Vistopia
To Your Unique Self: 40 Lessons in Personality Psychology
Wang Fang
Hello again—my second greeting today. In the main episode we heard of Gage, whose brain injury changed his personality until acquaintances felt he was no longer the same person.This shows that stable personality depends on a healthy, well-functioning brain.
Gage suffered an accident, but diseases also alter brain function. Do they alter personality too?
Indeed. For example,Alzheimer's disease,a severe degenerative brain disorder, is familiar through early symptoms such asbehavioral changeandmemory loss.As it progresses, personality can change drastically and eventually disappear entirely.Strokealso damages parts of the brain and may strongly affect personality. Somebrain surgeriescan alter its biological foundations, making a once deeply familiar person seem strange to loved ones (Grunberg, Klein, & Brown, 1998).
These phenomena challenge simplemind–body dualismand raise an ethical question:What within us defines us, and can it be perceived to constitute a person's sense of personal identity? Put another way:Does something exist whose loss removes identity so thoroughly that ‘I’ no longer applies? Memory, personality, emotion, intelligence, morality, or something else—which matters most in defining you?
Many philosophers considermemorymost important to identity. If everything precious from one's past is forgotten, how can one know who one is?Others can reconstruct the past verbally, but without its experience and emotion, hearing one's own story resembles hearing a stranger's—empty and disorienting.
Yet memory is not everything. People with accident-induced amnesia can assess whether they are introverted, careful, or friendly, agreeing closely with relatives and friends. They may not explain future goals or why they became this way, but with normal brain function they soon rebuild these through new life. This suggestspersonality is most important to personal identity, while memory helps confirm that I remain I.
From an observer's view, we also use factors to decide whether someone remains the person we knew. Likewise,what makes a person themselves to you, and what change would make them no longer that person?
Episode editor: 夏夏
2021.12.21
Audio in Chinese

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Featured comments

33 comments
  • 1379号监听员
    2021-12-22 08:32:52

    《攻壳机动队》也讨论了我的定义，草薙素子没有了记忆，人格也改变了，她如此定义自我呢？她用善良的选择定义自我。

  • 冷季锋
    2022-07-05 13:23:48

    有一点疑惑。道德不是别人对我的身份认同吗？道德改变了，别人就觉得我不是我了。但我没觉得那不是我啊，那我对我自己的身份认同呢？

    祝你天天开心呀！ ：比如说好人做了一件坏事，她的朋友就都会觉得他可能是处于某种原因之类的

    惜朝 ：同款疑问

  • 想
    想入菲菲
    2022-11-26 09:38:29

    自己确认自己🆔，人格最重要，记忆打辅助。他人确认自己🆔，最重要是道德。

    小罗脖特长 ：lj j

  • 鸥
    2021-12-24 04:19:46

    《内在美》里面是女主一直在变

    165****3688 ：不是男主吗

  • 186****0814
    2022-05-18 08:19:28

    老师说反啦 内在美是女主在变

  • 四月
    2025-08-17 15:59:10

    这一节内容给我感触太大了

  • 芝士就是力量🧀
    2023-09-25 11:55:36

    干货太多记不过来了哈哈哈表白王芳老师❤️

  • 1
    151****9207
    2023-07-29 21:25:21

    人们对于“好变坏”比“坏变好”更为敏感（e.g., Tobia, 2015；Heiphetz et al., 2018）。比如在一个研究中，研究者把Gage的故事改写，Gage是人格改变，从原来的高尽责性变成了事故后的低尽责性，看起来还是有点从好变坏的感觉，那如果翻转，从坏变好，从一个低尽责性的人变成了一个高尽责性的人，去给人们看，人们会更倾向于认为Gage还是那个Gage（Tobia, 2015）。似乎在人们看来，“由好变坏”会带来一种格外强烈的判若两人感，而“由坏变好”则是“重获新生、找回真我”。 ——这个洞察非常有意思，关于“人之初，性本善”还是“性本恶”是存在很多争论的。很多人会拿中外文化做对比，我们的文化从小就背诵性本善，而基督教的出发点是：人是为了赎罪而活着，人背负着原罪(恶)。但这个研究令人欣慰，因为不论什么文化，大家都相信着，“好”的那个才是本来的你我他，而“坏”可能是由不为人知的心酸导致的，他也许有苦衷，如果有机会他愿意变“好”。

  • 白
    白日狂想
    2023-07-01 12:20:09

    这就是为什么说好人喝醉了之后还是好人？

  • 180****6228
    2023-06-05 12:31:06

    对的，我以前也很怕听到这句话，说：你变了

  • Z
    Zen
    2022-10-31 14:59:50

    老师刷剧很多耶

  • 雨夜正好眠
    2022-07-06 18:41:31

    我看【克拉拉与太阳】里面好像也提过这个问题

  • %
    2022-05-18 21:39:58

    “个人身份感的道德优先性”不是性格而是道德，我刚听的时候以为是行为模式（这里的配乐好合适而且好听

  • 飞花逐水流
    2022-02-22 22:17:44

    可能好人坏人的判断用进化心理学的视角解释会很具有说服力

  • 皮皮
    2022-02-19 08:55:39

    竟然是道德