Do You Know Your Personality? …according to Hans Eysenck Amanda Green

Background Information Dates of Life: March 4, 1916 – September 4, 1997 Country of Origin: Germany Area of Study: Personality Perspective: Personality Psychology -(I’d say behaviorism)

Research and Findings Hans Eysenck created an early model of the trait theory in which there are three dominant traits: it was called P-E-N -Psychoticism:     - unusual levels of hostility and over aggressiveness.     -Hans thought there was a direct link between psychological disorders like schizophrenia and psychoticism which led him to believe that psychological disorders could be inherited genetically.     -(However Hans also pointed out that he found a connection between psychoticism and creativity.) -Extraversion-introversion:     -extraverts: the people who are outgoing and seek out social situations     -introverts: the people who avoid social activities     -ambiverts: somewhere in the middle     -Hans thought that our brain’s physiology was responsible for where people fell on the extravert-introvert scale. People whose mind unconsciously seeks out the excitement of social activity or impulsiveness showed the traits of extraversion. He theorized the opposite was true for introverts. -Neuroticism:     - the tendency of a person to have negative feelings like anxiety and anger. If a person is a neurotic person, they don’t respond well to stress and usually feel threatened or intimidated in normal situations.     -Hans theorized that the people who tended to be neurotic had a more reactive sympathetic nervous system which caused them to be more sensitive to an environmental stimulation.

Conclusion A. Eysenck held very controversial views because he believed that diplomacy had no place in the field of psychology where only facts matter not the deeply held beliefs of the people. One of his most memorable debates took place in London where he discussed the variation of IQ between different racial groups which led to a female protestor punching him the face (1971).      B. Personal Feelings:         - I don’t think Eysenck’s theory was completely relevant because, while he included a trait for negativity, he didn’t include a trait for optimism. I also think that Eysenck had some bias in his theories despite his claims to only report the facts. But I would really like to find out if what he said about  personalities being directly related to the brain’s physiology is true.    C. Do you think that our personality is effected by how sensitive our mind is to certain situations like stress or impulse?