![Lavater1792](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Lavater1792.jpg)
The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric,
melancholic
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout History of medicine#Greece and Roman Empire, ancient, medieval medicine of Western Europe, medieval and Lear ...
, and phlegmatic.
Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures among the types where an individual's personality types overlap and they share two or more temperaments. Greek physician
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...
(c. 460 – c. 370 BC) described the four temperaments as part of the ancient medical concept of
humourism
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
, that four bodily fluids affect human personality traits and behaviours. Modern medical science does not define a fixed relationship between internal secretions and personality, although some psychological
personality type
In psychology, personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendenc ...
systems use categories similar to the Greek temperaments.
History
Temperament theory has its roots in the ancient theory of
humourism
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
. It may have originated in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
, but it was Greek physician
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...
(460–370 BC) (and later
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...
) who developed it into a medical theory. He believed that certain human moods, emotions, and behaviours were caused by an excess or lack of body fluids (called "humours"), which he classified as blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.
Each of which was responsible for different patterns in personalities, as well as how susceptible you were to getting a disease.
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...
(AD 129 – c. 200) developed the first typology of temperament in his dissertation ''De temperamentis'', and searched for physiological reasons for different behaviours in humans. He classified them as ''hot/cold'' and ''dry/wet'' taken from the
four elements
Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had simi ...
. There could also be
balance
Balance or balancing may refer to:
Common meanings
* Balance (ability) in biomechanics
* Balance (accounting)
* Balance or weighing scale
* Balance as in equality or equilibrium
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Balance'' (1983 film), a Bulgarian ...
between the qualities, yielding a total of nine temperaments. The word "temperament" itself comes from Latin "''temperare''", "to mix". In the ideal personality, the complementary characteristics were exquisitely balanced among warm-cool and dry-moist. In four less-ideal types, one of the four qualities was dominant over all the others. In the remaining four types, one pair of qualities dominated the complementary pair; for example, warm and moist dominated cool and dry. These last four were the temperamental categories which Galen named "sanguine", "choleric", "melancholic", and "phlegmatic" after the bodily humours. Each was the result of an excess of one of the humours which produced the imbalance in paired qualities.
The properties of these humours also corresponded to the four seasons.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If there were not enough heat involved, this would cause there to be too much phlegm.
![Charles Le Brun-Grande Commande-Les Quatre temperaments](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Charles_Le_Brun-Grande_Commande-Les_Quatre_temperaments.jpg)
Persian polymath
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...
(980–1037 AD) extended the theory of temperaments in his ''
Canon of Medicine
''The Canon of Medicine'' ( ar, القانون في الطب, italic=yes ''al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb''; fa, قانون در طب, italic=yes, ''Qanun-e dâr Tâb'') is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Persian physician-phi ...
'', 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."
Nicholas Culpeper
Nicholas Culpeper (18 October 1616 – 10 January 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer.Patrick Curry: "Culpeper, Nicholas (1616–1654)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) His boo ...
(1616–1654) suggested that the humors acted as governing principles in bodily health, with astrological correspondences, and explained their influence upon physiognomy and personality. He proposed that some people had a single temperament, while others had an admixture of two, a primary and secondary temperament.
Modern medical science has rejected the theories of the four temperaments, though their use persists as a metaphor within certain psychological fields.
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
(1724–1804),
Erich Adickes
Erich Adickes (29 June 1866, in Lesum – 8 July 1928, in Tübingen), was a German philosopher who wrote many important works on Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and the Kantian philosophy. Adickes was a critical empiricist (moderate Kantian).
Adick ...
(1866–1925),
Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler ( , ; 7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, family constellation and birth order ...
(1879–1937),
Eduard Spranger
Eduard Spranger (27 June 1882 – 17 September 1963) was a German philosopher and psychologist. A student of Wilhelm Dilthey, Spranger was born in Berlin and died in Tübingen. He was considered a humanist who developed a philosophical pe ...
(1914),
Ernst Kretschmer
Ernst Kretschmer (8 October 18888 February 1964) was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology.
Life
Kretschmer was born in Wüstenrot near Heilbronn. He attended Cannstatt Gymnasium, one of the o ...
(1920), and
Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the U ...
(1947) all theorised on the four temperaments (with different names) and greatly shaped modern theories of temperament.
Hans Eysenck
Hans Jürgen Eysenck (; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a German-born British psychologist who spent his professional career in Great Britain. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, although he worked on other ...
(1916–1997) was one of the first psychologists to analyse personality differences using a psycho-statistical method called
factor analysis
Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observed ...
, and his research led him to believe that temperament is biologically based. The factors that he proposed in his book ''Dimensions of Personality'' were
neuroticism
In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody ...
(N), the tendency to experience negative emotions, and
extraversion
The traits of extraversion (also spelled extroversion Retrieved 2018-02-21.) and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality theories. The terms ''introversion'' and ''extraversion'' were introduced into psychology by Carl J ...
(E), the tendency to enjoy positive events, especially social ones. By pairing the two dimensions, Eysenck noted how the results were similar to the four ancient temperaments.
In the field of physiology. Studies of physiologist
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( rus, Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов, , p=ɪˈvan pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈpavləf, a=Ru-Ivan_Petrovich_Pavlov.ogg; 27 February 1936), was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist, psychologist and physiol ...
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.
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
DISC assessment
DISC assessments are behavioral self-assessment tools based on the 1928 DISC emotional and behavioral theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston. The tools are designed to predict job performance. However, the scientific validity of DISC has b ...
and social styles. One of the most popular today is the
Keirsey Temperament Sorter
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) is a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves and others. It was first introduced in the book ''Please Understand Me''. It is one of the most widely used perso ...
, whose four temperaments were based largely on the Greek gods
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
,
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
,
Epimetheus
In Greek mythology, Epimetheus (; grc-gre, Ἐπιμηθεύς, , afterthought) was the brother of Prometheus (traditionally interpreted as "foresight", literally "fore-thinker"), a pair of Titans who "acted as representatives of mankind". They ...
, and
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, know ...
, and were mapped to the 16 types of the
Myers–Briggs Type Indicator
In Personality type, personality typology, the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an introspection, introspective self-report study, self-report questionnaire indicating differing Psychology, psychological preferences in how people perceiv ...
(MBTI). They were renamed as
Artisan
An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...
(SP),
Guardian
Guardian usually refers to:
* Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another
* ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper
(The) Guardian(s) may also refer to:
Places
* Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...
(SJ),
Idealist
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...
(NF), and
Rational
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abili ...
(NT).
Modern views, implementations and restatements
Waldorf education
Waldorf education, also known as Steiner education, is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Its educational style is Holistic education, holistic, intended to develop pupils' intellectual, artistic ...
and
anthroposophy
Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers ...
believe that the temperaments help to understand personality. They also believe that is useful for education, helping the teachers understand how the child learns. Christian writer
Tim LaHaye
Timothy Francis LaHaye (April 27, 1926 – July 25, 2016) was an American Baptist evangelical Christian Minister of religion, minister who wrote more than 85 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the ''Left Behind (series), Left Behind ...
has attempted to repopularize the ancient temperaments through his books.
Usage
The 18th century classical composer
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and sec ...
composed a trio sonata in C minor known as ''Sanguineus et Melancholicus'' (Wq 161/1). In the 20th century,
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen (; 9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) was a Danish composer, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer.
Brought up by poor yet musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he ...
'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.
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ''Ne ...
's Theme and Four Variations for string orchestra and piano is also known as ''
The Four Temperaments
''The Four Temperaments'' or Theme and Four Variations (''The Four Temperaments'') is an orchestral work and ballet by Paul Hindemith. Although it was originally conceived as a ballet for Léonide Massine, the score was ultimately completed a ...
'': although originally conceived as a ballet for
Léonide Massine
Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (russian: Леони́д Фёдорович Мя́син), better known in the West by the French transliteration as Léonide Massine (15 March 1979), was a Russian choreographer and ballet dancer. Massine created the wo ...
,
the score was ultimately completed as a commission for
George Balanchine
George Balanchine (;
Various sources:
*
*
*
* born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
, who subsequently choreographed it as a
neoclassical ballet
Neoclassical ballet is the style of 20th-century classical ballet exemplified by the works of George Balanchine. The term "neoclassical ballet" appears in the 1920s with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, in response to the excesses of romanticis ...
, using the theory of the temperaments as a point of departure.
The 19th century French author
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
used the four temperaments as a basis for his novel ''
Thérèse Raquin
''Thérèse Raquin'' is an 1868 novel by French writer Émile Zola, first published in serial form in the literary magazine ''L'Artiste'' in 1867. It was Zola's third novel, though the first to earn wide fame. The novel's adultery and murder ...
''.
[Zola, Preface to ''Thérèse Raquin''.]
See also
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Table of similar systems of comparison of temperaments
References
Further reading
*Arikha, Noga (2007). ''Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours''. Harpers.
* 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)br>
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.
Personality typologies