Sep 10, 2010

"Personality and Individual Differences" Journal

As I've stated before, I'm interested in finding physiological mechanisms behind personality differences and relationship choices.

Here's the link to abstracts of the journal Personality and Individual Differences since it first came out in 1980: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01918869

Readers may find it interesting to browse through the abstracts and take in the refreshingly empirical approach, though it usually produces mundane results.

If anyone knows of better sources in this field -- perhaps something that separates the wheat from the chaff -- please post a link.

Perhaps somewhere between the plodding, generally unenlightening empirical research machine that is modern academic science and the intuitive, oversimplified, and semantics dependent philosophizing of socionics and other typologies a connection can be made that spawns a new and better theory of personality and relationships.

3 comments:

aestrivex said...

you might notice from a scan of these articles that we simply don't know anything about the physiological mechanisms of personality, especially the neurophysiological mechanisms.

rather than pointing you to abstracts of empirical articles, i strongly suggest for anyone with a background in socionics but none in an academic personality or social psychology, david funder's book "the personality puzzle" which in my opinion is incredibly well-written from an epistemological point of view offers an overview of the field from a variety of different perspectives as to measuring what personality is. it includes a section on the biological basis of personality, which is a good window into how paltry the academic literature is in describing anything about personality in terms of physiological mechanisms. the book was used in my introductory personality class in 2009 and old editions are available used on amazon for around $5 plus shipping. there is also a book of experimental readings related to the concepts he describes in the book called "pieces of the personality puzzle" which is also very cheap for older editions.

readers will probably find the book somewhat uninteresting and primarily addressing concepts you already know if you are familiar with the experimental literature of, for example, albert bandura.

Ричард said...

Thanks for that recommendation. Here's a direct link to cheaper used editions of the book "The Personality Puzzle":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0393928586/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

I have started a sort of folder where I store bits and pieces of info about different neurotransmitters, their function, and individual differences in levels, receptivity, numbers of receptors, etc. I feel like this project is going somewhere. Vasopressin, serotonin, and dopamine have begun to make some sense in terms of their influence on personality.

aestrivex said...

"Vasopressin, serotonin, and dopamine have begun to make some sense in terms of their influence on personality."

-- I don't see the synthesis of findings on the correlation of NTs to personality traits is especially comprehensible (at least from the body of literature from around two years ago), but good luck synthesizing it anyway.