STRENGTHS AND CRITICISMS OF THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH
Strengths
One of the strengths of the biological approach is that it provides a bridge be-
tween the study of personality and the discipline of biology. For too many
years, personality psychologists often ignored the biological roots of human
behavior. But it has become increasingly difficult to disregard the fact that
we are the product of an evolutionary history and our individual genetic
makeup. Human behavior is influenced by many factors, one of which is biol-
ogy. By incorporating what biologists know about such concepts as evolutionand genetics, personality psychologists come closer to understanding what
makes each of us the kind of person we are.
The biological approach also has succeeded in identifying some realistic
parameters for psychologists interested in behavior change. The “blank slate ”
image of humankind can be very appealing. If the newborn personality is like
clay, then with enough knowledge, resources, and effort we should be able tomold that personality any way we want. If all babies are essentially alike,
then with enough research psychologists could advise parents and teachers
on the “correct ”way to raise all children and teach all students. Unfortunately,
past acceptance of the blank slate notion created many problems. Parents with
difficult-to-control babies were blamed for not knowing how to raise their
children. Highly active children were punished for not sitting as still as their
classmates. Advocates of the biological approach argue that our inherited bio-
logical differences probably place limits on the kind of children and adults we
become. Some people are born with a tendency to be more introverted than
others, and there is probably little a parent, teacher, or spouse can do to turn
an introvert into an extravert.
Another strength of the biological approach is that most of its advocates
are academic psychologists with a strong interest in testing their ideasthrough research. Consequently, investigators have generated empirical sup-
port for many of the hypotheses advanced from this perspective. In addition,
psychologists from the biological approach have often modified their theories
as a result of research findings. For example, after Eysenck outlined a com-
prehensive model of personality several decades ago, he and others conductedresearch on many of the predictions generated from the model. Much of this
work supported Eysenck ’s ideas, but investigators altered other ideas to better
reflect the research findings.
Criticisms
Advocates of the biological approach often face inherent limits on their ability
to test some of their ideas. In particular, evolutionary personality psycholo-
gists must often argue from the relatively weak position of analogy and de-
duction (Eagly, 1997). A reasonable case can be made that anxiety helps the
species survive because it prevents social isolation. But how can we test this
hypothesis? Direct manipulation is often out of the question, making demon-
strations of cause-and-effect relationships difficult, if not impossible. Theproblem is that we can probably think of a potentially adaptive function for
nearly every human attribute. For example, some psychologists have arguedStrengths and Criticisms of the Biological Approach 247