David Keirsey

Dr. David West Keirsey was born in Ada, Oklahoma but moved with his family to California when he was two years old. His interest in psychology happened in the 1940's during his World War II service as a U.S. Marine fighter pilot serving in the Pacific. The one book Keirsey carried with him through his entire war service was a psychology book; this book was the first spark of his journey into the field of personality. After the war, at Pomona College and the Claremont Graduate School, Keirsey began his research and study of human behavior. As he researched historical literature in psychology, philosophy, and the sciences, he became intrigued by the patterns of four temperaments. These four distinct patterns of human behavior were woven throughout history, dating back to such figures as Hippocrates and Galen. In the 1950's, he began putting his theory into practice as an Educational Psychologist, where he developed techniques in helping troubled and troublesome kids and their parents. He also developed techniques for counselors in training and coaching. For more than two decades, he served as a consultant to both educators and psychologists, with continued research and innovations in his theory of the four temperaments. In the early 1970's Keirsey introduced his theory as an educational curriculum at California State University, Fullerton, where he served on the faculty, and eventually chair, in the department of counseling for ten years. During his time there, he published his theory in the book, Please Understand Me (1978), where he publicly introduced the Keirsey Temperament Sorter(R) to the world. Since then he has continued his research and refined his ideas and wrote several books including Portraits of Temperament (1987), Presidential Temperament (1992), Please Understand Me II (1998) and Brains and Careers (2008), Personology (2010). He had retired from public and worked on his theory of human action until his death in 2013. We hope to publish someday some of that work in the ebook Dark Escape and other forms.