The easiest way to understand this theoretical framework, though perhaps not the most complete, is to start with temperament – our innate genetical blueprint that shapes how we naturally react to the world. This blueprint includes emotions, which operates through dispositions, which can be thought of as potential patterns: predispositions determining what catches our attention, while propensities determining how we tend to react. These dispositions don’t work in isolation but are activated through a system of value determinants as appraisals (how we evaluate situations) and motivations (what pushes us to act), all orchestrated by goal directives that transform these potentials into actual emotional responses. Emotional responses are the conscious part of the mind, without them, there is little to no access to emotional appraisals and motivations – in terms of having awareness of what emotion inducing circumstance affords. However, emotions aren’t the only representation that grants access to become aware of appraisals and motivations.

Once we understand this foundation, we can see how our emotional experiences build in complexity. At the most basic level, we have passions as basic emotional responses that merge how we feel about something through affects (the value of content) and motivations (the purpose of content). When the appraisal process in forming emotion is active, it creates content that becomes part of our awareness through two pathways: feelings provide knowledge via affect, while fantasy provides knowledge via beliefs. This means that as appraisals are processed, they generate content that manifests in our awareness as either beliefs or affects, depending on whether this content emerges through feelings or fantasy – representing a progression from process to actualization of awareness of reality, not merely analysis but synthesis. Similarly, as motivations are processed, they generate content that emerges in awareness as impulses felt through feelings and will established through fantasy.

These passions become general emotions as understanding increases, often through socialization, and adds layers of meaning, increasing the processing power for complex situations and experiences. The more complex the situation and the greater the need to understand it, the more these processes spread, creating richer awareness through generalized emotions. Sentiments emerge as a crucial addition to this processing, connecting feelings with fantasy through beliefs and will. Sentiments are formed with the help of thoughts, which are representations of judgments that incorporate content of propositions and reason through logical ability. The more thoughts an emotion incorporates through sentiments, the more complex it becomes, often allowing a variety of different passions to merge into intricate emotional experiences. While these intricate emotions remain within the realm of generalized and complex emotions, they represent a maximization where multiple intense passions combine with related thoughts through sentiments. Importantly, sentiments can operate independently of strong passions – they may either activate passionate responses or function purely through conceptual processes, as seen in moral judgments that arise from deep thoughts without requiring any feelings to accompany them.

Now coming back to dispositions, we see they arise from both temperament and character. While temperament operates primarily through passions and moods, character expresses itself through sentiments and attitudes. Moods serve as an embodied memory of accumulated experiences, while attitudes develop as sophisticated mental frameworks for understanding and responding to situations. Through time, these patterns contribute to the development of character, which modulates temperamental tendencies through ongoing interaction between these systems.

Both temperament and character contribute to our predispositions and propensities, but character exerts its influence over temperament specifically through the development of stronger propensities. However, character’s influence over predispositions has natural limits, as temperament provides the fundamental foundation that character can modify but not completely override. This is evident in how we can develop acquired tastes for foods we initially found unpalatable (a character-based modification), but cannot override fundamental biological aversions (like eating soil) that are rooted in temperamental predispositions.

he personality aspect of this theory represents an integration of all behavioral components, explaining why the Five Factor Model aligns well with this framework. While neuroticism appears excluded from the primary factors, it actually permeates the model through negative manifestations – expressing itself through negative moods, atypical character, and negative attitudes. This differs from traditional conceptualizations of neuroticism, which typically focus on internalizing problems like shame, fear, guilt, and negative mood states such as anxiety and depression.

The remaining four personality factors (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness) correlate with the four temperaments, while simultaneously reflecting the positive expressions of the twelve virtuous characters. This creates a comprehensive model where personality emerges as the observable manifestation of both temperamental and character dispositions, with neuroticism representing the potential negative expressions across all these dimensions.