From “Mind and Body” to “Mind in Body”: A Research Approach for a Description of Personality as a Functional Unit of Thoughts, Behaviours and Affective States

Abstract

The study of personality has been developed according to different lines of research in which it is also possible to identify transversal elements that are useful for an unprecedented trans-theoretical research programme. The existence of a close relation between the contents of thought (narrative system) and the vegetative and motor functions (experiential system) of the human being is currently considered of great relevance. However, until now, the studies using classic psychological test in order to describe the contents of the narrative system customize the experiential system and produce partial descriptions and non-integrated description of the personality. Nevertheless, when the people reflect about the questions in a personality test, they present (under the action of this cognitive stimulus) a synchronous activity of the narrative and experiential system. The intention of the study proposed in this paper, with the use of biofeedback and neurofeedback methods, is to record the physiological responses of the subject while answering to the items of a personality test, in order to describe it as a functional unit of thoughts, behaviours and affective states. The personality assessment tool, Cloninger’s temperament and character inventory, will be provided with a computerized system: The electrophysiological recording will be produced using the neurofeedback system “Neurobit Optima 4”; for the analysis of electrophysiological measurements, software (“BioExplorer” system) will be used to manage the brain–computer interface (BCI). It is expected that the aforementioned methodology will allow for an original description of the personality as a functional unit of thoughts, behaviours and affective states.