Temperament
Different temperaments, same virtues
People are made differently. Some are outgoing and some love home, some keep many friends and some a few, some think out loud and some think first. Every temperament can practice courtesy, kindness, listening, and loyalty, each in its own way.
Made differently, on purpose
No two students are made alike. One walks into a room and is talking with three people before the coats are off; another finds one familiar face and settles in for a long, quiet conversation. One loves a full house on Sunday afternoon; another is happiest with a book and a single good friend. These differences are part of how God made us, and they are good.
Temperament is not the same thing as a skill or a virtue. A temperament is the way a person is naturally inclined: toward people or toward quiet, toward quick action or careful watching. A skill or a virtue is a good habit that anyone can grow in by practice. A quiet student can become wonderfully courteous, and an outgoing student can become a patient listener. Temperament shapes how a good habit looks in a particular person, and which habits come easily and which take more practice. It never decides whether a person can be kind.
So this curriculum never treats being reserved, being quiet, preferring home, or having a few close friends as something to fix, and it never treats being outgoing as something to tame. The goal is the same for everyone: to love God and neighbor well, with the temperament we were given.
Four virtues, many temperaments
Here is how four of the habits in this curriculum can look in different kinds of people. Neither column is the better one; both are real courtesy, kindness, listening, and loyalty.
Courtesy
More outgoing: A warm, ready hello to everyone at the door, and a cheerful thank-you said aloud.
More reserved: A clear greeting and a steady look, a door held without fuss, and a handwritten thank-you note.
Courtesy is not the number of words we say. It is the respect we show.
Kindness
More outgoing: Noticing someone who is down and drawing them into the group with an invitation.
More reserved: Sitting quietly beside someone who is down, or sending a short note the next day.
Both ways tell a person, "I see you, and you matter."
Listening
More outgoing: Asking good questions and keeping a conversation lively, then choosing to pause and let the other person finish.
More reserved: Giving full, patient attention, then choosing to speak up with a follow-up question so the speaker knows they were heard.
Each temperament has a natural head start on one half of listening and practices the other half.
Loyalty
More outgoing: Remembering many friends and checking in across a wide circle, then going deep with one friend in a hard season.
More reserved: Standing by a few close friends for years, keeping their confidences, and opening the circle now and then for someone new.
A loyal friend keeps showing up, whether they have two friends or twenty.
The four temperaments: an old lens
People have noticed these differences for a very long time. Ancient Greek physicians in the Hippocratic tradition taught that health depends on a right balance of the body's humours, and one Hippocratic treatise names four of them: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.
Galen of Pergamon, the great physician of the second century, carried this teaching further. For Galen a temperament (in Greek, krasis, a "mixing") was the particular blend of warm, cold, moist, and dry in a living body, and he wrote a whole book on the subject, which he mentions in On the Natural Faculties.
Later physicians, teachers, and spiritual writers in the medieval and Renaissance centuries joined the four humours to four kinds of character: the sanguine (from blood), the choleric (from yellow bile), the melancholic (from black bile), and the phlegmatic (from phlegm). Robert Burton still uses this language in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), and for centuries pastors, teachers, and parents used the four temperaments to think about how to guide different children.
Medicine no longer explains the body by humours, and we offer the four temperaments here as a traditional lens, not as a label or a verdict on anyone. It is a way earlier generations talked, often wisely, about the different gifts and struggles of different people. Most people are a mix, and a person's temperament can soften or deepen with age, grace, and practice.
“I have, however, also investigated these questions, in so far as they are of value to a physician, in my work "On Temperaments."”
Sanguine (blood)
Cheerful, sociable, and quick to enjoy people and new things.
Gifts: Warmth, hospitality, encouragement, and a knack for making a newcomer feel at home.
Room to grow: Following through, going deep with one friend, and listening all the way to the end.
Choleric (yellow bile)
Energetic, decisive, and ready to lead and to act.
Gifts: Courage, initiative, getting good things done, and standing up for someone who is being treated unfairly.
Room to grow: Patience, gentleness in correction, and letting others lead or decide.
Melancholic (black bile)
Thoughtful, deep-feeling, careful, and drawn to beauty and order.
Gifts: Faithfulness, conscientious work, depth of thought, and noticing what others miss.
Room to grow: Speaking up before every thought is perfect, letting small hurts go, and keeping hope.
Phlegmatic (phlegm)
Calm, steady, easygoing, and a natural peacemaker.
Gifts: Patience, reliability, a calming presence, and unhurried listening.
Room to grow: Taking the first step, sharing an opinion, and starting things rather than waiting.
In the library: Hippocratic Writings · Galen: Selected Works · The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Varied temperaments in Scripture
The people God called in Scripture were not all one type. He worked through the bold and the quiet, the quick and the hesitant, and he shaped each of them without making them all the same.
Peter, quick and bold (Matthew 14:28-31)
“Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.”
Peter is usually the first to speak and the first to move. When he saw Jesus walking on the sea, he asked to come out on the water too. When his courage failed, Jesus caught him by the hand. Peter's boldness was not something to be removed; it was something to be steadied and turned to good.
John, close and quiet (John 13:23)
“Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.”
The Gospel of John speaks of "the disciple whom Jesus loved," whom Christian tradition identifies with John himself. At the Last Supper he is pictured simply resting close to Jesus. Yet the Gospels also record that Jesus called John and his brother James "Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17). A temperament is a starting point, not a cage, and grace can deepen and gentle it over a lifetime.
Peter and John at the tomb (John 20:4-8)
“So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.”
On Easter morning the two friends ran to the tomb together. The other disciple got there first, stooped, and looked in, but waited. Peter arrived and went straight inside. Then the other disciple went in too. One watched first and one jumped in, and both came to the same good place.
Moses, slow of speech (Exodus 4:10-16)
“O my LORD, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”
When God called Moses to speak to Pharaoh, Moses protested that he was not a talker. God did not wait for Moses to become a smooth speaker. He promised to be with his mouth, and he gave him his brother Aaron, who could speak well, as a partner. Quiet people are called too, and they rarely serve alone.
“Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”
Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42)
“Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.”
Martha opened her home to Jesus and busied herself serving; her sister Mary sat at his feet and listened. Jesus gently told Martha that she was "careful and troubled about many things" and that Mary had chosen the good part. He did not scold Martha for being a host; hospitality is a gift, and later it is Martha who goes out to meet Jesus when he comes to Bethany (John 11:20). The lesson is for every temperament: the active need to stop and listen, and the quiet are right to choose to sit and hear.
One body, many members
Paul's picture of the Church as a body is the best answer to the question "Which temperament is best?" An eye is not a better hand; a hand is not a failed eye. The body needs both, and it would be a strange body made of only one part.
Paul even says that God has "tempered" the body together, an old word for mixing in right proportion, the very word from which temperament comes. Different members, given different gifts, are meant to care for one another.
“For the body is not one member, but many.”
“If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?”
“God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.”
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us”
One rule for every temperament
Some commands in Scripture are given to everyone, whatever their temperament. James asks all of us to be quick to listen and slow to speak, which is a stretch for the talkative and a natural strength for the quiet. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time for each, which is a stretch for the quiet when it is time to speak up.
“let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath”
“a time to keep silence, and a time to speak”
For parents and teachers
- Notice a child's temperament before you correct their manners. A reserved child who greets a guest quietly but clearly is being courteous; there is no need to ask for a big, bubbly hello. An outgoing child who talks over others needs coaching in listening, not a lecture about being too much.
- Use the temperament step in the check-in as a conversation starter, not a label. Children change, and most are a mix. Ask, "What comes easily for you, and what takes courage?"
- Fit the exercise to the child. A reserved student might practice welcome by inviting one person to sit with them; an outgoing student might practice it by asking a newcomer two questions and listening to the answers before sharing anything about themselves.
- Never compare children's temperaments in front of them, and never praise one temperament as the better kind. Praise the virtue: the kind word, the faithful promise, the patient ear.
Know your temperament
The social skills check-in begins with five short temperament questions with no right or wrong answers, then suggests exercises that fit the way you are made. It runs in your browser, and nothing is saved or sent anywhere.