Have just been reading a book by an American anthropologist Helen Fisher called "Why Him, Why Her?". It is more interesting than that title sounds, but I am rather wondering how "scientific" this book truly is.
She has identified 4 personality types and says their relationships with each other will tend to pan out in certain ways. She claims that the types are related to a predominance of different hormones in the brain - Dopamine (Explorers), Serotonin (Builders), testosterone (Directors) and oestrogen (Negotiators). Although she devises some questionaires so that you can find out what type you are (it's all very Cosmopolitan), she doesn't actually say whether people who fall into these categories on the basis of the quiz have ever been measured for these hormones - or whether it's just a hunch. This is my major problem with the book.
I rather liked the fact that she pointed out that this quarto-typology has existed since Hippocrates idea of the 4 bodily fluids that dominated people - which Galen boiled down to the idea of the 4 temperaments. Galen thought balances of the humours were what was needed, Fisher agrees people are a mix but says we all have a dominant type. I appear to be predominantly a Negotiator - so is Mark, ergo we should not be married to each other - he is however a more balanced/desirable type according to Galen (he has more health problems than me however). Of course we cannot argue from anecdote and Helen Fisher tries hard not to, but at the same time the book is full of vox pops from different people.
She aligns her four categories with Hippocrates, thus:
Sanguine: Explorer
Melancholic: Builder
Phlegmatic: Director
Choleric: Negotiator (she uses the word Passionate to bridge the vast gulf between these 2 types).
These groups of 4 are interesting - the trad ones are aligned with the planets: Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars (I think), or they became aligned with the elements: Fire, Earth, Air and Water - but none of this really works or lines up together - intuition, pragma, intellect, feeling - it doesn't quite work because Negotiators are meant to be intuitive, which is fire - and the explorers have got that - if you gave the Explorers air instead then the Directors would lose the intellectual connexion and become water which wouldn't do at all. The traditional humors fit with the astrological signs and the Jungian types: thinking, feeling etc. but hers don't. Of course she could be right. But she's not really in the great tradition here. .
A quick visit to Wikipedia and I discover that Ms Fisher is not alone - lots of modern psychologists have identified and used these 4 types in other ways - so perhaps it is possible to boil us down to that. Then again plenty of others have not - don't know if Freud ever bothered with them. Myers Briggs went up to 16 personality types - which sounds a bit more like it.
The question becomes one of chicken-and-egg: did Prof Fisher remember the 4 types (she is an anthropologist who specialises in sex) and update them - or did she start from some unquoted research about hormones and brains...and retro-fit to the 4 types idea? 4 is obviously the number to start with - any more and it gets confusing. I am not dissing her basic premise, but just questioning the cultural "norms" that gave rise to it.
I am not entirely sure I agree with Prof Fisher - but I have now started seeing my friends in these categories - most of my women friends are Negotiators - some are builders, and I can recognise Explorers quite easily. James, my first husband was a classic Director - his nickname at school was Baz - short for Basil(eos) (King) - which tells you what you need to know. Since Negs like to be with Directors, should I have stayed with him? No, don't think so.
Having seen one of Fisher's lectures on TED I rather hoped for something a bit more chewy - but it has the air and style of an easy-to-read self-help book, so not quite what I expected (although the title was a bit of a giveaway...). Will it catch on? I don't think so, the book came out a few years ago 2009 in fact and doesn't seem to have had much impact beyond it's original hype. I suspect though that by adopting an existing cultural form Helen Fisher has condemned me to retain this knowledge. It fits, it works, it seems reasonable - but I would still like them to have done hormone tests on the participants in the dating matches.
She has identified 4 personality types and says their relationships with each other will tend to pan out in certain ways. She claims that the types are related to a predominance of different hormones in the brain - Dopamine (Explorers), Serotonin (Builders), testosterone (Directors) and oestrogen (Negotiators). Although she devises some questionaires so that you can find out what type you are (it's all very Cosmopolitan), she doesn't actually say whether people who fall into these categories on the basis of the quiz have ever been measured for these hormones - or whether it's just a hunch. This is my major problem with the book.
I rather liked the fact that she pointed out that this quarto-typology has existed since Hippocrates idea of the 4 bodily fluids that dominated people - which Galen boiled down to the idea of the 4 temperaments. Galen thought balances of the humours were what was needed, Fisher agrees people are a mix but says we all have a dominant type. I appear to be predominantly a Negotiator - so is Mark, ergo we should not be married to each other - he is however a more balanced/desirable type according to Galen (he has more health problems than me however). Of course we cannot argue from anecdote and Helen Fisher tries hard not to, but at the same time the book is full of vox pops from different people.
She aligns her four categories with Hippocrates, thus:
Sanguine: Explorer
Melancholic: Builder
Phlegmatic: Director
Choleric: Negotiator (she uses the word Passionate to bridge the vast gulf between these 2 types).
These groups of 4 are interesting - the trad ones are aligned with the planets: Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars (I think), or they became aligned with the elements: Fire, Earth, Air and Water - but none of this really works or lines up together - intuition, pragma, intellect, feeling - it doesn't quite work because Negotiators are meant to be intuitive, which is fire - and the explorers have got that - if you gave the Explorers air instead then the Directors would lose the intellectual connexion and become water which wouldn't do at all. The traditional humors fit with the astrological signs and the Jungian types: thinking, feeling etc. but hers don't. Of course she could be right. But she's not really in the great tradition here. .
A quick visit to Wikipedia and I discover that Ms Fisher is not alone - lots of modern psychologists have identified and used these 4 types in other ways - so perhaps it is possible to boil us down to that. Then again plenty of others have not - don't know if Freud ever bothered with them. Myers Briggs went up to 16 personality types - which sounds a bit more like it.
The question becomes one of chicken-and-egg: did Prof Fisher remember the 4 types (she is an anthropologist who specialises in sex) and update them - or did she start from some unquoted research about hormones and brains...and retro-fit to the 4 types idea? 4 is obviously the number to start with - any more and it gets confusing. I am not dissing her basic premise, but just questioning the cultural "norms" that gave rise to it.
I am not entirely sure I agree with Prof Fisher - but I have now started seeing my friends in these categories - most of my women friends are Negotiators - some are builders, and I can recognise Explorers quite easily. James, my first husband was a classic Director - his nickname at school was Baz - short for Basil(eos) (King) - which tells you what you need to know. Since Negs like to be with Directors, should I have stayed with him? No, don't think so.
Having seen one of Fisher's lectures on TED I rather hoped for something a bit more chewy - but it has the air and style of an easy-to-read self-help book, so not quite what I expected (although the title was a bit of a giveaway...). Will it catch on? I don't think so, the book came out a few years ago 2009 in fact and doesn't seem to have had much impact beyond it's original hype. I suspect though that by adopting an existing cultural form Helen Fisher has condemned me to retain this knowledge. It fits, it works, it seems reasonable - but I would still like them to have done hormone tests on the participants in the dating matches.
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