Professor Philip Corr, University of Swansea

Hans Eysenck provided a new way of thinking about personality: instead of viewing it as yet another separate faculty of mind, he saw personality as reflecting fundamental brain-behavioural systems: (a) that exert pervasive (input) influences on all psychological functions; and (b) which serve to differentiate people in (output) terms of habitual traits of behaviour (e.g., as measured by questionnaire). Thus, he argued, that fully to understand the functioning of, for example, cognitive (e.g., attentional bias) or behavioural (e.g., reinforcement effects) processes, it is necessary to consider variations in the operating parameters of personality systems. This is one way in which Eysenck’s approach to personality offers a unifying theme in psychology. Related to this first theme, Eysenck also advocated the unification of the individual differences tradition and the experimental tradition - two traditions that are still largely separated -- to combine their respective strengths. Third, he called attention to the need for psychology to integrate all levels of analysis - ranging from DNA, through neuropsychology, to social behaviour. Eysenck’s vision of a unified psychology is now starting to be realised with the technological sophistication of cognitive neuroscience. But the full force of his vision is seen in the development of neuroscientific models of personality that are embedded in experimentally-derived brain-behavioural systems, for example, as developed by one of Eysenck’s own students, viz., Jeffrey Gray, who built an alternative personality model based upon three fundamental brain-behavioural systems: the Fight-Flight-Freeze System (FFFS), the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS), and the Behavioural Approach System (BAS).

Biography

Philip J. Corr is Professor of Psychology at Swansea University, and is a Chartered Psychologist and Affiliate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS). He gained a BSc (First Class) in Psychology (Goldsmiths College, University of London) in 1989, and then a PhD (Institute of Psychiatry, London) in 1994. Whilst at the Institute, Philip was a member of the Personality Research Group, whose members included Jeffrey Gray (who supervised his PhD) and Hans Eysenck (with whom he shared a desk for several months).

Philip’s research interests centre around two main topics: (1) the behavioural, cognitive and affective neuroscience of emotion and personality, focusing on (a) basic defensive systems of fear and anxiety, and (b) the personality and psychopathology continuum; and (2) schizophrenia spectrum research, focusing on laboratory markers of psychosis-proneness and actual psychosis. During his research career, he has used a variety of methods, including genetics, neuroimaging, psychophysiology, and psychopharmacology.

Philip has published over 60 scientific papers, and one major textbook (‘Understanding Biological Psychology’; Blackwell, 2006); and he is soon to have published an edited book (‘The Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory of Personality’; Cambridge University Press, 2007). Philip is on the Editorial Board of, as well as being an Associate Editor for, the Journal of Individual Differences, and is an Associate Editor for Personality and Individual Differences. In 2001, Philip was awarded the ‘Early Career Development Award’, from the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID), for his personality research work.