Talk:Biological basis of personality

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 September 2019 and 16 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rhh94.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:02, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

First comments
"Is personality described by temperament originating from birth or by traits developed through experience?" seems like it is unnecessary prose. Perhaps a link to nature vs. nurture will suffice.

Bold the title in the first sentence.

Link neuroscience and relevant things, (see WP:UNDERLINK) without going overboard (see WP:OVERLINK). Thanks for your paitence, more to come. Biosthmors (talk) 00:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * "Eysenck's Three-Factor Model, Grey's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST), and Cloninger's Model of Personality" could all be linked, and WP:RED is good. Biosthmors (talk) 00:13, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

"The biological basis of personality is the idea of using neuroscience and psychology concepts to understand links between the biology of the brain and personality" seems unnecessarily wordy. How about "Personality has a biological basis, which is investigated by..." And why isn't genetics part of this? Biosthmors (talk) 00:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

"Though advancing technology has allowed for more research interest in this idea,[1] deeper understanding of personality will depend on the advances in currently limited understanding of brain physiology." Seems like a statement that could apply to any field, but doesn't actually tell us anything about the field. Remove? Biosthmors (talk) 00:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

And for an example of how to format research directions, see here? I've kept things very short and specific. (Yes there's more I can add to that section but perhaps it will be useful to you stylistically). Biosthmors (talk) 00:18, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your feedback. I appreciate it. Mtakeda6 (talk) 03:29, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. Biosthmors (talk) 03:31, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Second comments
The lead should be a summary of the article and cover all important aspects in the body. See Manual of Style/Lead section.

Also per this sentence which is not encyclopedic wording: "The concept of a biological basis of personality is no doubt up for debate, but this article will aim to present the current research and theories on the topic." It seems to be addressing the reader. Perhaps this is an essay rather than an article?

Worried that this article is WP:SYNTH since animal studies seem to be used to support theories of personality in humans. Am I misunderstanding? And why a whole section on the Five Factor Model with a list of all of its factors when the section is based on one (apparently) primary study? Why report the findings of this one study in detail? Forgive me please if I'm wrong. Perhaps this could be clarified, as the article gives the impression that there is general consensus that biological bases of personality have been identified. Also, how does this relate to personality disorders which is mentioned several times? MathewTownsend (talk) 14:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the feedback. You've made very valid points. I went ahead and deleted the essay-like sentence. This was my first crack at a wikipedia article, and I realize its flaws, especially its reliance on a limited number of primary sources. At the time, I didn't find many reliable secondary sources. I believe this is partly because this field/topic is under-developed and under-discussed. It is my hope that there will be more contributing authors to edit and improve this article to a level of high quality.

Mtakeda6 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 06:25, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

possible addition to the experimental technique category
Under the category of experimental techniques, I feel it may be beneficial to discuss whole genome expression analysis or insert a link describing it. There is an article written by Alison M. Bell and Nadia Aubin-Horth and in it they discuss how using this analysis is a great way to uncover more about personality. The article explains the basics of genome expression analysis and how it can be used to tackle three important evolutionary questions about personality. The three questions include: 1. Why do individuals behave consistently? 2. What maintains heritable variation in personality traits? 3. Can we compare personality axes across species? The article addresses the genetic mechanisms involved and how using whole genome expression can tackle these questions. The authors state, "Whole genome expression profiling involves studying variation in expression in a large number of genes, and is an attractive approach for studying personality because behavioural traits are often polygenic, sensitive to the environment and subject to epistatic interactions. Whole genome expression profiling provides us with a large-scale perspective on the molecular mechanisms that are associated with behavioral variation. Large-scale transcription surveys are efficient, in that they allow us to study many candidate genes simultaneously...Measuring whole genome expression in different environments might reveal insights into the molecular mechanisms that are involved in response to variable selection pressures." If you find this as relevant and interesting as I do, I think it would benefit this page to mention it. Bell, A.M., & Aubin-Horth, N. (2010). What can whole genome expression data tell us about the ecology and evolution of personality?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from.

Panzo.8 (talk) 01:34, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments November 2019
Hi everybody,

I want to inform you all that I will be making major edits to this wikipedia page. I am a PhD student in Psychology at UCLA and will be working on this page as part of a course assignment. My research background is in using neuroimaging (structural and functional MRI) to predict individual differences, particularly in individuals' personality measures and social network positions in real-world social networks. I have not yet completely outlined my plans to edit this page, but I plan on expanding the "Personality theories with biological basis" section to include more content that reflects recent advances in the field. I also plan to expand the "Genetic and molecular correlations to personality" section. I also plan to discuss research regarding the biological basis of social network positions (e.g., brokerage, centrality) and the role of social network positions as personality measures (that are distinct from conventional personality measures, such as the Big5) insofar as social network positions are individual difference variables that remain stable across contexts and that also have a genetic basis. I also hope to expand the "Experimental techniques" section to describe the benefits and process of predictive modeling of personality traits using neuroimaging.

Rhh94 (talk) 22:15, 7 November 2019 (UTC)


 * that sound good. However please also bear in mind that your contributions do have to meet Wikipedia's requirements . In particular the provision of reliable independent sources based on secondary or tertiary sources and not on personal research. As a student it is very tempting to use research papers as sources but you may very well find that other editors do not find that acceptable. Best of luck.  Velella  Velella Talk  22:28, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good, I will avoid citing my own work! Rhh94 (talk) 02:25, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I've added a section about fMRI-based approaches in understanding the biological basis of personality. I have not finished my editing yet and plan to make further additions and changes to the existing structure of the article throughout the next couple days. Given that the use of fMRI-based approaches to understand individual differences and personality is currently becoming extremely popular, I intend to further expand on fMRI approaches as well as sMRI (structural MRI) approaches. Rhh94 (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I think the section "Personality theories with biological basis" needs to be deleted. The organization of the page would benefit from having sections describing the different methods used to investigate the biological basis of personality. In describing these methods and relevant studies that use these methods, we make references to the personality measures that are describe by the aforementioned personality theories. It is here that we should mention and elaborate on these personality theories. The current structure of the article is redundant because the methods/evidence sections are somewhat repeated in the "Personality theories with biological basis." Another way to structure this article would be to describe the personality theories and the measures of personality traits (in their own section) _before_ the mention of the methods used to investigate the biological basis of these personality traits. This way, when we discuss the methods and experimental results, we appropriately refer back to the relevant personality theories and measures which will have been mentioned earlier on in the article. I will think more about this restructuring and implement these changes soon (today or tomorrow). Rhh94 (talk) 17:46, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Untitled
The sections about "Genetic and molecular correlations to personality" and "Brain imaging basis of personality" are much longer than the other sections which leads to an imbalance of information. More information is needed in the other sections to distribute the information. A suggestion would be to go into more detail about the twin experiment. Also to talk about where the different personality tests are used and how they are beneficial to the biology side of personality. In the "Two factor model of personality" section it was difficult to understand. A better definition would be needed in this section. Skwwtr (talk) 18:43, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Balanced" doesn't mean sections should be equal (or even approximately equal) in length. Usually there is more quality scientific information available for some topics, for a variety of reasons. If you can provide sources that conform to WP:MEDRS to demonstrate that some sections in the article underrepresent the amount and importance of current literature, that would be a good start in making your points above. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 18:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)