Claude Robert Cloninger: Biography Of This Famous Personality Psychologist
The study of human personality has been carried out from very different approaches and through different strategies. Today we know that personality traits are characteristics that are developed and solidified throughout our development, based on an innate biological predisposition.
And a part of our personality and the traits that shape us are inherited from our ancestors. Claude Robert Cloninger is one of the many authors who have developed a theoretical model regarding the structure of personality, based on psychobiology. In this article We will briefly review the biography of Cloninger and his contributions to the world of psychiatry and personality psychology.
Claude Robert Cloninger was born in the Texas community of Beaumont on April 4, 1944. He is the son of Morris Cloninger, businessman and English teacher, and Marie Concetta actress Mazzagatti Cloninger. His family of origin has a great interest in the artistic field, having been patrons of various associations linked to various arts and having taught him, in the author’s own words, to live coherently.
Academic training
Robert Cloninger was initially trained at the University of Texas , entering it in 1962. There he would carry out pre-medical studies and also trained in psychology, anthropology and philosophy. He would finish his studies at this university in 1966.
He later joined the University of Washington, where he delved into study and research in the health field and carried out a research fellowship in preventive medicine and public health.
In 1969 he would begin to take an interest and research together with Samuel Guze in the field of psychiatry, specifically in the reasons why some mental disorders are frequently replicated by different members of the same families. This would also lead him to work in the field of genetic and cultural transmission , carrying out different studies in this regard. He delved into these studies in different locations and together with other great researchers.
Studies and research areas
This author has been prolific and has carried out numerous research on various topics. He has published a large number of publications in the form of articles and books and has been awarded awards such as the Adolf Meyer Award from such renowned institutions as the American Psychiatric Association (or APA).
His research focuses on diagnosis and treatment in order to cause an increase in the quality of life of both healthy people and people with mental disorders working from the identification and treatment of the causes of mental disorders and taking into account both biological elements (in which it focuses on studying the genetics of disorders) and cultural and educational elements.
Thus, your interests have focused on aspects such as personality traits , the biological and environmental factors that facilitate and/or regulate mental disorders or well-being, genetics and anthropology. He has also expressed his interest in the study of human needs and how they influence our personality, self-concept and well-being.
Cloninger and the study of personality
One of the greatest and best-known contributions to the field of psychology by Cloninger are his studies regarding personality, both in healthy subjects and in individuals with different disorders in this aspect.
Specifically, the model proposed by the author stands out, which proposes that personality is a system of behavioral models derived from the functioning of the neurochemical systems of our body and social learning, both functioning together in the management of behavior and the patterns with which we usually act.
Proposes the existence of temperament as an element of integration of the functioning of the different biological systems that allow the organism to regulate behavior to adapt to the environment (largely mediated by neurotransmitters). Within temperament we can find four variables that explain personality, these being the avoidance of pain, the search for novelty, the dependence of the reward on the behavior and the persistence of the behavior.
It also recognizes and incorporates the existence of variables in behavioral control that derive from learning throughout the life cycle. It is about character, which allows us to relate to ourselves and the world voluntarily based on what we have experienced. Typical character variables in personality configuration They are self-direction or the ability to control one’s own behavior, cooperation or the ability to relate positively to others, and self-transcendence as the aspect according to which we place ourselves in the world.
This model has been developed over more than fifteen years, starting in 1986, and represents a factorial approach to personality from a biopsychosocial vision. Initially, only temperament variables would be taken into account (with the exception of persistence, which was considered derived from the search for experience), although throughout the 1990s temperament variables were added and the persistence as another independent temperamental variable.
Cloninger’s performance in the study of personality has not been limited to the creation of a theoretical model, but has also included the development of instruments that allow it to be evaluated.
Cloninger developed this aspect in 1987 and would later improve it together with other authors. the Three-Dimensional Personality Questionnaire or TPQ This test is a questionnaire in which the patient or subject analyzed must answer a hundred questions (whose answers can only be true or false) and through which the dimensions of temperament are analyzed (harm avoidance, dependence on reward and search for news)
This questionnaire would be modified and, after Cloninger considered the existence and importance of the characteristic variables, it would be created the Temperament and Character Questionnaire or TCI in 1993 (which would later be revised).
Present
Currently, Robert Cloninger is a professor of psychiatry, psychology and genetics at Wallace Renard. He is also director of the Wellness Center at the University of Washington and is part of various divisions and committees of different institutions, being a member among them of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Cloninger, C.R. (2004). Feeling good: The science of well-being. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hermangómez, L. & Fernández, C.(2012). Personality and Differential Psychology. CEDE PIR Preparation Manual, 07. CEDE: Madrid.
