第二章 人格心理学
案例1：颅相学
Do you wonder if you will make a good parent? If you believed a nineteenth-century theory called phrenology, anyone who could feel the shape of your skull could address this concern. The theory behind phrenology was that highly developed organs of the brain would push out against the skull and create protuberances. By assessing the size of the lumps associated with each organ—associated with traits such as parental love, friendship, and combativeness—one could immediately get to know quite a bit about oneself or another person. Here is an account of the manifestations of parental love from a volume entitled How to Read Character: A New Illustrated Handbook of Phrenology and Physiognomy copyrighted by Samuel Wells in 1869:
The organ of Parental Love or Philoprogenitiveness is situated above the middle part of the cerebellum (2, fig. 23), and about an inch above the occipital protuberance. (p. 42)
Have you located the appropriate spot on your skull? How does it compare to Queen Victoria’s or A. Johnson’s protuberance shown in the drawings? How does it compare to your friends’ skulls? Here’s what the Handbook predicts about your life as a parent, based on the size of your organ of Parental Love:
VERY LARGE.—Your love for children and pets is intense, and as a parent you would idolize your offspring and probably spoil them by pampering and hurtful indulgence, or by allowing them to rule instead of yielding obedience. If you have children, you suffer continual anxiety on their account, especially when absent from them, and the death of one of them would be a blow almost too great to bear.
FULL.—You are capable of loving your own children well, and will do and sacrifice much for them, but will not be over-indulgent, and will feel no very strong attraction toward children generally, or toward pets.
MODERATE.—You are rather indifferent even toward you own children, if you have any, and cold toward all others; can bear little from them, and are not calculated to win their affections. You care nothing for pets.
SMALL.—You are inclined to be cold and indifferent toward your own children, and to manifest a positive dislike for all others. (pp. 160–161)