Good news! Despite conventional wisdom, and many alarmist essays to the contrary, reading for pleasure is still a popular pastime both in the U.S. and the rest of the world. (For a taste of the “alarmist essays to the contrary”, google “death of reading” and wade through more than 1.3 million results.)
Keirsey Research recently surveyed 3,311 people who had completed the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II at Keirsey.com to first find out if “the death of reading” is in fact imminent, and to see if there are significant differences in the reading habits of the 4 Temperaments. We were specifically interested in peoples’ reading habits when it comes to books, as opposed to other media such as magazines, newspapers, websites, etc.
As noted in the opening paragraph, the answer to our first question is an emphatic “No!” Almost 80% of our respondents tell us they enjoy reading books, and almost three quarters of them like to read for the pleasure of it. Less than 20% consider book reading to be “unimportant” to them, more than 55% have read a complete book in the past month, and more than half are currently reading a book. It seems that, even with the proliferation of screens in the world, there is still a lot of book reading going on.
The second of our objectives – to see if there are significant differences between the 4 Temperaments when it comes to reading habits – found that the answer is yes. However, gender also plays a big part: women are much more avid readers as a gender than are men. Perhaps this is not a surprise – it does seem that most book clubs (Oprah’s being the most famous) are comprised predominantly of women. A guardian friend of mine, a male, pointed out to me, “They need something to do while I’m watching football / baseball / basketball / hockey / MMA / (ad infinitum) on TV.”
After the jump, we get into specifics: which Temperament reads the most? Which is the most likely to be found at a public library? Do the different Temperaments prefer different genres? Who is more likely to go to a bookstore and buy a book? Given a choice of books or TV, who would be more likely to choose books? Who would be more likely to choose TV? Make your guesses and read on.
