WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF TEMPERAMENTS

Four temperaments is a proto-psychological interpretation   of the ancient medical concept of humorism and suggest that four bodily felids affect human personality traits and behaviors.  The temperaments are sanguine (pleasure –seeking and sociable), Choleric (ambitious and leader –like), melancholic (introverted and thoughtful,) and phlegmatic (relaxed and quiet).

The Greek physician Hypocrites (460-370 BC) incorporated the four temperaments into his medical theoretical theories. From then through modern times, they or modifications of them, have been part of many theories of medicine and psychology, and literature.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT

Temperament theory has its roots in the ancient four humors theory. It may have origins in ancient Egypt ⁽¹⁾ or Mesopotamia, ⁽²⁾ but id was the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC) who developed it into a medical theory. He believed certain human moods, emotions and behaviours were caused by body fluids (called “humors”): blood, yellow bile, and phlegm. Next, Galen (AD 131-200) developed the first typology of temperament in his dissertation De temperaments, and searched for physiological reasons for different behaviours in humans. He mapped them to a matrix of hot/cold and dry/wet taken from the four elements. ⁽³⁾ There could also be “balance” between the qualities, yielding a total of nine temperaments. The word “temperament” itself from Latin “tempare”, to mix”. In the ideal personality, the complementary characteristics or warm-cool and dry-moist were exquisitely balanced. In four less ideal types, one of the four qualifies dominated the complemental pair; for example; warm and moist dominated cool and dry. These latter four were the temperamental categories Galen named “sanguine”, “choleric” “melancholic” and “phlegmatic” after the bodily humors, respectively. Each was the result of an excess of one of the homours that produced, in turn, the imbalance in paired qualities. ^(4)(5)(6) “Sanguine”, “choleric” “melancholic” and “phlegmatic” after the bodily humours, respectively. Each was the result of an excess of one the humors that produced, in turn, the imbalance in paired qualities. ^(4)(5)(6)

In his canon of medicine (a standard medical text at many medieval universities), Avicenna a Persian polymath (980-1037 AD) then extended the theory of temperaments to encompass “emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams.” ⁽⁷⁾

Nicholas curlpaper ^(1616-1654). Made great use of humors as a philosophical concept which found expression in astrological correspondences. He published a discourse on how they acted as governing principles in bodily health in his English physician and family dispensary ⁽⁸⁾ and explaining their influences upon physiognomy and personality in his semeiotic Uremia. ⁽⁹⁾ Immanuel Kant (1724-1808), Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Alfred Adler (1879) Erich Adickes (1866-1925), Eduard Spranger (1914), Ernst Kretschmer (1920), and Erich Fromm (1947) all theorized on the four temperaments (with different names) and greatly shaped our modern theories of temperament. Hans Eysenck (1916-1997) was one of the first psychologists to analyze personality differences using a psycho-statistical method (factor analysis), and his research led him to believe that temperament is biologically based. The factors he proposed in his book Dimensions of personality were Neuroticism  (N) which was the tendency to experience negative emotions, and the second was extraversion (E) which was 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. 

Other researchers developed similar systems, many of which did not use the ancient temperament names, and several paird extroversion with a different factor, which would determine relationship/task-orientation. Example are DISC assessment, social styles, and a theory that add a fifth temperament. One of the most popular today is the Keirsey temperament Sorter, whose four temperament were based largely on the Greek gods Apollo, Dionysus, Epimetheus and Prometheus, and were mapped to the 16 types of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). They were renamed as Artisan (SP), Guardian (SJ), Idealist (NF), and Rational (NT). Rather than using extroversion and introversion (E/I) and task/people focus, like other theories, KTS mapped the temperaments to “sensing” and “Intuition” (S/N, renamed “concrete” and “abstract”) with a new pair category, “cooperative” and “pragmatic”. When “Role-informative” and “Role-Directive” (corresponding to orientation to people or to task), and finally E/I are factored in, you attain the 16 types. Finally, the interaction styles of Linda V. Berens combines Directing and informing with E/I to form another group of “styles” which greatly resemble the ancient temperament, and these are mapped together with the temperaments onto the 16 types