A. Eliasz & A. Angleitner: Advances in Research on Temperament Dopamine, appetitive reinforcement, and the neuropsychology of human learning: An individual differences approach

Personality research is usually perceived as lying towards the “softer ” end of psychological inquiry, seemingly far from the “harder ” neural mechanisms, processes, and neurological lesions which are the daily stuff of neuropsychology. As biologically-oriented personality psychologists, however, we have always tried to couch our proposals in brain-behavioural terms and have even offered suggestions as to the “neuropsychology ” of personality traits such as anxiety and their related clinical conditions (e.g., Gray, 1982). Furthermore, several other personality theorists have also drawn from the rich materials of behavioural neuroscience (e.g., Cloninger, Svracik, & Przybeck, 1993; Depue & Collins, 1999; Zuckerman, 1991). In this chapter we continue to apply our neuropsychological approach to personality: specifically focusing on the effects of personality traits on learning tasks. The usual reaction of our more traditional neuropsychology colleagues is to express a varying degree of scepticism about any attempt to explore the neuropsychology of personality. It is therefore perhaps worth reflecting at the start of this chapter on the possible reasons for such a reaction