Four temperaments
An ancient sorting of character into four kinds, once attributed to an excess of one bodily humour: sanguine (sociable, optimistic), choleric (forceful, quick to anger), melancholic (serious, brooding) and phlegmatic (calm, slow to react). In modern terms they are the four corners of extraversion crossed with emotional stability.
What drives it
Its value today is as a quick, memorable way to identify people on two axes: how outgoing is this person, and how easily are they upset. Many later systems, including DISC, are variations on it.
How it shows
Work
Sanguine: energetic, sociable, scattered (stable extravert). Choleric: dominant, impatient, explosive (unstable extravert). Melancholic: thorough, worried, critical (unstable introvert). Phlegmatic: steady, unflappable, slow to change (stable introvert).
Relationships
The choleric and the melancholic both feel strongly but one discharges and one broods; the phlegmatic partner calms or frustrates; the sanguine charms and forgets.
Self
Two questions locate you: do you recharge with or away from people, and how fast and how hard do upsets hit you?
What tells it apart
Temperament: Modern temperament research measures inborn reactivity and self-regulation in infants and tracks it over time; the four temperaments are adult stereotypes with no developmental data.
Big Five (Five-Factor Model): The four types are two Big Five dimensions (extraversion, neuroticism) chopped into quadrants; the Big Five keeps them continuous and adds three more.
A test
Rate the person on sociability and on how fast and how strongly they react to setbacks; if both are clear, the quadrant follows, and the label adds nothing beyond those two ratings.
Questions to carry
- How outgoing is this person, and how fast and how hard do setbacks hit them?
- Which of the four would the people closest to me pick for me, and where would I argue?
How strong the research is
weak. The humoral biology is false and the types are historical; Eysenck showed the four map roughly onto combinations of extraversion and neuroticism, which is the only part with modern support.
Where it comes from
Hippocratic writers, c. 400 BCE; Galen, 2nd century CE; reworked by Kant and Wundt; mapped onto extraversion and neuroticism by Hans Eysenck, 1960s
On the family tree: Hippocratic writers and Galen