; I was attracted to the pseudo-anthropology of Tolkien more then the story for a long time, and my favorite sci-fi was the Traveller RPG which is one of the best crafted systems ever written.

    Whatever the value of this system in Real Life, I think it has great potential for authorship and I have sometimes used it in classifying characters. I have often used it both in critiquing the works of others and in constructing my own characters for my own imagination.

  7. It’s interesting that, unlike people who treat their opinions like properties, architects are attached instead to making inductions and deductions, whose strength, rather than the success of their assumptions, they see as their own. That’s why they find it hard to empathize with incoherent defenses of dogmas. Architects could learn more patience with chitchat fallacies and woolliness, which are just as dear to their owners as lucidity is to architects.

    1. Mistakes were made, but not by me! (Tavris and Aronson, in chance you don’t get the ironic reference) Yes, even more egregious error was typing Lincoln in Please Understand Me (hardback in 1978) as a Guardian (SJ) by my father. For a long time, I had put Lincoln as an INTP (Architect Rational), but reconsidered when I looked at him closer. Definitely he was an Engineer (NTP) Rational, my father and Ray Choiniere in Presidential Temperament write about him. Clever dude, Lincoln, he was very Expressive, and less Attentive. Many reasons, too many to explain here.

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