The Biological Basis of Personality.

Professor Eysenck's theory of personality with emphasis on the biological causes underlying the psychological concepts of emotion, excitation, and inhibition is attempted, which is erudite, authoritative, a scientific tour de force reflecting much of the personality of its author, but is at the same time intellectually mildly indigestible.

Abstract

The literary exposition of expertise totally committed to a particular subject is likely to contain inherent difficulties in comprehension for the inquiring student from another discipline. This is such a book. It is erudite, authoritative, a scientific tour de force reflecting much of the personality of its author, but is at the same time intellectually mildly indigestible. Professor Eysenck, once the Golden Boy of the London school of psychology, a prolific writer, publicist, recognized academician, and TV guest celebrity, attempts to delineate his theory of personality with emphasis on the biological causes underlying the psychological concepts of emotion, excitation, and inhibition. He is, with ample justification, eager to establish a proper and mutually beneficial relationship between personality theory concerned with individual differences and experimental psychology directed towards formulating general laws. His case for the existence of two independent personality dimensions, extraversion-introversion and neuroticism-stability, is convincing; he is right to stress