Abstract
Constitutional research that relates temperament, physiological-biochemical features, and physique has a long but disappointing history. Empirically, the assumed psycho-morphological as well as psychophysiological and psychochemical correlations proved to be generally low, and inconsistent at best. The majority of initially suggestive findings have suffered an identical fate: the optimistic publication attracts other researchers’ interest, although rarely do they attempt identical replication, and a series of more or less similar studies is undertaken that usually results in a contradictory pattern of partial agreement and obvious refutation. Such inconsistencies eventually lead to a decline in research motivation and the originally claimed relationship seems to fade out— sometimes to be revived with fresh hope. This state of affairs is not restricted to constitutional research and psychophysiological personality research but is paralleled by frustrating research experience in related fields, e. g., research on specificity issues in psychosomatic medicine and the search for biological markers of psychotic and neurotic disorders.
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Fahrenberg, J. (1991). Differential Psychophysiology and the Diagnosis of Temperament. In: Strelau, J., Angleitner, A. (eds) Explorations in Temperament. Perspectives on Individual Differences. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0643-4_19
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