The 4 temperaments of the human being

One of the great areas of psychology is the personality study.

However, when looking for ways to classify and describe the style of behavior and thinking of human beings, it has not only been spoken about personality, but there is another concept that throughout history has also been used to try to capture the particularities of each person. This concept is called temperament, and tries to account for those inclinations and tendencies of each one that are more fixed, invariable and difficult to change.

What are temperament types?

The type of temperament of each person is usually understood as the basic structure on which the personality of each is built, with all its details and peculiarities.

In the last decades this means that the term temperament has been used to refer to the genetics of each one, the inheritable part of the personality, which means that the temperament of each one would remain more or less unchanged regardless of the things that happen to us, the way in which we learn to manage our emotions, etc.

But... How did you get the idea that human beings have different types of temperaments that differentiate us from each other? The answer lies in the theory of the 4 basic temperaments, which starts from the idea that our way of being depends on various types of substances, or "humors", that circulate through our body.

The theory of the four humors

One of the first historical personalities to develop the theory of the 4 humors that would later give way to that of temperaments was the Greek doctor Hippocrates.

Around the 5th and 4th centuries BC. C., in ancient Greece that Hippocrates inhabited, the belief that everything that exists in the world was composed of a few elements combined with each other was very important. Hippocrates adopted this point of view by defending the idea that the human body is made up of 4 basic substances, also called humors.

For Hippocrates, these moods are the following:

• Blood, whose associated element is air.
• Phlegm, the element of which is water.
• Yellow bile, which corresponds to the fire element.
• Black bile, associated with the earth.

But Hippocrates was still a doctor, and that is why he made this humoral theory go more into the field of medicine than in that of psychology and personality. According to him, the fact that all these substances are in balance in our body makes that we are healthy, while a decompensation in the levels of the humors would produce diseases.

It was Galen of Pergamum who, in the 2nd century BC. C. he made greater efforts to transform the theory of humors into a theory of basic temperaments.

The theory of basic temperaments

Galen started from the idea that everything is constituted by the mixture of 4 elements and that each of them corresponds to one of the humors of the human body to finish applying this vision to the primitive psychology of that time.

For this Greek doctor, the levels in which each of the humors are present in a human body explain the personality styles and temperament of this, which means that by observing the amounts of these substances you could know the style of behavior of a person, how he expresses his emotions, etc.

The 4 basic temperaments proposed by Galen were the following.

1. Blood temperament

The blood people are characterized according to Galen for being cheerful, optimistic and always seek the company of others.

They show warmth when dealing with other people, his way of acting obeys more to feelings than to the conclusions generated by rational analysis. In addition, they change their minds easily and are little given to disciplined behavior, because they are guided by the search for immediate pleasure. That is why they often leave things unfinished. Its associated element is air.

2. Phlegmatic temperament

The phlegmatic temperament expresses a propensity to a serene and calm way of behaving and a way of approaching goals that is persistent and based on rationality.

According to Galen's theory, people who stand out for this type of temperament highly value accuracy when it comes to thinking and doing things, they rarely get angry and do not show their emotions too much, coming to seem somewhat cold. What's more, they tend to be somewhat shy and avoid being the center of attention or holding a leadership role. According to the theory of the 4 temperaments, these people corresponded to the element of water.

3. Choleric temperament

People who stand out for their choleric temperament they are especially energetic, proactive and independent. They show a tendency to be always dedicating themselves to an activity or undertaking projects and they vigorously defend their opinions and positions in the different situations they experience.

In addition, they trust their own criteria and are not afraid to enter into confrontation with others, so they are assertive and do not shy away from leadership positions. However, if this type of temperament is very extreme, it can lead to the appearance of many conflicts and hostilities. The element with which they were related was fire.

4. Melancholic temperament

People with melancholic temperament are characterized, according to Galen, for being emotionally sensitive, creative, introverted, self-sacrificing, and perfectionist. In some way, this type of temperament can be related to the recent concept of Highly Sensitive People (PAS), although defined much more ambiguously.

Although they find pleasure in tasks that require effort and personal sacrifice, it is difficult for them to decide when to start projects precisely because of that. perfectionist spirit and by the worry that insecurity produces of not knowing what is going to happen. Their moods vary easily and they show a propensity for sadness. Its element is earth.

The theory of the 4 temperaments and psychology

Galen's work has been a benchmark for many centuries of history, but nowadays it is not considered valid neither in medicine nor in psychology.

The reasons are that, on the one hand, it was not formulated on ideas and philosophical positions accepted today (the humoral theory) and, on the other hand, that the way in which the different temperaments are described is very ambiguous. That means that although it may be inspiring to see your own personality reflected in one of these types temperamental, it is very possible that part of the interest that this simple classification system produces is due to forer effect, as occurs for example with the enneagram of personality.

After all, in the time of Galen psychology as a science did not exist, and it was just beginning to understand the functioning of the world and the human body resorting to poorly defined concepts, composed of several ideas that, although we could intuitively relate them to each other, beyond this it cannot be justified that are united. For example, there is no reason why a calm character and a rational way of thinking should be united within the phlegmatic temperament. Couldn't there be a calm and non-rational temperament?

Galen's inspiring potential

However, that the theory of the four temperaments no longer has scientific validity does not mean that it has not served as inspiration for various theories of personality in psychology modern. Many personality scholars have relied on the concept of temperament to develop their tests and personality measurement tools, and today genetic inheritance is considered to play an important role in our way of being.