Extraversion, neuroticism and the four temperaments of antiquity: an investigation of physiological reactivity

A historical perspective was adopted, that highlighted the place of Pavlov's work on the 4 classical temperaments in current theory and research on personality. Drawing on the work of Pavlov and the later contribution of Robinson, it was hypothesised that differences in cerebral reactivity contrast the sanguine (low reactivity) and melancholic (high reactivity) temperaments. The EPQ was used to identify 4 extreme groups of female subjects corresponding to the classical temperaments: ES/sanguine (n=16), EN/choleric (n=16), IS/phlegmatic (n=18) and IN/melancholic (n=16). Reactivity indices included P1N1 and N1P2 response components of the vertex evoked potential to 3 different tone intensities and 3 different light flash intensities. Using extraversion and neuroticism as between subject factors and intensity as a repeated measures factor, separate analyses of variance for each dependent variable revealed no significant personality related effects. (Original abstract - amended)