Our Bad Tempers 



What makes you angry? Why do you fly in a rage when 

 the soup is salty? Blame it on your grandfather 



By G. Davenport 



THAT bad temper is due more to an 

 inside state than to outside condi- 

 tions is demonstrated by the fact 

 that the same mild stimulus causes so 

 much more violent behavior in some 

 individuals than in others. In other 

 words it takes little or nothing to make 

 some persons lose their tem- 

 per. They lose it easily, just 

 as children do, because they 

 lack the braking power or 

 abilit\' to shut off this violent 

 reaction. 



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Chart 1. The black 

 profiles in the 

 circles and squares 

 represent the af- 

 fected females and 

 males respectively 



Liability 

 to ou t - 

 bursts of 

 temper is 

 c o n fi n e d 

 to no 

 stratum of 

 intel lect 

 or social 

 position. 

 The chol- 

 eric may be ricii or puor, stupid or in- 

 telligent. Bad temper is an emotional 

 rather than a mental disturbance. Con- 

 cerning the causes of this disturbance we 

 know little. W'c know that oxer-eating 

 and drinking, bad digestion, intestinal 

 stagnation and exciting situations arc 

 contributory factors. Rut what may 

 cause an irritable state in one may not 

 ruffle another. To account for this 

 difference, we are brought around again 

 t(j the matter of indi\idual constitution, 

 i. e., to the fact of heredity. In man\- 

 cases that have come under institution;,! 

 observation there is not infre<|uenll\- a 

 regular occurrence of tantrums at month- 

 ly or more frequent intervals. It would 

 seem as though there were an accumuh:- 

 tion of some substance in the bo<l\-, in 

 coiiser|uence of which the nervous system 

 becomes so irritable that an explosion 

 results from ihe most trivial causi'. 



Bad teniiier is especially fri(|uenl in 

 families that contain epileptic, lusterical 

 or insane relatives. iCiiilepsy and insan- 

 ity, however, arc not necessarily indi- 



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cated by outbursts of temper nor does a 

 choleric temper invariably accomjiany 

 these disorders; for there are mild tem- 

 pered epileptics as well as maniacs. 

 The paralysis of the braking mechan- 

 ism upon which tantrums depend, seems, 

 however, to occur most readily in those 

 individuals whose nervous and 

 other bofly functions arc de- 

 fective in other ways. 



This tendency to outbursts 

 of tem[)er, whether periodic or 

 irregular, is a return to an 

 infantile 

 emotional 

 condition. 

 Chi Idren 

 are more 

 given to 

 displays of 

 temper, on 

 the whole, 

 than are 

 a d u 1 t s , 

 just as monkeys are much more 

 capricious, on the whole, than men. 

 Tluis ill-tempered families ha\-e either 

 n\erted, in tliis respect, to a more 

 ])rimiti\'e condition or else they arc re- 

 tarded in the evolution of this trait. 



Whatever may be the racial histor\' 

 of the trait, its pre.sent hereditary 

 behavior is not obscure. We know that 

 it is handed dowm in certain families 

 from generation to generation without 

 a break. That is to say, some members 

 of each generation will jiossess this un- 

 social trait and others lack.it. Those 

 tiiat show it, transmit it in turn; but 

 those without it cannot do .so. Traits 

 that do not skip a generation are known 

 in the language of modern heredity as 

 dominant traits. Just how complete 

 may be the dominance will dei>end on the 

 luredit.ir\' history of both parents. There 

 is an heredit.u'v combination possible 

 that will produce loo per cent choleric; 

 that is when bolJi parents are ciioleric 

 and belong to pure choleric strains. 

 The accompanying charts illustrate 



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