Temperament
Last reviewed Saturday, October 24, 2026Temperament is the largely inborn side of personality: how strongly you react to things and how easily you settle and control yourself. It shows in early childhood, and family, culture and experience gradually shape it into adult personality. Researchers measure it as traits on a scale, not as a few fixed types.
Also called: disposition, or someone’s nature. The oldest version is the four temperaments.
Types of temperament
One widely used model, from psychologist Mary Rothbart, has four dimensions that everyone has in different amounts: excitement and moving towards new things, fear, frustration and anger, and effortful control, the ability to focus and hold back an impulse. An older study that followed 133 children into adulthood grouped them as “easy”, “slow to warm up” or “difficult”. Modern views are more nuanced.
Examples
- One baby startles at every noise; another sleeps through the generator coming on.
- One child walks straight up to new children; another watches from the side first.
- One adult flares up in traffic and calms fast; another stays wound up for hours.
Temperament vs personality
Temperament is the starting material. Personality grows from it, adding your habits, values, beliefs and how you see yourself. Adult studies link temperament to the “Big Five” personality traits, such as how outgoing or emotionally steady someone is. Neither is a diagnosis, unlike a personality disorder.
In Nigeria: the “temperament test”
Many temperament tests online sort you into four types: sanguine (lively), choleric (driven), melancholic (sensitive) or phlegmatic (calm). The idea comes from the humoral theory of ancient Greece, credited to Hippocrates, and was still used in the 20th century. It also turns up in Nigerian marriage advice: are your temperaments compatible?
Psychologists no longer use four boxes, and matching matters less than people think. In large samples of married couples in Australia, the UK and Germany, how similar partners’ personalities were explained under 0.5% of the differences in how happy they were. Treat a four-type quiz as a conversation starter, not a verdict.
When to get help
Temperament isn’t something to treat, but if part of it causes you trouble, such as worry that holds you back or a temper that hurts people, a therapist on Mytherapist.ng can help, or try couples counselling if it strains your marriage. Worried about a child? Start with a family doctor, paediatrician or the school counsellor.
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This entry is awaiting clinical review. It’s based on published research and health guidelines, and we’ll update it once a clinician has reviewed it.
