Somatotypes: Sheldon, William

Biographical Information

William Herbert Sheldon was born on November 19, 1898, in Warwick, Rhode Island. His parents were William Herbert Sheldon Sr. and Mary Abby Greene. [Page 676]He developed an interest in the outdoors from his father. He was an exceptional shooter and coin collector. He attended Brown University in 1915, earned a master's degree at the University of Colorado in 1923, and earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1925. He graduated from medical school at the University of Wisconsin in 1933, but he never obtained a medical license. From 1947 to 1959, he was director of the Constitutional Laboratory at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 17, 1977.

The Physique-Criminality Link

In the late 1800s, Cesare Lombroso argued that some people are biologically predisposed to criminal behavior. These people, referred to as “atavists,” have physical characteristics implying that they are genetic throwbacks. Subsequently, other scholars made viable attempts to study physique and crime based on characteristics such as height and weight. For example, Earnest Hooten studied 17,000 inmates from 10 state prisons and found that criminals tend to be smaller in weight and height. Regardless of other research, the physique–criminality link is mostly associated with Sheldon.

In 1940, Sheldon published The Varieties of Human Physique. It involves a discussion of somatotypes—a score related to the genetically inborn body type of a person based on measures of physical characteristics. Sheldon took the work of Ernst Kretschmer, a psychiatrist who previously argued that personal character relates to body type, and applied it to criminogenic predisposition. Sheldon used several characteristics to calculate a somatotype. This included, but was not limited to, bone structure, head size, and muscle tone. According to Sheldon, three body types exist: (1) endomorphic, (2) mesomorphic, and (3) ectomorphic.

Endomorphs are overweight, have a large bone structure, and a wide waist. Their personalities reflect a relaxed, comfortable, and extroverted demeanor. Mesomorphs are muscular, have medium bone structure, wide shoulders, and a narrow waist. Their personalities reflect an assertive, aggressive demeanor. Ectomorphs are thin, frail, and weak. Their personalities produce a sensitive, introverted, and shy demeanor. His categories were not mutually exclusive, but merely ideal types. A person might be predominately ectomorphic but still have some mesomorphic or endomorphic characteristics.

Sheldon initially studied his somatotype theory with an analysis of 400 male undergraduates at the University of Chicago. He photographed nude subjects from three angles: the front, the back, and the side. With a total of 4,000 pictures, Sheldon created 17 different precise measurements on each body and subsequently created a three-number scale with a range of 1 to 7. The first score reflected levels of endomorphy, the second mesomorphy, and the third ectomorphy. For example, an extreme endomorph would rate 7–1–1, an extreme mesomorph 1–7–1, and an extreme ectomorph 1–1–7. This led to the possibility of 343 different somatotypes.

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