Two-factor models of personality
The two-factor model of personality is a widely used psychological factor analysis measurement of personality, behavior and temperament. It most often consists of a matrix measuring the factor of introversion and extroversion with some form of people versus task orientation.
Beginnings
The Roman physician Galen mapped the four temperaments to a matrix of hot/cold and dry/wet, taken from the four classical elements. Two of these temperaments, sanguine and choleric, shared a common trait: quickness of response, while the melancholic and phlegmatic shared the opposite, a longer response. The melancholic and choleric, however, shared a sustained response, and the sanguine and phlegmatic shared a short-lived response. This meant that the choleric and melancholic both would tend to hang on to emotions like anger, and thus appear more serious and critical than the fun-loving sanguine, and the peaceful phlegmatic. However, the choleric would be characterized by quick expressions of anger ; while the melancholic would build up anger slowly, silently, before exploding. Also, the melancholic and sanguine would be sort of "opposites", as the choleric and phlegmatic, since they have opposite traits.These are the basis of the two factors that would define temperament in the modern theory.
Development
In the last few centuries, various psychologists would begin expressing the four temperaments in terms of pairs of behaviors that were held in common by two temperaments each.Ivan Pavlov, from his work with dogs, came up with the factors of "passivity" and "extremeness". His view of the temperaments in dogs was:
- The Melancholic type : categorized as "weak" dogs;
- Choleric type : strong, unbalanced, easily aroused ;
- Sanguine type : strong, balanced, mobile;
- Phlegmatic type : strong, balanced, sluggish.
Alfred Adler measured "activity" against "social interest", yielding the four "styles of life":
- Ruling or Dominant type: high activity, low social interest
- Getting or Leaning type: low activity, high social interest
- Avoiding type: low activity, low social interest
- Socially Useful type: high activity, high social interest
Erich Fromm's factors were acquiring and assimilating things, and reacting to people. These two factors form four types of character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing.
Also deserving mention is a single scale invented in the 1940s by Karen Horney. This one dimension measured "movement" towards, against and away from people. This would result in the coping strategies, in which these three "neurotic" patterns would be paired with a fourth, "healthy" one called "movement with people". These would describe behaviors associated with both extroversion and reacting to people, in which people attempt to avoid getting hurt, by either distancing themselves from others or maintaining self-sufficiency and independence on one hand; or approaching others, attempting to control or exploit them, and otherwise gain power and recognition; or "give in" to them to gain acceptance and approval, on the other.
Factors integrated into modern instruments
As the twentieth century progressed, numerous other instruments were devised measuring not only temperament, but also various individual aspects of personality and behavior, and several began using forms of extroversion and the developing category of people versus task focus as the factors.In 1928, William Moulton Marston identified four primary emotions, each with an initial feeling tone of either pleasantness or unpleasantness. This led to his viewing people's behavior along two axes, with their attention being either "passive" or "active", depending on the individual's perception of his or her environment as either "favorable" or "antagonistic". By placing the axes at right angles, four quadrants form with each describing a behavioral pattern:
- Dominance, which produces activity in an antagonistic environment; with a feeling of unpleasantness until stimulus is acted upon
- Compliance, which produces passivity in an antagonistic environment; with a feeling of unpleasantness until stimulus is reconciled
- Inducement, which produces activity in a favorable environment; with a feeling of pleasantness increasing as interaction increases
- Submission, which produces passivity in a favorable environment; with a feeling of pleasantness increasing as yielding increases
The California Psychological Inventory's CPI 260 Instrument also has similar scales, of "Initiates action, Confident in social situations" versus "Focuses on inner life, Values own privacy"; and "Rule-favoring, Likes stability, Agrees with others" versus "Rule-questioning, Has personal value system, Often disagrees with others" and the four "lifestyles": Leader, Supporter, Innovator, and Visualizer.
Two-Factors expanded to measure more than four types
Galen also had intermediate scales for "balance" between the hot/cold and wet/dry poles, yielding a total of nine temperaments. Four were the original humors, and five were balanced in one or both scales.Another addition to the two factor models was the creation of a 10 by 10 square grid developed by Robert R. Blake and Jane Mouton in their Managerial Grid Model introduced in 1964. This matrix graded, from 0–9, the factors of "Concern for Production" and "Concern for People", allowing a moderate range of scores, which yielded five "leadership styles":
- Impoverished
- Produce or Perish
- Country Club
- Team
- Middle of the Road
- Competing,
- Avoiding
- Accommodating
- Collaborating
- Compromising.
This would form the basis of the Five Temperaments theory by Dr. Richard G. and Phyllis Arno, in which the ancient temperaments were mapped to the FIRO-B scales, with Phlegmatic becoming the moderate e/w instead of low e/high w, which was now taken to constitute a fifth temperament called "Supine", which has many of the "introverted and relationship oriented" traits of the other types defined as such, above.. The moderate scores mixed with high or low are designated "Phlegmatic blends" and divided with 4 being a blend of Phlegmatic with the lower adjacent temperament, and 5 being a blend with the higher adjacent temperament. This results in 13 separate ranges in each area.
Other factor pairs
Other factors devised along the way measured other aspects of personality, mostly cognitive aspects. This would form a second strain of temperament theory, one which enjoys the most popularity today.Immanuel Kant defined his typology by a duality of the beautiful and sublime, and concluded it was possible to represent the four temperaments with a square of opposition using the presence or absence of the two attributes. He determined that the phlegmatic type has no interest in either the beautiful or the sublime, so there was an absence of both. The melancholic had a feeling for both, and the sanguine had a predominating feeling for the beautiful, while the choleric, he determined after comparing with the melancholic, lacked a sense of beauty and had only a sense of the sublime.
Hans Eysenck was one of the first psychologists to analyze personality differences using a psycho-statistical method, and his research led him to believe that temperament is biologically based. In his book Dimensions of Personality he paired Extraversion, which was "the tendency to enjoy positive events", especially social ones, with Neuroticism, which was the tendency to experience negative emotions. By pairing the two dimensions, Eysenck noted how the results were similar to the four ancient temperaments.
- High N, High E = Choleric
- High N, Low E = Melancholy
- Low N, High E = Sanguine
- Low N, Low E = Phlegmatic
Carl Jung, in the early 20th century, introduced the four factors that would become a part of the later MBTI, and these included extroversion/introversion, sensing and intuition, and thinking/feeling, which would be correlated to Agreeableness, with Judging-Perceiving roughly as Conscientiousness.
Ernst Kretschmer divided personality into two "constitutional groups": Schizothymic, which contain a "Psychaesthetic proportion" between sensitive and cold poles, and Cyclothymic which contain a "Diathetic" proportion between gay and sad. The Schizoids consist of the Hyperesthetic and Anesthetic characters, and the Cycloids consist of the Depressive and Hypomanic characters.
David W. Keirsey would make the connection of the two groups with Myers' Sensors and iNtuitors, providing the two factors for his four temperaments. He would rename Sensing to "Observant" or "Concrete", and Intuiting to "Introspection" or "Abstract", and pair it with "Cooperative" versus "Pragmatic" which would be the "Conscientiousness" scale; to form:
- SP Artisan
- SJ Guardian
- NT Rational
- NF Idealist
The Enneagram of Personality would map its nine types to a matrix, whose scales are "Surface Direction" and "Deep Direction". These are similar to Extroversion and people/task-orientation, but instead of the types being plotted on a scale of 0–9, Horney's original three grades of "towards", "away", and "against" were retained, and now used in both dimensions. This changes the criteria, as the "moderate" grade is considered "away", but this does not necessarily correspond to the moderate extroversion or agreeableness scores of the other instruments.
Table of theories and instruments neither using scales explicitly nor recognizing a moderate temperament
Table of theories and instruments not recognizing a moderate temperament
Table of theories and instruments compared to using "Concrete"/Abstract" (Sensing/Intuitive) and "Cooperative"/"Pragmatic"
Table of theories and instruments using Hippocrates' four humours but not recognizing a moderate temperament
Table of theories and instruments using Hippocrates' four humours
[Classical elements] c. 450 BC
Table of theories and instruments using extroversion and people-task-orientation
William Schutz, Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-B
In 1977, a clinical psychologist who worked with FIRO-B, Dr. Leo Ryan, produced maps of the scores for each area, called "locator charts", and assigned names for all of the score ranges in his Clinical Interpretation of The FIRO-B:| Score | Inclusion | Control | Affection | Temperament by APS |
| Low e and w | The Loner | The Rebel | The Pessimist | Melancholy |
| moderate e, low w | "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" Tendencies | Self-Confident | "Image of Intimacy" Tendency | Phlegmatic Melancholy / Phlegmatic Choleric |
| High e, low w | Now You See Him, Now You Don't | Mission Impossible | Image/ of Intimacy | Choleric |
| high e, moderate w | The Conversationalist | "Mission Impossible" with Narcissistic Tendencies | Living Up To Expectations | Sanguine Phlegmatic / Choleric Phlegmatic |
| high e and w | People Gatherer | Dependent-Independent conflict | The Optimist | Sanguine |
| moderate e, high w | Hidden Inhibitions | Let's Take a Break | Cautious Lover In Disguise | Phlegmatic Supine / Phlegmatic Sanguine |
| low e, high w | Inhibited Individual | Openly Dependent Person; | Cautious Lover | Supine |
| low e, moderate w | Cautious Expectation | The Checker | Careful Moderation | Supine Phlegmatic / Melancholy Phlegmatic |
| moderate e and w | Social Flexibility | The Matcher | Warm Individual/The Golden Mean | Phlegmatic |