Biological Approaches To Personality Psychology

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

Dispositional personality theories are quite different from biological personality theories. The two will be compared and dissected in this article. The Big Five Personality Test will also be analyzed and how it is used to study personality will be examined.

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

Clark and Hatfield helped support this by getting female and male experiments to ask male and female participants if they would like to engage in casual sex. 75% of males said yes while every female participant said no. This helps support the sexual selection theory as it shows that females have to be more careful with mating as they only have a limited amount of opportunities therefore are more likely to enter a longterm mating strategy. Males can have casual sex with little investment so are more likely to then females. This study helps to show the gender differences.

In his article, The Strategies of Finding a Mate, David M. Buss discusses the act of finding a mate and the characteristics that people are drawn to in a mate. He begins the article with a brief look at the history of mating and the theories that have previously been proposed. In particular he addressed Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual evolution and belief in preferential mate choice. Buss proposes that there are three components to human mating. He states that “human mating is inherently strategic… mating strategies are context-dependent… [and that] men and women have faced different mating problems over the course of human evolution and, as a consequence, have evolved different strategies” (Buss, 1994, p. 241). He uses this theory to propose nine different hypotheses to prove that despite humans being varied and different from each other, all humans look for similar characteristics when trying to find a mate (Buss, 1994).

This essay aims to show a comparison between the differences between both female short-term mating strategies and female long-term mating strategies. It will explore the evolution of psychology that has shown reasons for human mating and how these reasons go above and beyond the general idea of physical attractiveness and love. This essay will identify how mate preferences have evolved and further identify psychological mechanisms that women have used to select their mates over the past. This essay will compare and critically discuss the differences and outline them between female short-term mating strategies and female long-term mating

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.

The prevalence rates for hooking up relative to the past provides evidence for such a shift. Research suggests that increases in hooking up are likely due to delays in marriage, greater acceptance of premarital sex, and the availability of birth control (Heldman et al., 2010). Similarly, past research suggests that women from middle- or upper-class backgrounds desire a relationship less while they become educated and maintain a successful career (Hamilton & Armstrong, 2009).

Thus, her breeding span is limited (79). In contrast, for males, it is minimal. He simply must produce sperm cells and go through with an act of copulation, in effect, his reproductive capability is limited by the number of females he mates with (Contrary to popular belief, humans are not a monogamous species but a largely monogamous and partly polgynous species) (Gray 79& 83). In addition, males must play the aggressor role in relationships and are more attracted to physical stimuli (Kanin pg. 71). These all require that males recognize love much more quicker then females (Kanin pg. 71).

When the adolescents were rating the different characteristics the results were as followed, boys rated attractiveness higher than the girls and social status wasn’t important to either group. In the vignette portion of the research, when the social status and the attractiveness were displayed on pictures, it showed that both groups found attractiveness important. Social status was only important for the boys when the mate was attractive and the girls found social status was important whether attractive or not. Lastly, as stated by Ha (2009) “self-perceived mate value moderated the relationship between attractiveness and dating desire for both boys and girls.” Also stated be Ha (2009) “adolescents who perceived themselves as having high mate value showed more dating desire if the other person was attractive compared to adolescents who perceived themselves as having a lower mate value.”

The majority of the time the person who is left longing for more than just a casual hookup is the female. Women, by nature, are more likely to become more emotionally attached, especially when it comes to sexual activities. However, most of the time, girls will be willing to play along with the game of hooking up. Perhaps, in hopes, that it will someday lead to something more. But, if and when it doesn’t, they can be left emotionally distraught. Girls will become attached to the person they are with and grow to have a sincere care for them. However, when it comes to picking a mate, boys are not as particular about the girl. A study, Age and gender differences in mate selection criteria for various involvement levels found that “men should be equally as selective as women with respect to long-term mates, but less selective than woman with respect to short-term mates criteria (Kenrick).” Boys are less likely to think about all aspects of girl when planning on hooking up with her, unlike girls. They are not as particular because they are just looking for

In this paper I will try to elucidate how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows the extent to which growth needs influence personality formation, also put into words how biological factors influence the formation of personality. Observe the relationship of biological factors to Maslow’s theory as well as explain the basic aspects of humanistic theory that are incompatible with biological explanations of personality.

How we select and lose our mates has always been a source of fascination and in the article, “The Strategies of Human Mating”, by David Buss surveys college students and more than 10,000 adult males and women from 37 countries to record that in the sexual selection process, humans choose between temporary (casual) and long-term (co-parenting) and use many strategies to draw in and keep a partner. There were 9 hypotheses Buss came up with about explaining different strategies of a long term and short term relationship between men and women. The hypotheses were that short term mating is more important for men than women, men seeking a short-term mate will solve the problem of identifying women who are sexually accessible, men seeing a short-term mate will minimize commitment and investment, men seeking a short-term mate will solve the problem of identifying fertile women, men seeking a long-term mate will solve the problem of identifying reproductively valuable women, men seeking a long-term mate will solve the problem of paternity confidence, women seeking short-term mate will prefer men willing to impart immediate resources, women will be more selective than men in choosing a short-term mate and lastly women seeking a long-term mate will prefer men

Part of the evolutionary explanation is Trivers’ parental investment theory which argues that the origin of behavioural differences between men and women lies in the different ways of achieving reproductive success. Trivers

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.