Values and Social Nature

Female Speaker: Is there anything that we bring to our decision making just by the nature of being a human being? Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Yeah, there are three elements that we always bring, there are three elements. Female Speaker: What are they? Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Well, the first one would be our values. Our values, of course, are part of -- more than anything else, part of what we are as a person. If I know what your vales are, I know with some degree, even probably a predictability, what your behavior is going to be like. So our values are very, very important. Then understanding of human nature is a very critical one because for most of the time when we try to think of something as moral, we try to think of it as suitable to your human nature. Now I want to emphasize here and I will do this throughout these little sessions we have, the social nature of the human person. We live in a society that's rampant with individualism and that is not a very healthy way to look at who you are. Aristotle observed that we are really social animal 26 centuries ago and it hasn't changed. We are social beings and what we do affects the world around us and what we do we have to answer for in affecting the world around us. So our human nature here is not just individual, it's social. Female Speaker: What makes up our human nature?" Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Well, your genetics make up your human nature, to some extent, your values. Genetics, as we have found out recently, are more and more influential. These twin studies that indicate the people pattern by their genetics, I mean, the pattern in their taste. The pattern in these separated twins that one lived in England, one lives in United States, and they both marry a girl with the same name and with the same occupation, and they paint their house the same color, and all that kind of thing. But there is also the genetic twist of some people. If you show them a picture with two colors in it, some people will see the color, some people will see the figure. Female Speaker: I see, right. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: So there is that, kind of, thing. There is a lot of bundling there. Somebody or the other is looking for the gene for intelligence and I feel like saying, he better look for a couple of thousand, because memory and imagination and all that go into it. Female Speaker: So our temperament will also be genetic? Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Our temperament is genetic as well, yes. We have certain kinds of peculiarities. I would like to talk about that later. Female Speaker: Okay. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Because I think, temperament is probably one of the more neglected things in our examination of personality today. We give people all kinds of tests, the MMPI. We give them now the various kinds of test that say, whether you are instinctive or intuitive or methodical and all that kind of thing. Yet, your temperament is a, kind of, given that's pretty important. Female Speaker: Alright, can you just tell me a little bit about temperament now, like are there different kinds of temperaments? Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Yes. Well, there are lots of classifications but the one I like is very ancient. The reason I like it is because there have been some studies on it both in Germany and at Colombo University and places like that, that seem to link the temperament to the genes. I think, it make some sense that your biochemistry would come from your genes and your biochemistry would influence your temperament. So you have a three kinds of basic temperaments in this. The first kind will be the Sanguine personality. Now the Sanguine personality is a very bouncy, open friendly, warm, this is the person who -- if they don't have a party going, they look for an excuse to start one. Female Speaker: I know people like that. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Yeah, and if you call them up with some news, they will call their 2000 closest friends. They have this wide ranging social environment. As a group, women tend to cluster more in the Sanguine than in any other. I don't think it's by accident, there is a lot of warmth in women that you don't find in men. I think, some of that is genetic, some of it Female Speaker: It makes sense. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: I used to make the universal out of that and I got very cautious, when Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir were both prime ministers and they both started a war. Female Speaker: An activity of sanguine. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: No, it's not a sanguine activity, no. So you have to be a little careful with universalizing but I think, it has a tendency there and I think, nationalities have because they tend to breed in the same and make the gene pool, kind of, heavy in that area. I think, some personalities that way. I mean if you want an opera singer with heart, you frequently find it's an Italian. So the second kind of temperament is the choleric. The choleric person is the great succeeder, the people who achieve. I don't know if you remember this, but in theater sometimes when they wanted you to sing along, they have a little bouncing ball that we go over from one word to the other, they have this, they sing along. Well, that's a sanguine person, they are bouncing around and having good old all time. I used to be on a faculty with a woman who would, kind of, not walk but kind of dance down the hall and she would say, "it's a make your own sunshine day." I guess, she was Claudia. So she became 'Professor Sunshine'. You can imagine, the students would have feel with that; but the choleric doesn't care about the weather, doesn't care about obstacles and the choleric is seldom in doubt. A choleric is a very firm conviction that whatever they are presently thinking is absolutely right. Female Speaker: I know people like this too. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Yeah, and the sanguine gets ulcers and the choleric gives them. I always used to say, if that bouncing ball is the symbol of the sanguine, then Sherman tank is the symbol -- they are now the Abrams tank as the symbol of the choleric. A choleric, if they can't find a door, they make a door. They just plow out, they push through. Just as a sanguine would have a little bit of a hard time being somewhat consistent because they are so bouncy, they fall in love three times a week, but the choleric, their strong point has a weak side too and their week side is contempt, because if you don't agree with them, you are wrong. Female Speaker: -- in the way. Dr. Vincent E. Rush: You are in the way and you are going to get trampled and ground up and speed up and run over. They do succeed. Then that you have got the melancholic temperament. The melancholic temperament is -- if the symbol of the sanguine is the bouncing ball and the symbol of the choleric is the Sherman tank, the symbol of the melancholic is the old rocking chair as they are very, very pensive. They think things through. Time magazine wrote an article on a public figure one time and they said, "He thinks and he thinks and he thinks and when he gets all through, he thinks." That's just exactly the way -- a melancholic person is a great person to get advice from. So the choleric will just come to a quick decision and just run through it but the melancholic will take their time, they will think it over, they won't be precipitous, and they will think all the angles, they will work their way through it. I used to tell my students, the cheapest test they could take for personality was to buy a six pack and take a friend, and go in the corner of the bar and down the six pack in a hurry. If they found they went into a fight, they were choleric. It they found they were tracing the bar tender or the barmaid, then they were sanguine. If they were sitting there and crying about what is going on in the rest of the bar, they are melancholic. Female Speaker: Oh! it's a great test. How many times did you go for it? Dr. Vincent E. Rush: About six nights a week. Female Speaker: So are there people a mixture of these? Dr. Vincent E. Rush: Yes, some people are very strong in one but they tend to filter themselves out of growing into the main stream of the society. So for example, if you are strongly choleric and you are r