Scientific Recognition of Individual Differences Has Wide Practical Implications

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27112, 21 June 1949, Page 2

Scientific Recognition of Individual Differences Has Wide Practical Implications

Everyday experience offers sufficient evidence that people are not all the same. They look different, they act differently, they think differently, they like different amusements, they chose different houses and different furniture. Belated academic recognition of these wellknown facts, and an attempt at scientific measurement and evaluation, have emerged in recent y v ears with the publication of Dr W. H. Sheldon’s “ Varieties of Human Physique ” and “ Varieties of Human Temperament.” The practical implications of these books on the work of educators, on child guidance, and marriage guidance work, and perhaps on town planning and domestic architecture are thought likely to be farreaching.

The Greeks divided men into four types: those of sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic or melancholic temperaments. This division was accepted for for a long period, and Chaucer mentioned the four humours which were the basis of this classification. In the last century a German, Kretschmer, again distinguished four bodily types. Dr Sheldon, working at Harvard University, measured the human body in a series of dimensions and has offered a new classification as a result of these measurements, together with his recorded observations of the temperaments which accompany them. Feeders, Doers, and Thinkers

Three main physical and temperamental types emerge. In technical language they are known as endomorphic, meso-morphic, and ectomorphic. In popular language they 1 cfen be briefly though somewhat inadequately described as feeders, doers, and thinkers.

The endo-morphic man, the “ feeder ” is built around his digestive organs. He tends to be comfortably built, is genial, arfd likes plenty of good food and good companionship. He likes comfortable furniture and a good solid house.

“Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep

o’nights.”

Such men are moved by their emotions, in general they are governed by their hearts.

The meso-morphic, the “ doer,” is primarily a man of muscular activity. He delights in exercise, in open spaces and wide views. Companionship in sport is sought and eating is only a moderate pleasure. Of moderate height and athletic build, With outgoing interests, this type seems to approximate closely to what is known as the “ average ” New Zealander.

The third type, the ecto-morphic, the “thinker” is built around his nervous system. Thin, sometimes tall, his predominant interests are intellectual. He prefers and needs privacy, he likes sheltered houses with hedges around them, cloistered rooms with small windows, and either cares little for food or likes choice dishes elegantly served. Sheldon graded people on a 7-point scale. A man might be 6 endomorph, 4 meso-morph and 2 estomorph, and he has reckoned that there are about 700 different variations which could be met. Women, he found, were not so clearly definable. Problem of Individualism

It is now being recognised that although the social pattern of one. coun-. try may be one of these three main types, and may vary in different centuries—Victorian England probably being classified as an ecto-morphic culture and present-day Australia as meso-morphic—yet great harm can be caused to an individual, especially to a child, by attempting to mould him into a form which is at variance with his physical structure and his temperament. Too much physical culture may harm the abilities of the ecto-morph. the thin brainy boy; whilst reasoned appeals may fail with the slower, fatter boy when motives of self- interest or. emotion would have succeeded. 'The athletic_ boy, whose interests are on the playing field, needs discipline and authority to induce him to work hard at his lessons.

j All three types of teachers are needed in the schools in order to maintain a balanced education for different children. Equally, all three main types are needed in the country. Perhaps one of the reasons why the scholar and the research worker leave New Zealand and’ do not return is that predominantly ecto-morphic persons find themselves unhappy and out of place in a country which still retains the meso-morphic culture so necesasry in the early pioneer stage of settlement.