Constitutional Psychology - studies the relationship between body build and behavior

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..

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.  Genotype - genetic code or
makeup of an individual.
 Phenotype - the visible
properties of an organism.

6.  Morphology - the study of the size
and shape of human beings.
 Morphogenotype - (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
Morphogenotype, which
we cannot do directly.

9. Endomorphy
Derive from the human embryo:
 endoderm – which develop into internal organ.
relative predominance of body
portions involved in digestion
soft 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.
relative predominance of bone, muscle
and connective tissue
strong and tough
resistant to injury
hardness and rectangularity
equipped for strenuous physical
demands

11. Ectomorphy
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. “ ..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

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.