True Colors

True Colors™ is a metaphor for understanding human characteristics. It helps us see and use different ways of rewarding and supporting people’s natural behaviors and values. Behind it, driving it, are these fundamental beliefs and guiding principles: people are intrinsically different. They strive to achieve a sense of self-worth from very different perspectives. Identification with these differences can be accomplished through the use of metaphors such as characters and color."

The True Colors™ metaphor has been developed from the work of Keirsey. During the past thirty-five years, David Keirsey has refined the work of Myers-Briggs. In his publication, Please Understand Me he returned to classifying personality and/or temperament into four types. According to Keirsey, these four different types are different in fundamental ways. They want different things. They have different motives, needs, and drives. They analyze, conceptualize, understand, and learn differently. These differences create natural barriers to interpersonal communication, making understanding between people of different types difficult.