What Do We Mean When We Talk About Underlying Traits?

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Personality psychologists try to look for patterns across the behaviour of many, many different people. The most popular ones are the big five, extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness. But there is a neurobiology of things that feed into them. And they seem to reflect differences in the way the brain is wired. So really, when you're talking about personality, what you're saying is that people have a tendency to act in a certain way across many different contexts. In any given context, we use our knowledge, our experience to know kinds of options that we might have. It comes down to decision making.

Kevin Mitchell is an author and an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. His research is aimed at understanding the genetic program specifying the wiring of the brain and its relevance to variation in human faculties. Kevin is also the author of the science blog, Wiring the Brain, and a number of books and publications.

In this episode, Eric and Kevin discuss his book, Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are.

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Kevin Mitchell and I Discuss the Genetics of Personality and…

His book, Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are
The missing third component in the Nature vs. Nurture debate
Innate Underlying Traits in the Brain: Extroversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience
The relationship between genetics and neurobiology
What “neurons that fire together, wire together” actually means
The difference between Personality Traits and Character Traits
The impact of parenting on underlying Personality Traits
How people differ in the amount of “free will” that they have
The connection between genetics and addiction
That we become ourselves throughout lifetime

Kevin Mitchell links:

Kevin’s Website

Twitter

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Kevin Mitchell, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Integration of Science and Wisdom with Jeremy Lent

Neuropsychology and the Thinking Mind with Chris Niebauer

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