A Brief Summary——Personality Study by Hippocratic

P
U
F

Personality has profound impact on people’s attitude when facing a problem. Timothy Gallway, a Harvard educationist and tennis expert, claimed that “the opponent within one’s own head is more formidable than the one on the other side of the net”.

For this project, I had dealed with many people from different cultural background, the cultural and language barrier is inevitable to me. I wonder if there are theories that discuss how people’s behaviors are impact by their personality? How to better understand people’s personality from behaviors, the way of talking, and face gesture?

Hippocratic, an ancient Greek doctor, classified human temperament into bilious temperament, sanguine temperament, mucus temperament, depression temperament.

Hippocrates put forward the theory of body fluids of temperament on the basis of the “four roots” theory of the ancient Greek physician Empedocler (c. 495-435 BC). He believes that the human body contains four different fluids, namely blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile. They are produced in the heart (blood, correspond to sanguine temperament), brain (mucus, correspond to lymphatic temperament), liver (yellow bile, correspond to Bilious temperament), and stomach (black bile, correspond to melancholic temperament). The four fluid form the nature of the human personality, and the condition of the body depends on the correct coordination of the four fluid.

Bilious temperament is characterised by exciting, energetic, but inconsistent, easy to get discouraged after being frustrated; sanguine temperament is characterised flexible, adaptable, which emotions are easy to produce and change; lymphatic temperamentis characterised by balanced behavior, stable, firm, and invisible in terms of joy and anger faces; and melancholic temperament is characterised by sentimental, lonely and indecisive.

The bilious and sanguine temperament have extrovert characteristics. People who are extrovert tend to enjoy socialise, be impulsive, present their emotions on appearance. Themelancholic and lymphatic temperament have introvert characteristics. People who are introvert tend to talk less, preserve their emotions, stay alone, and focus more on inner experience.