Psychological typology of Sasang medicine

Abstract

This study briefly reviewed and summarized published studies related to the Sasang typology in order to investigate the common psychological characteristics in each type and suggest conceptual and methodological implications for future research. A total of 44 articles written in Korean between 1990 and 2014, and that used objective measures of personality, were selected from two Korean database for this study. The number of publications, type of scale used, and distribution of each Sasang type were reviewed and summarized. From these works, it was found that there was significant common ground between the classification of Sasang types, which is rooted in Eastern concepts, and the psychological features and types revealed by objective personality measures used in Western psychology. On the basis of these findings, the degree of overlap between Eastern and Western personality typologies was highlighted, and further considerations for developing a more valid and objective classification method, and the limitations of the existing searching method and scope were discussed.

Keywords

• Eastern and Western
• personality typology
• psychological measures
• Sasang typology