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Development of a Validated Temperament Psychometric
Motivation
In September 2003 Linda V. Berens and Dario Nardi created items for an online
assessment of Keirseyian temperament, which Dr. Berens has published in Introduction
to Temperament and elsewhere. Briefly, the four categories theorized by temperament
describe interrelated needs, values, talents and behaviors. The purpose of the assessment
is to act as a data point to help a person decide on their temperament relative to their
interaction style and best-fit personality type. This assessment is the very first of its kind
that is extensively tested and true to Keirseyian temperament theory.
Process and Phase 1 Testing
The study has been conducted in four phases. In phase one, Drs. Berens and Nardi
created items and secured feedback from other type experts to improve the items and
provide informed perspectives of individuals of other temperament patterns. Some of
these items were taken from earlier projects including items created by Nardi based on
Character and Personality Type in 1999. Other items were taken from a proprietary
assessment created in 1996 and a workshop by Dr. Berens dating to 1986. Two of these
items were meta-questions, asking respondents about how they’d like to proceed and how
the experience was when finished. This informal phase 1 process resulted in a working
online assessment.
Later, phase two assessed over 600 individuals and looked at inter-item correlations and
correlations with other instruments. Phrase three, just finished in mid-August 2004, has
drawn upon a criterion group of individuals of known temperament, to validate the
assessment. An ongoing phase four assesses a group naïve about their temperament; they
will first take the assessment and then go through a self-discovery process.
Overall Design
The assessment was originally segmented into 13 sections.
Ten sections offered a lead-in question followed by four options, one for each
temperament pattern. Respondents were asked to rate each option from “not like” them to
“a lot like” them. Rating correlated to points 1,2,3, 4 or 5 and the temperament with the
highest total score would be considered highest overall for the respondent.
One section consisted of six items representing temperament style dynamics (abstractconcrete, affiliative-pragmatic, and motive-structure). Each item was a pair of options
presented in opposition, Respondents rated a match to themselves along a 4 point
spectrum. For example, one might be “very abstract”, “somewhat abstract”, “somewhat
concrete” or “very concrete.” Each end of the spectrum is associated with two
temperaments, and scoring gave equal weight to both.
One final section presented four whole pattern snapshots. These are the same snapshots
used successfully in Beren’s Introduction to Temperament. Respondents were asked to
rate separately each snapshot on a scale from “not like me” to “exactly like me.” Each
© July, August 2004 Dario Nardi and Linda Berens
For more information, contact Dario at 323-650-1251 (US Pacific time) or dnardi@math.ucla.edu
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snapshot contained all major qualities of that temperament pattern, woven into a systemic
description. These snapshots played the role of what a person might encounter from
facilitated feedback.
Because we had some experience with the items from past forays, and because of the
promising feedback from phase 1, we did not include text boxes for feedback except at
the very end of the assessment.
Phase 2 Testing
General testing began in November 2003 from www.4temperaments.com/assessment/.
Anyone could take the assessor. Additional data was gathered:
- Who sent them, and their first initial and last name (for tracking purposes)
- Sex and age (in case development played a role)
- MBTI® personality type code, if known and how they came to know their
type
- Hermann Brain Dominance result, if known, and how they came to know their
Hermann result.
Most respondents were directed to the site by TRI-affiliated professionals. Others came
from www.16types.com, an online store. A few came from Google or other search
engines. A few were TRI trained and we could confirm their type code.
In the end, no respondents reported Hermann Brain Dominance Indicator results so that
instrument is not discussed here.
Statistical Analysis
In June 2004 Dario Nardi collected and analyzed the phase 2 data. Over 600 samples
were collected. Blank, partially-filled, and duplicate samples were discarded, leaving 617
samples. If only one item was left unanswered, the sample was kept. Statistical analysis
consisted of inter-item correlations using the Pearson r statistic.. This doesn’t require
confirmation of a respondents personality type. Rather, it asks how well correlated to
each other are items representing the same category. We focused in particular on
consistency with the snapshots since these proved the best performers in the pilot study
and represent “wholes” rather than “parts”. The following codes are used in some places:
“A” means Artisan, “G” means Guardian, “R” means Rational, and “I” means Idealist.
Performance of Four Snapshots
Based on the results summarized in Table 1, the snapshots are excellent differentiators
with either zero or slight negative correlations between each other. We could hardly ask
for anything better!
Table 1: Pearson r correlations between temperament snapshots
Artisan
Guardian
Rational
Idealist
Artisan
1.00
-0.12
-0.06
-0.01
Guardian
-0.12
1.00
-0.09
-0.13
Rational
-0.06
-0.09
1.00
-0.20
Idealist
-0.01
-0.13
-0.20
1.00
© July, August 2004 Dario Nardi and Linda Berens
For more information, contact Dario at 323-650-1251 (US Pacific time) or dnardi@math.ucla.edu
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Performance of Ten Core Sections
Ten sections consisted of a lead-in question with 4 options. Respondents ranked each
option relative to the others. There were 40 items total. Items representing the same
temperament pattern would ideally be highly correlated. For the purpose of this study, we
considered weak or bad items to have r < .3. Table 2 lists “r” values for temperament
items in each section relative to the temperament snapshots. We also looked at
correlations relative to other items of the same temperament.
Four sections (A,C, F and J) required no change. Section G seemed to require significant
tweaking to work in the future – Guardians liked the Artisan item, and Artisans liked the
Rational item! The other sections suggested the need to improve one item in each. The
results also suggested that meta-questions are effective for assessment purposes.
Table 2: Pearson r correlations for temperament items to expected temperament
Section
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
J
K
Artisan
.42
.28 (also G = .22)
.45
-.07
.08 (also G = .11)
.26
-.03 (also G=.11)
.07
.49
.17 (also G = .17)
Guardian
.35
.30
.36
.23
.17
.30
.08
.22
.48
.33
Rational
.38
.45
.23
.10 (A = .11)
.17
.36
.29
.06 (G = .1)
.57
.18
Idealist
.36
.44
.43
.17
.34
.35
.33
.26
.70
.27
Temperament Dynamics
Temperament posits “things in common”, such as Artisan and Idealist sharing a motive
orientation and Guardian and Rational sharing a structure orientation. The motivestructure dynamic is unique to Berens conception of temperament and goes beyond the
Keirsey’s theory. This section had 6 pairs of items arranged in opposition along a
spectrum. These items were designed to tap in to abstract-concrete, pragmatic-affiliative
and motive-structure. Table 3 exemplifies correlations. Note: not all r values parallel each
other (e.g., 0.26 for Guardian concrete vs. -0.35 for Guardian abstract). This is because
the instrument allowed rating along a spectrum of four values between two categories.
Table 3: Pearson r correlations between temperament and dynamics*
Item
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
5
5
6
6
Temperament Dynamic
concrete-abstract (concrete)
concrete-abstract (abstract)
concrete-abstract (concrete)
concrete-abstract (abstract)
pragmatic-affiliative (pragmatic)
pragmatic-affiliative (affiliative)
pragmatic-affiliative (pragmatic)
pragmatic-affiliative (affiliative)
motive-structure (motive)
motive-structure (structure)
motive-structure (motive)
motive-structure (structure)
Artisan
-0.03
0.03
0.04
-0.02
0.11
-0.09
0.21
-0.19
0.07
-0.04
0.10
-0.06
Guardian
0.26
-0.35
0.30
-0.33
-0.13
0.13
-0.15
0.14
-0.17
0.18
-0.26
0.30
Rational
-0.21
0.18
-0.07
0.07
0.11
-0.11
0.22
-0.21
-0.21
0.19
-0.06
0.06
Idealist
-0.12
0.18
-0.20
0.24
-0.17
0.18
-0.20
0.24
0.31
-0.29
0.19
-0.12
© July, August 2004 Dario Nardi and Linda Berens
For more information, contact Dario at 323-650-1251 (US Pacific time) or dnardi@math.ucla.edu
4
The results were discouraging. Only items 1, 4 and 5 were promising and required work
to improve them. Fortunately, these three items each tapped into a different dynamic. The
next iteration of the instrument would still have temperament dynamics items.
Correlations with MBTI® and Self-Study
Respondents were asked about their personality type code, if known, and how they
determined their type. A total of 229 reported their type code. Only a tiny handful were
TRI affiliated. Most determined their type by MBTI® result or a temperament sorter.
Even with the MBTI® error rate (1 letter off 25% of the time), we should still expect a
trend of agreement between the two instruments except maybe where ingrained biases
might happen. For example, we might wonder if many de-facto Artisans scored
something other than _S_P type on the MBTI®. In any case, all 16 types were
represented among those who reported their type. There were enough respondents to
compare results for 14 types. Table 4 below summarizes the most highly correlated
temperament for each personality type. In most cases, the correlation was strong. In some
cases there was a runner-up, which is also shown.
The temperament model posits a specific link between the 4 temperaments and the 16
personality types on a type-by-type basis. This link matched as expected for 9 of 14 types
although 3 of these also correlated to Artisan. Two non-matches correlated strongly with
Artisan instead of the expected type. The strong correlations toward Artisan suggested an
underlying bias either in the items or in the context. The trend was clear enough to likely
be more than misreporting on the MBTI.
Table 4: Strongest correlations between temperament and personality type
INFJ
Idealist
ENFJ
Idealist & Artisan*
INTJ
Rational
ENTJ
Artisan*
INFP
Idealist
ENFP
Idealist & Artisan*
INTP
Rational
ENTP
Artisan*
ISTJ
Rational
ESTJ
Guardian & Artisan*
ISTP
Artisan
ESTP
Artisan
ISFJ
No correlations
ESFJ
Insufficient data
ISFP
No correlations
ESFP
Insufficient data
* indicates correlation counter to theory
At first glance the results suggest clear mismatches between the MBTI® and this
temperament assessment. The IN__ types match very strongly and constituted a majority
of respondents but many people of various other self-reported types scored as Artisan.
We discovered the cause was two-fold. First, a few of the Artisan items needed turn offs.
Perhaps we over-compensated in making these Artisan items too attractive to
respondents. More significantly, however, we excluded the 3 poor-performers from the
temperament dynamics section and recalculated respondents’ temperaments. Then the
assessment results matched much more closely with MBTI® results! Table 5 shows the
results based on the revised scoring. ISFJ and ISFP also showed more consistent results,
through improvement was needed. The ISTJ represents a peculiar case.
© July, August 2004 Dario Nardi and Linda Berens
For more information, contact Dario at 323-650-1251 (US Pacific time) or dnardi@math.ucla.edu
5
Table 5: Strongest correlations between temperament and personality type using
revised scoring method
INFJ
Idealist
ENFJ
Idealist
INTJ
Rational
ENTJ
Rational
INFP
Idealist
ENFP
Idealist
INTP
Rational
ENTP
Artisan-Rational*
ISTJ
Rational-Guardian*
ESTJ
Guardian
ISTP
Artisan
ESTP
Artisan
ISFJ
Guardian-Rational
ESFJ
Insufficient data
ISFP
Artisan-Guardian
ESFP
Insufficient data
Changes to Assessment
Before moving to phase 3, several kinds of changes were made:
- Some Artisan items were made less appealing to non-Artisans
- 3 pairs of items in the temperament dynamics section were deleted.
- Items were analyzed and adjustments made specifically with ISTJ in mind.
- The form asking for Hermann results was deleted.
Phase 3 Testing
As of August 2004, 61 individuals of verified and validated best-fit type have completed
a revised assessment. These individuals arrived to best-fit type over the course of a
professional qualification program and completed the TRI multiple-models methodology.
They reflect how type-knowledgeable persons would respond. All 16 types are
represented. Forty-eight (58) of 61 (95 percent) responded to give a match between
assessment results and their best-fit type. One was a tie between three temperaments, one
of which was the expected temperament. A tie-breaking scheme was proposed: ties
would be broken in favor of the highest ranked snapshot, or if insufficient, in favor of the
same of temperament dynamics. With only one tie, future analysis would be needed to
confirm or deny this approach. We did not have MBTI data for this group. Typical
Pearson r correlations are shown in Table 6.
Table 6: Typical Pearson r correlations for phase 3 items
Artisan
Guardian
Rational
0.49
0.14
-.25
Artisan
0.14
0.40
-.17
Guardian
-0.19
-0.13
.52
Rational
0.12
-0.12
-.02
Idealist
Idealist
-0.15
-0.15
-0.03
0.63
The correlations are strong and consistent although some minor tweaks or improvements
could be made to 7 of the 50 items, where a secondary correlation with an unexpected
temperament was present with the expected correlation. For example, the Idealist item in
section D had r = .42 with Idealist but also r = .31 with Guardian (correlations with
Artisan and Rational were negative). After collecting more data, a few items might merit
tweaking before moving to phase 4.
Phase 4
In progress.
© July, August 2004 Dario Nardi and Linda Berens
For more information, contact Dario at 323-650-1251 (US Pacific time) or dnardi@math.ucla.edu