the four temperaments: which one are you?

After receiving so much love on my article about Freud’s approach to personality, I decided to write an article about Hippocrates’ 4 temperaments.

Imagine this, it’s the first day of school and the professor asked the students to describe themselves in three words. What would you say? Would it be an easy question for you or an immensely complex, complicated and challenging one? Have you ever googled “Personality Quiz” and solved it, in hopes it would help you better understand yourself?

In Psychology, it’s hard to determine what defines personality. We have Freud’s Psychoanalytical approach, Skinner’s Behavioral approach, Bandura’s Social-Cognitive approach as well as the Humanistic and Trait approaches. I was really fascinated by all of them, but the one that sparked my attention the most was the Trait approach because of how applicable to daily life it is.

Hippocrates is a very important figure because he was the first to divide personality into four groups according to temperament, although he mistakenly believed that temperament was determined by bodily fluids. He was known as the "Father of Medicine," who transformed healthcare by turning it from mystical guesswork into a science. He pioneered key concepts like diagnosis, prognosis, and the idea of treating the whole person, setting the stage for modern medicine. He also divided temperament into 4 types.

Division by temperament: melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic and sanguine.

• Melancholic is determined by black bile, and by temperament he is pessimistic, rigid and unsociable.

• Choleric is determined by yellow bile, and by temperament he is pessimistic, impulsive and aggressive.

• Phlegmatic is determined by phlegm - phlegm, and by temperament he is optimistic, calm and moral.

• Sanguine is determined by the amount of blood, and by temperament he is optimistic, bright and cheerful.