The Holy Grail for 20th-century psychologists such as Freud, Adler and Maslow was identifying the one motivation that drove all of us.

Whether this was sex, power, self-realization or something else, if isolated it would provide the key to human action.

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung took another path. His studies into human symbols and mythology made him believe that behind our actions and attitudes were certain “archetypes” or patterns of being. We engage with them in unique ways to give our lives meaning.

In Jung’s mind, to understand people we had to first identify their basic archetypal outlook, which in practice meant appreciating their psychological “type”.

Jung used a scientific term, “individuation”, to describe the process of not only accepting ourselves as we are, but actually pushing that uniqueness to its logical end. We mature by becoming more, not less different, to other people.

Educational psychologist David Keirsey spent decades researching the literature on temperament and type. In the 1970s he introduced his findings in a course at California State University. The theory became his bestseller (written with Marilyn Bates), Please Understand Me (1978).

Although similar to the Myer Briggs typology, Keirsey’s well-known “Temperament Sorter” brought personality typing to a broad popular audience.

There’s a view that personality typing is pseudoscientific horoscoping. Yet after doing a Keirsey or Briggs Myer test, many feel liberated at being understood for the first time and not having to make excuses for who they are.

More than ethnicity, gender or nationality, the core differences between us are temperamental. If you can’t appreciate personality differences, then anyone at variance to yourself may be labelled “bad” or “abnormal”. Appreciate uniqueness, and people can’t simply be objects.

Next, we’ll go further into the four temperaments, and you’ll be able to see which best represents you.