GENETIC TYPE AND THE ENDOCRINES O2 1 



In this consideration, three points of view have been promi- 

 nent, depending on whether emphasis is placed on form, 

 glands, or psychological qualities. Whatever the point of 

 view, there has always been some recognition of the fact 

 that each is related to, and integrated with, the others. In 

 regard to the psychological qualities of different constitutions, 

 it may be said that the work of Kretschmer ( '25) has given 

 the greatest impetus to experimental studies. Kretschmer 's 

 classification of human subjects into pyknics, asthenics, and 

 athletics, with the psychological qualities and psychotic 

 tendencies of each, led to many other studies on classification 

 of normal and abnormal types. Such experiments have at- 

 tempted to substantiate Kretschmer 's theory, to arrive at a 

 more definite method of isolating the types, or to contrast 

 specific performances of the types which have been isolated 

 among definite groups of individuals. A large variety of 

 subjects has been employed, including hospital patients, 

 criminals, college students, and children. We do not intend 

 to give an extensive resume of these works here; a brief 

 review of such studies will impress one with the wide di- 

 vergence in results. 



There is disagreement not only in how the types differ, 

 but also in the indices used to classify them. Wertheimer 

 and Hesketh ( '26) were able to separate hospital patients 

 into two types, pyknics and asthenics, but found that most 

 individuals are mixed types which distribute themselves on 

 a graded series between the two extremes. In a study with 

 college students, Klineberg, Asch and Block ('34), who used 

 methods of classifying the types and applied many tests to 

 each, could find no reliable qualitative differences among the 

 types isolated. A number of tests were used to measure and 

 compare specific behavioral patterns, but a criticism of the 

 specific tests method is that it fails to determine the basic 

 differences between the types. Aware of this criticism, Cabot 

 ('38), who worked with adolescent boys, employed a variety 

 of personality patterns in comparing the types as isolated 

 by Kretschmer. He did not find the pyknosomes and lepto- 



