New perspectives in temperament/personality research: The “Behavioral” model of the Warsaw group

This paper reviews the theory and research of the Warsaw school of differential psychophysiology, which has modified and extended the typologic model constructed by Teplov and Nebylitsyn. While Soviet theory still favors a relatively inflexible structure of nervous system properties as the biologic basis of individual differences in personality, Strelau and colleagues, in line with the action/activity model of Vygotsky and Tomaszewski, begin with the premise that for every individual there is a specific, genetically determined optimal level of arousal, a necessary background for fullest emotional and intellectual development. The person strives to create this optimal climate through an active process of stimulation control, achieved primarily through enhancement or dampening of reactivity—which describes innate responsivity in the reacting systems to both sensory and emotional stimuli—through various hormonal ‘tuning’ mechanisms and through “appropriate” activity, reflected in different cognitive styles and preference for certain work conditions. Such activities aim to ensure comfortable physical and psychologic environments, in which the individual can avoid conflict and stress. The system regulating and integrating such control mechanisms is the core of personality. Investigations of the Warsaw group on relationships between reactivity and different forms of stimulation seeking/control—risk-taking, work style preferences, cognitive style, defense mechanisms, for example—and between reactivity and tolerance of stress and conflict and their speculations about the neurophysiologic and endocrinologic mechanisms of stimulation control are described, as are a number of questionnaires developed by this group to measure reactivity, the temporal parameters of response, and stimulation-seeking in a variety of occupational and social contexts.     

Pavlov as a psychologist

American psychologists are informed on Pavlov’s work on conditional reflexes but not on the full development of his theory of higher nervous activity. This article shows that Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity dealt with concepts that concerned contemporary psychologists. Pavlov used the conditioning of the salivary reflex for methodological purposes. Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity encompassed overt behavior, neural processes, and the conscious experience. The strong Darwinian element of Pavlov’s theory, with its stress on the higher organisms’ adaptation, is described. With regard to learning, Pavlov, at the end of his scholarly career, proposed that although all learning involves the formation of associations, the organism’s adaptation to the environment is established through conditioning, but the accumulation of knowledge is established by trial and error.     

Properties of the diffuse thalamocortical system and human personality: A direct test of Pavlovian/Eysenckian theory

Advances in the last few decades demonstrate the relevance of Pavlov's classification of behavioural types with respect to human individual differences and suggest that the hypothetical excitatory and inhibitory processes which he associated with these differences correspond to cortical and thalamic neuron populations of the diffuse thalamocortical system (DTS). Since the transmission properties or time constants of these DTS elements would correspond to the Pavlovian property of ‘strength’, and since they can be evaluated in human subjects (Robinson, 1981), it is possible to formulate hypotheses based on the fundamental principles of strength and balance which Pavlov employed to provide a causal explanation for temperamental types. A major finding is that covariation of the time constants equated with strength correlates 0.95 with covariation of extraversion and stability scores on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). This result provides unequivocal support for the relationship between human individual differences and properties of the nervous system postulated by Pavlov and it also confirms the neurophysiological underpinning of Eysenck's influential theory of human personality. In addition, the relationship between Pavlovian and Eysenckian concepts is clarified and EEG parameters are meaningfully related to personality differences.     

Pavlov’s “higher nervous activity”

The term higher nervous activity was introduced by Pavlov about 1909 to replace what he previously called “psychical” or “mental.” In Russia “higher nervous activity” is now used for what we often designate as psychophysiological or psychosomatic. “Higher nervous activity” was not a synonym in Pavlov’s use for psychical or mental; it indicates what physiology can deal with and measure as opposed to our subjective feelings and representations. The philosophical differences underlying Pavlov’s concepts, as well as the philosophical basis for distinguishing between what we measure physically and the subjective correlates, are discussed.     

The relationship of extraversion,neuroticism, and sensation-seeking to questionnaire-derived measures of nervous system properties

Five obliquely rotated factor analyses were performed on items from Eysenck and Eysenck’s (1975) EPQ, Zuckerman’s (1975) Sensation-Seeking Scale, and Strelau’s (1972) temperament inventory (STI), administered to 277 subjects (Ss). The analyses were used to examine the relationships between the personality dimensions E, N, L, P and Sensation-Seeking, which pertain mainly to social situations, attitudes and feelings, and questionnaire-derived measures of nervous system properties, which, while validated on experimental indices of nervous system properties derived from Nebylitsyn’s (1972) model, are expressed as characteristic features of social behavior, work style and activity. Four factors were identified—extraversion/strength of excitation/mobility; self-control of affect/stability/caution; strength of inhibition/verbal control/motor expressiveness/ nonmanipulativeness; and sensation-seeking/nervousness. The results offer support for Eysenck’s claim of some identity between excitatory strength and E, for the reported relationship between E and mobility, and for Eysenck’s conditioning postulate. They also suggest that similar temperamental variables underlie individual differences in both social and occupational/motor activity. Since Strelau’s STI items are validated on experimental indices of nervous system properties, it follows that typological characteristics may be inferred from questionnaire data derived from both behavioral categories.     

The second signal system as conceived by Pavlov and his disciples

Pavlov clearly formulated his ideas on thesecond signal system (specifically, language) in the 1930s. This occurred in conjunction with his interest in interspecies differences and in the study of human neuroses. Pavlov proposed that conditional reflexes signal concrete reality while symbolic-language provides abstractions of reality. Phylogenetically, language emerged in the humans because this form of communication had survival value to the species. Pavlov’s disciples L. A. Orbeli and N. I. Krasnogorskii had considered the ontogenetic development of language. The experimental investigation of A. G. Ivanov-Smolenskii extended Pavlov’s empirical study of the function of language in psychopathology. Notwithstanding a sustained interest in language, Pavlov did not develop a theory of language acquisition based upon the conditioning principle. Pavlov’s conceptualization of language may not have been original, nor did it contribute significantly to modern linguistics. It is now mainly of historical interest. It was, nevertheless, important to the conceptualization of neuroses within the context of the theory of higher nervous activity and it had far-reaching political implications for Soviet psychology in the immediate post-World War II period.     

Hypnosis and inhibition as viewed by heidenhain and pavlov

About 1880, Rudolf Heidenhain, then Professor of Physiology and Histology at the University of Breslau, experimentally studied hypnotic phenomena. Heidenhain explained hypnosis physiologically, in terms of cortical inhibition. Subsequently, I. P. Pavlov, who in 1877 and again in 1884 was Heidenhain’s student at Breslau, encountered hypnotic phenomena during conditional reflex experiments. In 1910, Pavlov described hypnotic states and explained them (as had Heidenhain three decades earlier), in terms of partial inhibition of the cortex. As the concepts of inhibition and excitation are cornerstones of Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity, it is of historical interest to search for influences that led Pavlov to incorporate the concept of inhibition into his theory. It is most likely that Pavlov first encountered the concept of central inhibition in the 1860s when reading I. M. Sechenov’sThe Reflexes of the Brain (1863/1866) and that the importance of the concept was augmented by Heidenhain’s use of it in explaining hypnotic phenomena.     

Pavlov’s conceptualization of unconditional reflexes,or instincts,within the framework of the theory of higher nervous activity

According to I. P. Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity, the establishment and dissolution of conditional reflexes enhances the higher organism’s adaptation to the external environment. Pavlov asserted that, ontogenetically, conditional reflexes are based upon innate, unconditional reflexes (UR) or instincts. Pavlov did not distinguish between URs and instincts, but he preferred the former term. Phylogenetically the URs emerged out of well-established conditional reflexes during the development of higher organisms. An outgrowth of the experimental conditioning procedure, developed during the second decade of this century, was the observation and delineation of new URs. While studying human nervous and psychiatric disorders in the 1930s, Pavlov elucidated other URs. Pavlov identified 13 major URs, but he failed to formulate an exhaustive classification scheme of URs.     

Schilder and Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity

In the late 1920s, the Viennese psychoanalyst Paul Schilder, after performing a conditioning experiment with human subjects, criticized I. P. Pavlov’s concept of “experimental neurosis.” Schilder maintained that subjective reports by conditioned human subjects were more informative than the objectively observed behavior of conditioned dogs. In 1932, Pavlov published a rejoinder to Schilder’s critique in theJournal of the American Medical Association. Pavlov maintained that Schilder misunderstood the value and implications of the scientific, objective method in the study of experimental neurosis. In 1934, Schilder subjected Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity to an incisive critique in a 1935 article inImago. Schilder objected to Pavlov’s narrow, reductionist conceptualization of the conditional reflex. Schilder reiterated his view that the psychological, subjective explanation of the conditional reflex is preferable to the physiological, objective explanation, and that the inference of cortical phenomena from experimental findings might be improper. Neither Pavlov nor any of his disciples replied to Schilder. The author provides an apology for the Pavlovian position, suggesting that Schilder was unfamiliar with early and late writings of Pavlov.     

Pavlov’s position toward konorski and miller’s distinction between pavlovian and motor conditioning paradigms

Two Warsaw medical students, Jerzy Konorski and Stefan Miller, having read I. P. Pavlov’s works on conditional reflexes, informed him in a 1928 letter that they had discovered a new type of conditioning. A previously neutral stimulus preceded the passive lifting of a dog’s paw which then was followed by feeding; this stimulus then evoked the spontaneous raising of that paw. Pavlov responded informing them that their conditioning of motor responses expanded his theory of higher nervous activity, but that their conditioning paradigm—that they named CRII—did not differ fundamentally from the Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. The replication of the Warsaw experiment in Pavlov’s laboratory failed to provide unequivocal results. From 1931 to 1933, Konorski, working in Pavlov’s Leningrad laboratory, further explored the parameters of CRII. Pavlov insisted that the conditioning of motor movements differs from the conditioning of other sensory analyzers only in that, on the neural level, the motor analyzer is both afferent, that is, perceptive, and efferent, that is, responsive. Konorski was not convinced, and he subsequently maintained that the two conditioning paradigms were fundamentally different.     

I.P. Pavlov vs. N.I. Bukharin: The critical mind and the arrogance of power

In 1923, Pavlov criticized the Marxist theses and the policy of the Soviet regime. In 1924, N.I. Bukharin, a Marxist theoretician and member of the Soviet government, responded to Pavlov’s passionate speech with a sarcastic diatribe. I suggest that Pavlov’s speech and Bukharin’s article represent a conflict between a scientist critical of the Marxist pseudotheory and a journalist’s abusive response to the realization that his theory was without much merit.     

Pavlovvs. Köhler

During the 1920s, I. P. Pavlov’s scholarly interests broadened to consider problem-solving. Distrusting Wolfgang Köhler’s Gestalt explanation of the problemsolving process and its interspecies aspects, Pavlov performed, from 1933 to 1936, a number of experiments, including a replication of Köhler’s building experiment, using chimpanzees as subjects. Confirming Köhler’s findings, Pavlov explained the problemsolving process in terms of unconditional reflexes and the establishment, by Pavlovian conditioning and the Thorndikian method of trial and error, of temporary neural connections identical, on the psychological level, to associations. In contrast to Köhler’s “structural” explanation, Pavlov emphasized the processes of analysis and synthesis. According to Pavlov insight is achieved progressively—as the result of the organism’s problem-solving behavior—contradicting Köhler’s thesis of a sudden subjective reorganization of the environmental situation. Pavlov explained interspecies differences among higher organisms in terms of the range of a species behavior, with the second signal system as the main distinguishing characteristic between human and nonhuman species.     

Reflexology,schizokinesis and autokinesis

A resume of the history and concepts culminating in the work of Pavlov shows that there has been a gradual and slow elaboration toward a science of behavior. The past work has been oriented since the time of Locke increasingly toward the external environment. Pavlov’s theories, however, were directed toward forceswithin the nervous system. Further work from the Pavlovian Laboratories at Johns Hopkins and the V.A. (and elsewhere) indicate that the various physiological systems do not always work harmoniously, but that there is often a split in function (Schizokinesis)—changes occurring over a period of time—which do not seem to be referable to the external environment but to elaborations occurringwithin the organism (Autokinesis). These may tend toward improvement of function or, on the other hand, toward deterioration. The time has come when the progressive changes and the interrelationships of active fociwithin the organism should be considered as well as the reactivity of the individual toward the external environment.     

强化敏感性人格理论述评

Gray的强化敏感性理论尝试从人类神经生理机制的角度来解释人格差异。该理论认为,在中枢神经系统内存在一些子系统,分别对奖励和惩罚的刺激信号敏感,并通过强化效应调节人们的行为和动机。目前研究者已开发出强化敏感性的测量方法,并进行了一系列实证研究。但随着研究的深入,该理论的局限逐渐暴露出来。针对这些局限,未来的研究应致力于：（1）用生理指标来验证理论假设;（2）探讨反映强化敏感性的特质;（3）考察认知因素与生物因素的交互作用     

Schilder and Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity. A critique and apologia

In the late 1920s, the Viennese psychoanalyst Paul Schilder, after performing a conditioning experiment with human subjects, criticized I. P. Pavlov's concept of "experimental neurosis." Schilder maintained that subjective reports by conditioned human subjects were more informative than the objectively observed behavior of conditioned dogs. In 1932, Pavlov published a rejoinder to Schilder's critique in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Pavlov maintained that Schilder misunderstood the value and implications of the scientific, objective method in the study of experimental neurosis. In 1934, Schilder subjected Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity to an incisive critique in a 1935 article in Imago. Schilder objected to Pavlov's narrow, reductionist conceptualization of the conditional reflex. Schilder reiterated his view that the psychological, subjective explanation of the conditional reflex is preferable to the physiological, objective explanation, and that the inference of cortical phenomena from experimental findings might be improper. Neither Pavlov nor any of his disciples replied to Schilder. The author provides an apology for the Pavlovian position, suggesting that Schilder was unfamiliar with early and late writings of Pavlov.     

Interaction of dominant focus and conditional reflex as a functional unit of behavior organization

The interaction of two fundamental phenomena—the dominant focus and the conditional reflex—discovered and introduced by A. A. Ukhtomsky and I. P. Pavlov lay at the basis of behavior. According to E. A. Asratyan, the backward conditioned connection is a specialized dominant focus in the functional structure of the consolidated conditional reflex. It makes the behavior goal-directed and active. The dominant focus and conditioned reflex play the same role in the adaptive behavior of the individual as does variability and selection in the process of evolutional adaptation. That is why it is impossible to agree with Popper and Eccles that hypothesis theory has to replace Pavlov’s theory of the conditional reflex. Imprinting and psychonervous activity by images (I. S. Beritashvili) are two special exemplars of conditional reflexes after one coincidence. The so-called “elementary reasoning activity of animals” (according to L. V. Krushinsky) is a kind of the instinctive inherited behavior.     

The Pavlovian basis of reciprocal inhibition therapy

While there is a slight disagreement between Wolpe’s views and Pavlov’s statements concerning the application of experimental psychology to the study of psychiatry, Wolpe indicates that he owes much to Pavlov. A Pavlovian analysis of therapy by reciprocal inhibition, which includes the physiological constructs as well as Pavlovian methodology, will increase our understanding of Reciprocal Inhibition therapy. The major techniques of Reciprocal Inhibition therapy are discussed in the terms of Pavlovian method and theory. Desensitization based on systematic relaxation appears to be effective because the excitatory stimulus is presented when the subject’s cortex is predominantly in an inhibitory state while relaxed. Assertive training relies mainly on building up the excitatory process by use of the second signal system. Thought-stopping is analogous to the external inhibition procedure with the use of the second signaling system as the “extra” stimulus. Deductions from Pavlov’s typology predict that an excitable subject will be difficult to desensitize and somewhat easier to train in assertive behavior and thought-stopping. Some implications of relating Pavlovian method and theory to Reciprocal Inhibition therapy are discussed.     

Pavlovian theory of dreaming

Pavlovian theory provides a conceptual scheme for the examination of recent empirical data on dreaming. Consistencies are examined between these data and Pavlovian theory of the general properties of the nervous system. An equation is made between Pavlov’s excitation-inhibition continuum, the REM-NREM cycle, and the basic rest-activity cycle. Speculations, based on this equation, are made about the inter-relation between waking and sleeping behaviors. Testable hypotheses are suggested throughout the paper.     

The politics of physiological psychology Ivan Pavlov’s suppressed defense of scientific freedom and its consequences

This statement, first presented at a plenary session of the Pavlovian Society on 9 October 1992, in Los Angeles, California, attempts to assess the recently released speech delivered by Ivan Pavlov in 1923, but publicly brought to light only in 1991, on the subject of “Communist Dogmatism and the Autonomy of Science.” This speech, noteworthy for the courage of the delivery under adverse circumstances no less than the contents of its remarks, compels a new estimate of the place of science in a totalitarian system boasting an ideology of physiological psychology. It also sheds new light on the Russian Nobel laureate and pioneer in the areas of behavior modification induced by the functions of the higher nervous system. These remarks take an in-depth view of American radical and Marxian appraisals — how they followed the Soviet lead in harnessing Pavlov to the Communist cause, and in attempting to discredit the work of Sigmund Freud. This lethal combination of Communist political needs and ideological proclivities served to rationalize the implementation of slave labor as work therapy during the Stalinist era. The linkage of Pavlov to Makarenko in education and Michurin in biology serves as a case study in the manufacture of tradition. The collapse of the Soviet system permits a recasting of the history of science and Pavlov’s place in Russian life. Such new conditions also provide a lesson in the distortive role of ideology in the evolution of modern science.     

Pavlov’s position on the effects of decortication on conditional reflexes

This paper examined D. Joravsky’s (1989) hypothesis that I.P. Pavlov dogmatically refused to acknowledge that classical conditioning can be mediated by subcortical regions of the large cerebral hemispheres. Decortication literature from 1901 to 1936 was reviewed. The early studies available to Pavlov, who died in 1936, showed that decortication does not allow the establishment of new or retaining of old conditional reflexes (CRs). G.P. Zelenyi’s later experiments(1930) suggested that the establishment of primitive CRs in decorticated dogs was possible. Pavlov never denied this possibility but cautioned that Zelenyi’s experiments could have been methodologically flawed. Although Joravsky’s original hypothesis on Pavlov’s position on the relation between decortication and the establishment of CRs is by and large accepted, it must be stressed that Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity was primarily concerned with the function of the brain in the higher organism’s struggle for existence. Within this context the cortical, rather than subcortical, processes play the decisive role in the organism’s adaptation to the changing external environment.