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Structure of personality, temperament and mental speed
Full text (pdf) | Views: 44 | Written in Slovene. | Published: April 5, 2003
Abstract: According to Pavlov there are two mechanisms that express the nature of the central nervous system (CNS): strength of excitation and strength of inhibition of the nerve cells. They play an important role in the basic temperament traits. Namely, the weaker the stimulus that elicits a perceptible response and the weaker the stimulus that starts lower efficiency, the higher is one's reactivity. In two different studies we tried to examine how different expressions of effectiveness of the CNS (excitation, inhibition and mobility of the CNS) relate to speed of information processing and some dimensions of personality, with general intelligence as a covariate. The most challenging was the insight to relations with the dimensions, which are expected to be in line with alertness and arousal. We found some interesting links between strength of excitation and mobility on one side and extraversion (which is in accordance with Eysenck's arousal theory) and openness on the other side, but also positive, albeit moderate, correlation with speed of information processing. Some relations between CNS properties and other constructs showed to be far from linear, which should be seriously considered in the following research of this phenomenon.
Keywords: personality, temperament, intelligence, g, excitation, inhibition, mobility, accuracy, mental speed
