Temperament refers to the characteristics and aspects of personality that we are born with. For this reason, they are similar to traits in that they are both innate (born with these things) and enduring. Infants who are anxious and nervous tend to be the same way when they are older.
Basically, the human temperament is divided into four types, namely, Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic and Phlegmatic.
Four temperaments is a proto-psycological theory that suggests that there are four fundamental personality types, sanguine (enthusiastic, active, and social), choleric (short-tempered, fast, or irritable), melancholic (analytical, wise, and quiet), and phlegmatic (relaxed and peaceful). Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures of the types where individual share two or more temperaments.
Choleric
Choleric personality temperament is associated with testosterone and although every temperamental makeup is represented by members of both sexes, most choleric people are men.
Generally Cholerics are money-oriented people – they are fascinated by stocks, investments, money markets and all kinds of revenue generation methods, just like others are fascinated by art and poetry. These people are very practical and they make for naturally gifted businessmen. Constantly looking for opportunities and always working on themselves, they build successful businesses that thrive and benefit others.
This doesn’t mean that these people are greedy for money, by any means! From their perspective, work is considered to be fun. However, they never do well in subordinate position – they are all about independence, financially and otherwise.
Women of this type are very rare, but strangely enough are very popular people that, quite simply, have very different ways of dealing with issues. They can and do frustrate their partners by being unavailable, but this is exactly what makes them so desirable. They wouldn’t make mistake most other women do, for example, when they smother their partners with love eventually repelling them.
This type of people is very analytical and logical. These people are kings and queens of figuring out things. High testosterone activity in these men and women makes them straightforward and generally, they don’t strive to be polite, respectful or friendly – they do stuff according to what is convenient to them and, most importantly, is in line with their goals. Wasting words and repeating the obvious seem pointless to them. Forcing them to do so is a surefire way to annoy them!
Sanguine
The Sanguine temperament personality is affected by chemical called dopamine, which makes these people intensely curious and creative. Their curiosity can be expressed in their love for reading and different kinds of knowledge and they usually possess high amounts of energy, so they may seem restless and spontaneous.
This type of personality loves the life of luxury; they like to impress others by their expensive clothes, designer accessories and sport cars. If choleric people thrive on money-making process itself, sanguine people know how to enjoy money, luxury and comfort like nobody else.
They are big spenders and when given the ability to have anything they want, they will travel the world staying in splendid hotels, enjoying exciting safaris and luxury cruises; deriving full happiness and pleasure from their wealth.
They will indulge in their rich, comfortable and sumptuous living effectively ignoring world problems and crises.
People with sanguine personality adapt easily and generally can play many roles – buoyant, lively and optimistic, and they have the ability to absolutely charm the pants off anyone that seeks their attention. Their need for variety and luxury explains why they prefer to live in big cities where they can satisfy their desires much easier.
Sanguine people are very poor at tolerating boredom. Routine jobs, repetitive experiences and boring companions annoy and irritate them, and for the most part, they will try to avoid routine and monotony at all costs. In actual fact, they love and thrive on interruptions because they get energized during these small changes in course.
Phlegmatic
People with phlegmatic personality are unassuming, agreeable and intuitive and they possess the ability of “web thinking”, i.e. to see the relationship between many bits of data they collect.
Phlegmatic Skills
They have a wonderful skill to gather the facts, classify them into categories, and then see the relationship between seemingly contradicting elements. Basically, it is the ability to read between the lines. These men and women don’t do very well at memorizing separate unrelated facts, they grow bored and annoyed and to be excited by the process, they need to be able to generalize.
It’s all about the estrogen!
Phlegmatic personality traits are linked to estrogen, which is present in both men and women. However, phlegmatic people are predominantly females. The two hemispheres of the brain are connected by millions of nerve fibers, and estrogen builds more nerve connections between the remote areas within each hemisphere, in turn, this assists the ability of “seeing a bigger picture” or “web thinking”.
– These people are imaginative – they like to think abstractly about the things that only can be imagined. For example, they will try to read your body language and tell you what you were thinking from your half smile.
– The Phlegmatic person will want to know other people’s deepest feelings and strive to build intimate attachments with about everyone in their lives. They are interested in cooperation and interpersonal harmony, and this is why they preserve their family ties and friendships. When there is a conflict, they seek to agree, to satisfy the needs of everyone involved.
– These men and women are very empathetic and compassionate. They try to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling, then to respond accordingly, which allows them to connect with that person. Moreover, people with phlegmatic personality are agreeable.
– They could be described as cooperative, considerate, charitable, sympathetic, trusting and warm. They like to express their feelings, sometimes dramatizing their experience (another evidence of high estrogen activity).
– Phlegmatic men and women seek to contribute to society at large. They strive to fight cancer, donate to orphanages and help the poor and more than that, they also strive to a greater self-knowledge which they see as a must.
On the negative side, people with a phlegmatic personality can be indecisive, unable to focus on important details while ruminating on the bigger picture. Their talkativeness can be annoying and because they seek for a connection, they may appear needy, constantly demanding reassurance.
While trying to understand you, they also may assume that you see and feel the world the same way they do. They might take criticisms as an insult and pout for days, weeks and months and finally, they are very prone to depression.
Melancholic
Men and women with melancholic personality share many traits – they tend to be loyal to their family and friends and extremely careful. Respectability and moral issues are particularly important to them and they will often love to follow typical “norms” of society and family traditions.
They are respectful to authority, follow rules and feel comfortable in hierarchies, where structure, rules and order are implemented. It is important for them to feel themselves a part of the larger community. They see their loyalty to it as a duty.
Melancholic personality traits are associated with serotonin, which suppresses aggressive tendencies. This explains why melancholic people are calm and self-confident, deeply attached to their family and community and loyal. As it was mentioned, they are very orderly and don’t like unpredictability – they enjoy making definite plans and keeping schedules. They love routines, which they find relaxing and this should not come as a big surprise – any repetitive motion increases serotonin levels. It is relaxing in its nature, but nobody enjoys it more than a melancholic!
These people pay attention to details:
- They remember special dates, anniversaries and events
- They will remember details about their neighbors and colleagues.
Family and social ties are not seen by melancholics as something that limits their freedom and flexibility, as this could be with a sanguine or a choleric. In fact, to them these are safety nets, kind of a soft place to fall but in a much grander scale. It is also something that adds meaning to their life. Since society and family ties are such an important part of their daily lifestyles and routines, they absolutely can’t see themselves without it. Take this part away from them and they will be devastated. This is why the melancholic temperament personality is not likely to be somebody who would marry a foreigner or leave to another country for permanent residence.
Melancholics need to be orderly even in their speech – they will express themselves precisely, accurately, providing all of the relevant information and if you interrupt them or ask them a question they will think you are not interested in what they are talking about.
Unlike the Sanguine personality temperament, they hate distractions and get frustrated by them. If you want to impress them don’t talk about your big ideas, instead give them precise information and stick to details. Their need for order is expressed even in their jokes – they won’t be a fan of nonsense humor or unresolved humor, their jokes reflect order, predictability and closure.
Melancholics are persistent and patient. They don’t get bored easily and excel at tasks that require attention and repetition. Interestingly, repetitive actions raise levels of serotonin even more and this is why some people repeat one and the same action over and over when they are anxious, like checking to see if the door is closed well or if they turned off the stove or re-checking their suitcase before going to the vacation. Sadly a misbalanced melancholic personality temperament is most susceptible to OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), where a person engages meaningless rituals, like counting, washing hands or excessive cleaning in order to prevent some disaster he imagines. Some of them may suffer in a less obvious way, but probably the hardest – ruminating over and over about the same thought and rethinking it hundreds, if not thousands of times each and every day.
These people do excellent managers and administrators because they follow the rules, stick to the facts, they are reliable and maintain the social ties. They are superb at managing people whether it is at work or at home. One of their strongest needs is the need to belong and this is why they want to be reliable, respectable and charitable. Their emotional well-being depends on their social networks.
Melancholics are proud of their accomplishments – they will display their trophies, medals, diplomas, certificates and photos with influential people. Generally, they want to do the things in an accepted way; they prefer to plan things in advance and to know ahead of the time what they are going to do.
On the negative side, people with a melancholic personality temperament may become close-minded, dogmatic and stubborn. They also tend to turn to pessimism which may turn into fatalism, believing that nothing will ever change for better. Sometimes they get overly critical, judgmental, expressing their own moral superiority.
Their frugality may turn into stinginess. As well as this, some melancholics can become fixated on the past, where they ruminate for hours how their life would be if they did or choose something else in the past. Also they may have difficulty with stopping what they are doing, so hoarding is often a very common problem.
Note however, that most people are actually a mix of several personality temperament types that make them much more flexible. In geometrical shapes the particular favorites of melancholics are pyramids.