Four temperaments

This article is about the "four humours" in Greco-Roman medicine, a specific form of the more universal proto-medical concept of humourism. For the ballet by Paul Hindemith and George Balanchine, see The Four Temperaments. For the symphony by Carl Nielsen, see Symphony No. 2 (Nielsen).
18th-century depiction of the four temperaments:[1] phlegmatic and choleric above, sanguine and melancholic below

The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.[2][3] 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 (c. 460 – c. 370 BC) described the four temperaments as part of the ancient medical concept of humourism, 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 systems use categories similar to the Greek temperaments.

The four temperament theory got abandoned after the 1850s.[4]

  1. ^ Woodcut from Johann Kaspar Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775–1778)
  2. ^ "The Four Human Temperaments". www.thetransformedsoul.com. Archived from the original on 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  3. ^ Merenda, P. F. (1987). "Toward a Four-Factor Theory of Temperament and/or Personality". Journal of Personality Assessment. 51 (3): 367–374. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa5103_4. PMID 16372840.
  4. ^
    • Marks, David F.; Murray, Michael; Evans, Brian; Estacio, Emee Vida (2015). Health Psychology. Sage. p. 406. ISBN 978-1-4739-2759-9. four bodily humours, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Little scope was left for psychological causation and this theory only really lost its hold on Western thinking in the 1850s. [...] The humoral theory was eventually abandoned following [...] Rudolf Virchow in the 1850s.
    • David F. Marks, Michael Murray, Brian Evans, Emee Vida Estacio (2015). "16 Illness and Personality". Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice. Sage Publications. p. PT555. ISBN 978-1-4739-2758-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)