Temperament refers to personality traits that determine how someone reacts to the world. Are they quiet or outgoing? Easygoing or apprehensive? A person’s temperament style plays a role in how they behave and interact with other people and within their world.
Each person has their own unique combination of personality or temperament traits, so you may be similar to another person.
Understanding people’s temperament will also help you have appropriate expectations for them. Learning about the temperament you were born with can give you a whole new perspective…
Understanding the temperaments can also be the key that helps unlock answers to why your friends, family, and your dates act the way they do.
Temperament is distinct from personality. While the personality refers to the entirety of a person’s behavior, emotions, and thought patterns, a temperament more specifically refers to how we react to things.
When dating, temperaments can be more important. Your temperament, your date’s temperament, and how you compliment each other can help reveal the success of a future relationship.
The four temperaments are:
Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic.
The sanguine does and likes things the fun way and is impulsive and pleasure-seeking. They are often thought of as the life of the party because they are enthusiastic, excited, and fun to be around.
They are creative, outgoing, compassionate, and enjoy being the center of attention. The sanguine tends to have a lot of energy and easily makes friends.
They do not like being bored and are not fans of too much routine or structure.
They are often late for things and can be frazzled and disorganized at home or at work.
The choleric like doing things their way and are natural-born leaders, ambitious and decisive from birth.
They are goal-oriented and driven. Often referred to as a “Type A personality”, the choleric is the strongest of the extroverted temperaments.
They are sometimes referred to as control freaks because they like being the ones to make the decisions. Independent and strong-willed, choleric prefer to be in positions of authority.
They are decisive and feel a duty to correct things when they see they have been done wrong.
They prefer to rely on their own logic and reasoning rather than accept the blind teachings of others.
Cholerics can be impatient, bossy, quick-tempered, and enjoy arguments.
Melancholics like to do things the right way, they are the thinkers.
Independent and self-reliant, they throw themselves wholly into their tasks.
They can be very creative when it comes to the arts – music, literature, etc.
But because they tend to see the glass as half empty, they easily get caught up in the tragedy of the world.
They are purposeful, self-sacrificing, and philosophical.
Highly organized, they are list makers, schedule oriented, like things tidy and neat, and always finish what they start.
Melancholics feel deeply and are extremely loyal to their friends and family.
Due to their desire for perfectionism, they can suffer bouts of depression due to dissatisfaction with their lives or those of others.
The phlegmatic love things the easy way and are easy-going, cool, calm, and collected people.
They are tolerant, kind, and unassuming. Phlegmats prefer to avoid conflict and want everyone to be happy.
They are often shy and prefer the comfort of stability to a life of constant change. Phlegmats are usually described as warm, compassionate, harmonious, relaxed, consistent, and rational.
While they like the idea of contributing to society, phlegmats can be selfish, living in their own world, and sometimes a little bit passive-aggressive.
They need to be pushed to achieve dreams and goals.
People can have more than one temperament. Or even three but one us always more pronounced.
Often when building a friendship or dating relationship, we struggle to understand or interpret people’s actions. A guy who doesn’t offer to pay for your meal. A woman responds, “I don’t care” or “whatever” every time you ask where she would like to go out to dinner. Maybe someone doesn’t respond to your messages very quickly, even though you text back as soon as you receive a text.
An understanding of the temperaments can give you an entirely new insight into why people act the way that they do and lead to more tolerance and understanding. For instance, if you’re a social butterfly who can’t wait to go out on the town every weekend. Your melancholic counterpart would rather stay in and watch a movie in the quiet of their own home.
Perhaps you are choleric who is excellent about communication and messaging. If the person you’re dating is a phlegmatic, they may not get back to you for hours – or days! They don’t act this way because they don’t like you or want to be with you. Instead, they’re laid back and don’t experience the rush or urgency to return your calls.
Some temperaments compliment each other, while others don’t.
The amazing thing about the temperaments is that, like personalities, they can compliment each other beautifully. Take the choleric and phlegmatic for example. This combination of temperaments can do a really good job balancing each other out. They make excellent marriage partners because of their different strengths.
The melancholic and phlegmatic temperaments compliment each other wonderfully in a relationship. They may not have an immediate and intense attraction to one another. But once they build a relationship, it is usually a strong and loyal one that can stand the test of time.
Some temperaments can easily clash.
Just like there are temperaments that compliment each other well, there are those that require a lot of work to mesh. For instance, consider the sanguine and the melancholic. Polar opposite temperaments that can become heated with each other without much provocation. The melancholic may try and force the sanguine to settle down and not be quite so adventurous, while the sanguine may seem stubborn and flighty to the melancholic.
Does this mean that the melancholic and Sanguine can never work in a relationship, especially a romantic one? Absolutely not. But the waters will be much less turbulent if they each know and understand the temperament of the other and honor it.
While you are what you are as far as temperament is concerned, the good news is that you do have the ability to train yourself to excel in the strengths of your temperament while working to reduce the negative aspects. For example, you may be sanguine. As fun as you can be, you may frustrate others with your frequent tardiness or failure to follow through with projects. With proper work and spiritual training, it is possible to become more efficient time managers and stick through tasks to the end.
The choleric will always have to work at overcoming their anger and hot temper. Through meditation, prayer, and often the help of someone close to them, they can learn to fuel that passion into good.
The melancholic must learn to see the good and joy in all things, to overcome the negativity so easily experienced by their environment.
The phlegmatic, known for be so calm and easy to get along with, can sometimes be too easygoing and seem conviction-less. This temperament should always pray for a firm resolve to choose wise pursuits and to try to reach out more when it comes to others.
Temperaments are important in relationships because they help us relate better with people when we know how they’ll react. In all be ready and willing to improve on your weakness and build on your strengths. Let me know what temperaments you belong to…
