Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (70 page)

6
. The case for using rankings on Big Five facets to describe these patterns is summed up in a multiauthor book edited by Costa and Widiger (
2002
). See also
Reynolds and Clark (
2001
), Lynam and Widiger (
2001
), Widiger and Samuel (
2005
), and Widiger and Trull (
2007
). A table summing up the high and low rankings on Big Five facets for each of these ten patterns appears on page 200 of Widiger and Mullins-Sweatt (
2009
).

7
. Bobby Fischer’s rant is cited by Chun (
2002
).

8
. Marilyn’s recollection is cited by Steinem (
1986
).

9
. Maccoby (
2003
) emphasizes the great prevalence of what he calls “productive narcissism” among visionary leaders.

10
. Nader (
2002
).

11
. Chamberlain (
2004
).

12
. Dickinson and Pincus (
2003
); Cain, et al. (
2008
); and Miller, et al. (
2008
), emphasize the distinction between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.

13
. Hare (
1993
) distinguishes psychopaths, whom he identifies with his Psychopathy Checklist, from antisocials as described by DSM-IV. Stout (
2005
) uses the term sociopath. Millon, et al. (
2002
), provide a historical review of the terminology and the changing conceptions of this dimensional pattern.

14
. Hare (
1993
).

15
. Cresswell and Thomas (
2009
).

16
. Simpson’s book became the property of the Goldman family as partial payment for damages they won in a civil suit against him, and they published it in a revised form with the subtitle “confessions of the killer” (
Goldman Family, 2007
).

17
. Hare (
1993
).

18
. Grant, et al. (
2004
).

19
.
Ibid.

20
. Millon (
2004
).

21
. Shawn (
2007
).

22
. Kreisman and Strauss (
1989
).

23
. Grant, et al. (
2008
).

24
. Millon (
2004
).

25
. Oldham and Morris (
1995
).

26
. Beck, et al. (
2004
), and Beck, et al. (
2001
). Morf (
2006
) also emphasizes the importance of understanding a person’s view of self and others in making sense of someone’s personality.

27
. For a more detailed summary of these views of self and others, see Beck, et al. (
2004
), especially the table on pages 48–49; and Beck, et al. (
2001
).

Chapter 3

1
. Harmon (
2006
).

2
. Ince-Duncan, et al. (
2006
).

3
. Darwin (
1859
), Chapter 1.

4
. Lamason, et al. (
2005
). However, SLC2A45 is not the only gene that controls skin pigmentation. Sturm (
2009
) sums up recent information about variants of several other genes that also influence skin pigmentation through a variety of effects on melanin production and
display. There is evidence for independent selection of pigmentation genes in East Asian, European, and West African populations, each presumably influenced at least partly by levels of sunlight.

5
. Jablonski and Chapin (
2000
).

6
. Galton (1865), cited in Gillham (
2001
), p. 156.

7
. Galton (1875), cited in Gillham (
2001
), p. 194.

8
. Gillham (
2001
), p. 161.

9
. Letter from Charles Darwin to Frances Galton, 3 December 1869, cited in Gillham (
2001
), p. 169.

10
. Plomin, et al. (
2008
), define heritability as a way of expressing “the extent to which individual differences for a trait in the population can be accounted for by genetic differences among individuals” (p. 82). They give examples of studies that compared Big Five scores of identical and fraternal twins and discuss ways to calculate and interpret heritability based on twin studies and other types of data.

11
. Yamagata, et al. (
2006
), and McCrae and Costa (
1997
). A study by Riemann, et al. (
1997
), found even higher heritability. In this study, each twin made a self-assessment with a questionnaire and was also assessed independently by two peers. The results for each twin were then combined to give the cumulative Big Five scores that were used to calculate heritability. The authors concluded that the data derived from three observers provides a better estimate of heritability than data derived solely from one observer, self or peer. Repeated personality testing of twins at an interval of
three or more years also increased the accuracy of the results and revealed substantially higher heritability than that based on single measurements (
Lyken, 2007
). Studies of individual Big Five facets all showed high heritability (
Jang, et al., 1996
,
1998
).

12
. Bouchard, et al. (
1990
).

13
.
Ibid.

14
. Getting half of our genes from each parent doesn’t translate directly into getting half of each of our parents’ personalities. Heritability is a measure of the influence of genes on individual differences in the overall group of people in which it is studied. But it doesn’t tell us about the relative genetic and environmental influences on a particular trait, such as high excitement seeking, in a particular person, such as Jason Dallas. Nevertheless, the studies tell us a lot about the overall influence of genes on our personal tendencies, even if we can’t pin down the details in a particular case.

15
. Bouchard, et al. (
1990
), and Bouchard (
1994
).

16
. Harris (
1998
,
2006
) has written two books about the lack of effect of shared family environment on many aspects of personality, and its implications.

17
. Plomin and colleagues (Plomin and Daniels [
1987
], Dunn and Plomin [
1991
], Plomin, et al. [
2001
]) have studied the interactions between members of a family that may account for some of the differences in the personalities of siblings. Some of the unique interactions between a parent and a specific child can be attributed to each of their innate tendencies.

18
. Turkheimer and Waldron (
2000
) have emphasized the difficulty of identifying the “nonshared” environmental factors (as opposed to those shared by people who were raised together in the same family) that influence personality. One reason they are hard to identify is that many of them are probably chance events and encounters in the person’s life. In
Chapter 4
, I point out that chance effects on biological processes, such as the migration of neurons in the assembly of the brain and epigenetic changes in DNA, can also influence personality. These chance effects on biological processes are also included in the category called nonshared environment.

19
. New mechanisms of the regulation of gene expression are still being discovered. Some of this regulation is done by specialized proteins called transcription factors; some is done by influences of DNA regions called enhancers, which are not as close to the genes as promoters; and some is done by small specialized bits of another nucleic acid, RNA.

20
. Maher (
2008
); Visscher, et al. (
2006
); and Yang, et al. (
2010
). Weedon, et al. (
2007
), have identified a human gene variant that explains a tiny bit (0.3%) of population variation in height (about two-tenths of an inch).

21
. DeFries, et al. (
1978
).

22
. Flint and Mott (
2008
). Similar studies are being made of the genetic differences in tame and aggressive foxes that were selectively bred for many generations by Dimitry Belayev at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Trut
[
1999
]; Kukekova, et al. [
2008
]). Studies of brain gene expression in the two lines of foxes have identified many differences (Lindberg, et al. [
2005
]).

23
. These findings should not be taken to mean that the tuning of fearfulness circuits is controlled only by gene variants. Conclusive evidence shows that past experiences also affect fear reactions. Furthermore, such learned changes in the tuning of brain circuits can be as enduing as the tuning controlled by genes. As LeDoux (
1998
) points out, some of these memories “appear to be indelibly burned into the brain. They are probably with us for life.”

24
. Turri, et al. (
2001
); Willis-Owen and Flint (
2007
); Flint and Mott (
2008
).

25
. Lesch, et al. (
1996
); Sen, et al. (2006); Canli and Lesch (
2007
); Caspi, et al. (
2010
).

26
. Hariri, et al. (
2002
,
2006
); Munafo, Brown, et al. (
2008
). The results are group averages, and there is significant individual variation. See also Oler, et al. (
2010
).

27
. Munafo, Yalcin, et al. (
2008
) ; Schmidt, et al. (
2009
).

28
. Holden (
2008
); Ebstein (
2006
). Many other genes have also been studied in this way.

29
. Shifman, et al. (
2008
); Terraciano, et al. (
2010
); Calboli, et al. (
2010
).

30
. Lykken, et al. (
1992
).

31
. Several biotechnology companies are competing to develop a machine that will decipher the complete
DNA sequence of a person’s DNA for as little as $1,000 (Davies [
2010
]). The companies anticipate that this will be achieved around 2013 and that the technology will be used to search for gene variants that influence personality differences.

32
. Wolf, et al. (
2007
); Bell (
2007
).

33
. Buss (
1991
); MacDonald (
1995
); Buss and Greiling (
1999
); Nettle (
2005
,
2006
); Penke, et al. (
2007
); Ridley (
2003
); Laland, et al. (
2010
).

34
. Nettle (
2005
,
2006
) has reviewed research on the advantages and disadvantages of high and low rankings on each of the Big Five.

35
. Penke, et al. (
2007
).

36
. Maynard Smith (
1982
) provided a theoretical analysis of the way natural selection tends to maintain a balance between high and low rankings of a trait. His most famous example, which was based on game theory, concerned the establishment of the relative numbers of aggressive members of a population, which he called Hawks (who always fight over resources), and of nonviolent members, which he called Doves (who never fight). He found that Hawks flourished when they were rare but that as they became more prevalent, they did so much damage to each other that the downside of their aggressiveness began to outweigh its advantages. This resulted in stable proportion of Hawks and Doves in the population. Once established, this balance tended to persist, and it is referred to as an evolutionarily stable strategy.

Chapter 4

1
. Erikson (
1963
), p. 404.

2
. Morris, et al. (
2004
); Ahmed, et al. (
2008
). Although fetal testosterone is essential for this process, Wu, et al. (
2009
), and Junnti, et al. (
2010
), have shown that the masculinization of neural pathways that control sex-specific behavior actually depends on the enzymatic conversion of fetal testosterone to estrogen by an enzyme in the male mouse brain.

3
. Wallace, et al. (
2006
); Peper, et al. (
2007
) ; J.E. Schmitt, et al. (
2007
) ; Gilmore, et al. (
2010
). These differences in the brain structure of identical twins, which may arise partly because of random migration of neurons during brain assembly, may be responsible for some of the personality differences of the members of a twin pair.

4
. Hensch (
2004
).

5
. Doupe and Kuhl (
1999
).

6
. Lenneberg (
1967
); Doupe and Kuhl (
1999
); Perani and Abutalebi (
2005
). In the case of human language the window is always kept a little open, so new languages can still be learned in adulthood, but with progressively greater difficulty. Because this window never closes completely, some prefer to call this a “sensitive period” rather than a critical period.