Do Personality Features Influence Our Intuitions of the Mind-Body Problem? A Pilot Study
Frontiers in Psychology July 20, 2018 Marek Havlík, Karolína Mladá, Iveta Fajnerová et al. 3 citations
Personality traits, particularly the dimension of self-transcendence measured by Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory, correlate with people's intuitive inclinations toward either dualism or reductive materialism regarding the mind-body problem. In a pilot study using a newly developed questionnaire based on analytic philosophy of the mind, participants categorized as dualists showed significant differences in self-transcendence scores compared to those categorized as reductive materialists. The findings suggest that philosophical positions on the mind-body problem, and possibly responses to thought experiments in philosophy of mind, may be influenced by underlying personality features, a factor that should be considered in future philosophical and empirical research.