Our personality is described by the shape of the brain
Personality, which has to do with our attitudes and propensities to act through certain styles of behavior, has always been one of the most exciting research areas in psychology.
Yet this branch of behavioral science is as fascinating as it is complicated. Not only is it difficult to create categories that can explain personality and temperament well, but you also have to work hard to measure these characteristics reliably. That is why the different personality tests have been subjected to so many revisions..
However, it has recently been discovered that there is another factor that could help us understand the logic behind our personality: the structure of our brain and its different parts. And no, this has nothing to do with the phrenology.
Brain morphology and personality
This research, the results of which have been published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, shows evidence that The shape of our brain and the structures it contains within it can provide clues about which personality traits they define us.
This means that it is not just that the chemical and electrical activity that occurs inside our heads shapes the way we are (something that is taken for granted unless we fall into dualism); it is that the way in which our brain expresses itself through personality is even noticeable in its structure, something that can be observed objectively and that allows comparison between people.
The Big Five model comes out reinforced
This research reveals the neurobiological foundations of the Big Five model of personality. This model, well known in psychology and neurosciences, divides our personality into 5 factors that can be measured as quantities:
- Emotional stability: the degree to which our emotional life experiences sudden changes. Its polar opposite is called neuroticism.
- extraversion: the degree to which we seek stimulating experiences in our environment and in others or, on the contrary, we prefer introversion.
- openness to experience: our propensity to try new things and break with our customs.
- Kindness: the level of respect and willingness to help others that we show when we interact with someone.
- Responsibility: our ease when it comes to accepting commitments and fulfilling them.
In other words, by observing the shape of certain brain structures, it can be predicted to a certain degree. significance of validity what scores are obtained in each of these dimensions of personality. This is very good news, since it allows us to have more indicators when it comes to understanding why we are the way we are, instead of depend fundamentally on personality tests, which depend in part on the honesty of the people taking them. fill.
- Related article: “The Big 5 Personality Traits: Sociability, Responsibility, Openness, Kindness, and Neuroticism”
How was the research carried out?
The researchers who have published the scientific article set out to study the correlations between the scores obtained in a test based on l Big Five model and certain data related to the shape of parts of the brain belonging to its cortex, that is, the superficial part filled with folds.
Specific, the thickness, the area occupied by certain zones and the degree to which these zones have folds were taken into account. To do this, we had the collaboration of more than 500 volunteers and with the help of neuroimaging techniques.
What does the shape of the brain tell us about our personality?
The researchers observed that people whose cerebral cortex was thicker and showed less folding in areas of the frontal and temporal lobes tended to score significantly lower on emotional stability; that is, they showed a greater propensity towards neuroticism.
The opposite occurred with the trait of openness to experience., a personality trait related to curiosity and a taste for novelty: it appeared in greater degree in people with a brain whose cortex was less thick and with a greater area of folding.
Besides, agreeableness was positively correlated with less fusiform gyrus, an area of the temporal lobes that is involved in the recognition of objects and faces.
Similarly, the nicer people had a finer prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal zone is the part of the brain that is closest to our forehead and has to do with decision making, creating plans and impulse control, since it works by limiting the power of the limbic system, which is the area of the brain that produces emotions.
The extraversion, for its part, was greater in people with a greater thickness in the front part of the inner face of the occipital lobes (an area called "wedge"). The occipital lobes decade Cerebral hemisphere They are related to the processing of basic visual information.
Finally, the dimension of the Big Five model called responsibility was greater in people with a thicker prefrontal, less withdrawn and occupying less area.