A bit of history on The Personalities
The body of work that we now simply refer to as The Personalities was born more than 50 years ago!
Florence Littauer’s Introduction to The Personalities
My mother would be the first to admit that the personalities were a lifesaver. She credits Tim LaHaye’s 1966 book Spirit Controlled Temperament with saving her marriage. LaHaye introduced my parents (Florence and Fred Littauer) to the four personality types based on the original Greek words from the early work of Hippocrates: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic. Prior to reading it, my father had caused her to feel that because her ideas, attitudes, and approaches were different from his, she was wrong.
True to her Personality type, in her enthusiasm, before she’d even finished reading the book, she gathered a few couples from church to meet once a week in our home to do a book study. True to my father’s Personality type, he quickly organized them all into groups based on their Personality. He also saw the need for some type of test or assessment to help people determine which Personality type was theirs. In 1967, he created the origins of what we now call the Wired That Way Personality Profile. While today’s product features additional supplemental material—including the important word definitions, the actual assessment remains basically as he wrote it more than 50 years ago.
While Tim LaHaye did write several more books on this topic, he moved on to other areas and became best-known for his work on the Left Behind books series. Meanwhile, requests for my mother to address the topic grew. She started with ladies’ groups and church meetings. Before long, she was addressing large-scale keynote events and rallies of thousands of men and women throughout the English-speaking world—and beyond. Her best-selling book on the topic. Personality Plus, published in 1983, has sold millions of copies and has been translated into more than 25 languages.
Marita Littauer’s Contribution
I was nine years old when my parents were introduced to The Personalities. At thirteen, my mother began traveling and speaking on the topic. It is as if it is in my DNA.
When I started addressing the topic about 40 years ago, I was privileged to build on my mother’s research. I added modern day adjectives to the Greek words—making the terms Popular Sanguine, Powerful Choleric, Perfect Melancholy, and Peaceful Phlegmatic (this addition is first found in print in my 1996, now out-of-print, book Personality Puzzle). I also affiliated a color with each category. Popular Sanguine: Yellow like the sunshine. Powerful Choleric: Red like a Fire Engine. Perfect Melancholy: Blue like the depth of the ocean. And, Peaceful Phlegmatic: Green like the grass blowing in the breeze. I invited people to use either the Greek words, the combination of the Greek words and the adjectives, or just the adjectives—or, even, just the colors. After all, these concepts are not about labels, they are about relationships. Whichever terminology makes it easy for folks to remember is what they should use.
Enter Wired That Way
In 2006, the Wired That Way book/program was released—which included, for the first time, the book, the workbook, the ten lesson DVD, and the Personality Profile in a full-color print edition with supplemental material that made it more of a stand-alone product. I wrote the book because, after years of selling books in the back of the room at my mother’s events, where I’d show people the various books on the topic—such as Personality Plus for Couples, Personality Plus for Parents and Communication Plus, they would often ask: “Don’t you have one book that has all of that?” I wrote Wired That Way—to incorporate “all of that.” It was the first of our books on the topic written based on customer demand. Gratefully, the publisher caught the vision and designed and produced the support products as a package.
The Online Personality Profile
Then in 2020, I released the new online version of the Personality Profile. It has all the content of the paper product but now you don’t have to wait for shipping. There’s no flipping back and forth. At the end, your score is instant. An entire seminar of attendees can take the Personality Profile on their phones at the same time. A therapist or coach can send the patient/client a link and have them take the Personality Profile before the first session. And, instead of $30, or 50, or even 100—as some of the other programs charge, the Personality Profile (paper or online) is only $4. Plus, ThePersonalities.com offers many free resources to complement your knowledge/understanding.
New Material
We’ve continued to upgrade and update The Personalities. In April 2020, we put together a chart on how each Personality responds to COVID-19. As the disease continues to take more lives, we produced a new graphic titled How The Personalities Respond to Death/Grief. Who knows what will be next?
Whether you are new to The Personalities or have been a fan for decades, you can be assured that you are using a program that has been validated by the test of time—with millions of books and hundreds of thousands of Personality profiles sold. It is a proven program that you can share with your family, friends, and coworkers.