Dr. Sheldon's Somatotypes

Somatotypes

Dr. William Herbert Sheldon was born November 19, 1898, in the small town of Warwick, Rhode Island. He received his undergraduate from Brown University and then went on to earned his master's degree from the University of Colorado. Dr. Sheldon later achieved his Ph.D. in psychology (1925) and M.D. (1933) from the University of Chicago (Alic,2015). Dr. Sheldon taught at multiple universities and later gained notoriety a psychologist and numismatist that devised an idea to better classify the human personality based on an individual’s physical structure. Dr. Sheldon had several books published.  Two in particular I enjoyed reading.  The first was published in 1940, Sheldon discusses and builds the classification system that both physiology and psychology go hand in hand in which he outlines in The Varieties of Human Physique . The second book establishes individual into classifications based on their physical structure of their bodies which is illustrated in The Varieties of Temperament, in 1942 (William Sheldon, 2015). Thus somatotyping was born.

With this new found interest Dr. Sheldon moves his study into how physical appearances could determine delinquency. Sheldon he was not the first person to try and connect the physical appearance of an individual to their psychological cause to perform criminal acts. There was serval before him but according to fellow scholars in the same field he was credited to be, “The first researcher to carefully examine the relationship between body build and behavioral tendencies, life expectancy, and susceptibility to disease,” (Vito and Holmes, 1994).  Although this method did not work to the hopes of the criminal justice society and became just another idea of the past as a failed attempt to stop crime before it starts. To the amazement of the world this information of knowing the somatotype of an individual can help better under their physical extent, diet, sport position, and attitude of that person.

Alic, Margaret. (2015) 1898-1977 American physician and psychologist who attempted to correlate body type with personality. William Herbert Sheldon. http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/582/William-Herbert-Sheldon.html

Dr.WilliamSheldon’sSomatotyping.(2015).http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology/somatotypes.html  

Vito, Gennaro, and Ronald M. Holmes. (1994)  . Criminology: Theory,Research, and Policy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.