4 PERSONALITY TYPES ACCORDING TO HIPPOCRATES. WHICH ARE YOU?

María Rosa Iriarte
3 min readJun 19, 2023

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It is based on the four personality types that Hippocrates, one of the best-known physicians of ancient Greece, established based on human behaviors.

This typology was based on an ancient medical concept that proposed that people have four different types of “humor”. When they spoke of “humor” they meant the bodily fluids that are present in the human body. Different people have different proportions of these fluids; The predominance of a fluid defines its temperament and psychological type. These are the four temperaments and their predominant humors (body fluids):

· Optimistic: blood

· Phlegmatic: phlegm

· Choleric: yellow bile

· Melancholic: black bile

The predominance of a humor is said to affect one’s own personal appearance and behavior. However, most people do not possess a pure temperament, but a type of mixed temperament in which one of the four types predominates.

Modern medicine rejects this typology, but many new theories of personality develop from this ancient concept, often disguised under different names. For example, Dr. Helen Fisher’s personality types — Explorer, Negotiator, Director, and Builder — bear a striking resemblance to blood, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic types, respectively. Luckily this doesn’t minimize the value of your original research.

Modern psychology doesn’t get much kinder to the concept of the four temperaments, and in general, most personality theories dismiss them altogether. Despite this, the use of terms — sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic — persists in the scientific language of psychology.

Sanguine temperament

It is characteristic of lively, cheerful, optimistic, kind, communicative, warm but thoughtless people with a fairly variable mood. They love adventure and have a high tolerance for risk. Usually, sanguine people do not know how to tolerate boredom and will avidly seek variety and entertainment. Needless to say, this trait can negatively affect your romantic relationships at times. Because this temperament is prone to pleasure-seeking behaviors. Their constant cravings can lead to overeating or substance abuse.

These people are very creative and can become great artists. In addition, they are fantastic entertainers and will naturally do well if they choose careers in the entertainment industry. Their natural abilities will also serve them, if they wish, for work related to:

· marketing

· travel

· fashion

· kitchen

· sport.

Phlegmatic temperament

Someone with the phlegmatic personality type is usually a person in search of interpersonal harmony and close relationships. Phlegmatic people are faithful spouses and loving parents. They retain their relationships with old friends, distant relatives and neighbors. They tend to avoid conflicts and always try to mediate among others to restore peace and harmony.

They are generous and inclined to help others. Ideal professions for personality types are usually related to:

· infirmary

· teaching

· psychology

· child care,

· social services.

Choleric temperament

Someone with pure choleric temperament would be a basically goal-oriented person. People with this personality type are very intelligent, analytical and logical. They are not usually very good companions. They don’t like chatting for the sake of chatting, they enjoy deeper and meaningful conversations more. They prefer to be alone than in the company of shallow, shallow people. Ideally, they want to spend time with people who have similar career interests.

The ideal jobs for the personality type are related to the following sectors of activity:

· administration

· technology

· statistics

· engineering

· programming

· business.

Melancholic temperament

People with melancholic personalities are introverted and cautious. They are quite reserved and always remain attentive to anything that happens around them. They take their time to calculate each and every move and prefer to act on their own. They love life with family and friends and, unlike sanguine temperament, do not seek novelty and adventure. In fact, they avoid it at all costs. A person with a melancholy temperament is very unlikely to marry a foreigner or leave his homeland to live in another country. They are very social and try to contribute to the community. They are also usually extremely orderly and fantastic managers.

The perfect trades for the melancholic personality type are usually in:

· management

· accounting

· social work

· administration.

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