Temperament is a psychological term that refers to the combination of behaviors and attitudes an individual demonstrates. Therefore, temperament is a broad concept that covers a wide variety of behavior patterns and can be utilized to assess individuals. It may be influenced by both biological foundations and experience and is classified into four fundamental groups, including sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholy, and choleric (Santrock, 2021). Individuals with sanguine temperaments are frequently highly extroverted and communicative. Phlegmatic temperament may be considered to be the opposite of sanguine as it is closely linked with an introverted personality. Melancholy is a temperament that is related to being cautious, as well as detail and quality-oriented. Finally, people with choleric temperament tend to be self-confident and goal oriented. However, it may not be possible to divide all people into four groups as each individual may demonstrate features of different temperaments depending on the circumstances.
As temperament may define human behavior, it may be vitally important to understand its nature. According to David Rettew (2015), temperament depends on biological foundations to the same extent as it depends on the environment. Moreover, the inherent predictors of temperament may influence the environment, and hence, these two aspects are closely interrelated. However, the environment does not only depend on the child’s behavior but also is influenced by other people. It may be possible to adjust the environment to achieve behavioral changes. Furthermore, it might be essential to maintain correspondence between the environment and temperament. Each temperament has a number of strengths and weaknesses, which depend on the circumstances. Therefore, it may be possible to benefit from any temperament by maintaining an appropriate environment and ensuring corresponding experiences. Conclusively, it is important to utilize temperament concepts in order to understand human behavior and development better.
References
Santrock, J. W. (2021). A topical approach to life-span development. McGraw Hill Education.
TED Talks. (2015). Child Temperament: How We Start to Become Ourselves. Web.