The ancient Greek physician and founder of medicine Hippocrates singled out four types of human temperaments. According to him, plenty kinds of temperaments could explain an unequal course of the same diseases different people have. Hippocrates argued that the type of temperament depended on a different correlation of fluids in the human body: blood, mucus, bile, black bile. Nowadays, scientists associate the type of temperament with the type of higher nervous activity of a person. The higher nervous activity person is a combination of the properties of the nervous system that are innate and form during ontogenesis.
We can characterize the type of higher nervous activity by the intensity of the processes of excitation and inhibition, the balance between them and mobility (the ability to change behavior when the stimuli change) . Thus, there are strong and weak types of higher nervous activity. Melancholics have the weak type. They are sad, closed and have high emotional vulnerability. But that are not a negative features, because melancholics' nervous system is highly sensitive, which contributes to a delicate adaptation to the environment. Sanguines and phlegmatics have the strong type of higher nervous activity which is balanced while cholerics have strong unbalanced type.
Sanguines are resolute, energetic, emotional, as opposed to phlegmatics. Phlegmatics are calm sluggish, not particularly emotional people. Choleric people with an unbalanced type, where excitement prevails over inhibition, are quick-tempered, irritable and energetic. In fact, "pure" temperaments are rare in life, usually a person has a combination of properties. In addition to all, human behavior is more dependent on the upbringing and influence of the environment, and in extreme situations it may be completely unpredictable at all.
This was written by Nino Kutivadze
DISCUSSION:
What is your temperament type?
What kind of people are compatible with your type?