Talk:Four temperaments/Archive 1

Table

I found the following quote which contains some discrepancies with the table.

Source: Whiting, J. (2006). Hippocrates: Biography From Ancient Civilizations. Mitchell Lane Publishers. (Amazon, search inside).

Quote: As a result of his observations, [Hippocrates] formed a theory involving the four humors. He believed that the human body contained four fluids, or humors. These were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Each humor was associated with a particular organ and emotion. Blood came from the heart and helped make people cheerful. Phlegm was centered in the brain and aided in calmness. The spleen was the home of black bile, which could lead to depression and a gloomy outlook. Yellow bile, from the liver, led to anger, a hot temper, and courage. (p. 12). Bmarmie 14:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

A Supporting Quote (Source: Oxford English Dictionary (1971). Oxford University Press.): "Black bile, 'a term anciently used for an imaginary fluid, thick, black, and acrid,' supposed to be secreted by the renal or atrabiliary glands, or by the spleen, and to be the cause of melancholy (Syd. Soc. Lex.); hence: Melancholy, spleen" (s.v. 'atrabile'). --64.60.100.162 08:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The table is useful, but I found a similar type table with conflicting information on this website: http://www.ptypes.com/temperaments.html. The four humors don't match in the same way within their columns to the other categorizations found there. --Jen1234 03:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I am currently doing research on the four humours and i am finding this information useful

I created the table; i'm glad you find it useful =) if you have any questions i have a good handle on where to find information on these topics --Alterego 18:21, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, I find it rather strange that the four totem spirits do not correspond to the elements (normally, salamanders are for fire, gnomes for earth, etc) - I'd expect that Paracelsus would have had his totem spirits fit Hippocrat's humours, no ? If they didn't, I'd expect them to be pretty irrelevant here :-P

I'd be in favour of taking the totem spirits off this page, they make things confusing. Or, adding information as to why they don't fit their elements. (I can see this comes from Keirsey's book, I wonder if he gives any extra explanation on these totem spirits)

Flammifer 03:06, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The bottom half of the table is totally inappropriate to an encyclopedia. It has no factual or scientific basis whatsoever. The items with historical dates are quite different: they are clearly appropriate because they are labelled as important historical views that influenced the thinking of millions of people, and help us to understand the development of ideas.

I agree with you and have restored the table to my factual and initial version. --Alterego 03:00, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

The table has some incorrect information;: the characteristics field is wrong: courageous, hopeful, amorous is sanguine, NOT choleric calm, unemotional is phlegmatic NOT melancholic despondent, sleepless, irritable is melancholic, NOT sanguine easily angered, bad-tempered is choleric, NOT phlegmatic

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Also, in the text yellow bile is associated with the spleen, while it is the black bile indeed the humor attached to that organ. 190.1.41.191 00:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The Humorism has already been changed to source the black bile in the spleen and the yellow bile in the bile gladder, in line with this comment. Also, the comment of black bile not being associated with any bodily humor implies that yellow bile is the one produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder--Cgbraschi (talk) 10:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

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What color is phlegm associated with? White? Green? I assumed it couldn't be yellow because of yellow bile...

table presentation of sets of 4

This is my first time reading the article. Found it very informative. One issue I had though is the tabular presentation of some of these sets. For one thing I'm not clear about what the relationship of these modern sets are to the sets of Greek influenced medicine (other than they are all sets of 4). However, I'm especially unclear what information each column is meant to convey: especially after the first several rows. If the more recent sets are relevant to the article, it might be better to remove them from the table and just present them as lists. If they each column has some connection between the elements, perhaps that could be made more clear in the article or — even better— naming the columns in some descriptive way that captures the common trats of the elements in the column. Just a suggestion. I don't have the background to contribute the answer myself, but as a casual reader this was a problem in interpretation.

In other articles I've read on scientific thought in this period: concepts are often presented in some polar form. So presenting each of these four sets would be on a circle or square: sometimes combined to consider the various combining influences of each trait. From my reading here and elsewhere that seems more in keeping with the thinking within these fields and would provide a clearer presentation of the concepts. To see what I'm referring to you could look at the following: Pythagoras, Pentagram, Hindu astrology, Gnostic circle . Just a thought. --Cplot 03:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I am confused by the four totems. I would have expected (just in terms of how these creatures are presented in mythology) that the following would hold: Salamanders (Fire), Sylphs (Air), Nymphs (Water, Gnomes (Earth). However I defer to more thorough research of the topic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.228.134.219 (talk • contribs) .

This content borrows quite heavily from this page: http://bodilyhumour.quickseek.com/ with some notable miscategorizations, as the above comment suggests.

Fifth temperament?

The section I had added to the page and was deleted by Toh (as "non-germane to the topic", and suggested a separate article) 12 Sep 05 I felt was a very significant discovery:

In the 1980's, the National Christian Counselors Association, Inc. conducted extensive research and developed the Arno Profile System, named after its founders Richard G. and Phyllis J. Arno.

It is a system of calculating a person's temperament based on a questionnaire. Each temperament is divided into three categories: Inclusion (social orientation and intellectual energy), Control (one’s decision making abilities and/or need to control others), and Affection (how we respond in our deep personal relationships). All of the temperaments, except the Phlegmatic, can also be "compulsive.”

During the Arnos’ research, a fifth temperament was discovered which identified a category of people who did not really fit into the other four temperament categories. Some researchers suspected it existed, but only as a “wounded [passive] Sanguine." The Arnos found the missing link, a fifth temperament. This newly identified temperament was called the “Supine,” which means “with the face upwards,” like a servant looking up to his/her master. The Arnos refer to it as “the serving temperament,” because the Supine “feels” that their only value is to serve others. Supines like and need people; however, they have a fear of rejection and do not initiate.

Supines are identified by strengths such as: a desire to serve, liking people, and having a gentle spirit. Their weaknesses include: expecting others to read their mind, harboring anger as "hurt feelings," and feelings of powerlessness. They are generally open to receiving affection, but have trouble initiating.

In some respects, the Supine can be considered as the opposite of a Choleric just as the Melancholy is opposite of a Sanguine.

I had recently been thinking that it should have its own article. But this is by the research of one person (Mr. Arno), which it took me some time to realize. And he seems to be a bit protective of his "discovery", which he has copyrighted, I think. (I had to run the text through him, and he edited it to the way he saw fit before I posted it). I would have to go to him to post any further articles, and my wife, who is the one getting her Counseling license though him, is a bit nervous about me bothering him so much posting all of this information on my own.

But his discovery is quote significant! [Another important point that should have been included]: Temperaments are determined by a scale of a person's "responsiveness" to other people's approaches ("Wanted" behavior) in the above three areas of interaction, and their need to approach other people for those interactions ("expressed" behavior). A melancholy in control has a low need to control others, and also a low tolerance of control by others. A choleric, however, has a high need to control others, but a low tolerance of others controlling him. A sanguine "swings" between control and dependency.

But there were some sanguines who scored high in Response, (as normal) but low in Expressed (like Melancholies). Instead of swinging from control to dependency, they seemed to alway be dependant, and in the area of "inclusion" and "affection", they had a high need to socialize and receive affection, like other sanguines, but were not as open and outgoing as the others --looking a lot like melancholies on the surface. (This leads to what is called "indirect behavior"). These were the "passive" class of sanguines that had been detected in earlier studies. But in Arno's system of scoring, since a separate "temperament" is detemined by a high or low score in expression and response, it follows that someone high in response and low in express is just as much a separate temperament from sanguine, as choleric (which is high in expressed and low in response) is. This was how the temperament of Supine was discovered.

And to those of us who have participated in this analysis, it is so accurate! It perfectly explains to us ourselves, as well as our close friends and loved ones! I, for instance, am "supine" in inclusion, and "choleric" in control. The Supine wants to serve the world and share something good, and the Choleric is what took on the task of trying to expose this theory (even though it may have been seen as impinging on someone else's turf). I think this guy should go for a Nobel or something. But IIRC, he may be choleric as well, so my wife cautions me about pushing him.

Anyway, I guess the deletion of the information provides a good excuse to go and speak to him again, about giving his theory its own article. So I'll leave it off for now, and I hope to contact him soon.

Here, for now is Arno's own website:

Arno Profile System

Eric B 17:10 28 Dec. 2005

You know what; slept on it, and I guess there would be no harm is making a new article called "Supine (Temperament)" with the text in question right now. I always did fear all of that was a bit much to tack on to this article, but didn't think to mak a separate article, so I apologize. Eric B 8:45 29 Dec. 2005

About bloodletting--

I found this at http://www.collectmedicalantiques.com/bloodletting.html, which seemed to me to introduce an interesting example of bloodletting taken to excess, and was very nicely written, too.

Bleeding was used to reduce excess circulation, to slow the pulse, and to "reduce irritation", all felt to be the cause of inflammation. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a major figure in colonial American medicine and was an important proponent of bleeding, though unfortunately he mistakenly thought that the body held 12 instead of 6 quarts. Shortly before his death, George Washington was bled 4 ‡ quarts in 24 hours for an infected throat and died not long after (3).

the parallels

The assignment of the classical elements is not what I expected, namely fire:blood, earth:melanchole, water:choler, air:phlegm. —Tamfang 00:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Food classification

The usual current term for the foods that we still talk about in this way (e.g. spices) is hot, not warm. I was surprised to see warm used in this article -- would hot be a better choice? Andrew Dalby 18:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge to Humourism

"Four humours" is really not a proper subject for an article. The proper term for the theory, according to OED, is Humorism/Humoralism; so, I've suggested merging this into Humorism. See the talk page there for more comments about merging. --BRIAN0918 14:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

A figure left out in the merge from Four temperaments

Simple emoticons of the four temperaments (clockwise from top right: Choleric, melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic).

When the article Four temperaments was merged into this one, the following image was left out. If the article had been significantly improved in the merging process, I'd absolutely respect the decision of the editor(s) carrying out this work, but I do not think that is the case, and I therefore would like to recommend the image again. I do not know who first had the simple idea behind the image; it was not me, though I created this particular graphics file. I will not add it myself, as it could be considered original research. The eyes may be interpreted as an indication of a high/low energy level, and the mouth of a positive/negative tone.

Fat people?

I got rid of a random comment about how the personalities are "ruled by FAT PEOPLE." Pretty damn random.

Renaissance Adaptations

The following section has recently been added and removed:

==Renaissance Adaptations==

Though the four humors were indeed a pagan belief borrowed from the Greeks, in Renaissance times these four humors were adapted for Christian use are said represent the four natures of God. As man is an imperfect reflection of Gods image we as mankind have these four traits. The goal is keep them in perfect balance as God does. This perfect balance is known as eukrasia or the state of harmonious balance. This state has also been known as the “quinta essentia” or the fifth state witch belongs only to God. Its is an emotional and character quality that all good Christian men should strive for but no man can ever truly and completely attain.

-section added by Edward Youn (ASU)

Perhaps, with some editing towards WP:NPOV etc., it may be a valuable addition.--Niels Ø 12:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

yellow and black bile are switched on a number of pages

black bile is choleric and yellow bile is melancholic. I dont have the time curently to change them all so I thought I would post here for some help —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.72.109.237 (talk) 02:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

could you please cite your sources on that? everything I have from textbooks, various websites, etc. says that black bile is melancholic and yellow is phlegmatic. It also makes sense: phlegm is yellow. -- Log'a'log 04:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

"Melan" is a greek word for "black", and "cholera" is bile. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Melancholy So right there, "melan choler" is black bile. Eric B 17:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Under Melanchoia you write:

There is no bodily fluid corresponding to black bile

This does not make sense to me since I presumed black bile (from the gall bladder) IS the bodily fluid associated with this humour. Wardrobe 06:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

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Please see my comment above on the links between fluids/humors and organs. 190.1.41.191 00:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

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The liver creates yellow bile, which is stored in the gall bladder, and squirted into the small intestines when food enters the small intestines, to continue the process of digestion. Black bile is not so obvious, as it likely is melatonin, a brain chemical with effects identical to the typical melancholic personality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilywyte (talk • contribs) 13:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Split and moved back to "Four Temperaments"

I mistakenly clicked "do not move talk", and that erased it from the nrenamed article, so I went and got it all back.

When the separate page "Four Temperaments" was spun off of "four humors", that was a good idea, since the theories have gone in separate directions (one being largely discredited, and the other a popular pyschological theory of today). So instead of merging Four Temperaments back into Four humors, (and then talking about merging four humors into "humorism") what should have been done, is simply merge four humors into humorism, and leave Four Temperaments separate. This I have now done. I will continue to fix up both as needed.Eric B 18:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

For the talk edit history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Four_humours&limit=500&action=history

Kiersey and Myers

It seems to me that the personality types are all mixed up here. The SP as blood makes some sense, but I would put NT with yellow bile, NF with black bile and SJ with phlegm. For instance in Kiersey, the "mastermind" category is in NT - that seems to match the description better. And the depressed artist type really matches NF better.

204.65.182.254Liz W

Tim LaHaye a Psychologist?

In the section about Tim LaHaye, it looks like he is referred to as a psychologist ("He and other psychologists ...) I don't think he's a psychologist so maybe that part needs to be rewritten

BuddhaBubba 09:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The section was mostly bullshit didn't appear very strong to me, so I took a bunch of it out. Everything past LaHaye didn't have a real reference, just a 40-page self-published booklet; the link was to a sales site. WLU 17:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I think LaHaye is considered a "Christian Psychologist". (Like Dobson) I don't remember what all his credentials are, but the point there, was that he does have his own psychological (personality testing) instrument, and is perhaps the leading advocate of the original Galenic-named version of temperament theory.

The link was to an article by someone else showing how both Social styles and Personality styles models have 12 blends, and the mapping of these to the 16 types of the MBTI. (The 40 page book was not authored by either the Social Style or Personality Style creators, but a totally independant organization). It is not BS; it is just hard to find references on some of these things other than those articles on sites that also sell the researcher's own products. Eric B 22:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I like the structure of the changes you made, splitting into a new section, though I'm less happy with the content - I think it gives a fair amount of article space to what appears to be some vague writing that happened in the 60's and doesn't seem to have much support from mainstream psychology. That being said, I'm content to leave it alone as I don't know enough to provide a firmer criticism. The only suggestion I would like to make is that I think writing out all 12 of the personality combinations is a bit redundant - I think it's sufficient to say there are 12 possible pair-combinations, based on one of each type being dominant. I retract my 'BS' comment above! Could you provide a reference to for the new section?WLU 11:01, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

The sources for the section were LaHaye's books themselves; which the three note references pointed to, but now seem to have been removed. I'll have to put them back when I get a chance, or just get them back from an earlier revision.

The temperament blends are notable, and accepted by others in mainstream psychology (and thus also linked to the MBTI), as the 40 page article referenced pointed out. Writing them out just showed the specific order (that the dominant was the first of the pair), and also showed LaHaye's peculiar combining form "-Chlor-" for Choleric.Eric B 19:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I still don't like the 40-page book (too short for an academic text!), but I especially didn't like the commercial link that was provided. If you do re-cite it, it's better to use the ISBN number in the citation templates rather than the link itself. And I still think a complete listing of pairs is redundant, a prose description would be more than adequate (it's not a terribly complicated idea) in my opinion. Perhaps one example of each. Just my suggestions as I'm content to leave it as is. WLU 20:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

There's really no valid reason to include anything by, or about Tim LaHaye, except in relation to being a popular, but awful science fiction/new age writer with a particular Christian slant...he's only a few steps away from being an L. Ron Hubbard, without the cult following. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.13.249 (talk) 02:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm...

Simple emoticons of the four temperaments (clockwise from top right: Choleric, melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic).

A person who is sanguine is generally optimistic, cheerful, confident, popular, and fun-loving.

In the caption, it asserts that the sanguine appears to have a deviously clever, scheming persona (at least thats what sense the lower left emoticon gives me), while the description from the article seems to say something else. How are these to be reconciled? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... Support

I agree with DRosenbach, the picture for Sanguine does not really fit. I personally feel the emoticons for Sanguine and Phlegmatic should be swapped around!

Could someone please look into the source and confirm whether this is true?

General suggestions

As I was reading this article I noticed several things offhand. First, this article reads as though a different person wrote every sentence. It needs a single person to run their voice throughout the entire article. Issues such as tense, punctuation, sentence order and logic of presentation change from paragraph to paragraph and sentence to sentence. Second, if I didn't come to this article already knowing about humor theory, I would be very confused by the introduction. The first sentence or two need to have a quick introduction to point the reader in a general direction as to what in the wide world of facts they may be reading about. Third, the organization is fairly sloppy. Single-snippet fats seem to be thrown in wherever they might fit and in some places where they do not (e.g. the introduction). There seems to be little overarching authorship guiding the process. Another example is the section on the decline in popularity. Based off the title of that section, I would expect to read about how, why and when the humor theory declined in popularity. Instead, that portion contains information that is better classified in the section that discusses the theories that replaced humor theory. Is there anybody who is the main brain behind this article, or is it simply the result of individuals putting in an idea here and a sentence there? Darktaco (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added on 00:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC).

Yes, the article is sadly ahistorical and unscholarly, given the importance of the theory of humors in the history of medicine. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops. I see that Humorism is the real article on the subject I was looking for. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Darktaco, if the introduction was confusing, it's because it was deleted in a bout of vandalism last August which I only just now caught and reverted. +Angr 13:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

New articles

I think that Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic should have they're own articles. The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 00:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

True

so is this like actually true? because it's as if a chinese lady made it up and stuck it here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.45 (talk) 15:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Hartman Personality Profile

What is the difference between the four temperaments and the four personality types in the Hartman Personality Profile? They seem to correspond:

• Red: The Power Wielders = Powerful Choleric
• Blue: The Do-gooders = Perfect Melancholy
• White: The Peacekeepers = Peaceful Phlegmatic
• Yellow: The Fun Lovers = Popular Sanguine

Chiralgia (talk) 02:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistent order

The order of the temperaments in the nice graphic is inconsistent. If the photo author is correct, the caption on the page itself is wrong, transposing phlegmatic and sanguine. Simon Grant (talk) 13:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Four temperaments. Favonian (talk) 16:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

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Four Temperaments → Four temperaments — MOS headings. Spicemix (talk) 15:48, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support. It's not a big deal to me one way or the other, but the MOS does give specific guidance HERE. Lou Sander (talk) 17:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support per WP:CAPS. Jenks24 (talk) 06:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Emoticons

An anonymous editor has added an image said to represent the four temperaments. (Sorry, but I don't know how to link to the file.) This image was in here before, I think, and was removed for some reason. It's a nice image, but it doesn't indicate which emoticon applies to which type. Nor does it explain the significance of smile vs. frown or the two different slants of the eyes.

Somebody needs to supply this information in the image's caption. If it can't be supplied, I'd be in favor of removing the image as something unhelpful. Lou Sander (talk) 21:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me the images don't match the words very well. Richard Giuly (talk) 02:45, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

In society and in culture

Re:[1] "should this section even be in the article?" - the 1st three paragraphs seem relevant and simply need expansion, whilst the last two paragraphs are "In popular culture" type information and could potentially be removed or placed into a separate section. –Quiddity (talk) 23:13, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Quiddity! I removed the popular culture type of information and added an expansion tag. Lova Falk talk 12:21, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The Four Temperments

Let's discuss the descriptions of each individual type, I feel that each one, perhaps aside from the sanguine, needs additional insight and description.

I would like to expand to melancholy temperment's description, there are a number of benefits and skills that each type has. Timothy Perseus Wordsworthe (talk) 01:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your additions, but could you please add sources. The description of the four types is desperately lacking in sources. With friendly regards, Lova Falk talk 09:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Much of the documentation of the temperaments is found in the works of various speakers and writers such as Florence Littauer, Tim LaHaye and of course the ancient scholars who invented these classifications. Will search for more sources. Timothy Perseus Wordsworthe (talk) 06:38, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be good to state specific sources: author, book, year, page etc. Lova Falk talk 10:33, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Another classification of temperaments

According to the Four-Temperament Ensemble page on TVTropes.org:

Background

• Melancholic: A task-based introvert; low response, low expression; earth.
• Phlegmatic: A people-based introvert; high response, low expression; water.
• Choleric: A task-based extrovert; low response, high expression; fire.
• Sanguine: A people-based extrovert; high response, high expression; air.
• Leucine: moderate in response and expression.

Elemental relations

• Task-oriented: Low response; dry.
• People-oriented: High response; moist.
• Introverted: Low expression; cool.
• Extroverted: High expression; hot.

Messy Thinking (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. But TYTropes.org doesn't really qualify as a Reliable source on Wikipedia. See if you can find the origin of this. hgilbert (talk) 01:12, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Five Temperaments gives the fifth name as "Supine". I would guess that someone was writing-without-checking, at tvtropes. –Quiddity (talk) 22:56, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Wrong

This article is extremely inaccurate. Well done. Another occasion when people with iphones think they know something based on a fraudulent article and won't listen to someone who has actually researched it, content with Wikipedia's half baked answers. The temperaments are fluid and changing. They are NOT, nor have they EVER BEEN fixed personality traits. It is misleading the public on something else without attaching a name to it. This page needs to be fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.146.27 (talk) 21:12, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

bodily fluids

The current lede says that the traditional four fluids have been shown not to exist. As one of these was blood, and another phlegm, both of which clearly do exist, I would suggest that we need to tweak the wording. (Also see Hart GD (December 2001). "Descriptions of blood and blood disorders before the advent of laboratory studies". Br. J. Haematol. 115 (4): 719–28. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2141.2001.03130.x. PMID 11843802, who suggests that the 4 layers visible when blood clots are the basis for the 4 fluids. These exist, even if they are not what the Greeks thought they were.) hgilbert (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

This article generally lack citations, so adding a tag to this one item seems odd. It is problematic when information is removed from an article while the edit summary makes no mention of this but instead says it's "restructuring". Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 21:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Probably more citations are needed. I'm adding a tag here particularly because there is a very explicit claim made that I am not sure is valid. hgilbert (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

thanks, the revised lede looks good. hgilbert (talk) 23:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Suggested image - Dutch anatomy atlas ca. 1790

How well does this image go in here? Its from and old anatomy textbook. I don't understand the text personally, but it seems to be very much the kind of thing that belongs here.

-- CFCF (talk) 09:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I can just about make out cholerike in the text, so I will be adding it within a few days if noone objects or is faster. CFCF (talk) 09:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Four temperaments need work

I have tried to provide sourced descriptions of the temperaments but this is just an initial pass...they all need work, and more (better?) sources should be found. I hope others can help with this. HGilbert (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Move request of Melancholia

A discussion is taking place on the title of this article at Talk:Melancholia#Requested_move. All input welcome. Thank you. ^walk victor falk ^talk 11:16, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

A guide to etiquette? Seriously?

Knigge is surely a reliable source on 18th-century etiquette but the theory of temperaments is pretty far from his area of expertise. I would not make use of his etiquette manual for this article. HGilbert (talk) 10:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, even in the revised version[2] it has no place there, and would best be removed. Qexigator (talk) 16:33, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

I find these objections unbelievable. There are references in here from astrology and "understanding your personality" sources --- MODERN sources. Knigge apparently was a very well known German source who was certainly no fluffier than this, and more relevant to the time when people believed in this stuff (though not really ancient enough). I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish but this was rooted in what I got from the Refdesk. [3] Wnt (talk) 18:44, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that better sources should be used and that the article needs cleanup. I would go with experts on the theme rather than astrologists, etiquette advisers, and whatnot. HGilbert (talk) 03:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't give enough shits to argue deeply or go to war, but agree there's something fishy here. Not in a "struggling Rudolf Steiner Press authors grasp at free publishing space and won't let go" way, of course. But some sort of new age affliction. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Emoticons

In File:Four temperament b.PNG, Noe said "These two features seem to represent high/low energy, resp. positive/negative humours. I created the graphics file myself, but I do not know the source of this idea. As the four temperaments may not be represented absolutely convincingly by these four figures, their merit lies in their simplicity. If you can improve on these four figures without compromising their simplicity, please do so and replace my file!" The file was indeed "improved", indeed utterly changed, in two revisions up to File:Four temperaments - 3.svg. I see no assertion that any serious source aside from a couple of Wikipedia editors has ever promoted this idea. Wnt (talk) 19:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

so what actually *are* the temperaments???

the article doesn't actually say what personality traits a "phlegmatic" or "choleric" person has, apart from the briefest of descriptions in the lede. it seems to assume the reader is already familiar with the classifications. this seems like a big omission! 185.121.6.151 (talk) 15:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Emoticons...

Back in 2006 I (then as user:Noe) added four simple emoticons to the Four temperaments page (can't figure out what it was called at the time, but I think it is this edit: [4]). See a few discussions of it in Talk:Four temperaments/Archive 1. It was removed, but I see that it has all the same since spread a little on the internet in various versions, including in Five temperaments and also including the original image in several foreign language wikipedias. Check out e.g. [5].

I still think it is quite good, considering how simple it is, and as I've stated before, it is not OR in the sense that I invented it, but I've forgotten the name of the guy who introduced the idea to me. Perhaps something like Hans Rørdam? It was in a train, both of us going to at maths' teachers course on Math and Art, I believe, and I think he claimed it was NOT his idea either. I have never seen it in a valid source; so we can't include it again at this time.

A similar idea of four types arising from two dimensions was expressed by C. G. Jung, I believe - I have not dug up a proper source, but see e.g. this [6], sometimes illustrated more explicitly as a coordinate system. Also, classifying the four elements as hot/cold and wet/dry povides a similar 2x2 classification to the temperaments (see colourful figure now in Humorism).

But I find it very odd (if true) that the idea in the diagram is truly original. So... has anyone seen it anywhere that is not derived from my inclusion of the image on wikipedia back in 2006? (Or has anyone seroius enough to be quotable here taken it up?)--Nø (talk) 10:00, 19 May 2018 (UTC)--Nø (talk) 09:53, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

It is very cute, and the 4 temperaments are clearly recognizable...it's regrettable that this is not able to be included! The expression "publish or perish" comes to mind... Clean Copy^talk 05:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Inclusion of "blood type"

I think that the editors should consider removing "blood type" from the table of temperaments. I am unaware of any scientific evidence for a reliable association between blood type and personality, and the correspondence seems to be based entirely by reference to an independently published book by a non-famous author which is not generally available. I am concerned that this may be an instance of someone using Wikipedia to publish a pet theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnDziak (talk • contribs) 19:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

It was recently added by this edit here [7]. I agree that blood type shouldn't be included per your reasoning; I have removed it. Some1 (talk) 20:18, 26 June 2020 (UTC)