The origins of the four temperaments of personality is the work attributed to Hippocrates from Ancient Greece. However, his inspiration came from much earlier civilizations. While they credit Hippocrates for devising this theory, he drew his ideas from the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures. Hippocrates did first put pen to paper to record his insights and to develop these ideas into a medical theory.

This was well before the study of psychology became a recognized practice. During the time of Hippocrates, 460-370 BC, it was the popular belief that human behavior was connected to the spirit world; therefore, it was thought that evil spirits caused mental health or behavioral problems.

Hippocrates was a physician and held the view that problems with the mind had a physical cause. He taught that personality disorders reflected a state of imbalance of body fluids, and he named them accordingly. Continue reading →

What influences your personality? What makes you behave the way you do around other people? Many believe that it’s the environment, others base it on nature or biological qualities, and others believe it’s a combination of both.

Many personality tests assess those aspects, and one interesting personality typing system is the one that gives four temperaments of personality.

Temperament refers to how you behave and react to situations and what your consistent personality traits are.

Some say that temperaments are constant and determined by brain processes, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t change either your behavior or personality. As you age and your environment and experiences expand, your behavior and perception of the world evolve. Continue reading →