Personality, novelty seeking
and addiction
Confidence Confident
Moment of lecture @February 20, 2024
Review @February 22, 2024
Materials personality-novelty seeking_addiction(1).pdf
Last Edited @March 12, 2025 10:08 AM
Personality
It has 2 main building blocks:
Temperament → is genetically determined. You are predisposed to act in a
certain way in a specific situation. It is hardwired from birth and it are
individual differences in strength of drive underlying basis emotions.
Character → forms through life and depends on the environment but it also
develops through the actions of temperament.
There is no 1 way of reacting for people, they react different.
In history they used to try to categorize people in groups based on their
personality.
Example: which body fluid is more present defines their personality
Example: 4 temperaments of Keirsey’s
2 important researchers:
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 1
, Gordon Allport: he tried to write different definitions of personality
Omnibus definition: nicely describes what personality is because it
covers both the temperament and character part but it does not allow to
distinguish between personalities.
Trait or Integrative/Configurational approach: there is a reference to
genetics but also to the adjustment which is the character part (relates
to the experiences).
Systems or Hierarchical approach: he looked at personality being in 3
different layers:
The persona = what people see when you behave in a certain way,
it is the external presentation (the mask you have on). This was
something used in theater.
The self = this is what dominates the conscious experience, the
character that evolves during life, the private ego.
The unconscious processes = this is the genetic part, something
you cannot control.
→ Trait approach is the best option for further research, with different traits
you can distinguish between personality and use it as a tool to define
people based on these traits.
⇒ In the 20th century many people used the trait approach. In many studies
they used this approach. There are 5 main traits you can define (= the big
five):
Extraversion: energy, positive emotions, surgency, tendency to seek
stimulation and the company of others
Agreeableness: tendency to be compassionate and cooperative
towards others
Conscientiousness: tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and
aim for achievement
Neuroticism: tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily
Openness: appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas,
imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience
Cloninger: a psychiatrist and geneticist, he linked differences in personality
with underlying neurochemical processes = psychobiological model of
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 2
, personality. For this he used different type of studies (for example: twin pair
studies). He also developed different tools to measure personality:
3 dimensions/traits of personality = TPQ (based his scale on 3 different
traits) through questionnaire:
Novelty seeking
Harm avoidance
Reward dependence
→ Within each trait there are further subcategories.
→ He postulated these are genetically independent from each other.
→ Not a perfect method because he could not distinguish between
people with a personality disorders and poor social judgement vs. well-
adapted individuals with extreme personality profiles, some personality
traits were not included, and this model lacked explanation of some
personality factors that are well explain by other dimensional models.
⇒ He designed a Temperament and Character Inventory because the
first 3 dimensions of TPQ were only related to temperament.
Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI): 4 factors were related to
temperament and 3 factors to character.
⇒ The combination of all these traits is the description of a person’s
general emotional style and makes it possible to identify different
personalities and possible disorders.
Examples of questions related to the 3 character traits:
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 3
, Next he made the TCI temperament cube to define personalities and to
help detect personality problem. How you react as a person is a relation
between these dimensions.
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 4
and addiction
Confidence Confident
Moment of lecture @February 20, 2024
Review @February 22, 2024
Materials personality-novelty seeking_addiction(1).pdf
Last Edited @March 12, 2025 10:08 AM
Personality
It has 2 main building blocks:
Temperament → is genetically determined. You are predisposed to act in a
certain way in a specific situation. It is hardwired from birth and it are
individual differences in strength of drive underlying basis emotions.
Character → forms through life and depends on the environment but it also
develops through the actions of temperament.
There is no 1 way of reacting for people, they react different.
In history they used to try to categorize people in groups based on their
personality.
Example: which body fluid is more present defines their personality
Example: 4 temperaments of Keirsey’s
2 important researchers:
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 1
, Gordon Allport: he tried to write different definitions of personality
Omnibus definition: nicely describes what personality is because it
covers both the temperament and character part but it does not allow to
distinguish between personalities.
Trait or Integrative/Configurational approach: there is a reference to
genetics but also to the adjustment which is the character part (relates
to the experiences).
Systems or Hierarchical approach: he looked at personality being in 3
different layers:
The persona = what people see when you behave in a certain way,
it is the external presentation (the mask you have on). This was
something used in theater.
The self = this is what dominates the conscious experience, the
character that evolves during life, the private ego.
The unconscious processes = this is the genetic part, something
you cannot control.
→ Trait approach is the best option for further research, with different traits
you can distinguish between personality and use it as a tool to define
people based on these traits.
⇒ In the 20th century many people used the trait approach. In many studies
they used this approach. There are 5 main traits you can define (= the big
five):
Extraversion: energy, positive emotions, surgency, tendency to seek
stimulation and the company of others
Agreeableness: tendency to be compassionate and cooperative
towards others
Conscientiousness: tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and
aim for achievement
Neuroticism: tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily
Openness: appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas,
imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience
Cloninger: a psychiatrist and geneticist, he linked differences in personality
with underlying neurochemical processes = psychobiological model of
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 2
, personality. For this he used different type of studies (for example: twin pair
studies). He also developed different tools to measure personality:
3 dimensions/traits of personality = TPQ (based his scale on 3 different
traits) through questionnaire:
Novelty seeking
Harm avoidance
Reward dependence
→ Within each trait there are further subcategories.
→ He postulated these are genetically independent from each other.
→ Not a perfect method because he could not distinguish between
people with a personality disorders and poor social judgement vs. well-
adapted individuals with extreme personality profiles, some personality
traits were not included, and this model lacked explanation of some
personality factors that are well explain by other dimensional models.
⇒ He designed a Temperament and Character Inventory because the
first 3 dimensions of TPQ were only related to temperament.
Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI): 4 factors were related to
temperament and 3 factors to character.
⇒ The combination of all these traits is the description of a person’s
general emotional style and makes it possible to identify different
personalities and possible disorders.
Examples of questions related to the 3 character traits:
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 3
, Next he made the TCI temperament cube to define personalities and to
help detect personality problem. How you react as a person is a relation
between these dimensions.
Personality, novelty seeking and addiction 4
