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Colin G. DeYoung is a professor ofpsychology at theUniversity of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota).[1] His research is in the field ofpersonality psychology and personality neuroscience.[2]
DeYoung earned his A.B. in the Mind, Brain, Behavior program of the History and Science concentration atHarvard University in 1998. He obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology in 2000 and 2005, respectively, at theUniversity of Toronto[1] where he studied underJordan B. Peterson.
DeYoung's research inpersonality psychology has examined the theoretical structure of personality and the biological basis of personality.
In contemporary psychology, the most commonly accepted model of personality structure is the "Big Five" or "Five Factor Model."[3][4] Research usingfactor analysis has suggested that the five domains of the Big Five have two higher-order factors, referred to as metatraits.[5][6] The two metatraits areStability, which is composed of Big Five factors ofAgreeableness,Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability (the reverse of Neuroticism) andPlasticity, which includes the Big Five factors ofExtraversion and Openness/Intellect (commonly referred to asOpenness to Experience). Stability is defined by one's maintenance of stability and hypothesized to be related to the neurotransmitterserotonin, while Plasticity is seen in one's adaptability to novelty and hypothesized to be related to the neurotransmitterdopamine.[6][7]DeYoung has also proposed an expanded classification of the Big Five dividing each of the Big Five into two sub-dimensions. DeYoung, Quilty andPeterson (2007)[8] suggested the following aspects of the Big Five factors:
The classification system utilizing these ten aspects allows for nuanced discrimination within the Big Five, which can reveal subtleties in differences in personality domains otherwise undetected.
DeYoung et al.'s (2010)[9] research indicates that the sizes of certain brain regions are related to four of the five different domains of theFive Factor Model. The volume of the medialorbitofrontal cortex, which is responsible for coding reward values, was positively associated withExtraversion. Neuroticism was related to reduced dorsomedialprefrontal cortex and posteriorhippocampus volume and increased mid-cingulate gyrus volume, which are areas sensitive to threat and punishment and associated with negative emotion andemotional dysregulation. Reduced posterior leftsuperior temporal sulcus and increasedposterior cingulate cortex andfusiform gyrus volume were associated withAgreeableness and have been shown to be involved in the interpretation of others' motives and beliefs. Increased volume in themiddle frontal gyrus in the leftlateral prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for maintaining and executing information and planned action, was positively correlated withConscientiousness. Openness/Intellect (Openness to Experience) was the only member of the Big Five lacking a significant relationship to brain structure volume. However, other research by DeYoung et al. (2009)[10] has shown that Openness/Intellect is related to brain function in the prefrontal cortex.
A helpful overview of 'Personality and the Brain' is provided by Glenn Wilson (2012)[11] while Allen & DeYoung (2016) provide an overview article of 'Personality Neuroscience and the Five-factor model' in the Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model of Personality.[12]