Biological Approach To Personality

Burger (2008), says that there are many theories of personality and psychologists try to explain it with their own approaches. Discussed here will be the psychoanalytic approach, the trait approach, the biological approach the humanistic approach, the behavioural/social learning approach and the cognitive approach. They were devised to search for specific patterns in behaviour and ways of thinking about these

A controversial topic still to this day is whether or not environmental and outside factors play a bigger role in a person’s development or genetics. Many psychologists have founded theories around childhood development, such as, Erikson, Bandura, who believe it’s the social interactions that really help to shape one’s growth. However, there are some who see both sides, such as, Freud, who provides evidence that it can be both, genes and nurture. Based on the information of many psychologist’s research, the most prominent make up of a person’s development, personality and behavior is based on nurture rather than nature.

Personality and how we behave have been of much interest to psychologists for a long time now and because of this there have been many theories and theorists that have been developed. Personality is defined as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within and individual (Fritzley, 2012, p. 10). There are six main approaches to personality psychology they include: biological approach, humanistic approach, behaviorist approach, trait approach, psychoanalytic approach and cognitive approach. Each approach shines a little light onto why we behave the way we do and how our personalities are formed, the approaches contain many different theories from

The nature vs nurture issue has been a controversial argument among psychologist for decades. This argument exposes two different views. One of them emphasizes that our personality depends solely on genetics (nature). On the other hand, the second view suggests that humans “develop through experience” (Myers 2013, SG 6) (nurture).

Evolutionary/genetic perspectives do not generally account for the biological mechanisms between genes and personality.  Theorists use biological processes in an attempt to fill in the gap between personality and genetics by inferring, theorizing and researching biological links with behavior. Anatomical approach examines functions of various structures of brain.

There are similarities and differences when analyzing the components of biological and humanistic approaches to personality. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs express important aspects of biological factors that approaches personality.

in order to analyze the patterns that determine personality, certain issues need to be addressed

Who a person’s parents or relatives are is already predetermined at conception. The traits that a child’s family have are going to be his/her traits simply because of genetics. According to the above study done on Croatian twins, genetic factors account for “stability in personality” from seventy-five to one hundred percent (Bratko and Butkovic 155). The researchers used genetic models to look into the differences between twins. They broke genetics into two sources in this study: additive genetic influences and nonadditive genetic influences. Bratko and Butkovic insinuated that, based on the findings of this project, heredity was mostly attributed to the steadiness of personality in the pairs of twins. In the novel Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley, a quote was attributed to Ralph Greenspan from his research on romance between fruit flies. He likened personality to this

As many people have begun to pay attention to formation of personality, the debate over nature vs. nurture has raged for a long time and this issue is still controversial. However, as shown the

The behavioural theory states that personality is as a result of the interaction between an individual and the environment (i.e. the society and the individual). It is focus on observable and measurable behaviour rather than mental or emotional behaviours and different theories focus on one type of behaviour over the other. On the contrary, the biological approach seeks to explain behaviour as a result of interactions within the body. It is based on assumptions such as how the brain psychology can influence behaviour and also how behaviour can be inherited

The study of the relationship between behavior and genes by different psychologists shed light on the links that exist between personality

Some people say you inherit your personality from your parents that is the biological approach to personality. Unlike the big five which we 've just learned about this theory was founded by Hans Eysenck establishes three dimensions: extroversion, neuroticism, psychoticism. Let’s first look at extroversion in Eysenck personality of roads he refers to an individual 's sociability and insolence. The second concept is neuroticism this refers to an individual stability emotionally and uneasiness. Last but not least Psychoticism this is the last concept in Eysenck theory, this refers to an individual inclination towards psychopathology, involving impulsiveness, and meanness. “Eysenck approaches very few people take into account the biological bases of personality”. After extensive research it has proven that biological approach to personality presents a connecting link to the study of biology and personality. According to this text biological approach to personality, and the humanistic approach to personality involves matters of personal worth and an individual‘s ethics. As per Abraham Maslow humanistic psychology he called the ‘third force ‘in psychology with only humanistic approaches emphasizing and creative, spontaneous, and active nature of human being.

Nature combines with nurture to form our personalities. Our genes may predispose us for certain inheritable traits such as diseases like cystic fibrosis or even just irritability, similar to our relatives, but the environment we are raised in has quite a bit to do with how visible certain aspects of our personality become. If a child is always around an environment where there is constant arguing and yelling going on, the child may naturally feel that is the proper thing to do when things do not go as they would like. Likewise, genetics play a role in determining a person's body type, thus you could get your eye color from your mom, and your height from your dad.

This essay will give a description of Personality before critically analysing the biological basis of personality approach. The biological basis approach tries to account for the mechanisms between genes and personality by looking at various different brain structures whilst the biochemical approach looks at the impact of hormones and neurotransmitters. The majority of our understanding of personality from a biological perspective focuses on the three main behavioural systems; the reward system, the motivation system and the punishment system. Within this essay I will be discussing the three main theories that have come from these ideas, Eyenck’s three-factor model, Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) and Cloningers model of personality.

Some psychological models assert that a proportion of our personality is inborn and permanent (Hollander, 1971), that a psychological core at the center of our personality gives us enduring, inner characteristics. Hans Eysenck (1965) suggests that our motivation and emotion are related to biological differences in brain function and proposed that 75% of our personality is based on genetic influence and 25% on environmental influence. Research by Peter Whybrow (1999) on identical twins separated at birth examined how their different environments shaped their personalities. He found that around 40% of personality should be credited to genetics, with 60% determined by outside factors.