Culture and Personality
(Psychological Anthropology)

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Personality: All About Me
(60 min., 2003, DVD 206)
From BBC

Part of the Series The Human Mind: From Neurons to Knowledge

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Abstract

"The 100 billion cells that make up the brain communicate electrically over 1,000 trillion neural connections at up to 250 miles per hour—and from this sparking of electrical power grows the personality and its behavior. This program explores how personalities are shaped during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, exposing how traits such as extroversion and introversion develop. Additional topics range from how parents affect children’s personalities, to why teens are so emotionally sensitive, to what lies at the heart of mood swings. The story of an overall amiable man trying to curb a severe anger problem is featured."

Original BBC broadcast title: Personality -- Films for the Humanities and Sciences

 

Terms / Concepts

personality brain research extroversion / introversion extrovert / introvert neurons childhood / adolescence / adulthood childhood experiences puberty rage management frontal lobes "act as kind of a control center in the brain" delayed gratification risk taking dopamine [identical] twin research serotonin chemical at the base of the brain which regulates a feeling of happiness polar opposites

Brain Foundation Victoria The Brain: A Road Map to the Mind -- MSNBC

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Notes:

• Question: How much of what you see is British, and how much relates in general to being human?
  
  
  • nurture / nature
  • inherited / learned
  • biology / culture
    
    
• "There are around 5000 [personality-related] characteristics in each of us."
  
  
• "To change our personality we need to quite literally alter our mind."
  
  
• ". . . It is possible to alter our personality in the short term [with mood manipulation]."
  
  
  • note experiment on altering mood
    
    
  • scientists have found out that one of the best ways of assessing moods is to observe the way people behave while shopping.
    
    
• "Our personality develops across our lifetime. . . ."
  
  
• "Our experiences as children have a profound effect on what we are to be."
  
  
  • Specific experiences in childhood can help to form specific personality traits. . . ."

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Cultures:

• England

Individuals:

• Robert Winston, presentor

References:

Films for the Humanities and Sciences