Biological Bases of Individual Behavior

450 Pages·1972·13.068 MB·English

by  V. D. Nebylitsyn and J. A. Gray (Eds.)

B i o l o g i c al B a s es
of I n d i v i d u al B e h a v i or
Edited by
V. D. Nebylitsyn
Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
and
J. A. Gray
Department of Experimental Psychology,
University of Oxford, England
1972
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List of Contributors
ALEKSANDROVA, N. I. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
BORISOVA, M. N. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
CANTER, A. Psychopathic Hospital, University of Iowa, Iowa City,
Iowa, U.S.A.
CATTELL, R. B. Laboratory of Personality Analysis, University of
Illinois, U.S.A.
CORCORAN, D. W. J. The Open University, Milton Keynes, Buckingham­
shire, England.
EYSENCK, H. J. Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, Denmark
Hill, London, S.E.5, England.
GRAY, J. A. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of
Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, England.
GOLUBEVA, E. A. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
HALMIOVA, O. Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy
of Sciences, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.
HASLAM, D. R. Department of Psychology, University of Bristol,
Bristol, England.
IPPOLITOV, F. V. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
KULYUTKIN, Y. N. Institute of Evening and Correspondence Schools,
Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
LEITES, N. S. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
LEVEY, A. Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, Denmark Hill,
London, S.E.5, England.
MANGAN, G. L. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of
Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, England.
MARTON, M. L. Institute of Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Budapest, Hungary.
NEBYLITSYN, V. D. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
OLTEANU, T. Institute of Psychology, Academy of the Socialist Republic
of Rumania.
PASSINGHAM, R. E. Institute of Psychiatry, University of London,
Denmark Hill, London, S.E.5, England.
PUSHKIN, V. N. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
ROZHDESTVENSKAYA, V. I. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
RUSALOV, V. M. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
v
VI LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
SHAGASS, C. Temple University Medical Center and Eastern Pennsyl­
vania Psychiatric Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
STRELAU, J. University of Warsaw, Poland.
SuKHOBSKAYA, G. S. Institute of Evening and Correspondence Schools,
Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
tTEPLOV, B. M. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
UHERIK, A. Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of
Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.
VOICU, C. Institute of Psychology, Academy of the Socialist Republic of
Rumania.
YERMOLAYEVA-TOMINA, L. B. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
ZHOROV, p. a. Institute of Psychology, Moscow, U.S.S.R.
ZYRYANOVA, N. G. Institute of Evening and Correspondence Schools,
Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
t Deceased.
English Editor's Preface
As I have pointed out elsewhere (Gray, 1964), translation of the psycho­
logical literature of Eastern Europe is in fact a two-stage process: not
only is there the need to translate from Russian (or Czech or Hungarian,
as the case may be) into English, but also one has to substitute for the
Pavlovian conceptual framework, common to all Eastern European
psychophysiology, a conceptual framework more familiar to Western
readers. The present volume contains a mixture of papers from East
and West; the juxtaposition of these papers under the same covers
will perhaps be its chief merit. However, an international enterprise
of this kind poses very special problems, and it would be presump­
tuous to suppose that these problems have been fully overcome. For
that reason, a preliminary word about the method of translation seems
in order.
The chapters from Eastern Europe were sent on their westward
journey already translated into English. Not surprisingly, the English
does not always read as though it were written by a native English
speaker. As editor of the English version of this volume, I have attempted
to get rid of the worst passages of translaterese, sometimes by dint of
guessing at the true meaning of a particularly obscure passage. Since the
original authors have seen the altered versions, I believe that no sub­
stantial inaccuracies have been inserted into the text in this way. How­
ever, I have not attempted to produce a version of the Eastern European
papers which would read as smoothly as one written by a native writer of
English.
I have also not attempted to carry out a conceptual translation of the
Eastern European papers. There are now a sufficient number of sources
available in English for the interested reader to carry out such a con­
ceptual translation, where it is necessary, for himself. The background to
the Pavlovian theory of personality, and to the attempts made by
Professor Teplov, Professor Nebylitsyn and their colleagues to apply this
theory to Man, can be found in Gray (1964) and in Nebylitsyn (1972).
These two books contain details of most of the methods used in the
studies reported in the present volume, and of the terminology in which
these techniques are described.
vii
viii ENGLISH EDITOR'S PREFACE
REFERENCES
Gray, J. A. (Ed.) (1964). "Pavlov's Typology". Pergamon Press, Oxford.
Nebylitsyn, V. D. (1972). "Basic Properties of the Nervous System in Man".
EngHsh edition ed. G. L. Mangan, Plenum Press, New York.
J. A. Gray
Oxford, November 1971
Foreword
One of the most important tasks of the theory of individual psychological
differences is to explain these differences by the dynamics of internal,
organic factors whose aggregate action in an individually peculiar com
bination forms the biological foundation of the individual mode of
behaviour.
As the basis for such an explanation Soviet psychophysiology has long
made use of the theory of the basic properties of the nervous system
elaborated in its initial form by I. P. Pavlov and, with regard to man,
mainly by the outstanding Soviet psychologist B. M. Teplov and his
associates.
This theory assumes as its leading postulate the existence in the highly
organized nervous system of a number of properties (parameters, traits,
dimensions) which characterize the dynamics of operation of the nervous
processes of excitation and inhibition and which form in their com
binations the neurophysiological basis of various forms of behaviour
together with individual differences in these forms of behaviour.
Following the late B. M. Teplov I believe this theory to be the most
productive of all the biological concepts of the development of psycho
logical individuality which have been advanced to date. Its advantages
arise from the fact that it proceeds not from accessory or secondary
characteristics of the biological organization (such as, for example,
those of physical constitution in Kretschmer's or Sheldon's theories),
but from characteristics which determine the dominant system of the
human organism—the central nervous system. Today there is no reason
to doubt that such a statement of the question is the most productive.
However, a general approach to the study of the biological basis
of individuality, including a consideration of neurophysiological,
constitutional, endocrine and other aspects in their entirety, will, no
doubt, eventually furnish much more information.
The main tasks facing investigators studying the properties of the
human nervous system are to reveal, differentiate, and identify these
properties, to determine their neurophysiological content and structure
and, lastly, to establish their psychological (personality) validity.
Pavlov arrived at the conclusion that there are three basic properties of
the nervous system—strength, mobility and balance—and four basic
¡X
χ FOREWORD
types of nervous system as combinations of some of the extreme poles of
these properties. In a theoretical analysis of Pavlov's typological heritage
Teplov rejected the idea of the four types of nervous system, pointing out
its inadequate substantiation, but at the same time he favoured the idea
of the basic properties of the nervous system as neurophysiological
factors of individual psychological differences. The experimental
material we obtained on human subjects under Teplov's supervision
enabled us to develop and modify the Pavlovian concepts of the basic
physiological properties of the nervous system which we had taken as
our original starting point. One of the principal results so far achieved is
the elaboration of the methodology itself, and of an extensive arsenal of
concrete methods of determination and quantitative appraisal of the
human nervous system. On this basis, we can formulate and elaborate
experimentally a number of most important problems concerning the
nature and organization of the properties of the nervous system, for
example, the problem of interrelation between absolute sensitivity and
strength of the nervous system. We have also reconsidered the traditional
concepts of the properties of the nervous system, have suggested a new
scheme for their organization, and have substantiated the distinction
of such "new" properties as dynamism and lability. (These results have
been set out in much greater detail in my book "The Basic Properties
of the Nervous System in Man", which has now been translated for
publication in the U.S.A. by the Plenum Publishing Corporation,* while
a series of questions concerning the strength of the nervous system has
been elucidated and reinterpreted by Dr. J. A. Gray in his excellent
volume, "Pavlov's Typology".)
All these results (which I have described only briefly) have introduced
essentially new elements into the concept of the basic properties of the
nervous system and have thereby considerably extended the possibilities
of using it to elaborate a psychophysiological model of individuality.
These purely speculative connections of the four so-called types of higher
nervous activity with the four classical temperaments that have been
handed down to us from antiquity have been superseded by a strictly
experimental study of the role of properties of the nervous system in
individual aspects of behaviour and by the attempt to explain these
aspects in terms of modem neurodynamic categories. As examples, one
might point to several studies of the role of strength of the nervous
system in the behaviour of people under experimental conditions
simulating the activity of the operator of an automated system. Thus
the experiments performed under Rozhdestvenskaya's supervision have
helped to reveal the important and by no means simple role of the
* To appear in 1972.
FOREWORD χί
parameter of strength of the nervous system in the dynamics of man's
working capacity and the productivity of man's labour; while the
experiments conducted by Gurevich, Pushkin and Konopkin have
made it possible to show the role played by strength of the nervous
system under conditions of severe emotional stress arising in accident
situations: it is involved in maintaining the level of alertness in response
to irregular stimuli and in maintaining response under the action of
distracting sensory stimuli.
On the other hand, in a number of published studies some of our
foreign colleagues (Eysenck and Gray in England, Magda Marton in
Hungary, Mangan in AustraHa) have hypothesized or even confirmed
experimentally that the properties of strength and dynamism of the
nervous system play a part in the determination of some personaHty
traits, particularly the widely studied personality dimension of extra-
version-introversion.
All these data, and some that I have not mentioned, together indicate
that the basic properties of the nervous system are psychologically valid,
i.e., they play an unquestionable role in the dynamics of behaviour.
The agreement between all these data warrants the assertion that
the properties of the nervous system as dimensions of the individual's
neurophysiological organization are real and essential determinants of
many individual psychological characteristics. The psychophysiological
model of personality based on the theory of the properties of the nervous
system is therefore a conceptually correct approach to the problem of the
relationship between the biological and the psychological in human
personaHty.
This does not mean, of course, that the theory of properties of the
nervous system in its present state can be used to explain individual
psychological differences without reservation. One of our most import­
ant problems is the possibility that there are intracerebral and, particu­
larly, interanalyser differences at the level of the same property in the
same individual. This makes it necessary to find ways of measuring the
properties of the nervous system that are free of the limitations that
inevitably arise during determination of the properties of separate
analysers; this determination is generally carried out with existing
methods of experimental research. I have discussed this acute problem
and suggested possible ways of solving it in an article published in the
Journal Voprosy Psikhologii (Problems of Psychology, 1968, No. 4).
The present volume contains as its final chapter a translation of this
artHe;.by which I hope to attract the attention of English-speaking
research workers to this urgent and important problem.
My article is preceded by a number of other studies, each of which
XII FOREWORD
makes its own contribution to the study of physiological mechanisms in
individual development, in most cases making use of the concept of the
basic properties of the nervous system. The subject matter falls naturally
into two basic parts. The articles in the first part, which might broadly be
termed "physiological", examine a number of questions relating to the
physiological constitution and to methods of measuring the properties
of the nervous system. This section opens with one of Teplov's last
papers, which contains a lucid exposition of the main results of research
carried out in 1964 in the laboratory he directed. The other articles in this
section elucidate the use of electroencephalographic and Chronometrie
methods of studying the properties of the nervous system; examine
problems of sensitivity and "partiality" in the manifestation of the basic
properties; and present the resuhs of experiments conducted to study the
correlations between certain properties of the nervous system and features
of the human constitution, as well as between age and neurodynamic
factors. The bulk of the contributions to this section are from Soviet
authors. This is not accidental, but attests that purely physiological
problems of the theory of properties of the nervous system are studied
almost exclusively by representatives of the country in which this theory
was advanced, while scientists in other countries have not yet turned
their interest in these problems to programmes of experimental or
theoretical studies. I must admit my regret at this state of affairs.
The second part of the volume may be described as psychophysio­
logical. It consists of articles which examine from all aspects and
by various approaches the possible physiological mechanisms of
individual psychological features of behaviour. Cattell's paper (p. 141)
contains some very interesting considerations, which, however, require
experimental verification. A detailed comparative analysis of some
aspects of the theories of Cattell and Teplov is given in Eysenck's paper
(p. 165). Many of the other articles in this section are devoted to either
experimental or theoretical analysis of the neurophysiological bases of
the personality dimension of extraversiσn-introversiσn (the study of
Shagass and Canter also deals with some other traits). It should be noted
that the studies in this group, in which the properties of the nervous
system are compared to extraversiσn, yield conflicting results, at times
opposite to those expected or formerly obtained (see, for example,
the studies of Eysenck and Gray, on the one hand, and Mangan and
Zhorov with Yermolayeva-Tomina, on the other, or Marton, on the one
hand, and Halmiova and Uherik, on the other). This indicates the
necessity for a broader and more thorough study of the physiological
mechanism of extraversiσn-introversiσn, perhaps from new theoretical
standpoints. Gray's article (p. 182), in which the author sets forth in