Phrenology, << frih NOL uh jee, >> is the practice of analyzing a person’s character by examining the shape of the skull. Phrenology was developed during the early 1800’s by two German physicians, Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim. Phrenology was once considered a science. Most people now regard it as a pseudoscience (false science).
Phrenology was based on the belief that different areas of the brain control different aspects of behavior. Gall and Spurzheim believed the skull could be mapped to show the locations of these areas, which they called organs. Some organs governed personality traits, and others controlled mental abilities.
According to phrenologists, a person’s outstanding traits could be identified by bumps or bulges on the head. These swellings were caused by the enlargement of the organs related to each powerful trait. For example, a musician would have a well-developed organ of tune and a mathematician would possess a large organ of number. Phrenologists also believed that certain bumps identified people as poets or thieves.
Phrenology gained great popularity in Western Europe and North America during the early and mid-1800’s. Notable people who believed in phrenology included Queen Victoria of Britain and the American poets Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe.
Today, scientists know that a personality trait is not localized in any one area of the brain. Different parts of the brain have different functions, but the parts interact in a more complex way than phrenologists realized. Nevertheless, phrenology did help pave the way for the scientific study of personality, and thus for modern psychology.
