Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CaliCAfornia, USA.
Nat Hum Behav. 2020 Nov;4(11):1110-1117. doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-00989-3. Epub 2020 Nov 9.
Human and animal behaviour exhibits complex but regular patterns over time, often referred to as expressions of personality. Yet it remains unclear what personality really is: is it just the behavioural patterns themselves, something in the brain, in the genes or perhaps all of these? Here we offer a set of causal hypotheses about the role of personality, integrating psychological and neuroscientific approaches to personality in a testable framework. These hypotheses clarify the causal and constitutive relations that personality has with genes, environment, brain, mind and behaviour, and we suggest specific experiments that can adjudicate amongst the different hypotheses. We focus on a set of models that propose that personality is instantiated in the brain, distally caused by genes and environment and, in turn, causing the overt behaviours from which it is often inferred. We argue that articulating and testing such models will be essential in a mature science of personality.
人类和动物的行为随着时间的推移表现出复杂但有规律的模式，通常被称为个性表达。然而，个性到底是什么仍然不清楚：它仅仅是行为模式本身，还是大脑、基因中的某种东西，或者是所有这些的综合？在这里，我们提供了一套关于个性作用的因果假说，在一个可测试的框架中整合了心理和神经科学的个性方法。这些假说阐明了个性与基因、环境、大脑、心智和行为之间的因果关系和构成关系，我们还提出了一些具体的实验，可以在不同的假说之间做出裁决。我们关注的是一组模型，这些模型认为个性是在大脑中体现的，由基因和环境在远处引起，并反过来导致人们通常从中推断出来的明显行为。我们认为，阐明和测试这些模型将是人格成熟科学的关键。
