Four temperaments
The four temperament theory is a
History
Temperament theory has its roots in the ancient theory of
For example, if one tended to be, or act, too happy, one can assume they have too much blood, since blood relates to sanguine, and can medically act accordingly. If one tended to be, or act, too calm or reserved, one can assume they have too much phlegm in the system, since phlegm relates to phlegmatic, and can medically act accordingly. If one tended to be, or act, too sad, one can assume they have too much black bile in the system, since black bile relates to melancholic, and can medically act accordingly. If one tended to be, or act, too angry, one can assume they have too much yellow bile in the system, since yellow biles relates to choleric, and can medically act accordingly.[9]
The properties of these humours also corresponded to the four seasons.[10] Thus blood, which was considered hot and wet, corresponded to spring. Yellow bile, considered hot and dry, corresponded to summer. Black bile, cold and dry, corresponded to autumn. And finally, phlegm, cold and wet, corresponded to winter.[10]
These properties were considered the basis of health and disease. This meant that having a balance and good mixture of the humours defined good health, while an imbalance or separation of the humours led to disease.[10] Because the humours corresponded to certain seasons, one way to avoid an imbalance or disease was to change health-related habits depending on the season. Some physicians did this by regulating a patient's diet, while some used remedies such as phlebotomy and purges to get rid of excess blood.[11] Even Galen proposed a theory of the importance of proper digestion in forming healthy blood. The idea was that the two most important factors when digesting are the types of food and the person's body temperature.[11] This meant that if too much heat were involved, then the blood would become "overcooked." This meant that it would contain too much of the yellow bile, and the patient would become feverish.[11] If there were not enough heat involved, this would cause there to be too much phlegm.
Persian[12] polymath Avicenna (980–1037 AD) extended the theory of temperaments in his Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. He applied them to "emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams."[13] Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654) suggested that the humors acted as governing principles in bodily health, with astrological correspondences,[14] and explained their influence upon physiognomy and personality.[15] He proposed that some people had a single temperament, while others had an admixture of two, a primary and secondary temperament.[16]
Though, the humours did seem to have a big effect on personality, whether it was a mixture of two or not. The humours can be broken into categories, like extrovert and introvert. If one is Choleric or/and Sanguine, then they are most likely "outgoing" and "extroverted." If one is Melancholy and/or Phlegmatic, then they are most likely "reserved" or "introverted."[17] One humour is not benefited nor desired more than the other, everyone needs all four of the temperaments in order to have good balance, but everyone is created differently by God and is unique.
Modern medical science has rejected the theories of the four temperaments, though their use persists as a metaphor within certain psychological fields.
In the field of physiology, Ivan Pavlov studied on the types and properties of the nervous system, where three main properties were identified: (1) strength, (2) mobility of nervous processes and (3) balance between excitation and inhibition and derived four types based on these three properties.[19]
Other researchers developed similar systems, many of which did not use the ancient temperament names, and several paired extraversion with a different factor which would determine relationship and task-orientation. Examples are
Classical | Element[5] | Adler[20] | Riemann[21] | DISC[22]
(Different publishers use different names) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Melancholic | Earth | Leaning | Depressed | Steadiness/Supportive |
Phlegmatic | Water | Avoiding | Schizoid | Conscientiousness/Cautious |
Sanguine | Air | Socially Useful | Hysterical | Influence/Inspiring |
Choleric | Fire | Ruling | Obsessive | Dominance/Direct |
Modern views, implementations and restatements
Waldorf education and anthroposophy believe that the temperaments help to understand personality. They also believe that they are useful for education, helping teachers understand how children learn. Christian writer Tim LaHaye has attempted to repopularize the ancient temperaments through his books.[23][24][25]
James David Barber developed The Presidential Character, where, active related to hot, passive related to cold, positive related to moist, and negative related to dry. If one were to make a Punnett square of these characters, one can find an Active-Positive, Passive-Positive, Active-Negative, or Passive-Negative individual. This diagram was made after an influential study of the U.S. presidency, hence the name.[26]
Robert R. Blake created The Managerial Grid, where, high concern for production related to hot, low concern for production related to cold, high concern for people related to moist, and low concern for people related to dry. If one were to make the same Punnett square of these characters, one can find a Team Management, a Country Club Management, a Task Management, or an Ineffective Management individual.[26]
Date (c.) | Author | Choleric temperament | Phlegmatic temperament | Sanguine temperament | Melancholic temperament |
2015 | Octopus Temperament (Sy Montgomery) | Assertive | Curious | Joyful | Gentle |
2014 | HUCMI | Controlling | Analytical | Experimental | Relational |
2006 | Berens | Stabilizer (SJ) | Theorists (NT) | Improvisor (SP) | Catalyst (NF) |
1999/2001 | Linda V. Berens' four Interaction Styles | In Charge | Chart the Course | Get Things Going | Behind the Scenes |
1999 | StrengthsFinder | Striving (Executing) | Thinking (Strategic Thinking) | Impacting (Influencing) | Relating (Relationships) |
1998 (Erikson's behavior types are a 2014 revision) | Hartman Personality Profile | Red (Leaders; Bold & Brash) | Blue (Keen Minds; Analytical & Detail-oriented) | Yellow (Social Butterflies; Creative & Optimistic) | White > Green (Most Selfless; Relaxed, Friendly, & Loyal) |
1996 | Tony Alessandra Personality Styles | Director | Thinker | Socializer | Relater |
1989 | Benziger | Logic & Results | Process & Routine | Vision & Creativity | Intuition & Empathy |
1978, 1988 | Keirsey/Bates four temperaments (old), Keirsey's four temperaments | Guardian (SF)
|
Rational (NT)
|
Artisan (SP)
|
Idealist (NF)
|
1973/74 | Conflict | Competing | Accommodating | Collaborating | Avoiding |
1967 | Dreikurs' four mistaken goals | Power or Defiance | Revenge or Retaliation | Undue Attention or Service | Inadequacy or Deficiency |
1960s | Fritz Riemann | Obsessive | Schizoid | Hysterical | Depressed |
Stuart Atkins LIFO's four Orientations to Life | Controlling-Taking | Conserving-Holding | Adapting-Dealing | Supporting-Giving | |
David Merrill, "Social Styles" | Driving | Analytical | Expressive | Amiable | |
1958 | Myers' Jungian types
|
Judging (J); "Practical & Matter of Fact" | Thinking (T); "Logical & Ingenious" | Perceiving (P); "Enthusiastic & Insightful" | Feeling (F); "Sympathetic & Friendly" |
1948, 1957, 1987 | California Psychological Inventory CPI 260 | Leader/Implementer (Alphas) | Supporter (Betas) | Innovator (Gammas) | Visualizer (Deltas) |
1947 | Eysenck | High Extraversion, High Neuroticism (Unstable-Extraverted) | Low Extraversion, Low Neuroticism (Stable-Introverted) | High Extraversion, Low Neuroticism (Stable-Extraverted) | Low Extraversion, High Neuroticism (Unstable-Introverted) |
1947 | Fromm's four orientations | Exploitative (Taking) | Hoarding (Preserving) | Marketing (Exchanging) | Receptive (Accepting) |
1935, 1966 | Alfred Adler's four Styles of Life, Temperament by LaHaye | Ruling/Dominant (Choleric) | Getting/Leaning (Phlegmatic) | Socially Useful (Sanguine) | Avoiding (melancholic) |
1928, 1970s | William Marston and John G. Geier DiSC assessment
|
Dominance (D); Red | Conscientiousness (C); Yellow | Influence (I); Green | Steadiness (S); Blue |
1921 | Jung | Intuition | Thinking | Sensation | Feeling |
1920s | Pavlov | Angry Dogs (High Excitation, Low Inhibition) | "Accepting" Dogs (feel asleep) (Low Excitation, High Inhibition) | High-spirited Dogs (High Excitation, High Inhibition) | "Weak" Dogs (whiny) (Low Excitation, Low Inhibition) |
1920 | Kretschmer's four character styles | Depressive | Anesthetic (insensitive) | Hypomanic | Hyperesthetic (oversensitive) |
1914 | Spranger's four* value attitudes | Economic/Political | Theoretical | Aesthetic | Religious/Social |
1905 | Adickes' four world views | Traditional | Agnostic (Skeptical) | Innovative | Dogmatic (Doctrinaire) |
1894 | Sasang | So-Yang (SY; Little Yang); Active (Unstable & Active) | Tae-Eum (TE; Big Yin); Organized (Stable & Passive) | Tae-Yang (TY; Big Yang); Originative (Stable & Active) | So-Eum (SE; Little Yang); Conservative (Unstable & Passive) |
1798 | Kant's four temperaments | Energetic & Emotional (Choleric) | Weak & Balanced (Phlegmatic) | Energetic & Balanced (Sanguine) | Weak & Emotional (Melancholic) |
1550 | Paracelsus' four totem spirits | Gnomes (Industrious & Guarded) | Sylphs (Curious & Calm) | salamanders (Impulsive & Changeable)
|
Nymphs (Inspiring & Passionate) |
185 AD | Irenaeus' four temperaments | Historical | Scholarly | Spontatneous | Spiritual |
325 BC | Aristotle's four sources of happiness | Propraieteri (Acquiring Assets) | Dialogike (Logical Investigation) | Hedone (Sensual Pleasure) | Ethikos (Moral Value) |
325 BC | Aristotle's social order | Pistic (Common sense & Care-taking) | Dianoetic (Reasoning & Logical Investigator) | Iconic (Artistic & Art-making) | Noetic (Intuitive, Sensibility, Morality) |
340 BC | Plato's four characters | Sensible | Reasoning | Artistic | Intuitive |
307 BC | Hippocrates' four humours | Yellow Bile (Hot and Dry) | Phlegm (Cold and Wet) | Blood (Hot and Wet) | Black Bile (Cold and Dry) |
450 BC | Empedocles | Fire (Zeus) | Water (Pluto/Nestis) | Air (Hera) | Earth (Persephone/Aidoneus) |
590 BC | Ezekiel's four living creatures | Lion (Bold) | Ox (Sturdy) | Eagle (Far-seeing) | Man (Spiritual) |
Adapted and modified from: Montgomery, Stephen (2002). People Patterns: A Modern Guide to the Four Temperaments (1st ed.). Archer Publications. p. 20. ISBN 1-885705-02-6 .
|
Usage
The 18th-century classical composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed a trio sonata in C minor known as Sanguineus et Melancholicus (Wq 161/1). In the 20th century, Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 2 (Op.16) is subtitled "The Four Temperaments", each of the four movements being inspired by a sketch of a particular temperament.[27] Paul Hindemith's Theme and Four Variations for string orchestra and piano is also known as The Four Temperaments: although originally conceived as a ballet for Léonide Massine,[28][29] the score was ultimately completed as a commission for George Balanchine, who subsequently choreographed it as a neoclassical ballet, using the theory of the temperaments as a point of departure.[30][31]: 253
The 19th-century French author Émile Zola used the four temperaments as a basis for his novel Thérèse Raquin.[32]
See also
- Big Five personality traits – Personality model consisting of five broad dimensions
- Blood type personality theory – Pseudoscience linking character and blood type
- Enneagram of Personality – Model of the human psyche used as a personality typology
- Four sons of Horus – Ancient Egyptian gods
- Fundamental interpersonal relations orientation – W. Schutz's social behavior theory
- Two-factor models of personality – Psychological factor analysis measurement including behavior and temperament
- Table of similar systems of comparison of temperaments
- Humorism - The theory of the four humours
References
- ^ Woodcut from Johann Kaspar Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775–1778)
- ^ "The Four Human Temperaments". www.thetransformedsoul.com.
- ^ PMID 16372840.
- ^ Sudhoff, Karl (1926). Essays in the History of Medicine. Medical Life Press, New York. pp. 67, 87, 104.
- ^ a b Boeree, C. George. "Early Medicine and Physiology". Retrieved 21 February 2013.
- ISBN 0-465-08405-2.
- ^ Osborn L. Ac., David K. "INHERENT TEMPERAMENT". Retrieved 21 February 2013.
- ^ "Temperament: Developmental and Ecological Dimensions". Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2010-03-26.
- ^ "Judy Duchan's History of Speech - Language Pathology". www.acsu.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-30.
- ^ S2CID 171176381
- ^ JSTOR 27711180– via JSTOR.
- ^
- Corbin 2016, Overview. "In this work a distinguished scholar of Islamic religion examines the mysticism and psychological thought of the great eleventh-century Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina), author of over a hundred works on theology, logic, medicine, and mathematics."
- Pasnau & Dyke 2010, p. 52. "Most important of these initially was the massive Book of Healing (Al-Shifa) of the eleventh-century Persian Avicenna, the parts of which labeled in Latin as De anima and De generatione having been translated in the second half of the twelfth century."
- Daly 2013, p. 18. "The Persian polymath Ibn Sina (981–1037) consolidated all of this learning, along with Ancient Greek and Indian knowledge, into his The Canon of Medicine (1025), a work still taught in European medical schools in the seventeenth century."
- ISBN 0-89603-835-1.
- ^ Nicholas Culpeper (1653) An Astrologo-Physical Discourse of the Human Virtues in the Body of Man, transcribed and annotated by Deborah Houlding. Skyscript, 2009 (retrieved 16 November 2011). Originally published in Culpeper's Complete Herbal (English Physician). London: Peter Cole, 1652.
- ^ Nicholas Culpeper, Semeiotica Urania, or Astrological Judgement of Diseases. London: 1655. Reprint, Nottingham: Ascella, 1994.
- ISBN 1-902405-17-X.
- ^ Elkstrand, Dr. D. W. ""THE FOUR HUMAN TEMPERAMENTS"" (PDF).
- .
- ^ Rokhin, L, Pavlov, I and Popov, Y. (1963), Psychopathology and Psychiatry, Foreign Languages Publication House: Moscow. [1]
- ISBN 0-915202-83-2.
- ISBN 978-3-497-02043-0.
- ^ "What Are the Four DISC Types?". DISC Personality Testing Blog. 2014-01-27. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
- ^ LaHaye, Tim (1966). The Spirit Controlled Temperament. Tyndale Publishing.
- ISBN 0-8423-6220-7.
- ISBN 0-8423-8212-7.
- ^ JSTOR 41178265.
- ISMN 979-0-66134-000-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 October 2014.)
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ignored (help - ^ Corleonis, Adrian (19 November 2007). "Paul Hindemith, Theme and Variations, 'Die vier Temperamente' (The Four Temperaments)". American Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ Hindemith, Paul (1948). Theme and Four Variations (The Four Temperaments) (PDF). New York City: Associated Music Publishers.
- ISBN 9781139827195.
- ISBN 9780385113816.
- ^ Zola, Preface to Thérèse Raquin.
Works cited
- Corbin, Henry (2016). Avicenna and the visionary recital. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691630540.
- Daly, Jonathan (19 December 2013). The Rise of Western Power: A Comparative History of Western Civilization. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4411-1851-6.
- Pasnau, Robert; Dyke, Christina Van (2010). Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
- Arikha, Noga (2007). Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours. Harpers. ISBN 978-0060731175
- Edelman, Kathleen (2019). I Said This, You Heard That: How Your Wiring Colors Your Communication. North Point Resources. ISBN 978-1943535415
External links
- In Our Time (BBC Radio 4) episode on the four humoursin MP3 format, 45 minutes
- I Said This, You Heard That (A Group Study in the Four Temperaments) interactive workbook format that includes a temperament assessment; accompanying teaching videos available through the free app.
- Shakespeare and the Four Humors