![]() ![]() Though, as elements go, ours are stunningly atypical. While the nature of our psychological elements is open to debate, chemically speaking, we know what we're made of. ![]() In Carl Jung's Psychological Types, published in 1921, four basic personality functions - feeling, thinking, intuition, and sensation (each with introverted or extroverted aspects) - echo water, air, fire, and earth. Psychological theory continued to reflect ancient Greek constructs, however. Though accepted as dogma in western medicine well into the 17th century, the humours had vanished from medicine by the 20th. High blood engendered a sanguine temperament, and produced amorous, cheerful people - Falstaff with a touch of Santa Claus and phlegm made for timorous types, like Uriah Heep. Elevated yellow bile rendered its possessor choleric, violent and vengeful - the sort of disposition that led John McEnroe to throw his tennis racket. An individual high in black bile was of melancholic disposition, the human equivalent of Eeyore. One's dominant humour was believed to determine one's personality type. These were phlegm, associated with the element water blood, associated with air yellow bile, with fire and black bile, with earth. The idea of the elements as determinants of behaviour was an outgrowth of the theory of the four essential body fluids, or humors, proposed by Hippocrates. Personality study dates back at least to the ancient Greeks, whose four elements were not only the fundamental substances of matter, but also the raw material of human nature. Such traits allow psychologists to categorise our personalities. Humans share many behavioural, emotional and cognitive traits which predict, more or less, how we're likely to learn, adapt to changing environments and interact in social situations. What makes us all the intelligent, insightful and delightful people we hope we are is a dauntingly complex mix of genetic, physiological, psychological, evolutionary and environmental factors, melded in some unspecified fashion to make each of us unique. Knowing ourselves, much less our families, friends and neighbours, is a colossal endeavour, which explains why psychology is such an acrimonious discipline. Socrates's injunction "know thyself" is tougher than it sounds. ![]()
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