Plato developed a basic model of human motivation ranging from more “primitive/appetitive” animalistic urges to more complex “rational/calculating” responses. This is quite similar to the modern day concept of automatic vs conscious processes.

Aristotle argued that nurturance, or early developmental experiences, played a primary role in the development of human characteristics and abilities. Plato, his teacher, more strongly favored an approach that emphasized the role of in-born, natural processes. This would set the stage for modern day discussions of the role of innate vs developmental processes referred to as the nature vs. nurture debate.

Galen would argue that a person’s temperament (or personality) resulted from the organs and the four humours (blood, phlegm, and black, yellow bile). Today there is broad support for the idea that at least part of our personality is the result of physiological systems and processes – including organs, hormones, and neurotransmitters.

In his treatise On the Device for Dispelling Sorrows, al-Kindī, discusses how our thoughts about an event or experience can have just as much of an impact on our emotional response as the actual event itself — an idea not that far off from modern day cognitive psychology.