Sheldon's constitutional psych

Constitutional Psychology

- studies the relationship between body build and behavior

1. Sheldon’s Constitutional Psychology Reported by: Rheggine San Juan & Reishell Alexandra Sagun

2. William Herbert Sheldon, Jr . (November 19, 1898 - September 17, 1977 ) He was an American psychologist and numismatist. He created the field of somatotype and constitutional psychology that tried to correlate body types with behavior , intelligence and social hierarchy through his Ivy League nude posture photos. .

3. What is Constitutional Psychology?

4.  Studies the relationship between body build and behavior. The stable characteristics of the person, including “morphology” and biology.  Psychologists reluctant to consider an intimate tie between body and behavior fear of genetic determinism the dogma of the self-made person.

5.  G enotype - genetic code or makeup of an individual.  P henotype - the visible properties of an organism.

6.  M orphology - the study of the size and shape of human beings.  M orphogenotype - (more than genotype or morphology) determines both physical build and behavior.

7. Sheldon’s term for body type, it was his way of trying to “get at” the M orphogenotype , which we cannot do directly. What is Somatotypes ?

8. 3 Kind of Somatotypes :

9. Endomorphy Derive from the human embryo: endoderm – which develop into internal organ. r elative predominance of body portions involved in digestion s oft and round  tends to put on fat easily  not suited to hard physical activity

10. Mesomorphy Derive from the human embryo: mesoderm – which develops into the muscles and bones.  r elative predominance of bone, muscle and connective tissue  s trong and tough  resistant to injury  hardness and rectangularity  equipped for strenuous physical demands

11. E ctomorphy Derives drom the human embryo ectoderm – which develops into the nervous system and skin  relative predominance of the skin and the nervous system  thin, delicate and light muscled  poorly equipped for hard physical activity and competition  easily over stimulated

12. Scales of temperament “ ..the dynamics of an individual should be related to the statistic picture he presented” ( Sheldon, 1942 )

13. Viscerotonia (associated with endomorphy ) love comport and food relaxed in posture react slowly quite even – tempered affectionate

14. Somatonia (associated with mesomorphy )  love physical adventure risk taking need for vigorous activity aggressive often insensitive to feelings of others courageous power and dominant

15. Cerebrotonia (associated with ectomorphy ) like to be inconspicuous self – conscious tend to conceal themselves and the things that concern them prefer to be alone overly fast reactions prone to problem sleeping resistant to habits and routines

16. Sheldon’s posited 3 types of mental illness that could vary severity:

17. Mental disorder and physique  Sheldon and others found that deliquents and criminals: tended to be “endomorphic mesomorphs , clustering in the northwest corner of his “map.”

18. Affective (maniac depressive) Cause: lacking in cerebrotonia patients were low on ecthomorphy

19. Paranoid (paranoid psychosis) Causes: due to low viscerotonia body types correlations were less clear

20. Heboid (schizophrenic) Cause: lack of somatotonia . patients were low on mesomorphy .

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