The biology of personality

Abstract

Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in a special manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and we see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet and what are unsavory … And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us … all things we endure from the brain when it is not healthy … In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. Hippocrates (fifth century bce ) We may say that personality is the central concept in our theory. The distal cause is DNA, the proximal cause is the physiological, hormonal, neurological set of intermediaries linking DNA to behaviour, and interacting with environmental factors. Hans J. Eysenck (1993) Dismantling and conflating a dichotomy Explanations of the construct personality that revolve about the relative contributions of “nature and nurture” to its development have served to polarize theoreticians and researchers in their approach to their science. This dichotomy has proved to be more mischievous than helpful for advancing our understanding of personality. Although there is broad consensus today that one cannot explain human behavior and personality without examining the interaction of genetic endowment and the geo-social environment in which all people are enmeshed, these two perspectives on human development are treated unevenly, and an examination of current textbooks on personality reveals that the preponderance of space is devoted to issues of nurture rather than nature. There are many reasons for this.