The four 'humours': Our 2,500-year-old mania for personality types

undefined 23, 2025

Source: bbci

Originating in ancient Greece, the four humours, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, and sanguine, linked personality to bodily fluids, seasons, and elements, shaping medicine and behavior for centuries before being debunked. Shakespeare used them in his plays, and though biology disproved the model, echoes remain in modern psychology. Eysenck’s mid-20th-century dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion, and even the Big Five model, map closely onto the old types, showing our enduring urge to classify personality.

Share on