Factors in Personality
If we do attempt some sort of analysis, we have first to notice that personality depends in part on physique. In ordinary life, mental and physical traits are not sharply distinguished, and probably they cannot be distinguished except in the abstract. The mere size of a person affects his attitude towards other people and their attitude towards him--and it is in such social relations that personality most clearly stands out. His size affects the individual's behavior in subtle ways, since the big fellow dominates others easily just by virtue of his size, and so tends to be good-humored, while the little fellow is apt to be strenuous and self-assertive. Muscular development and "looks" also have their effect on personality.
Another factor might, by a sort of play on words, be called chemique. This corresponds to what is often called temperament, a very obscure matter psychologically. We speak of one as having an excitable temperament, a jovial or a sour temperament. "Disposition" is another word used in connection with such traits. The ancients attempted to relate the "four temperaments" to the four great "humors" or fluids of the body. Thus the "sanguine" individual was one with a surplus of blood, the "choleric" had a surplus of bile, the "phlegmatic" a surplus of phlegm, and the "melancholic" a surplus of black bile or spleen; and any individual's temperament resulted from the balance of these four. Sometimes a fifth temperament, the nervous, was admitted, dependent on the "nerve fluid".
This particular chemical derivation of temperament is, of course, out of date, being based on very imperfect knowledge of physiology; but it still remains possible that chemical substances carried around in the body fluids have much to do with the sort of trait that we think of under [{554}] the head of temperament. Only that to-day, with some knowledge regarding the internal secretions of the "endocrine glands", we should be inclined to connect temperament with them, rather than with blood, bile, etc. Take, for example, the secretion of the adrenal glands, that we found to be poured out during fear and anger and to have so much to do with the bodily condition of readiness for violent action and probably also with the "stirred-up" emotional state. What is more likely than that individuals differ in the strength of their adrenal secretion or in the readiness with which the glands are aroused to pour it out into the circulation? The excitable individual might be one with over-active adrenals. And in the same way the strenuous individual might be one with an unusually active thyroid gland, since there certainly seems to be some connection between this gland and the tendency to great activity. There are several other glands that possibly affect behavior in somewhat similar ways, so that it is not improbable, though still rather hypothetical, that chemical substances, produced in these glands, and carried by the blood to the brain and muscles, have much to do with the elusive traits that we class under temperament and personality.
Once more, consider the instincts in relation to personality. Undoubtedly these instinctive tendencies differ in strength in different individuals. One is more gregarious than another, and this is an important element in his personality. One is more assertive and masterful than another, one is more "motherly" than another, more responsive by tender and protective behavior to the presence of children or others who need help. One is more prone to laugh than another, and the "sense of humor" is admitted to be an important element in personality. And so on through the list; so that personality can be partially analyzed in terms of instinct.
Has intelligence anything to do with personality? It certainly has, in many ways. One who is slow in learning adapts himself poorly to other persons and remains out of touch with his social environment. "Tact" depends partly on instinctive liking for society, no doubt, but partly on the ability to perceive what others want, and on the imagination to put yourself in their place. High principles require the ability to reason things out and see them in perspective. Statistical studies of the rulers of Europe, for a period of several centuries, show that on the whole those with higher intelligence were also of better character and personality. Criminals, taken as a whole, average rather low in intelligence; and it may even be doubted whether the clever, scheming rascal, who defrauds widows of their money, or trains feeble-minded boys to pick pockets for him, has, after all, the brains of the man who can easily see how such schemes could be worked but decides against them himself because he sees something better worth doing.
A sense of inferiority, either physical or mental, is apt to affect the personality unfavorably. It does not necessarily produce humble behavior; far from that, it often leads to a nervous assertiveness. An apparently disdainful individual is often really shy and unsure of himself. Put a man where he can see he is equal to his job and at the same time is accomplishing something worth while, and you often see considerable improvement in his personality.