William sheldon theory psychology

1898-1977
American physician and psychologist who attempted to correlate body type with personality.

William Herbert Sheldon developed "constitutional psychology," the study of the relationships between physical attributes and personality traits.

To describe physical build, Sheldon studied thousands of photographs and developed a rating system for three major components or somatotypes—endomorphy, mesomorphy, and ectomorphy—and three secondary components. Likewise, he developed a rating system for three primary components of temperament.

He found a correlation between the physical and temperamental ratings. Sheldon was the first to use standardized photography for studying physical traits.

Born in 1898, Sheldon grew up on a farm in Warwick, Rhode Island, as one of three children of William Herbert and Mary Abby (Greene) Sheldon.

Educated at local public schools, Sheldon, whose father was a naturalist, worked as an ornithologist while s