Product Cover

Biology of Personality and Individual Differences

Edited by Turhan Canli

Hardcover
Hardcover
January 23, 2006
ISBN 9781593852528
Price: $89.00
462 Pages
Size: 6⅛" x 9¼"
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This is the first book to provide an overview of current research using cutting-edge genetic and neuroimaging methods in the study of personality. Integrating compelling lines of inquiry that until now have largely remained disparate, the volume brings together leading investigators from personality psychology; clinical psychology and psychiatry; cognitive, affective, and behavioral neuroscience; and comparative psychology. Coverage includes the structure of personality and its mapping onto biology, genetic markers for individual differences, vulnerability to psychopathology, sex differences, age-related processes, and functional neuroimaging approaches.

“A comprehensive and informative synthesis of the current state of research on the biology personality. The chapters reflect the multiple perspectives of their authors, representing contributions from behavioral and molecular genetics, cognitive science, psychology, psychiatry, psychopathology, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology. An array of investigative tools is employed....The volume provides an in-depth assessment of current research into the multiple linkages between biological processes and mental and personality functioning. For students of whatever professional level who are interested in deepening their understanding of the complex integrative relation between mind and body, this will be a welcome and enriching addition to the literature.”

Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic


“Canli's edited book is for those who have both an interest in neuroscience and a passion for well-designed scientific inquiry....The material presented is both fascinating and exciting....Readers, be they psychologists or psychiatrists, involved in this field and interested in increasing their familiarity, awareness and understanding of current contributions from psychobiological neuroscience, will find this book both enlightening and gratifying.”

Child and Family Behavior Therapy


“Questions about the biological basis of personality and the self are among the most important and least understood ones facing brain scientists and other biologists and psychologists. This volume provides an excellent, up-to-date survey of some of the key issues from a variety of perspectives. It will be a valuable resource for all who are interested in these topics.”

—Joseph LeDoux, PhD, Center for Neural Science, New York University


“This is an outstanding book on biological processes underlying some of the major dimensions of personality and individual differences. It will be of interest to graduate students and researchers alike. Current findings from diverse fields such as cognition, psychiatry, behavioral neuroscience, and comparative psychology address personality traits and processes, showing how far we have come and how far yet there is to go.”

—Paul T. Costa, Jr., PhD


“Individual differences have always been of fundamental concern to psychology, but until recently the neurological, biochemical, and genetic underpinnings of personality have been more a matter of speculation than research. Turhan Canli has gathered together as thoughtful a collection of scholars as one could imagine, and their research agenda will guide the field for decades. This is a fascinating read for personality and social psychologists who want to know more about the neurosciences, and for neuroscientists who want a better understanding of how their methods and paradigms can help us address that fundamental question in our field: What differentiates one person from another?”

—Peter Salovey, PhD

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Turhan Canli

I. Overview and a Historical Perspective

2. Jeffrey Gray's Contributions to Theories of Anxiety, Personality, and Psychopathology, Don C. Fowles

II. Studies of Extraversion and Related Traits

3. Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking, Marvin Zuckerman

4. Interpersonal Behavior and the Structure of Personality: Neurobehavioral Foundation of Agentic Extraversion and Affiliation, Richard A. Depue

5. Genomic Imaging of Extraversion, Turhan Canli

6. Neural Substrates for Emotional Traits?: The Case of Extraversion, Brian Knutson and Jamil Bhanji

7. Mapping the Neural Correlates of Dimensions of Personality, Emotion, and Motivation, John D. Herrington, Nancy S. Koven, Gregory A. Miller, and Wendy Heller

III. Age and Sex as Determinants of Individual Differences

8. The Affective Neuroscience of Aging and Its Implications for Cognition, Marisa Knight and Mara Mather

9. Sex Differences in Neural Responses to Sexual Stimuli in Humans, Stephan Hamann

10. Sex Differences in Brain Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Response to Stress, Rajita Sinha

IV. Genetic and Neural Analyses of Anxiety-Related Traits

11. Neuroticism as a Genetic Marker for Mood and Anxiety, Nathan A. Gillespie and Nicholas G. Martin

12. The Association of Personality with Anxious and Depressive Psychopathology, Christel M. Middeldorp, Danielle C. Cath, Mireille van den Berg, A. Leo Beem, Richard van Dyck, and Dorret I. Boomsma

13. 5-HT1A Receptor and Anxiety-Related Traits: Pharmacology, Genetics, and Imaging, Klaus-Peter Lesch and Turhan Canli

14. Genetically Driven Variation in Serotonin Function: Impact on Amygdala Reactivity and Individual Differences in Fearful and Anxious Personality, Ahmad R. Hariri

V. Individual Differences in Children

15. Etiology of Psychopathic Tendencies in Children: Distinguishing a Genetically Vulnerable Subgroup of Children with Antisocial Behavior, Essi Viding and Robert Plomin

16. A Cognitive-Behavioral Genetic Approach to Emotional Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Jennifer Y. F. Lau and Thalia C. Eley

17. Cognitive and Biological Functioning in Children at Risk for Depression, Ian H. Gotlib, Jutta Joormann, Kelly L. Minor, and Rebecca E. Cooney

VI. Personality in Animals

18. Using Mouse Models to Unravel Aggressive Behavior, Silvana Chiavegatto

19. Searching for Genetic and Environment Contributions to Personality and Happiness in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), Alexander Weiss and James E. King

20. How Can Animal Studies Contribute to Research on the Biological Bases of Personality?, Pranjal H. Mehta and Samuel D. Gosling


About the Editor

Turhan Canli, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University and a member of the Graduate Program in Genetics. He holds degrees from Tufts University (BA, 1988) and from Yale University (PhD, 1993). Dr. Canli’s research focuses on the neurogenetic basis of personality and emotion, using a combination of cognitive-behavioral paradigms, noninvasive brain imaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and stimulation (transcranial magnetic stimulation), and genotyping for gene polymorphisms related to personality traits.

Contributors

A. Leo Beem, PhD, Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Jamil Bhanji, BS, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Dorret I. Boomsma, PhD, Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Turhan Canli, PhD, Graduate Program in Genetics and Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York

Danielle C. Cath, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Silvana Chiavegatto, PhD, Department and Institute of Psychiatry and Laboratory of Genetics and Molecular Cardiology, Heart Institute, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Rebecca E. Cooney, BA, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Richard A. Depue, PhD, Laboratory of Neurobiology of Temperament and Personality, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Thalia C. Eley, PhD, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Don C. Fowles, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

Nathan A. Gillespie, PhD, Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Richmond, Virginia

Samuel D. Gosling, PhD, Department of Psychology University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Ian H. Gotlib, PhD, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Stephan Hamann, PhD, Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

Ahmad R. Hariri, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

John D. Herrington, MPhil, Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute and Clinics, Madison, Wisconsin

Wendy Heller, PhD, Department of Psychology and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois

Jutta Joormann, PhD, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California

James E. King, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Marisa Knight, BA, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California

Brian Knutson, PhD, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Nancy S. Koven, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois

Jennifer Y. F. Lau, BSc, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Klaus-Peter Lesch, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Nicholas G. Martin, MD, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Mara Mather, PhD, Department of Psychology University of California, Santa Cruz, California

Pranjal H. Mehta, BA, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Christel M. Middeldorp, MD, Departments of Biological Psychology and Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Gregory A. Miller, PhD, Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois

Kelly L. Minor, PhD, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Robert Plomin, PhD, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Rajita Sinha, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut

Mireille van den Berg, PhD, Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Richard van Dyck, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Essi Viding, PhD, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Alexander Weiss, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Marvin Zuckerman, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware

Audience

Social and personality psychologists, neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists; advanced students in these areas.

Course Use

May serve as a text in graduate-level courses.