A temperament is that part of your personality that interacts with information in the world. You might also call it your ‘world view’. It is the way you think, the way you feel and the way you behave. Your thoughts are going to influence how you feel, and then how you feel is going to influence how you act.
Within the temperament, we have something that we call ‘thought patterns’. Take for instance, when milk is spilled, there is a way that a mother will think about the spilled milk and the child who spilled the milk, and what it means. That is going to trigger emotions and those emotions are going to trigger a behavior.
We have 4 types of temperaments that I refer to in my line of work, to help my audience and clients know how they think and how that impacts their relationships.
The Choleric is dubbed the ‘powerful Choleric’ because they are leaders, visionaries, confident and also risk takers. It is said that the Cholerics have only one emotion – anger. They avoid being emotional, especially with mushy emotions. They are very logical and tend to think in terms of the goal. For them, the goal is more important than the process of getting there (‘The end justifies the means’). You’ll find that they tend to be black-and-white thinkers. Their biggest struggle in relationships is that they speak before they think, and so they can really hurt people in their relationships. They have no filter, so they will speak then apologize, but the damage has already been done by then. They are very intense in their anger, and so their bite is painful. They say words that make you shudder, then they will say “I was just angry” or “I was just drunk, I didn’t mean it”.
The Melancholic is the analyzer – the means is as important as the end. They are very perfectionistic. While the Choleric is perfectionistic to complete the goal, the Melancholic wants to do the process right and finish well. Melancholics are analytical and very introspective. They are conscientious and consider other people’s feelings, making them very empathetic and they are also very compassionate and kind. Melancholics value relationships a lot. One of their biggest struggles is overthinking. They tend to ruminate a lot, play things in their mind and loop things. For instance, if something happened last year and it happens again this year, the Melancholic tends to loop them together. They can get themselves drained by past events because they are unable to let them go. They say that they forgive, but they cannot forget, though I call that overlooking, not forgiving. Events stay in their memory because they have a high need for perfection. For them, if they do not understand something, they will not let it go and do not believe in the genuineness of an apology. This is one of the struggles that they face in a relationship.
The Sanguine is the ‘butterfly’. Sanguines are happy-go-lucky, expressive, talkative and chatty. They go with the flow, so they are not deep and do not think or talk deeply about things that they do not hold on to. They tend to forget quickly, start one project and leave it unfinished and start another. Their biggest problem is people-pleasing. You might meet them and ask them “Who are you?” and the response will be, “Whoever you want me to be.” They can mix in and camouflage and so people in a relationship with a Sanguine struggle with trusting them, as they can never tell if they are telling them the truth or not. Sanguines run away from depth.
The Phlegmatic is calm, cool and collected. They are very harmony oriented and they do not like conflict. They will do anything to keep things the same. With them, you will not be able to resolve a conflict because the moment you start to talk about something that looks like an argument, they are going to avoid it and exit that conversation very quickly. They do this by stonewalling and not engaging, no eye contact and not attending to the conversation. They may use something intellectual to deflate and end the conversation, or they will agree but not follow through. People in a relationship with a Phlegmatic struggle with not being able to resolve anything, and communication is very hard.
We need to understand where we are. There are people who tell me, “I keep doing this and that and I feel bad that I cannot let myself off that space.” This is where I work with them so that they can develop skills in self-regulation. All the above temperaments need to learn self-regulation. This not only benefits them in their lives as individuals, but also in their relationships.
Do you know your temperament and that of your partner?
