TestLark guide
Four Temperaments vs Big Five: The Old Map and the New Map
Galen's four humours walked so the Big Five could run. What the old map still gets right.
The four temperaments — sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic — are the oldest personality system in the Western world, older than psychology by about two thousand years. The Big Five is the newest consensus of personality science. Comparing them sounds unfair, and in one direction it is: but the old map survives for a reason, and the comparison teaches you what any personality model can and cannot do.
Both are free here: the classical Temperament Test with original questions, and the Big Five Personality Test built on the public-domain IPIP pool.
Where the four temperaments came from
The temperaments began as medicine. Greek physicians linked character to the balance of four bodily humours; the Roman physician Galen systematised it, and for most of European history 'what is his temperament?' was simply how you asked what someone was like. The humours are gone. The four words refused to die, because they name four styles everyone recognises on sight: the warm social spark, the driven commander, the deep careful thinker, the calm steady presence.
Modern temperament tests, including ours, keep the four portraits and drop the medicine. The questions are new; the patterns are the classical ones, described in modern language.
Where the Big Five came from
The Big Five came from statistics, not philosophy. Researchers took the words languages use to describe people, asked large groups to rate themselves and each other, and factor-analysed the results. Five broad traits kept emerging: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability (often framed as neuroticism). No committee designed them; the data kept producing them, across cultures and decades.
That origin is the whole difference. The temperaments are a theory that survived; the Big Five is a pattern that was found. Our article on Big Five vs personality types goes deeper on scores versus labels generally.
Where the two maps agree
More than you might expect. Read the sanguine portrait and you are reading high extraversion with high agreeableness. The choleric blends extraversion with drive and lower agreeableness. The melancholic pairs introversion with high emotional sensitivity and careful conscientiousness; the phlegmatic pairs calm stability with a slower social pace.
In other words, the old map was sketching real trait territory with four broad brushes. What it could not do is separate the ingredients: two sanguines can differ enormously in conscientiousness, and the temperament label will never tell you. The Big Five's five separate scores are exactly that separation, done properly.
- Temperaments: one blended label — memorable, portable, coarse.
- Big Five: five independent scores — precise, comparable, less catchy.
- Agreement between them is a good sign your self-picture is consistent.
Which one should you trust?
Trust the Big Five as a measurement and the temperaments as a portrait. If a decision depends on the result — hiring, clinical questions, research — neither a free temperament quiz nor any online test should carry it, but the Big Five framework is the one professionals build on.
For self-reflection, let each do its job. The temperament result gives you a story to recognise yourself in; the Big Five gives you the five dials underneath the story. Most people who take both here end up quoting the temperament and quietly believing the scores.
Frequently asked questions
Are the four temperaments still used today?
The words are everywhere — in books, coaching and everyday speech — because the four portraits are so recognisable. As a formal system they were replaced by trait psychology, but as a quick descriptive language they never left.
Which Big Five traits match each temperament?
Roughly: sanguine is high extraversion and agreeableness; choleric is high extraversion and conscientiousness with lower agreeableness; melancholic is lower extraversion with higher emotional sensitivity; phlegmatic is high emotional stability with a quieter social pace.
Is the temperament test scientific?
The four portraits describe real, recognisable styles, but the system predates scientific psychology and was never validated the modern way. Treat it as a classical mirror — which is exactly how TestLark presents it.
Take the tests in this guide
Read next
- Big Five vs Personality Types: Traits or Types? →One gives you five honest scores. The other gives you a name. Here is what each is really for.
- Are Personality Tests Accurate? An Honest Answer →The honest answer is 'it depends' — on the model, the method and how you answer. Here is how to judge.