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| May 12, 2015 / Newsletter 051215
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How Body Types can Help Shape Your Characters
By Linda Wilson
When I first read about constitutional psychology,
breaking down the human physique and behavior by body type, a theory
proposed by American psychologist Dr. William H. Sheldon in the 1940's, I
thought I hit pay dirt. Better known as fitting people into three body
types: endomorphs, mesomorphs and ectomorphs, Sheldon explained his views in two books, Varieties of Physique and Varieties of Temperament.
Sheldon's body type theory is discussed in a book I mentioned in my June 28th post, Child Behavior: The Classic Child Care Manual from the Gesell Institute of Human Development, by Frances L. Ilg, M.D., Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D., and Sidney M. Baker, M.D., which
among other things, offers an interesting description of children's
behavior at each age, from four weeks to ten years. The descriptions are
general and offer guidelines to better understand children and for our
purposes, offer incite into the characters in our stories. After the age
of ten, Child Behavior launches into a discussion of individuality. That's where the body types fit in, neat and reassuring.
At least that's what I thought until I did some exploring. Though I
barely scratched the surface, I found that constitutional psychology is a
controversial theory. The Wikipedia article about it, which also
categorizes it as, Somatotypes, another name for the
body types, states that this school of thought was widely popular in the
1940's and '50s but is today discredited, partly due to the idea's
tendency to promote cultural stereotypes. "One study found that endomorphs are likely to be perceived as slow, sloppy and lazy; mesomorphs . . . as popular and hardworking; . . . and ectomorphs
are often viewed as intelligent but fearful and usually take part in
long distance sports, such as marathon running . . . The principle
criticism . . . was that it is not a theory at all but one general
assumption . . ."
This is a great read, but too involved for the newsletter. To read the rest, go to:
http://www.writersonthemove.com/2014/09/how-body-types-can-help-shape-your.html
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