Biology and Personality Part One

Question 1

What is the relationship between the brain and its environment?

Answer 1

The relationship between the brain and its environment works in both directions: biology affects environment and environment (learning, experience, context) changes biology

Question 2

How is Understanding the brain and behavior connected?

Answer 2

Understanding the brain can help us understand behavior, but understanding behavior can also help us understand the brain

Question 3

What does the Amygdala do?

Answer 3

Links perceptions and thoughts with memory and emotional meaning

Question 4

What is the amygdala’s role?

Answer 4

Role is assessing whether a stimulus is threatening (possibly if it is rewarding, this is less clear)

Question 5

The Amygdala: Relevant Traits Include…

Answer 5

anxiety, fearfulness, sociability, sexuality, optimism

Question 6

What is something the amygdala has relevance to?

Answer 6

motivation

Question 7

Relevant to Motivation Example

Answer 7

Whitman murders at University of Texas in 1966: had a malignant tumor next to the amygdala, which may have caused his motivation to murder his wife, mother, himself, and 14 others without understanding why he wanted to do this

Question 8

What is the function of the frontal lobe and neocortex?

Answer 8

Higher cognitive functions: abstract reasoning, ethics, hypotheticals

Question 9

How are emotions sorted in your brain?

Answer 9

Pleasant emotions (left) and unpleasant emotions (right) (sort of—anger seems more of a left FC thing. But complicated because of inhibition, excitation, and processing functions make it difficult to interpret brain activity/behavior relationships. Plus, the right hemisphere in general appears to handle processing of emotional stimul

Question 10

Which side of the brain is approach and which side is withdrawal?

Answer 10

Approach (left) and withdrawal (right)

Question 11

Which side of the brain is inhibition of reactions to unpleasant stimuli

Answer 11

left

Question 12

What do the The Frontal Lobes and Neocortex do?

Answer 12

Lateral specialization and integration

Question 13

What is the Somatic marker hypothesis

Answer 13

idea that the bodily (or somatic), emotional component of thought is a necessary part of problem solving and decision making (the prefrontal and especially the orbital cortex important in integrating emotion and cognition— critical to self concept and to problem-solving and decision-making

Question 14

Give Examples of Social Understanding and Self-Control

Answer 14

Phineas Gage (1848): personality changed in a negative way (fitful, irreverent, impatient, obstinate), less emotional, could not hold a job, made unwise decisions

Question 15

Someone with brain damage might not be able to…

Answer 15

to understand others’ emotions or regulate own impulses and feelings (disinhibition), unable to make appropriate decisions (compromised judgment and executive functions

Question 16

What is Negative emotions and cooperativeness

Answer 16

People prone to negative emotions have an especially high level of activity in the prefrontal cortex; People who are cooperative have high activity when interacting with others

Question 17

What is the Role in Self-enhancement?

Answer 17

when this area was temporarily shut-off, self-descriptions were less positive than in a control condition

Question 18

Cognition and emotion are…

Answer 18

mutually reliant and defining

Question 19

What is the capgras syndrome?

Answer 19

belief that loved ones have been replaced, follows injury to right frontal lobe; possible explanation is that people fail to respond emotionally to their loved ones and therefore conclude they must not be the same people

Question 20

Where is the The Ascending Reticular Activating System

ARAS

Answer 20

Connected to cerebral cortex and rest of brain

Question 21

What does The Ascending Reticular Activating System do?

Answer 21

Regulation of balance between arousal and calming by allowing information into the brain
•Believed to be the basis for the distinction between extraversion
and introversion
•Introverts are chronically overaroused (too much information is let in) and extraverts are underaroused (not enough information is let in)

Question 22

What is some supporting evidence for the Ascending Reticular Activating System?

Answer 22

• extraverts had less activity in three areas of the brain while working on a memorization task
• the lemon juice test: introverts salivated more

Question 23

What does recent research say about the Ascending Reticular Activating System?

Answer 23

More recent research is contradictory: different parts of the brain can show different levels of arousal (so the ARAS does not control everything)

Question 24

What is The Anterior Cingulate Cortex important for?

Answer 24

Important for experiencing emotion; helps regulate the amygdala through inhibition (implicated in OCD and PTSD)

Question 25

What does the anterior cingulate cortex do?

Answer 25

Controlling emotional responses and behavior impulses | •Charles Whitman (tumor interfered with the anterior cingulate-amygdala circuit)

Question 26

What are possible implications for extraversion and neuroticism:

Answer 26

stronger response to positive and neutral words among extraverts than introverts; more activity among neurotics when a stimuli did not match an expectation (mismatches may trigger negative emotions associated with neuroticism)

Question 27

What is important to remember about the brain system?

Answer 27

Important to remember that the brain is a system: nearly everything in the brain is connected to everything else •networks and circuits may be more important than areas or structures

Question 28

What is the Neural context effect:

Answer 28

it’s important to look at more than one area of the brain to understand complex processes

Question 29

What is Persistence?

Answer 29

two areas of frontal cortex and part of the striatum

Question 30

What is the C-System?

Answer 30

involved in effortful reflective thought about self and others: lateral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, medial temporal lobe, and posterior parietal cortex

Question 31

What is the X-System?

Answer 31

effortless, reflexive social thought: ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and lateral temporal cortex

Question 32

What is the Low Road?

Answer 32

Reflexive, X-System

Question 33

What is the Hight Road?

Answer 33

Reflective, C-Stystem

Question 34

What are traits associated with the low road?

Answer 34

Impulsive, Spontaneous, faster processing,fast learner, non-thinking, parallel processing,not affected my mental load

Question 35

What are traits associated with the high road?

Answer 35

intentional, controlled, slower processing, slower learner, thinking, serial processing, affected by mental load

Question 36

The Hidden Brain is

Answer 36

X-System,Amygdala, Habitual routine behaviors, Reptilian brain structure, Dopamine receptors pleasurable

Question 37

What is the C-system or System 2

Answer 37

The prefrontal cortex, new information storage and evaluation, neocortical structure, High energy needs, painful

Question 38

What was the Prefrontal leucotomy (by 1937):

Answer 38

damages small areas of white matter behind each frontal lobe with intention of decreasing pathological levels of agitation and emotional arousal

Question 39

What is the prefrontal lobotomy

Answer 39

remove or destroy whole sectors of the frontal lobes

Question 40

What are some facts/lessons of psychosurgery

Answer 40

Observations of patients consistent with brain damage •Very popular (despite high mortality rates) from the ‘30s up to the early ‘50s (replaced with use of neuroleptic medications)

Question 41

What is a research method for studying the brain?

Answer 41

imaging techniques

Question 42

Difficulties with imaging techniques include

Answer 42

The radiator analogy •May indicate inhibitory activity •All parts of the brain are always active to some degree • Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) imaging signals and perfusion imaging •Brain activity in response to a stimulus does not mean the same psychological process occurs every time that area is active

Question 43

Additional difficulties with imaging techniques include

Answer 43

Most researchers only look at small areas •Difficult to detect the neural context effect •The technology is difficult to use and theory not always “up to” interpreting results.

Question 44

Hypothalamus

Answer 44

– connected to just about everything else; secretes several hormones

Question 45

Amygdala

Answer 45

– important role in emotion (this is discussed more later)

Question 46

Hippocampus

Answer 46

important in processing memories

Question 47

Cortex

Answer 47

outer layer of the brain

Question 48

Neocortex

Answer 48

– outermost layer of the cortex – most distinctive part of the human brain

Question 49

Frontal cortex

Answer 49

large size; crucial for uniquely human aspects of cognition such as planning ahead, anticipating consequences, and emotional experience