Personality Dimensions and Arousal PERSPECTIVES ON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CECIL R. REYNOLDS, Texas A&M University, College Station ROBERT T. BROWN, University of North Carolina, Wilmington DETERMINANTS OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE Biological, Psychological, and Environmental Factors Edited by Mark Galizio and Stephen A. Maisto HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Edited by John A. Glover and Royce R. Ronning THE INDIVIDUAL SUBJECT AND SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY Edited by Jaan Valsiner THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES A Developmental Perspective Edited by Lawrence C. Hartlage and Cathy F. Telzrow PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES A Natural Science Approach Hans J. Eysenck and Michael W. Eysenck PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND AROUSAL Edited by Jan Strelau and Hans J. Eysenck PERSPECTIVES ON BIAS IN MENTAL TESTING Edited by Cecil R. Reynolds and Robert T. Brown THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY Edited by Hans J. Eysenck and Irene M?rtin A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further informa­ tion please contact the publisher. Personality Dimensions and Arousal Edited by JAN STRELAU University of Warsaw Warsaw, Poland and HANS J. EYSENCK Institute of Psychialry University of London London, England Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Personality dimensions and arousal. (Perspectives on individual differences) Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Personality—Physiological aspects. 2. Arousal (Physiology) I. Strelau, Jan. II. Eysenck, H. ]. (Hans Jürgen), 1916- . III. Series. QP402.P47 1987 155.2'34 87-10808 ISBN 978-1-4899-2045-4 ISBN 978-1-4899-2043-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-2043-0 © 1987 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1987 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Contributors Kristen Joan Anderson, Department of Psychology, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York John Brebner, Department of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Ade­ laide, South Australia Monte S. Buchsbaum, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine, California Gordon Claridge, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, England Christopher Cooper, Department of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia Andrzej Eliasz, Department of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Hans J. Eysenck, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, London, England Michael W. Eysenck, Department of Psychology, Birkbeck College, Uni­ versity of London, London, England Jochen Fahrenberg, Institute of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Federal Republic of Germany Anthony Gale, Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, England Richard J. Haier, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Uni­ versity of California, Irvine, California v vi CONTRIBUTORS Michael S. Humphreys, Department of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Mark Katz, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine, California Tatiana Klonowicz, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, War­ saw, Poland Paul M. Kohn, Department of Psychology, York University, Downsview, Ontario, Canada Luciano Mecacci, Institute of Psychology, CNR, Roma, Italy William Revelle, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois David L. Robinson, Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Pavel V. Simonov, Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neu­ rophysiology, U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Ken Sokolski, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine, California Jan Strelau, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland Peter F. Werre, Psychiatric Centre Rosenburg, The Hague, The Neth­ erlands Marvin Zuckerman, Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware Preface At the beginning of this century, Pavlov developed a plan to explain individual differences in temperament by means of some features of the central nervous system (CNS). This attempt to seek explanations for individual differences in personality in physiological, especially in neu­ rological mechanisms, led later on to research on several person­ ality/temperament dimensions, such as, extraversion, strength of the nervous system, sensation seeking, and so on. Concepts like excitation, inhibition (especially transmarginal or protective inhibition), and, after Moruzzi and Magoun's discovery of the arousing role of the reticular formation, the concept of arousal/activation gained great popularity among biologically oriented personality researchers interested in the biological basis of personality. Facts collected during the last decades by neurophysiologists as well as by other specialists made it clear that there exist many anatom­ ical-physiological mechanisms responsible for the organism's level of arousal/activation-the endocrine system, the autonomic nervous sys­ tem, and the CNS with all of its levels and structures. It also became evident that arousal refers to different phenomena at the introspective, behavioral, psychophysiological, and electrophysiologicallevels. The very fact that the theoretical construct of arousal does not refer to a unidimensional phenomenon and that it is concerned with indi­ vidual stimulus- and response-specific factors led personality re­ searchers interested in the concept of arousal to refer, indeed, to differ­ ent sets of phenomena. This state of affairs makes contacts more difficult among scientists who apply "arousal" or the notions of excitation-inhi­ bition as key concepts in their personality/temperament theories. A deeper analYSis of the separate personality dimensions based on the concept of arousal/activation shows that they often refer to the same phenomena, such as, for example, speed of conditioning, sensory threshold, amplitude of AEP, and so forth. The dimensions of extraver- vii viii PREFACE sion, impulsivity, sensation seeking, or strength or the nervous system may serve as examples here. The evidence that the different personality concepts have often to do with the same variables or indicators pro­ duced a growing tendency to find a common language or at least some mutual understanding among biologically oriented personality psychologists. This tendency is expressed, among other things, in the fact that since the 1960s several meetings have taken place where experts in arousal-oriented personality dimensions had the opportunity to present their theories and to discuss possible links between them. As an exam­ ple, the symposia that took place during the International Congresses of Psychology held in Moscow (1966), in Leipzig (1980), and in Acapulco (1984) may be mentioned. The trend to exchange ideas among experts in extraversion, neurot­ icism, anxiety, psychoticism, impulsivity, strength of the nervous sys­ tem, sensation seeking, reactivity, and augmenting-reducing (all of these dimensions referring to the theoretical construct of arousal) is also observable in publications, the number of which has increased in the last decade. This is evident when one follows the tables of contents of the international journal Personality and Individual Differences as well as of several other published works. Let us mention as well a few books, such as Biological Bases of Individual Behavior, edited by Nebylitsyn and Gray (1972), Biological Bases of Sensation Seeking, Impulsivity, and Anxiety, edited by Zuckerman (1983), or the two volume set of The Biological Bases of Personality and Behavior, edited by Strelau, Farley, and Gale (1985, 1986). One of the common denominators of almost all the publications just mentioned is that authors representing different approaches to the study of personality dimensions present their own concepts and theo­ ries without paying much attention (although with some exceptions) to the connections existing between the separate dimensions under discus­ sion. Emphasis on similarities and differences among the biologically oriented personality dimensions, with special attention to the theoretical construct of arousal to which all of them refer, constitutes the specific concern of this volume. Personality Dimensions and Arousal, the authors of which are widely recognized experts representing different approaches and interests in a variety of biologically based personality dimensions, consists of four parts preceded by an Introduction and completed by a Postscript. In the Introduction, Hans J. Eysenck gives a general overview, in­ cluding a historical account, of the interrelations between personality and the theoretical construct of arousal. Many arguments for the usefulness of the concept of arousal in studies on personality may be found in this introductory chapter. PREFACE ix Part I (Different Perspectives in Research on Extraversion- Introver­ sion) includes chapters that present research on extraversion-introver­ sion conducted in different laboratories and pays attention to various aspects of arousal. Revelle,