Some Character Types : Part 4

The Foundations of Personality
by Abraham Myerson, M.D.

(Page 21 of 32)

At this stage he made only a mediocre showing in his business career, though his evident honesty secured him promotion to a clerk's position. After his nineteenth year he seemed to gain again in energy and endurance and was fairly well until his twenty-eighth year, though he had to nurse his endurance at all times, developed very regular habits of sleep, diet, etc., and in this manner got along. Once he had an opportunity to join an organization which would have paid him a better salary, but the hours were irregular, and it would have demanded much exertion and excitement, so he passed it by.

In 1917 he joined the army, partly because of patriotic motives, partly because he was convinced that army life might develop his endurance and energy. He was sent to an army post in the South and within two months of his entrance had "broken down." He was sleepless, restless, was irritable and "jumpy," had lost appetite and the feeling of endurance. Life seemed intolerable, though he had no desire to do away with himself, for he had no quarrel with life itself but was disgusted with his inferiority. He was hospitalized, but this did little good and he was afterwards discharged as medically unfit.

This, of course, hurt his pride, but essentially he was greatly relieved. He made but slow improvement until through the munificence of Uncle Sam he was given a new start in life through the Vocational Reeducation Board. Like many other city men, he has dreamed of the "chicken farm" as the ideal occupation free from too much work and yet lucrative. This, of course, is a mistaken notion, but while learning the work he is happy and is slowly regaining his energy. What time will bring forth no one can tell, but this is certain: throughout his life he will have to rely on good habits, carefully adjusted to his energy, in order to protect himself from the bankruptcy that so easily comes on him. A philosophy of life which will help to control his irritability is necessary, and the intelligent of the hypokinetic irritable acquire the habits and the philosophy necessary for their welfare.

Any neurologist could cite any number of such cases with varying traits of character, high intelligence or feeble-minded, controlled in morals or uncontrolled, happily or unhappily situated, whose central difficulty is an irritable and easily exhausted store of energy. They are easily excited and excitement burns them out; that is the long and short of their situation. Sex, love, hatred, anger, strain, fear in all its forms, illness, - all these and many other emotions and happenings may break them down. Such people, and those who care for them, must not make the mistake of thinking that rough handling, strenuosity, will cure what is apparently a fixed character.

There is an irritable, high-energy type - irritable hyperkinetic - that is well contrasted with the foregoing. This explosive personality works by fits and starts but does not wear out, merely, as it were, settles down to his ordinary pace when he rests up. He is like a six-day bicycle racer who plugs along but every now and then sprints like mad for a few laps and then comes back to a pace that would kill the average rider. I shall not trouble to cite such a case, but I can think of at least one man of good attainments who is of this explosive hyperkinetic type. He responds to every demand with a burst of energy, and his quota of ordinary activities is simply appalling.

Neglecting the further types of energy display for the simple reason that this quality shades off into every conceivable type and is also a part of every nature, we turn to the types of emotional mood display. With these it is necessary to consider excitability as well, and the most interesting beings are here our objects of study.

I wish first to emphasize my belief that where there is a great natural variation in excitability and emotionality in individuals, there is not nearly so much in races as we think, and that social heredity is tradition and cultural level plays the more important role in this. My friend and colleague, Dr. A. Warren Stearns, has made a study which shows that while the immigrant Italian is excitable and quick to anger and of revengeful reactions, his American-born descendent has so far controlled and changed this type of reaction that he does not especially figure in police records, in murders or assaults. My own studies of the second and especially the third generation Jew show there is an almost complete approach to the "American" type in emotional display, in what is known as poise. This third generation Jewish-American has dropped all the mannerisms of excitability in gesture and voice, and his adherence to good form includes that attitude of nonchalant humor so characteristic of the American.

1. The generally excitable, overemotional type. This type is more common in the Latin, Hebrew and Celtic races. In some respects it corresponds to the hypokinetic irritable, but it is not necessarily hypokinetic. The artistic type of person, so called, is of this group, but is, of course, talented as well. Talent need not be present, and there are persons of no artistic ability whatever who show a generalized, excitable-emotional temperament. All young children show the main traits of this type, and there is something essentially simple about all these folk, no matter how civilized or sophisticated they get to be.

A. L., a woman of fifty, belongs to this group. She is a Jewess and now a widow. All of her life her character and temperament have been the same, and though her experiences have been varied she has not in any essential altered. This last is rather characteristic of the group, for experience has but little effect on their emotional reactions.

A. L. cries very easily and readily, but her tears are easily dried and her joy is grotesquely childlike. She is readily frightened, worries without restraint and finds a melancholy satisfaction in the worst. At the same time, her fears do not persist and are easily dissipated by encouragement or good fortune. She is readily angered and "raises a row" with great facility and without restraint. For this reason her relatives and friends become panic-stricken when she becomes angry, for they know that she does not hesitate to make an embarrassing scene. In the efforts to conciliate her they are apt to give her her own way, as a result of which she is the proverbial spoiled child, capitalizing her weakness.

Our Jewess uses her emotions for effect, which means that she has become theatrical. Though there is reality in her emotional display, time and the advantages she has gained have brought enough finish and restraint to her manifestations to gain the designation artistic. True, it is a crude artistry, for intelligence does not sufficiently guide it, and her art is used sometimes indiscriminately and inopportunely. As she grows older the value of her tears is less, and she is becoming that prime nuisance, the elderly scold.

Among the emotional types well recognized by the neurologist is that known as the cyclothymic. In the individuals of this group there is a periodicity to mood (rather than to emotions). There is a definitely pathological trend to the cyclothymic, and in its most marked form one sees the recurring depressions and excitement of Manic Depressive Insanity.