

Sanguine people are very creative and can become great artists. Their constant cravings can lead to overeating and weight problems. Naturally, this trait can sometimes negatively affect their romantic and other relationships.īecause this temperament is prone to pleasure-seeking behaviors, many people with sanguine personalities are likely to struggle with addictions. Sanguine people are typically poor at tolerating boredom and will seek variety and entertainment. They love adventure and have high risk tolerance. People with a sanguine personality type tend to be lively, optimistic, buoyant, and carefree. Despite that, usage of its terms - sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic - persists in both scientific and everyday language. Modern psychology is not much kinder to the four temperaments concept and, in general, dismisses most personality theories altogether. The remaining twelve could as well describe all variations of mixed temperaments (more details on this below). However, four of their sixteen types are almost identical to the four basic personality types from the four temperaments model. The sixteen Myers-Briggs types are based on Jung’s theory. Having said that, this doesn’t minimize the value of her original research. Helen Fisher’s personality types - The Explorer, The Negotiator, The Director, and The Builder - bear a striking resemblance to Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric, and Melancholic types, respectively.

Modern medicine rejects this typology, but many new personality theories were developed based on this ancient concept, often disguised under different names.ĭr. NEW: Four Temperaments Test - take this quick test to find your predominant and secondary temperaments. Here is his chart for pure temperaments, and here is his chart for mixed temperaments. Paul Hysen, Ph.D., provided some useful charts. However, most people have mixed temperaments, and judging solely by appearance may be difficult for untrained enthusiasts such as ourselves.ĭr. The predominance of one humor is said to affect one’s appearance and behavior. The four temperaments and their predominant humors are as follows: Humors here refer to fluids that are present within one’s body.ĭifferent people have different proportions of these fluids the predominance of one fluid defines one’s temperament and psychological type.įor example, the predominance of a phlegm humor corresponds to a Phlegmatic personality type.

Humorism, an ancient medical concept, is at the heart of this typology. In fact, it is still used today by practitioners of traditional medicine around the world.

The origins of this typology belong to Graeco-Arabic medicine, where it was successfully used to treat illnesses. This article is about one of the oldest personality type systems in the world - the four temperaments model. Today, there is no shortage of personality type theories, and our pages on personality types and tests are among the most popular pages on this site.
