Older phrenology -
Phrenology (from Greek: ????, phre-n, “mind”; and ?????, logos, “knowledge”) is a hypothesis stating that the personality traits of a person can be derived from the shape of the skull. It is now considered a pseudoscience. [Wikipedia]
Newer? -
Brain structure corresponds to personality
Personalities come in all kinds. Now psychological scientists have found that the size of different parts of people’s brains correspond to their personalities; for example, conscientious people tend to have a bigger lateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in planning and controlling behavior. [Eurekalert]
Certainly, this newer hypothesis is off to a much better start. Consider the methods for the study.
For the study, 116 volunteers answered a questionnaire to describe their personality, then had a brain imaging test that measured the relative size of different parts of the brain. A computer program was used to warp each brain image so that the relative sizes of different structures could be compared. Several links were found between the size of certain brain regions and personality. The research appears in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Is there really something to it? Certainly seems plausible. But I wouldn’t jump to a conclusion, pro or con, just yet.
There is something from the article I would like to jump all over, however. This statement got me grunting:
Psychologists have worked out that all personality traits can be divided into five factors, commonly called the Big Five: conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness/intellect.
Psychologists have worked this out? Costa & McCrae’s trait model is certainly the most tested, most used personality inventory. And yes, it has been found to be a useful tool for this or that. But I strongly doubt it stands the test of time.
My greatest beef with the model are the traits themselves. Particularly neuroticism. My study and interest in evolution tells me this trait and others are at least somewhat off-the-mark. Human animals are highly adaptive, and our personalities are multi-dimensional and varied for likely many reasons. I suspect that a future, better trait model will have characteristics that more accurately reflect real-world social dynamics.
But that’s just the guess of a conscientious, somewhat neurotic intellectual.
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Tags: brain, evolution, personality
July 5th, 2010 at 6:06 am
Phrenology and brain science are exactly alike. Why is this?
Phrenology constructs the personality-skull map from reports of people’s experience.
Likewise, brain sciences construct the personality-brain map from reports of people’s experience.
In both cases, neither the face nor the brain can yield information about peoples experiences. Obviously, (though it’s always forgotten) this is because both face and brain are constructed from reports of people’s experiences.