Varieties of delinquent youth: An introduction to constitutional psychiatry (His Human constitution series)
(Preface: The book Psychology and the Promethean Will (193...)
Preface: The book Psychology and the Promethean Will (1936) contains a general introduction to this writer's point of view. The thesis developed there was that we need a biologically oriented psychology-- and psychiatry-- in place of the essentially theological orientation underlying all the current social institutions. The rationalizations of human life upon which current institutions rest are at bottom mystical and supernatural, not biologically operations. This is true of our economic, sociopolitical , and reproductive affairs as well as of religious and educational affair. In the face of the (hebephrenic) outlook upon life which has thus prevail before several score of generations it is not greatly to be wondered at that the species has drifted into an age of confusion of promiscuous overpopulation and of threatened chaos-- in short, that we have approached the verge of social psychosis.
The varieties of temperament;: A psychology of constitutional differences,
(This engaging book has fallen into obscurity over the yea...)
This engaging book has fallen into obscurity over the years. In today's climate, constitutional theories tend to be dismissed. My copy was bought via many letters to many small booksellers It is the work of William Sheldon, known for his notion, backed up by much data collected over many years, that body types are correlated with particular personality types. In particular, the body types or mesomorpny, endomorphy, and ectomorphy are correlated, and probably causal, for many personality variables. In today's world, such notions are out of favor though some recent authoris have been captivated by them. ldous Huxley often used the tryptich to explain a range of matters and Canadian author Robertson Davies also discussed these ideas. In their controversial book Crime and Human Nature, the esteemed Harvard scientists Richard Hernstein and E. O. Wilson used Sheldon's theories to explicate aspects of criminality. The ideas of Sheldon may sometime become more commonly known and updated. More modern methods of statistical analysis and experimental design might be used to further develop his ideas. Nonetheless, even in their basic form, they are interesting and worthy of study, and remain now a neglected area of psychology. ( Amazon customer)
Penny Whimsy A revision of Early American Cents, 1793-1814: An Exercise in Descriptive Classification with Tables of Rarity and Value
(In addition to 340 pages are 54 plates full of coins. ~ S...)
In addition to 340 pages are 54 plates full of coins. ~ Sheldon's influence is still keenly felt. Open an auction catalog or read a fixed-price list containing early large cents and you will find Sheldon's numbering system still employed. Read that a coin ranks within 'condition census' and you find a link to Sheldon's system for classifying the six finest-known large cents of each date. ~ Even if you don't collect large cents, you are still touched by his influence. For it was he who developed the original quantitative numbering system used in grading coins, inlcuding MS-60, MS-65 and MS-70. ~ In 1958, revisions were made to 'Early American Cents,' with the collaboration of Dorothy I. Paschal and Walter Breen, Sheldon said of his work, it was a lighthearted one 'almost a whimsy' thereby, the project came to be known as 'the penny whimsy.' ~ It is by this name Sheldon's classic was reprinted and is best known today. Since supply of the old book had run out and so needed to be reprinted, Sheldon decided it must first be brought up to date.This revision undertakes to provide as complete a report as is not possible on each variety of early cent, and on the half dozen finest coins extant for each variety. They revised the condition census for a variety whenever a previously unknown coin proved fine enough to win a place among the recognized top six. There are about nineteen hundred of the condition census coins. On these, a notebook was kept for one hundred and twenty months.
William Herbert Sheldon, Jr. was an American psychologist and numismatist from Rhode Island.
Background
He was born on November 19, 1898 in Warwick, Rhode Island, United States, the son of William Herbert Sheldon and Mary Abby Greene. His father, a naturalist, as well as a judge of hunting dogs and a hunting guide, was a friend of William James, Harvard's famous philosopher who had also become a pioneer in American psychology. James was the child's godfather, although any far-reaching influence is questionable since James died in 1910.
Sheldon was close to his father during his childhood and absorbed his father's interest in nature. He spent his summers as an assistant ornithologist to his father in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Education
He studied at Brown University and completed his B. A. degree in 1918. He completed an M. A. thesis in psychology at the University of Colorado in 1923, completed his Ph. D. in psychology in 1926. In 1930 he returned to the University of Chicago to pursue an M. D. , which he finished in 1933.
Career
He served with the United States Army as a second lieutenant during World War I. He went to the Southwest in 1919 as an oil field scout and became a wolf hunter on a sheep ranch in New Mexico the following year. In 1921 he took a high school teaching position in Roswell, New Mexico.
Sheldon became an instructor in psychology and sociology at the University of Texas in Austin. A year later he became an instructor at the University of Chicago. He remained at Chicago another year as an assistant professor before moving to a similar position at the University of Wisconsin. At Madison, Sheldon began interviewing students with the object of classifying them into human types.
Following completion of his internship in Chicago in 1934, Sheldon spent two years in Europe as a traveling fellow in psychiatry and religion. During this period he also worked with Carl Jung and Ernst Kretschmer. While in England he met Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and had a philosophical influence in developing the foundations of that organization.
Sheldon returned to Chicago in 1936 as professor of psychology at the Chicago Theological Seminary. He was able, in 1938, to move into full-time research at Harvard University. American involvement in World War II found him back in Europe as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Air Forces.
After the war ended Sheldon became director of the constitution clinic at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1946. He relinquished this appointment in 1958 as he had become absorbed in other responsibilities. In 1951 he had assumed two new positions, becoming director of research at the Biological Humanics Foundation in Cambridge, Massachussets, and clinical professor of medicine and director of the constitution clinic at the University of Oregon Medical School. He joined the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley, as a research associate in 1955. In 1961 he added the position of chief of the research facility at the Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York.
At age twelve he began collecting coins. Almost immediately he created a system of classification that later resulted in two numismatic books: Early American Cents (1948) and Penny Whimsey (1958).
In 1940, Sheldon published The Varieties of Human Physique, which discussed the three types with the aid of nude photographs showing front, side, and back views of college males with discussion of the characteristics of each person. He later added a numerical classification that permitted numerical treatment of deviation from a basic class. Using a system of rankings for each class, ranging from 1 to 7, he broadened the clarity of class treatment. A 354 classification would represent a fairly typical mesomorph.
He had difficulty in finding financial support for his studies. His strongest source of financial assistance in the last quarter of his life was Eugene McDermott, the founder of Texas Instruments, who provided research funds after 1948.
His final years were lived in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He frequently commuted to his Cambridge office at the Biological Humanics Foundation. It was in that office that he died of a heart attack.
Achievements
In psychology, William Herbert Sheldon developed a new version of somatotypology by classifying people into endomorphic, mesomorphic, and ectomorphic, based on many photographs and measurements of nude figures at Ivy League schools. All his views on the topic he published in his well-known work The Varieties of Human Physique.
In numismatics, he authored Early American Cents, that is still in use today. He also developed the "Sheldon scale" that graded coins on a numeric basis from 1 to 70, which is still standard among American numismatists.
(In addition to 340 pages are 54 plates full of coins. ~ S...)
Views
His real interest was not in classroom teaching but in research of the relation of physical characteristics of men to their temperaments. The basic classifications he evolved were endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph. The endomorph had a bulky body, an extroverted personality, was highly emotional, and apt to weep under stress. The mesomorph was sturdily built with a muscular body, had an extroverted personality, and was prone to express his views by physical action. The ectomorph, tall and thin, was introverted, inhibited, thoughtful, and inclined to seek privacy when under pressure.
Personality
His restless nature was evident in his frequent change of academic affiliation. He enjoyed recognition, but on his own terms. His great ambitions were constantly frustrated by seeming lack of academic support for his far-reaching plans and led to his accepting new projects without abandoning earlier ones.
Quotes from others about the person
Ron Rosenbaum writes: "He believed that every individual harbored within him different degrees of each of the three character components. By using body measurements and ratios derived from nude photographs, Sheldon believed he could assign every individual a three-digit number representing the three components, components that Sheldon believed were inborn - genetic - and remained unwavering determinants of character regardless of transitory weight change. In other words, physique equals destiny. "
Interests
Since childhood, Sheldon had a passion for classification. His hobby wascollecting coins.
Connections
Sheldon was married twice, the first time to Louise Steiger, whom he wed in 1925, followed by a divorce three years later. In 1943 he married Milancie Hill. They had two children.
