Index: Personality Theories, Types and Tests

eysenck's personality inventory and the four temperaments

British psychologist Hans Jurgen Eysenck (1916-97) was born in Berlin. A Jewish sympathiser, he left Germany in 1934 for England, where he studied and later taught psychology at London University. He became a prolific writer in the field of clinical psychology and also had a great interest in psychometrics. He disagreed with the principles of psychoanalysis and preferred the (at times controversial) view that genetics (inherited factors - our genes) are significant in determining the psychological differences between people, and more besides.

Eysenck used extensive research and questionnaires to build a personality inventory which he related to Galen's Four Temperaments. The fit is not perfect with the more recent interpretations of the Four Temperaments (Keirsey, Myers Briggs®) but there are certainly many common aspects between the Eysenck and Galen models.

Eysenck's concepts are particularly interesting, and provide a valuable additional perspective compared to the Four Temperaments, Jung, Myers Briggs®, and Keirsey, because they explore and analyze a personality dimension related to emotional stability.

Eysenck's approach to personality assessment was the first popular scalable mathematical methodology. Previous theories generally placed a person within one of the defining types, or between two types, or attributed a mixture of types to a person's personality.

Eysenck's 1950s theory (he later added a third dimension) measures personality using two scales:

Eysenck's theory also refers to instability as unstable, emotionally unstable, or neurotic.

*While Eysenck's scientific headings of 'stable' and 'unstable' or 'neurotic' can be seen as judgemental (good or bad) it's important not to see them in this way. Academics (including Eysenck) tend to write for other academics and forget or disregard that certain language carries negative meanings and stigmas in normal life, such as the words unstable and neurotic. Eysenck did not use the words to convey a sense of good or bad - he used them because he felt scientifically comfortable with the terms. If discussing these concepts with people who might be sensitive to words like 'unstable' or 'neurotic' it can be helpful to interpret Eysenck's 'instability' or 'neuroticism' to mean 'emotional', and for 'stable' to equate to 'unemotional'. 'Unemotional-emotional' was not Eysenck's alternative scale, it's my suggested alternative for seeing that this scale is not a question of good or bad.

By surveying many thousands of people, using many and various adjectives (traits) representing behaviors and types, Eysenck built a scalable model which also formed the basis of what became the Eysenck personality test.

Eysenck's theory regards the choleric and melancholic temperaments as being emotionally unstable (let's say 'emotional'), and the sanguine and phlegmatic temperaments as being emotionally stable (unemotional). The theory sees the phlegmatic and melancholic temperaments as being introverted, and the choleric and sangine temperaments as being extraverted. At this point there is clear divergence from the Eysenck model and certain recent interpretations of the Four Temperaments, since, for example, Keirsey and Myers Briggs® clearly assert that introversion and extraversion appear in each of the four temperaments. Eysenck's ideas are a part-fit with MBTI® and Keirsey, but certainly not a direct overlay.

The Eysenck theory produces four main types types of personality, which he said resembled Galen's Four Temperaments:

Within which are several key words of graduated significance relative to the heading elements (Eysenck presented this as a four-quadrant circle containing his describing words, rather than the matrix shown here). The colors merely reflect those used in the Four Temperaments section for ease of comparison and do not appear in Eysenck's theory:

Can you see yourself, and others perhaps, in this model? Could you define yourself according to a mixture of these characteristics? Perhaps you can see in yourself a leading 'type' with one or two supporting types? (This is not how Eysenck intended the model to be used, but seeing it in this way can be helpful for understanding your own and others' personality types.)

Again note that the fit is not perfect between Eysenck's model and recent interpretations of the Four Temperaments such as Keirsey and Myers Briggs®, but there are certainly many common aspects between Eysenck and Galen.

The significant difference between Eysenck's ideas and the Four Temperaments interpretations of Galen and the older theorists is that Eysenck's (1950s) theory measures personality according to two scalable dimensions, introversion-extraversion and stability-instability; whereas traditional Four Temperaments ideas simply seek to define personality according to one of the four temperaments. In this respect Eysenck's model is far more sophisticated, and indeed add an extra dimension (stable-unstable) that is not found at all in popular systems such as Keirsey and Myers Briggs®. In this respect Eysenck's model offers a highly significant and helpful additional perspective to the Four Temperaments, Jung's Psychological Types, and the Keirsey and Myers Briggs® systems on which they were based.

Eysenck's ideas have been developed and supported using studies and surveys of many thousands of people. Eysenck was one of the most prolific researchers and writers on the subject of personality and its measurement, and yet he continued to strive for improved understanding and interpretation into the 1990s, having worked for 60 years in the field. Proof, if any were needed, that this is indeed a complex area, and one which we are still a long long way from fully comprehending.

It is interesting to note also that Eysenck's 1950s key words feature strongly in at least one modern version of the DISC personality testing system, which testifies to the enduring importance of Eysenck's work, and which provides yet another indication of the similarity and common themes between many of these 'different' personality models.

Eysenck later theorised about a third dimension: psychoticism, from his studies of mentally disturbed people, and which can be related to risk-taking and eccentricity. In his later life Eysenck also developed better scientific understanding of Jung's introversion and extraversion 'attitudes', which, along with his other ideas helped Katherine Benziger develop her own ideas of personality and behavior.

Hans Eysenck's key books include: Uses and Abuses of Psychology (1953); Know Your Own IQ (1962); Race, Intelligence and Education (1971), and the autobiographical Rebel without a Cause (1990).

source:  www.businessballs.com

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