temperamentumok

Temperamentumok are a traditional classification of personality types used since antiquity to describe consistent patterns of behavior, mood, and energy. The concept is rooted in the ancient theory of humors and was widely used in medical and philosophical writings to explain why people differ in their reactions to events.

Dating to Hippocrates and Galen, the temperament theory posits that four bodily humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—determine temperament. Imbalances in these humors were thought to influence temperament and health. From this grew the four temperaments: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.

Sanguine: sociable, lively, optimistic, and spontaneous; Choleric: ambitious, decisive, assertive, and prone to anger; Melancholic: thoughtful, introverted, cautious, and sensitive to criticism; Phlegmatic: calm, reliable, patient, and resistant to change.

Modern psychology regards temperaments as an obsolete framework for describing personality, with trait theories—most notably the Five Factor Model—providing more reliable and nuanced descriptions. Nevertheless, the historical influence of temperamentumok persists in literature, education, and some therapeutic contexts, where terms like sanguine or melancholic surface as character descriptors. Cross-cultural variations exist, and some modern discussions adapt temperaments to account for development and environment rather than biology alone.

Today, temperaments are mostly of historical interest, though some educational and clinical writings discuss temperament as a lens for understanding motivation and emotional style. Critics argue that the model is oversimplified and deterministic, conflating mood or culture with stable trait patterns. Modern research favors dimensional trait approaches, which measure personality across continua of traits such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.