The first axis separated strong from weak emotions (the melancholic and choleric temperaments from the phlegmatic and sanguine).
However, Wundt suggested that a better description of personality could be achieved using two major axes: emotional/nonemotional and changeable/unchangeable. He developed a list of traits that could be used to describe the personality of a person from each of the four temperaments. Kant agreed with Galen that everyone could be sorted into one of the four temperaments and that there was no overlap between the four categories (Eysenck, 2009). In the centuries after Galen, other researchers contributed to the development of his four primary temperament types, most prominently Immanuel Kant (in the 18th century) and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (in the 19th century) (Eysenck, 2009 Stelmack & Stalikas, 1991 Wundt, 1874/1886) ( Figure 11.4). (credit b: modification of work by Wellcome Library, London) (b) An 1825 lithograph depicts Gall examining the skull of a young woman. (a) Gall developed a chart that depicted which areas of the skull corresponded to particular personality traits or characteristics (Hothersall, 1995). Initially, phrenology was very popular however, it was soon discredited for lack of empirical support and has long been relegated to the status of pseudoscience (Fancher, 1979).įigure 11.3 The pseudoscience of measuring the areas of a person’s skull is known as phrenology. According to Gall, measuring these distances revealed the sizes of the brain areas underneath, providing information that could be used to determine whether a person was friendly, prideful, murderous, kind, good with languages, and so on. In 1780, Franz Gall, a German physician, proposed that the distances between bumps on the skull reveal a person’s personality traits, character, and mental abilities ( Figure 11.3). Galen’s theory was prevalent for over 1,000 years and continued to be popular through the Middle Ages. For example, the choleric person is passionate, ambitious, and bold the melancholic person is reserved, anxious, and unhappy the sanguine person is joyful, eager, and optimistic and the phlegmatic person is calm, reliable, and thoughtful (Clark & Watson, 2008 Stelmack & Stalikas, 1991). Centuries later, the influential Greek physician and philosopher Galen built on Hippocrates’s theory, suggesting that both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the humors and that each person exhibits one of the four temperaments. Hippocrates theorized that personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids (“humors”) of the body: choleric temperament (yellow bile from the liver), melancholic temperament (black bile from the kidneys), sanguine temperament (red blood from the heart), and phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs) (Clark & Watson, 2008 Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985 Lecci & Magnavita, 2013 Noga, 2007). The concept of personality has been studied for at least 2,000 years, beginning with Hippocrates in 370 BCE (Fazeli, 2012). What characteristics describe your personality? Historical Perspectives Why did they make the choices they did? What internal forces shaped their decisions? Personality psychology can help us answer these questions and more.įigure 11.2 Happy, sad, impatient, shy, fearful, curious, helpful. Two brothers, raised by the same people, took radically different paths in their lives.
While Bill Clinton was making his political ascendance, his half-brother, Roger Clinton, was arrested numerous times for drug charges, including possession, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and driving under the influence, serving time in jail. William, who later took the last name Clinton from his stepfather, became the 42nd president of the United States. Six years later, Virginia gave birth to another son, Roger. When he turned 4, his mother married Roger Clinton, Jr., an alcoholic who was physically abusive to William’s mother. He was raised by his mother, Virginia Dell, and grandparents, in Hope, Arkansas. Three months before William Jefferson Blythe III was born, his father died in a car accident. Figure 11.1 What makes two individuals have different personalities? (credit: modification of work by Nicolas Alejandro)
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