MODULE-IV

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF PERSONALITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS

STRUCTURE
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Temperament
4.3 Dimensions of Temperament
4.4 Development of Temperament
4.5 Temperament and the Brain
4.6 Temperament and the development of behavior problems
4.7 What is Personality?
4.8 Approaches to Studying Personality
4.9 Genetics, the Brain, and Personality
4.10 Consciousness
4.11 Level of Arousal & Content of Consciousness
4.12 Summary
4.13 Questions

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

 To know the nature of behavioral problems.

 To understand the relationship of genetics, brain and personality.

4.1 INTRODUCTION

What exactly is personality? How does understanding your own personality help you gain greater
insight into your emotional well-being? Personality is something that people often describe, yet many do
not fully understand exactly what the scientific study of personality is all about. It is your unique
personality that makes you who you are and influences everything from your relationships to the way you
live.

Personality psychology is one of the largest and most popular branches of psychology. Psychologists
strive to understand how personality develops as well as how it influences the way we think and behave.
This area of psychology seeks to understand personality and how it varies among individuals as well as
how people are similar in terms of personality. Psychologists also assess, diagnose, and treat personality
disorders that can interfere with an individual's day-to-day life.

4.2 TEMPERAMENT

Temperament refers to the characteristics and aspects of personality that we are born with. For
that reason, they are similar to traits in that they are both innate (born with these things) and enduring.
Infants who are anxious and nervous tend to be the same way when they are older. One difference though
is that temperament more often relates to emotionality...the specific emotional characteristics such as
calm, anxious, or nervous.

Temperament is an inherent part of a child’s character and can be shaped but not changed. Understanding
and learning about different temperaments is important because it affects you as a parent, your child, and
the relationship between you. Temperament shapes responses and reactions “how” a child does
something, not what they do. It is a child’s behavioral style. Temperament is not personality, as
personality addresses more of the “why” of behavior. Many researchers feel that children are born with
their natural style of interacting with or reacting to people, places, and things – their temperament. There
is a difference of opinion among leading researchers over whether temperaments are inborn or develop
early in life through an interaction of genetic and environmental factors.
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Temperament influences how a child behaves toward individuals and objects around them and how the
environment affects them. This concept also indicates that many behavioral tendencies are inborn – not
the result of faulty parenting. At a recent parenting class at Meridian Youth Treatment Center, parents
were asked how understanding temperament would be helpful for them. For one couple, understanding
their child’s temperament helped reduce their anxieties, especially when their child acted out in a non-
pro-social manner. Another parent exclaimed in what seemed to be his insightful moment. “Then it can’t
be all our fault!” He felt relieved to know that his child’s difficulties where not due to faulty parenting.
This parent went on to say that if he had understood this concept years ago he could have started taking
preventative steps to help his son then. Parents who take the time to understand their child’s temperament
can work with their child rather than trying to change his or her inborn traits. Knowledge of temperament
can help parents adjust their parenting style and arrange their environment to help meet the temperament
needs of their child, promoting harmony and well-being in the family.

In the late 1950s, researchers found nine traits that were present at birth and continued to influence
development in important ways throughout life. Since then, research has continued to show that
children’s health and development are influenced by temperament. To examine a child’s temperament
health professionals use a series of interviews, observations, and questionnaires that measure nine
temperament traits.
These nine temperament traits are:
1. Activity Level: How active is the child generally? Is the child always moving and doing
something or does he or she have a more relaxed style?
2. Regularity: Refers to the predictability of biological functions like appetite and sleep. Is the child
regular in his or her eating and sleeping habits or somewhat haphazard?
3. Approach/Withdrawal: Refers to a child’s characteristic response to a new situation or strangers.
Does he or she “never meet a stranger” or tend to shy away from new people or things?
4. Adaptability: How easily does the child adapt to transitions and changes, like switching to a new
activity? Can the child adjust to changes in routines or plans easily or does he or she resist
transitions?
5. Persistence: This is the length of time a child continues in activities in the face of obstacles. Does
the child give up as soon as a problem arises with a task or does he or she keep on trying? Can he
or she stick with an activity a long time or does his or her mind tend to wander?
6. Intensity: Relates to the energy level of a response, whether positive or negative. Does he or she
react strongly to situations, either positively or negatively, or does he or she react calmly and
quietly?
7. Distractibility: Refers to the degree of concentration and attention displayed when a child is not
particularly interested in an activity. Is the child easily distracted from what he or she is doing or
can he or she shut out external distractions and stay with the current activity?
8. Sensory Threshold: How sensitive is a child to physical stimuli? Is he or she bothered by external
stimuli such as loud noises, bright lights, or food textures or does he or she tend to ignore them?
9. Mood: This is the tendency to react to the world primarily in a positive or negative way. Does the
child often express a negative outlook or is he or she generally a positive person? Does his or her
mood shift frequently or is he or she usually even-tempered?

According to Chess & Thomas, these traits combine to form three basic types of temperaments.
Approximately 65 percent of all children fit one of three patterns.
 Forty percent of children are generally regarded as “easy or flexible.” The child has a positive
mood generally; quickly establishes regular routines and adapts easily to new experiences and
calms self effectively.
 Ten percent are regarded as “difficult, active, or feisty.” The child tends to react negatively; cries
frequently; has irregular routines; is slow to accept new experiences and cannot calm self.
 Fifteen percent are regarded as “slow to warm up or cautious.” The child is somewhat negative;
has a low activity level; low adaptability; low intensity of mood and flat affect.

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  The other 35 percent of children are a combination of these patterns.

4.3 DIMENSIONS OF TEMPERAMENT

Factor analyses of children’s temperament as measured by questionnaires have led to a revised list
of temperament dimensions in infancy and early childhood.
These include 1) positive emotionality; 2) activity level; 3) fearfulness; 4) anger/frustration; 5) attentional
orienting; and later, in early childhood, 6) effortful control, i.e. the capacity to inhibit a dominant response
in order to perform a subdominant response.

During early and middle childhood, three broad factors have consistently been found in parent reports of
temperament: Surgency or Extraversion, related to positive emotionality and activity; Negative
Affectivity, related to negative emotions; and Effortful Control, related to attentional, inhibitory and
activational control. These factors have been linked to emotional and attentional brain systems in humans
and in non-humans.

4.4 DEVELOPMENT OF TEMPERAMENT

Temperament also develops. During the first few months of life, individual differences in
orienting, distress proneness, positive affect and approach, and frustration can be observed. By six months
of age, when infants are presented with objects, some infants will also show rapid approach by reaching
and contacting them, while others will approach more slowly. Infant approach tendencies and smiling and
laughter in the laboratory predict parent-reported extraversion at seven years.

Late in the first year and beyond, individual differences in fearful inhibition to novel or intense stimuli
can be observed. Fearful inhibition opposes approach tendencies, so that some infants who previously
responded rapidly to new objects or people may now approach more slowly, or not approach at all.
Fearful inhibition shows considerable stability and is related to the later development of empathy, guilt
and shame in childhood Fearful children tend to develop greater early conscience and benefit from gentle
parental discipline in promoting internalized conscience. More fearless children appear to benefit more
from maternal responsiveness and their own security of attachment in conscience development.

We continue to learn about how children’s emotion and behavior is regulated. In infancy, children’s
orienting appears to be the major regulator, but late in the first year of life, effortful control begins to
develop, providing additional means of regulating reactive tendencies. We call the brain system
underlying effortful control the executive attention system. As executive attention develops, so does the
ability to maintain focused attention for longer periods of time.

Sustained attention and ability to refrain from touching a prohibited toy in infancy significantly predict
effortful control at months. There is also long-term stability in children’s ability to delay gratification,
with preschoolers’ ability to delay predicting adolescent parent-reported attentiveness, ability to
concentrate and control over negative affect Effortful control is strongly related to children’s social
compliance, and to the development of empathy and guilt or shame in children.

4.5 TEMPERAMENT AND THE BRAIN

Neuroimaging studies allow researchers to identify tasks that activate brain networks underlying
temperament, and these tasks have been adapted to children of different ages to study the development of
temperamental systems. Laboratory tasks have been used in the study of the development of orienting and
effortful control, but it is likely that other dimensions can be similarly measured.

Performance on these tasks is positively related to parents’ reports about children’s ability to control
attention and emotion. In adults, performance on these tasks has been linked to the action of specific
genes, and considerable evidence supports the heritability of temperament. Increasingly, studies have also
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found that effects of parenting depend on the genotype of the child, with negative emotionality and
surgency/ sensation seeking influencing outcomes in both positive and negative directions.

4.6 TEMPERAMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS

Temperament and the development of psychopathology have also been linked. Temperament may
heighten responses to stressful events or buffer against risk, and relationships have been found between
temperamental fearful inhibition and later anxiety, negative affectivity and depression.
Extraversion/surgency and low effortful control have also been linked to the development of behaviour
problems.
The list of nine temperament dimensions identified by Thomas and Chess5 has been revised to reflect
subsequent research: broad basic dimensions include Extraversion/Surgency (positive affect, activity
level, impulsivity, risk-taking); Negative Affectivity (fear, anger, sadness, discomfort); and Effortful
Control (attention-shifting and focusing, perceptual sensitivity, inhibitory and activational control).
Affiliation has also recently been measured.22 Links have been found between negative affectivity and
extraversion and behavior problems, whereas effortful control is related to adaptation and low behavior
problems. Both fearfulness and effortful control have predicted the development of conscience. Links are
also increasingly being made between temperament and genetic20 and between questionnaire measures
and measures of brain processes.

Implications
Research on temperament suggests the importance of educating child-care workers, teachers and
parents to realize that children’s behavior and emotions are not solely the result of social learning.
Instead, children differ from an early age in their reactivity and self-regulation, and may follow different
pathways to developmental outcomes. Temperament also suggests specific interventions, such as training
in attentional control that has been successfully used with four-year-old children, and can be adapted to
preschool settings. Such training has proven useful for children with ADHD as well, and appears to have
quite general effects on children’s cognitive processing.

4.7 WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

What is it that makes you who you are? Certainly, many factors contribute to the person you are
today,
including your genetics, your upbringing, and your life experiences.
Many would argue that what truly makes you unique is the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors that make up your personality.

While there is no single agreed upon definition of personality, it is often thought of as something that
arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. It encompasses all of the
thoughts, behavior patterns, and social attitudes that impact how we view ourselves and what we believe
about others and the world around us. Understanding personality allows psychologists to predict how
people will respond to certain situations and the sorts of things they prefer and value.
In order to understand how researchers study personality psychology, it is important to start by learning
more about some of the most influential personality theories.

How Do Psychologists Think About Personality?

A number of different theories have emerged to explain various aspects of personality. Some
theories focus on explaining how personality develops, while others are concerned with individual
differences in personality.

Personality Is Often Described In Terms of Traits

The trait theories of personality are centered on the idea that personality is made up of a number
of different broad traits or dispositions. Various theories have been proposed over the years to attempt to

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identify exactly which attributes serve as key components in personality and to determine the total
number of personality traits.

Psychologist Gordon Allport was one of the first to describe personality in terms of individual traits. In
his dispositional perspective, he suggested that there are different kinds of traits. Common traits are those
that are shared by many people within a particular culture. Central traits are those that make up an
individual's personality. Cardinal traits are those that are so dominant that a person becomes primarily
known for those characteristics. Mother Teresa, for example, was so well-known for her charitable work
that her name became almost synonymous to service to those in need.

While Allport had suggested that there were as many as 4,000 individual traits, the psychologist Raymond
Cattell proposed that there were 16. He also believed that these traits exist on a continuum and that all
people possess each trait in varying degrees. Later, psychologist Hans Eysenck narrowed this list of traits
even further and suggested that there were just three: extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
The "Big Five" theory is perhaps the most popular and widely accepted trait theory of personality today.
This theory proposes that personality is made up of five broad personality dimensions: extroversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. Each trait exists as a broad continuum, and
each individual's personality lies somewhere on that spectrum for each trait. For example, you might be
high in extroversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness while being somewhere in the middle of the
continuum for the traits of openness and neuroticism.

4.8 APPROACHES TO STUDYING PERSONALITY

Research into these five philosophical questions has branched into several different approaches to
studying personality. The major theories include the psychodynamic, neo-Freudian, learning (or
behaviorist), humanistic, biological, trait (or dispositional), and cultural perspectives.

 Psychodynamic theory, originating with Sigmund Freud, posits that human behavior is the result
of the interaction among various components of the mind (the id, ego, and superego) and that
personality develops according to a series of psychosexual developmental stages.
Sigmund Freud: Sigmund Freud advanced a psychodynamic view of human personality that implicated
the id, ego, and superego as the main determinants of individual differences in personality.

 Neo-Freudian theorists, such as Adler, Erikson, Jung, and Horney, expanded on Freud’s theories
but focused more on the social environment and on the effects of culture on personality.
 Learning theories, such as behaviorism, regard an individuals’ actions as ultimately being
responses to external stimuli. Social learning theory believes that personality and behavior are
determined by an individual’s cognition about the world around them.
 Humanistic theory argues that an individual’s subjective free will is the most important
determinant of behavior. Humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
believed that people strive to become self-actualized—the “best version” of themselves.
 Biological approaches focus on the role of genetics and the brain in shaping personality. Related
to this, evolutionary theories explore how variation in individual personalities variance may be
rooted in natural selection.
 Trait theorists believe personality can be conceptualized as a set of common traits, or
characteristic ways of behaving, that every individual exhibits to some degree. In this view, such
personality traits are different from person to person but within an individual are stable over time
and place.
With any of these theories, it is important to keep in mind that the culture in which we live is one of the
most important environmental factors that shapes our personalities. Western ideas about personality are
not necessarily applicable to other cultures, and there is evidence that the strength of personality traits
varies across cultures.

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4.9 GENETICS, THE BRAIN, AND PERSONALITY
The biological perspective on personality emphasizes the influence of the brain and genetic factors
on personality.

The Biological Perspective on Personality

The biological perspective on personality emphasizes the internal physiological and genetic
factors that influence personality. It focuses on why or how personality traits manifest through biology
and investigates the links between personality, DNA, and processes in the brain. This research can
include the investigation of anatomical, chemical, or genetic influences and is primarily accomplished
through correlating personality traits with scientific data from experimental methods such as brain
imaging and molecular genetics.

Genetics and Personality

The field of behavioral genetics focuses on the relationship between genes and behavior and has
given psychologists a glimpse of the link between genetics and personality. A large part of the evidence
collected linking genetics and the environment to personality comes from twin studies, which compare
levels of similarity in personality between genetically identical twins.

Genetics: The expression of inherited genes plays a role in determining personality.

In the field of behavioral genetics, the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart a well-known study of the
genetic basis for personality—conducted research with twins from 1979 to 1999. In studying 350 pairs of
twins, including pairs of identical and fraternal twins reared together and apart, researchers found that
identical twins, whether raised together or apart, have very similar personalities.

These findings suggest the heritability of some personality traits, implying that some aspects of our
personalities are largely controlled by genetics. Multiple twin studies have found that identical twins do
have higher correlations in personality traits than fraternal twins. While identical twins may have some
similar personality traits, however, they still have distinct personalities, suggesting that genetics are not
the only factor in determining personality. One study measuring genetic influence on twins in five
different countries found that correlations for traits between identical twins were 0.50 (i.e., they had 50%
of traits in common), while for fraternal twins were about 0.20 (i.e., they had 20% of traits in common).

These findings suggest that heredity and environment interact to determine an individual’s personality.
It’s important to point out that traits are determined not by a single gene, but by a combination of many
genes, and also by environmental factors that control whether certain genes are expressed. Many
personality studies today investigate the activation and expression of genes and how they relate to
personality. How DNA interacts with the environment determines what part of the DNA code is actually
activated within an individual—in other words, which genes will be expressed. These small changes in

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individuals’ DNA help determine each person’s uniqueness—their distinct looks, abilities, brain
functioning, and other characteristics that all work together to form a cohesive personality.

The Brain and Personality

The biological approach to personality has also identified areas and pathways within the brain that
are associated with the development of personality. A number of theorists, such as Hans Eysenck, Gordon
Allport, and Raymond Cattell, believe that personality traits can be traced back to brain structures and
neural mechanisms, such as dopamine and seratonin pathways. Researchers using a biological perspective
will seek to understand how hormones, neurotransmitters, and different areas of the brain all interact to
affect personality.

Phineas Gage: A Case Study

One of the first documented cases that demonstrated the link between personality and the brain
was that of Phineas Gage. In 1858, Gage was working as a blasting foreman for a railroad company. Due
to a faulty blast, a railroad spike was blown through his head; miraculously, he survived the accident.

Phineas Gage’s skull: The case of Phineas Gage was one of the first indicators of a biological basis for
personality.

The spike pierced Gage’s frontal lobe, and Gage experienced many subsequent changes in aspects of
personality that we now know are associated with this area of the brain. The changes in Gage’s

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personality after his brain injury spurred interest in the biological factors involved in personality and
implicated the frontal lobe as an important area associated with higher-order personality functions.

Strengths of the Biological Perspective

One strength of the biological perspective is its strict adherence to scientific methodology. All
factors are reduced to quantifiable variables that can be reliably measured by personality trait models and
questionnaires. The personality measures are standardized across measurements, and these measures of
personality are very compatible with statistical analyses, providing an easily administered and measurable
definition of personality.

This method can also be deterministic, meaning that some factors are identified as causal—i.e., certain
brain structures or patterns may be identified as causing certain psychological outcomes. Because of this,
the biological perspective can be useful in identifying causes of and effective treatments for personality
and mood disorders. For example, identifying seratonin imbalance as a cause of depression led to the
development of selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which have been found to be an effective
treatment for depression.

Limitations of the Biological Perspective

A limitation of this perspective is that it focuses almost exclusively on the nature side of the nature
vs. nurture debate (the debate about whether genetics or environment are more influential in human
development). Because of this exclusive focus, other factors that are integral to personality are not
included. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and genetics are the key factors in this focus; the effects of
environmental and social factors, however, are often overlooked. Twin studies have shown that heritable
factors are not the only predictor of personality or even diseases such as schizophrenia; the biological
perspective does not fully address non-heritable factors.

In addition, the correlational studies used for measuring normal personality traits are subjected to the
same rules as normal correlational research: they cannot be used alone to establish causation. Just because
two factors are shown to be related does not mean that one causes the other. For example, if you have
data that show that as ice cream sales increase, the rate of drowning deaths also increases, you should not
necessarily conclude that ice cream consumption causes drowning. In this case, more ice cream is sold
during the hot summer months—the same time that people are more likely to go swimming. Therefore,
the cause of the increases in both ice cream sales and drowning deaths is most likely the hot summer
weather.

That said, properly designed experimental studies can help scientists determine cause-and-effect
relationships in order to develop treatment options for people with personality disorders.
Influences of Culture and Gender on Personality
Both culture and gender are important factors that influence the development of personality.
A person’s culture is one of the most important environmental factors shaping their personality (Triandis
& Suh, 2002). Personality psychologists are interested in understanding the role that culture plays in the
development of personality. Research investigating the variations of personality traits across cultures
suggests that there are both universal and culture-specific aspects that account for these variations.

Culture and Personality

The term culture refers to all of the beliefs, customs, ideas, behaviors, and traditions of a particular
society that are passed through generations. Culture is transmitted to people through language as well as
through the modeling of behavior, and it defines which traits and behaviors are considered important,
desirable, or undesirable.

Within a culture there are norms and behavioral expectations. These cultural norms can dictate which
personality traits are considered important. The researcher Gordon Allport considered culture to be an
important influence on traits and defined common traits as those that are recognized within a culture.
These traits may vary from culture to culture based on differing values, needs, and beliefs. Positive and
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negative traits can be determined by cultural expectations: what is considered a positive trait in one
culture may be considered negative in another, thus resulting in different expressions of personality across
cultures.

Considering cultural influences on personality is important because Western ideas and theories are not
necessarily applicable to other cultures (Benet-Martinez & Oishi, 2008). There is a great deal of evidence
that the strength of personality traits varies across cultures, and this is especially true when comparing
individualist cultures (such as European, North American, and Australian cultures) and collectivist
cultures (such as Asian, African, and South American cultures). People who live in individualist
cultures tend to believe that independence, competition, and personal achievement are important. In
contrast, people who live in collectivist cultures tend to value social harmony, respectfulness, and group
needs over individual needs. These values influence personality in different but substantial ways; for
example, Yang (2006) found that people in individualist cultures displayed more personally-oriented
personality traits, whereas people in collectivist cultures displayed more socially-oriented personality
traits.

Gender and Personality

In much the same manner that cultural norms can influence personality and behavior, gender
norms (the behaviors that males and females are expected to conform to in a given society) can also
influence personality by emphasizing different traits between different genders.
Ideas of appropriate behavior for each gender (masculine and feminine) vary among cultures and tend to
change over time.

For example, aggression and assertiveness have historically been emphasized as positive masculine
personality traits in the United States. Meanwhile, submissiveness and caretaking have historically been
held as ideal feminine traits. While many gender roles remain the same, others change over time. In 1938,
for example, only 1 out of 5 Americans agreed that a married woman should earn money in industry and
business. By 1996, however, 4 out of 5 Americans approved of women working in these fields. This type
of attitude change has been accompanied by behavioral shifts that coincide with changes in trait
expectations and shifts in personal identity for men and women.

Influence of gender roles on personality expression: Gender roles can determine which traits are
considered positive or desirable. These traits vary from culture to culture.

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Approaches to Studying Personality in a Cultural Context
There are three approaches that can be used to study personality in a cultural context: the cultural-
comparative approach, the indigenous approach, and the combined approach, which incorporates
elements of the first two approaches.
 The cultural-comparative approach seeks to test Western ideas about personality in other cultures
to determine whether they can be generalized and if they have cultural validity (Cheung van de
Vijver, & Leong, 2011). For example, researchers used the cultural-comparative approach to test
the universality of McCrae and Costa’s Five Factor Model. They found applicability in numerous
cultures around the world, with the Big Five traits being stable in many cultures (McCrae &
Costa, 1997; McCrae et al., 2005).
 The indigenous approach came about in reaction to the dominance of Western approaches to the
study of personality in non-Western settings (Cheung et al., 2011). Because Western-based
personality assessments cannot fully capture the personality constructs of other cultures, the
indigenous model has led to the development of personality assessment instruments that are based
on constructs relevant to the culture being studied (Cheung et al., 2011).
 The third approach to cross-cultural studies of personality is the combined approach, which serves
as a bridge between Western and indigenous psychology as a way of understanding both universal
and cultural variations in personality

4.10 CONSCIOUNESS

Consciousness is defined as our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment (Koch,
2004). The experience of consciousness is fundamental to human nature. We all know what it means to be
conscious, and we assume (although we can never be sure) that other human beings experience their
consciousness similarly to how we experience ours.

The study of consciousness has long been important to psychologists and plays a role in many important
psychological theories. For instance, Sigmund Freud’s personality theories differentiated between the
unconscious and the conscious aspects of behaviour, and present-day psychologists distinguish between
automatic (unconscious) and controlled (conscious) behaviours and between implicit (unconscious) and
explicit (conscious) memory.

Some philosophers and religious practices argue that the mind (or soul) and the body are separate entities.
For instance, the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), shown in Figure 6.1, was a proponent
of dualism, the idea that the mind, a nonmaterial entity, is separate from (although connected to) the
physical body. In contrast to the dualists, psychologists believe that consciousness (and thus the mind)
exists in the brain, not separate from it. In fact, psychologists believe that consciousness is the result of
the activity of the many neural connections in the brain, and that we experience different states of
consciousness depending on what our brain is currently doing.

The study of consciousness is also important to the fundamental psychological question regarding the
presence of free will. Although we may understand and believe that some of our behaviors are caused by
forces that are outside our awareness (i.e., unconscious), we nevertheless believe that we have control
over, and are aware that we are engaging in, most of our behaviors. To discover that we have, or someone
else has, engaged in a complex behavior, such as driving in a car and causing severe harm to others,
without being at all conscious of these actions, is so unusual as to be shocking. And yet psychologists are
increasingly certain that a great deal of our behavior is caused by processes of which we are unaware and
over which we have little or no control.

Our experience of consciousness is functional because we use it to guide and control our behavior, and to
think logically about problems. Consciousness allows us to plan activities and to monitor our progress
toward the goals we set for ourselves. And consciousness is fundamental to our sense of morality — we
believe that we have the free will to perform moral actions while avoiding immoral behaviors.

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But in some cases consciousness may become aversive — for instance, when we become aware that we
are not living up to our own goals or expectations, or when we believe that other people perceive us
negatively. In these cases we may engage in behaviors that help us escape from consciousness; for
example, through the use of alcohol or other psychoactive drugs.

Because the brain varies in its current level and type of activity, consciousness is transitory. If we drink
too much coffee or beer, the caffeine or alcohol influences the activity in our brain, and our consciousness
may change. When we are anesthetized before an operation or experience a concussion after a knock on
the head, we may lose consciousness entirely as a result of changes in brain activity.

4.11 LEVEL OF AROUSAL AND CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

There are two common but distinct dimensions of the term consciousness, one involving arousal
and states of consciousness and the other involving content of consciousness and conscious states. To be
conscious of anything the brain must be in a relatively high state of arousal (sometimes called vigilance),
whether in wakefulness or REM sleep, vividly experienced in dreams although usually not remembered.
Brain arousal level fluctuates in a circadian rhythm but may be influenced by lack of sleep, drugs and
alcohol, physical exertion, etc. Arousal can be measured behaviorally by the signal amplitude that triggers
some criterion reaction (for instance, the sound level necessary to evoke an eye movement or a head turns
toward the sound source). Clinicians use scoring systems such as the Glasgow Coma Scale to assess the
level of arousal in patients.

High arousal states are associated with conscious states that have specific content, seeing, hearing,
remembering, planning or fantasizing about something. Different levels or states of consciousness are
associated with different kinds of conscious experiences. The "awake" state is quite different from the
"dreaming" state (for instance, the latter has little or no self-reflection) and from the state of deep sleep. In
all three cases the basic physiology of the brain is affected, as it also is in altered states of consciousness,
for instance after taking drugs or during meditation when conscious perception and insight may be
enhanced compared to the normal waking state.

Clinicians talk about impaired states of consciousness as in "the comatose state", "the persistent
vegetative state" (PVS), and "the minimally conscious state" (MCS). Here, "state" refers to different
"amounts" of external/physical consciousness, from a total absence in coma, persistent vegetative state
and general anesthesia, to a fluctuating and limited form of conscious sensation in a minimally conscious
state such as sleep walking or during a complex partial epileptic seizure. The repertoire of conscious
states or experiences accessible to a patient in a minimally conscious state is comparatively limited. In
brain death there is no arousal, but it is unknown whether the subjectivity of experience has been
interrupted, rather than its observable link with the organism. Functional neuroimaging have shown that
parts of the cortex are still active in vegetative patients that are presumed to be unconscious; however,
these areas appear to be functionally disconnected from associative cortical areas whose activity is needed
for awareness.

The potential richness of conscious experience appears to increase from deep sleep to drowsiness to full
wakefulness, as might be quantified using notions from complexity theory that incorporate both the
dimensionality as well as the granularity of conscious experience to give an integrated-information-
theoretical account of consciousness. As behavioral arousal increases so does the range and complexity of
possible behavior. Yet in REM sleep there is a characteristic atonia, low motor arousal and the person is
difficult to wake up, but there is still high metabolic and electric brain activity and vivid perception.

Many nuclei with distinct chemical signatures in the thalamus, midbrain and pons must function for a
subject to be in a sufficient state of brain arousal to experience anything at all. These nuclei therefore
belong to the enabling factors for consciousness. Conversely it is likely that the specific content of any
particular conscious sensation is mediated by particular neurons in cortex and their associated satellite
structures, including the amygdala, thalamus, claustrum and the basal ganglia.
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Consciousness is an active process with multiple components. The ascending reticular activating system
has multiple anatomical and neurochemical components in the rostral brainstem tegmentum, thalamus,
and cortex, and is responsible for alertness, a prerequisite for maximal awareness. Awareness also has
multiple facets. Sensations, after initial reception in the cortex, are further selected and processed in
connected regions. Perception involves the abstraction of selected sensory information, allowing a limited
concept of what is happening in the external world and within the body. Attention directs and selects
certain information to the exclusion of others. Information is transiently held in working memory to allow
for immediate action and decisions. Some forms of memory are accompanied by conscious awareness
that is proposed to be necessary for the provision of a sense of continuity in everyday life. Motivation is
involved with prioritizing and choosing behavior. The brain also has the capacity for self-awareness, ie,
awareness that one has certain cognitive and mental processes. Cognition or thought, traditionally at the
"highest level" of cognitive functioning (eg, deductive reasoning), involves the synthesis of the above-
listed components.

4.12 SUMMMARY

When looking at temperament and personality, they are related to each other and are developed at a very
early age. These two traits have to be developed from very early childhood as it stays with us our whole
lives.

Temperament refers to the different aspects of an individual’s personality like extroversion or

introversion. It is regarded as innate or inborn and is not learned. Personality is what arises within an
individual. Personality, which remains throughout an individual’s life, is made up of certain characteristic
patterns like: behavior, feelings, and thoughts. Temperament is a basic inherited style whereas personality
is acquired on top of the temperament. The personality of an individual can be acquired in years. Factors
such as education, socialization, various pressures in life, and other various aspects affect the personality
of an individual. Some of the fundamental characteristics related to personality are: consistency,
psychological and physiological impact on behaviors and actions, and multiple expressions.

Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness or of being aware of an external object or something
within oneself. Consciousness is often viewed as an individual’s awareness of their own internal states as
well as the events going on around them. If you can describe something you are experiencing in words,
then it is part of your consciousness.

A fusion of neurophysiological, philosophical, and psychological concepts may lead to a closer

understanding of consciousness. In any case, a scientific revolution with a shift of paradigms (accepted
models) may be necessary before the riddle of consciousness can be completely solved.
Consciousness is complex and represents more than the sum of its parts, but when disordered, it is best to
resolve which components are affected. The term impaired consciousness is too vague to be clinically
useful. In an individual case we need to know what aspects of consciousness are impaired (eg, alertness,
attention, or various components of awareness) and to what extent they are affected.

4.13 QUESTIONS

1) Write a brief note on temperament

2) How does temperament development?
3) What is the relation between temperament and brain
4) Write a note on personality
5) Write a note on Genetics, the Brain, and Personality
6) Write a note on consciousness

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