Which term refers to a historical pseudoscience that claimed skull bumps determine personality and criminality?

Which term refers to a historical pseudoscience that claimed skull bumps determine personality and criminality?

• A. Phrenology
• B. Astrology
• C. Graphology
• D. Neurology

Answer: (A)

Understanding this question means recognizing a historical idea that claimed skull bumps reveal personality and criminality. That idea is phrenology. Phrenology held that different regions of the brain corresponded to specific mental faculties, and that the skull would reflect these regions as bumps or indentations. In practice, practitioners believed you could read a person’s character, intelligence, and propensity for crime by feeling the skull. It’s now known to be a pseudoscience because the supposed brain–skull map has no solid scientific basis, and brain functions are distributed and interlinked rather than isolated in easily detectable bumps. The approach also supported biased judgments about people based on race, class, or appearance. Other options don’t fit because astrology is about celestial influences, not anatomy; graphology claims to infer personality from handwriting, which is another debunked idea; neurology is the legitimate science of the nervous system, not a method for judging character from physical skull features. The term that matches the description is phrenology.

Understanding this question means recognizing a historical idea that claimed skull bumps reveal personality and criminality. That idea is phrenology. Phrenology held that different regions of the brain corresponded to specific mental faculties, and that the skull would reflect these regions as bumps or indentations. In practice, practitioners believed you could read a person’s character, intelligence, and propensity for crime by feeling the skull. It’s now known to be a pseudoscience because the supposed brain–skull map has no solid scientific basis, and brain functions are distributed and interlinked rather than isolated in easily detectable bumps. The approach also supported biased judgments about people based on race, class, or appearance.

Other options don’t fit because astrology is about celestial influences, not anatomy; graphology claims to infer personality from handwriting, which is another debunked idea; neurology is the legitimate science of the nervous system, not a method for judging character from physical skull features. The term that matches the description is phrenology.