How does personality differ from temperament?
Even today there is a debate among psychologists about exactly how much of one’s personality is due to heredity and how much is due to environment (the classic “nature versus nurture” debate). We are here considering that particular aspect of one’s personality that is primarily due to heredity, or nature. Spiritual authors call this aspect “temperament.” Our temperament is God-given, and one is born with a particular temperament or temperament blend. It is hereditary much in the same way one can be born with the gift of red hair (even if a throw-back to a great-grandmother). It does not, therefore, change, nor can it be totally destroyed–though it can be shaped or molded through one’s upbringing, education, and formation. Fr. Jordan Aumann writes “[W]e may define temperament as the pattern of inclinations and reactions that proceed from the physiological constitution of the individual” (Spiritual Theology 140). Our temperament does not make up our total personality, nor is it the “rea
