PSY305 Study Guide - Final Guide: Phineas Gage, Gregor Mendel, Immanuel Kant
305 END OF SEMESTER EXAM
Chapter 9
• Phineas Gage → insight into biological foundations benefited from Gages
railroad accident
• Loss of frontal brain material
• Change in personality qualities → became irresponsible, thoughtless of
others, lacking in planfulness and indifferent to consequences of his
actions
TEMPERMENT
• Temperament – refers to biologically based individual differences in
emotional and motivational tendencies that are evident early in life
• Examples → tendency to experience positive or negative moods, become
aroused in response to stimuli or to calm oneself down after becoming
upset
Constitution and temperament: early views
• Hippocrates → variations in psychological characteristics reflect
variations in bodily fluids (reflects 4 elements fire air earth and water)
• Four humours → blood (sanguine), black bile (melancholic), yellow bile
(choleric) and phlegm (phlegmatic)
• Immanuel Kant
Franz Joseph Gall → field of phrenology
• Phrenology – posited that specific areas of the brain are responsible for
specific emotional and behavioural functions
• 19th century
• Most complex activities were found to rest on the synchronized action of
multiple, interconnected brain regions
Mid-19th century →
• Charles Darwin → The Origin of Species & the expression of emotions in
man and animals → Contemporary science of biology
• Gregor Mendel → Experiments on Plant Hybrids
20th century →
• Kretschmer (1925) and Sheldon → attempted to link temperament to
an analysis of body shape
• Pavlov → reflexes changed by experience → theory of stable individual
differences in NS functioning → degree to which normal NS functioning
could be maintained in face of high levels of stimuli or stress
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Constitution and Temperament: Longitudinal studies
• Longitudinal methods – research methods in which a group of people are
studied repeatedly over an extended period of time
• Enable researchers to determine whether psychological qualities are
evident early in life and are enduring
Thomas and Chess 1977 → identified 3 infant temperament types:
1. Easy babies → playful, adaptable
2. Difficult babies → negative and unadaptable
3. Slow-to-warm-up babies → low in reactivity and mild in their response
Study found link between early differences in temperament and later personality
characteristics
• Difficult babies → difficulty in later adjustment
• Easy babies → least likelihood of later difficulties
• Goodness of fit between infant temperament and parental environment
(parental environment for babies of one temperament might not be best
for a different temperament)
Buss and Plomin (1975, 1984) → identify temperament such as:
• Emotionality (ease of arousal in upsetting situations – general distress)
• Activity (tempo and vigour of motor movements – on the go all the time –
fidgety)
• Sociability (responsiveness to others – make friends easily vs. shy)
Individual differences in these temperament characteristics were found to be
stable across time and substantially inherited → particularly for identical twins
• Parents tend to overestimate the similarity of identical twins Saudino
1997
Early longitudinal studies were limited because they did not identify exact
biological systems that underlie observed temperament qualities (above
examples relied on parents reporting)
BIOLOGY, TEMPERAMENT AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT: MODERN
RESEARCH
Inhibited and uninhibited children: Research of Kagan et al.
• Key to Kagans research → direct, objective measures of behaviour
• 2 behavioural profiles in temperament → inhibited and uninhibited
profiles
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• Inhibited child – reacts to unfamiliar people or events with restraint,
avoidance and distress – takes longer time to relax in new situations and
more usual fears and phobias
• Uninhibited child – enjoy unfamiliar situations that seem stressful to
inhibited child → responds with spontaneity in novel situations, laughing
and smiling easily
• Kagans hypothesis → infants born highly reactive to novelty should
become inhibited children and those born with low reactivity should
develop into uninhibited children
• Infants develop differences in biological functioning that lead them to be
more or less reactive to novelty
• 20% infants in Kagans study were designated as high-reactive →
characterised by intense crying, arching backs and unhappy faces
• 40% were low-reactive infants → calm and laid-back in response to novel
stimuli
• Remaining 40% showed mixed responses
• Findings revealed continuity in temperament
• High-reactive children showed greater fear behaviour, heart acceleration
and increased blood pressure at 14 and 21 months → smiled and talked
less at 4.5 years
• Many high-reactive infants did not become consistently fearful → change
mainly because mothers were not overly protective and placed
reasonable demands on them
• Some low-reactive infants lost their relaxed style
• Change was possible but temperament bias did not vanish (e.g. always
uninhibited or inhibited temperament)
Woodward et al. 2000 → question whether temperament qualities vary
dimensionally (e.g. height) or categorically (e.g. eye colour or sex)
• Groups of infants showing high reactivity in response to novel situations
is a distinct class → 10% of large population consistently more reactive
than the population at large
• Finding is important because it conflicts with common assumption that
individual differences in personality inevitably involve continuous
dimensions
Brain regions that contribute to inhibited and uninhibited tendencies Schmidt
and Fox 2002
• Amygdala → region of the brain centrally involved in fear response
• Frontal cortex → involved in regulating emotional response and
influencing function of amygdala
• Social influences appear to modify brain functioning
Brain imagining results supported hypothesis that uninhibited vs. inhibited
people differ in amygdala functioning →
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Constitution and temperament: early views: hippocrates variations in psychological characteristics reflect variations in bodily fluids (reflects 4 elements fire air earth and water, four humours blood (sanguine), black bile (melancholic), yellow bile (choleric) and phlegm (phlegmatic) Mid-19th century : charles darwin the origin of species & the expression of emotions in man and animals contemporary science of biology, gregor mendel experiments on plant hybrids. Thomas and chess 1977 identified 3 infant temperament types: easy babies playful, adaptable, difficult babies negative and unadaptable, slow-to-warm-up babies low in reactivity and mild in their response. Individual differences in these temperament characteristics were found to be stable across time and substantially inherited particularly for identical twins fidgety: parents tend to overestimate the similarity of identical twins saudino. Early longitudinal studies were limited because they did not identify exact biological systems that underlie observed temperament qualities (above examples relied on parents reporting)
