"Psychology," like many abstract terms, is difficult to define precisely. Henriques' (this issue) argument that psychology, though unified and coherent, actually spans two realms-psychological formalism ("the science of mind," this issue) and human psychology ("the science of human behavior at the individual level," this issue)-seems likely to improve the clarity of the concept. The strongest c...

Replies to comments on Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations (see record 2010-02208-001) by Confer et al. The purpose of which was to clarify the logic of evolutionary psychology and clear up some of the more common misunderstandings about it. In this response, we address the key points raised by the commentators.

1. Historical Perspective 2. The Concept of Individual Differences and Main Categories to Describe Them 2.1. The Psychology of Individual Differences 2.2. Trait as the Basic Category for Describing Individual Differences 3. Temperament as a Component of Personality 3.1. Founders of Contemporary Research on Temperament 3.1.1. Eysenck’s Biological Theory of Psychoticism, Extraversion, and Neuroti...

A new theory integrating evolutionary and dynamical approaches is proposed. Following evolutionary models, psychological mechanisms are conceived as conditional decision rules designed to address fundamental problems confronted by human ancestors, with qualitatively different decision rules serving different problem domains and individual differences in decision rules as a function of adaptive ...

In 1913 Henrik Sjöbring presented his thesis, ‘Den individualpsykologiska frågeställningen inom psykiatrien’ [‘The question of individual psychology in psychiatry’] in Upsala Läkareförenings Förhandlingar (1), the principal aim of which was to construct a system for characterizing the various dimensions of personality. The system presupposed that it is possible to distinguish different fundamen...

Differential psychology has been a central concern to philosophers and psychologists, both applied and theoretical, for the past several millennia. It remains so today. The proper study of individual differences integrates methodology, affective and cognitive science, genetics and biology. It is a field with a long history and an exciting future. We review some of the major questions that have ...

Personality, from an evolutionary perspective, represents a meta-category of the output of a suite of species-typical, relatively domain-specific, evolved psychological mechanisms designed in response to the social adaptive problems recurrently faced by our ancestors. This conceptualization of human personality provides for novel and valuable reinterpretations of several areas of personality ps...

Twentieth-century psychology has studied specific active processes of knowing—such as perceptions, thoughts, or feelings—but lacked an understanding of deeper levels of the mind underlying and integrating all active mental processes. Therefore, it has spawned isolated areas of investigation rather than successful grand theories. Maharishi Vedic Psychology provides complete knowledge and experie...