The Mechanics of Emotions by Teo Chiaburu - HTML preview

CHAPTER 3: Predisposition to Certain

Emotions According to Temperament

To summarize our argument up to this point, let’s

remember that within the universal trigger for each

emotion, each and every individual has his/her own

variation. It’s the same for our reactions to these

triggers: while everybody reacts, on the whole, in a

similar way, we don’t follow the same path in our

individual emotional responses to the same trigger. Each

of you gets sad when losing something deeply cherished

(universal trigger/theme). However, at the same time,

each of you has a beloved person or object to miss and

grieve

over

when

they’re

gone

(particular

trigger/variation).

The death of someone’s mother will almost

invariably cause him the bitterest distress he has ever

felt. Yet, his spouse, who has never seen eye to eye with

her mother-in-law, might not feel the same level of

bereavement. Why? Because the same event (the death

of the mother) is simultaneously a sadness trigger for her

son and a neutral one or, who knows, maybe a happiness

one for her daughter-in-law. The man looks upon this

event as a tragedy, since he loved his mom and cared a

lot about her (on the sadness section, we talked about the

relation between happiness and sadness: the warmer the

anterior happiness, the colder the posterior grief). On the

other hand, his wife has little reason to mourn sincerely

for his loss. Considering that his mother has always been

a trigger for anger and contempt for her, she would now

sooner enjoy a sense of relief, combined with the so-

called Schadensfreude (Paul Ekman mentions it in his

books; in German, it would mean “enjoyment of

someone’s misfortune”).

Now that we’ve refreshed our memories with

some basic facts about the mechanics of emotions, let us

proceed to the theme of this chapter: how our

temperament affects our emotional profile.

Although I’ve already mentioned it earlier in this

book, I would still like to make you think for a while

about your own temperament. First of all, do you have

such a thing at all? Is it good to have it? How many

types are there? How can you find out what sort of

temperament you were born with? Why is it important to

learn more about your own temperament and consider

those of others as well? Can you change your

temperamental profile? The answers to all these

questions are discussed below.

One of the first lessons for a psychology student

is human personality. Very briefly, our personality is

comprised of three major segments. First there is the

temperament, the dynamic-energetic side (how we

approach daily problems). Then we have the character,

referring to the relational aspect of personality (how we

interact with others). Our aptitudes make up the final

segment, standing for the operational part (what we’re

good at). Whenever you want to evaluate somebody’s

personality, you need to look at all of these three

aspects. In this section of the book, we are going to deal

only with the first personality building block – the

temperament – since it represents the liaison between

two of the most important parts of human nature –

personality and emotions.

As you can guess from the definition, the

temperament is the sum of all those traits that structure

our demeanor. It is the most constant and general

characteristic of the human subject and, above all, it’s

innate. We inherit our temperamental profile from our

parents and we cannot make fundamental changes to it -

just, let’s say, give it a few tweaks. Parents can get an

idea about their children’s temperament from their early

infancy. Yet, we cannot conclude much until the teenage

period is over and certain characteristics have become

crystallized.

There is no good or bad temperament. All types

have both qualities and faults. In addition to this, it does

not affect our character and aptitudes. Therefore, in each

temperamental type we can come across both congenial

and mischievous people, talented or awkward ones.

Hippocrates and Galenus marked out the

temperamental types in the 5th century BC. According

to them, there are four different profiles: choleric,

melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine. They also

assigned each of them a representative time of the year

and a natural element, in order to clearly depict their

state of being. Sanguine people are instable as the air of

spring, cholerics are heated as the fire of summer,

melancholics are the dreary earth of autumn, and

phlegmatics are assigned the cool humidity of winter.

In the following sections, we will learn about

each type of temperament, considering its defining traits

and bias towards specific emotions. Prior to reading this,

you should be aware that there is no such thing as pure

temperament. This means that we all have ingrained

within ourselves a combination of all the four profiles.

Usually, one or two of them dominate and form the main

temperamental profile. Scientifically speaking, the four

types have been analyzed separately, in order to create a

comprehensive image of what traits are ascribed to what

temperament.

The Choleric Type

Cholerics are the most powerful and courageous

individuals. They are born to be leaders and cannot

imagine themselves in a submissive position. They are

very sociable, but not always companionable, since they

usually express themselves in a very direct manner,

unaware of the feelings of the others who he might hurt

through their rudeness.. Obstinacy is one of the

choleric’s main weak points. You can get on very well

with a choleric, as long as you do as he says…NOW!

Because of their strong domineering side, they

end up, more often than not, stirring up strong contempt

in others. Sometimes, cholerics enjoy making others

look in comparison to them. That’s why you might need

some nerves of steel to hold on to your friendship with a

pure choleric. He soaks up all the praise he can get and

will usually avoid anything that might reduce some of

his glory. Most cholerics have very high self-esteem

and some deem themselves infallible. They hate

admitting their errors, as this would mean to them an act

of public humiliation. Expressions such as “Forgive me”

or “I’m sorry” are not included in their vocabulary.

I believe you can see where this is going. The

most common emotion for a choleric person is obviously

anger. But be careful not to jump to conclusions and

hasten to label all cholerics as savage individuals to be

shunned rather than included within one’s circle of

friends. Remember that there is no purely positive or

negative emotion. Hence the two faces of anger. It’s how

you make use of an emotion that turns it into a

constructive or destructive tool. Let me use an example

to make my point clearer.

We have Choleric A and Choleric B. The former

is a very edgy person. He doesn’t bear being bothered by

anyone, he is rather unapproachable, cagey and easily

goes off the deep end, when things don’t turn out as he

had expected. Things are pretty clear here: it’s because

of his untamed anger that he’s got such an annoying

demeanor.

On the other hand, Choleric B is the intrepid

type. He loves getting involved in all sorts of activities

(the greater the challenge, the more engaged he is). He

loves to organize people and delegate each of them the

most appropriate task to carry out. He’s a very assertive

man and always gets his ideas through. Losing makes

him stronger and motivates him further to invest even

more time and passion into that activity, until the final

result meets his standards.

Can you guess what the commonality and the

difference between these two imaginary persons are?

Surprisingly as it may sound, they are both guided by a

powerful sense of anger. While Choleric A directs his

anger at people, at fortune or anyone else who can be

blamed for him not having achieved his goals, in

contrast, Choleric B channels all his anger into the

process of solving problems. His rage will grow too

when encountering failure, but he doesn’t turn it against

the persons around him. Instead, he points it at the

problem at hand, which gives him more energy and the

desire to overcome it.

If I still haven’t erased all your doubts, you might

want to look back at the section devoted to anger. Don’t

forget what the trigger for anger is: an obstacle or

impediment between us and our goal. Choleric A’s

biggest mistake is that he doesn’t identify the trigger for

his anger correctly. It is not the persons surrounding

him, or bad luck, or the weather, or unforeseen delays

that forestall him from reaching his objective. He is the

only one to be held accountable for both his success and

defeat. If he would take a page out of Choleric B’s book,

we would know that he should rather focus his anger on

the problem and his manner of dealing with it, instead of

wasting all that energy in vain.

To conclude, both cholerics have the same

triggers for their anger. But one of them responds more

efficiently.

The Melancholic Ttype

One should be careful when using the word

“melancholic”, since it has different meanings,

depending on the frame of reference. Literally, a

melancholic person is dejected or depressed, suffering

deeply because of a loss. We could more formally say

that a melancholic is someone eclipsed by sadness. But

this definition would be appropriate only for the purpose

of describing the emotional state of a person at a given

time. If we were to take a greater span of time, we

would need more research into a person’s behavior

before we could label him as melancholic.

In terms of temperament, melancholics are,

indeed, more easy to upset or disturb. They tend to look

at the darker side of a situation and approach problems

in a more pessimistic manner. They take to heart every

troubling event and even the tiniest gesture that could be

interpreted as negative can cause them serious pain. If

you have a melancholic friend, you really have to choose

your words carefully because he will always try to find

their underlying meaning (even if there is no such thing)

and interpret them as directed at him personally.

However, in spite of these imperfections,

melancholics are the most perfection-oriented persons.

They will always seek to flawlessly see a thing through,

because, as they see it, if something is worth doing, then

it should be done properly. They have very high

standards. On the one hand, they are generally criticized

for this, as most others fail to meet their demands. On

the other hand, thanks to the higher benchmark they set

for themselves and others, their skills are continually

improving.

Emotionally speaking, melancholics are highly

susceptible to sadness and fear. Yet, it is again up to

them and how they manipulate this emotional energy, to

make the most of these emotions.

Let’s make the acquaintance of Melancholic A

and Melancholic B. Suppose they are classmates and are

due to take an important exam tomorrow. It is generally

thought that you are not going to be affected by the

common pre-exam anxiety, as long as you have studied

hard in advance. The rule doesn’t apply to melancholics,

however. No matter how much and how intensely they

immersed themselves into the study material, they will

still be seized with worries and will construct black

scenarios in their head of the “What if…” type.

So we’ve already found a common emotion for

our two characters: they are both scared before the

exam. Here comes the crucial difference. Melancholic A

receives no positive impulse from his emotional wildfire,

although it is seriously affecting his energy and

concentration and, thus his ability to perform on the

exam day.” Furthermore, instead of attempting to

reduce the fire, Melancholic A allows it to find more

fuel in his memories and thoughts similar to the present

situation. He will inevitably recount some past

experiences, when he failed a test, even though he had

learned so much for it. He will think of himself as

incapable of passing and will thus lose a great deal of

self-confidence.

In contrast, Melancholic B is aware of his fright

and he also knows how damaging his overanxiety can

be. Therefore, he decides to enter the reflective state and

deal with his emotions. After having resolved his doubts

about himself and reassured himself (by recollecting past

events when he came out successfully out of a

challenging situation), he will now be a step ahead of his

friend, Melancholic A, who is still entangled in his

worries.

When it comes to the fundamental sadness of a

melancholic, B again has an advantage over A, because

he is able to deploy the third stage of the emotional

management strategy, that is, the subsequent analysis in

case of failure. In the event B was too affected by his

exaggerated fear and this prevented him from doing as

well as he had hoped for on the exam, he will, at least,

be able to redirect his resulting sadness towards finding,

explanations and solutions for his difficulties. Thus, he

might learn some relaxation techniques he can employ

before the next exam, in order to avoid repeating the

same mistake. Conversely, Melancholic A will let

himself be dragged down by the intense anguish over

having failed to reach his objectives with this exam.

Consequently, his self-confidence will suffer another

serious hit, for the next few days (or maybe longer) he

will close himself off from others and shun any contact

with friends. It goes without saying that this event (the

exam results that have fallen short of his expectations)

will be embedded into his memory and called forth when

the next similar fear trigger appears. It’s a never-ending

vicious cycle.

The Phlegmatic Type

If you’ve read Jules Verne’s Around the World in

Eighty Days, the main character, Phileas Fogg, has

certainly attracted your attention, given his idiosyncratic

calmness and patience. He never seemed to be bothered

by anything, but always kept his feet on the ground, no

matter the gravity of a problem. He is an extremely

meticulous man (a more melancholic-like trait) and

rather unsociable. His smooth steps and slow pace make

Mr Fogg the embodiment of the typical Englishman.

On the whole, these are the qualities of an

ordinary phlegmatic. The main flaw that can be found

among these positive points would be the lack of interest

and incentive for almost any given activity (it takes a

great deal of time and argument to motivate a

phlegmatic to take action). He would prefer not to stand

out, nor to get involved in any too demanding job.

Hence his docility, which a more devious person can

capitalize on. His low assertiveness often prevents him

from speaking his mind out and, since he prefers not to

contradict someone else’s opinion, he will usually make

a lot of concessions.

The representative emotion for a phlegmatic

is…none! There is virtually no prevailing emotion that a

phlegmatic can complain about. In fact, this is both his

gift and his curse. On the one hand, phlegmatics are able

to maintain a stable state of mind and keep their calm

even when the situation seems to have gotten out of

control. Who wouldn’t want to have an emotional switch

to turn their emotions off once in a while? Phlegmatics

have one. Or, better stated, they don’t even need one,

since their emotions are so low in intensity that they

experience no problem at all when having to restrain

them. It would take an extraordinary event to unsettle a

stiff-upper-lip phlegmatic.

On the other hand, it is this slow or absent

emotional reaction that, under some circumstances,

prevents them from properly dealing with a challenge.

Because they may not show any sadness when a close

relative has died, their acquaintances might consider

them cold-hearted or thoughtless and might try to avoid

contact with them. Not enjoying the good results of a

project the phlegmatic carried out with his team could

make others question his participation and involvement

and consider excluding him from the team in the case of

future projects. .

A phlegmatic who is aware of the negative effect

his lack of emotional input can have, will struggle to

become “more human”, in order to avoid being labeled a

“heartless robot”. In his case, the emotional management

strategy would have to work the other way round,

namely bring out the emotions lying within him instead

of suppressing them. While others need to convince

themselves of the futility of the emotion they are seized

with momentarily, phlegmatics have to find conclusive

arguments for releasing that emotion.

The Sanguine Type

There is absolutely no chance of you failing to

recognize a sanguine person in a crowd. Such is his

craving for public attention that he will lose no

opportunity to get in the limelight. At parties, he is the

sprightliest dancer on the scene. At an ordinary outing

with his friends, he plays the role of the raconteur while

the others can hardly get a word in edgeways. In a

classroom, the sanguine scholar is normally the most

inattentive and playful, unceremoniously exhibiting his

conspicuous behavior during classes in a quite blatant

manner.

Sanguines are very skilled at making a lot of

friends. While for a melancholic, it’s the quality, not the

number of his friends that counts, sanguines tend to

place more weight on the quantity. In fact, I presume

that everybody has a sanguine friend. They are so

approachable and entertaining, that spending some time

with them can actually act as a medicine for problems,

by making you take your mind off the daily routine for a

while. They are the masters of jokes and storytelling,

even though their accuracy or validity is sometimes

questionable. With an indisputable gift of the gab, they

are capable of keeping their audiences engaged for a

considerable amount of time.

Without question it’s happiness that best

portrays a sanguine. However, his infectious optimism

and high spirits, while his most reliable tools, are also

his most treacherous gifts.

As I said, the pursuit of happiness is, from all

accounts, the main purpose of our life, no matter how we

define this term. Sanguines seem to have already

reached this ultimate goal, since they know the art of

living their lives to the fullest. They look at the bright

side of a situation and never lose hope that things will

eventually go right.

However, this “intoxication with happiness” can

easily verge on overconfidence, which is pretty much the

same thing as arrogance. No one likes conceited people,

who look down on you. They are the most contemptible

persons one can ever meet. Therefore, the most

companionable individuals can become the most

loathsome.

A sanguine’s overconfidence can also turn him

into a careless, negligent person. When the chairman is

discussing the steps for executing a project within a

meetin and assigning tasks to his employees, a sanguine

will tend to commit himself to as many duties as

possible, just to stand out among his colleagues. But

chances are that he will not carry them through since his

commitment was rather superficial and he may have

taken on too much to handle.

In other words,