When Art and Laraine were first dating, she was immediately drawn to Art’s quiet, thoughtful demeanor and dry wit. They met in a college philosophy class; Art winked at her from across the room in the middle of an excruciating analysis of Hegel’s phenomenology of mind. Art, for his part, was attracted by Laraine’s outgoing, enthusiastic personality – and her sharp mind, of course!
But it is no secret that the characteristics that attract people to one another can eventually begin to annoy. This is where understanding temperaments can help. When Art became annoyed by Laraine’s impulsivity, her seemingly insatiable appetite for adventure and her need to talk, he had to recall that these are aspects of her God-given temperament. When Laraine became exasperated by Art’s pessimism and reticence, she had to remind herself that he was a slow-responding, introverted phlegmatic – and not to say to him, “What a stick-in-the-mud!”
In a nutshell, here are the four “classic” temperaments:
