Personality at Play

All right. So we’re going to intermingle three topics in this lecture: the tradition of Jean Piaget, the tradition of the biologists, neurobiologists, neuropsychologists, and behaviorists, and psychometric approaches to personality. And we’ll do that in a way that integrates all of those with what we’ve discussed. I mentioned to you when we first started this voyage that I would endeavor to present you an integrated view of personality theories, using a hierarchy of conceptualization to locate the different levels of theoretical analysis and unite them.

And I think we can bring that to a successful conclusion, integrating these three quite vastly different approaches—all predicated on the idea that if there is a unity of phenomena and a unity of conceptualization, there should be a unity of scientific representation. All apparent paradoxes, therefore, should reconcile, except insofar as there is an error.

Key Figures: Piaget, Swanson, Gray, and Panksepp

Here are the people we’re going to talk about:

Jean Piaget: A developmental psychologist who called himself a genetic epistemologist because he was interested in the genesis of things—the development of knowledge structures in children.
Larry Swanson: A physiologist who mapped out the nervous system, particularly spinal cord function and motor activity.
Jeffrey Gray: A master of the behavioral world. His work in The Neuropsychology of Anxiety integrated neuropharmacology, brain anatomy, and emotional function.
Jaak Panksepp: Known for Affective Neuroscience, he discovered the play circuit in mammals—a major league discovery.

Piaget and the Stages of Play

Piaget believed we could understand knowledge and philosophy best by analyzing how it develops in children. Children enter the world not with abstract conceptual structures but with rudimentary abilities to act. For example:

A baby can suck and explore with their mouth, mapping their environment for functional significance.
Play becomes a primary vehicle for scaffolding development. Babies imitate themselves: if an action produces an interesting response, they replicate it.
Through play, children build their conceptions of reality by exploring, assimilating new information, and accommodating their schemas to fit new discoveries.

“Assimilation is the incorporation of new information; accommodation is the adjustment of schemes to incorporate that new information.”

Swanson and the Nervous System

Swanson’s work on the nervous system complements Piaget’s developmental theory perfectly:

Your spinal cord handles basic motor actions (e.g., walking is a controlled fall).
The hypothalamus regulates basic motivational states: hunger, thirst, sexual desire, temperature regulation, and elimination.
Motivations cycle through these states, each one capable of rearranging perception, emotions, and fantasies to achieve its goal.

“Motivation sets a goal; emotion tells you where you are on the pathway to that goal.”

Panksepp and the Discovery of Play

Jaak Panksepp’s discovery of the play circuit was groundbreaking. He showed that even rats engage in reciprocal play, which reveals the emergence of a spontaneous morality:

Juvenile rats will work to enter an arena to wrestle with other rats.
If one rat is 10% larger, it can reliably win. Yet, if the larger rat doesn’t let the smaller rat win one-third of the time, the smaller rat will stop inviting it to play.

“Fair play emerges naturally, even among rats. The ethos of reciprocity forms the foundation for stable social organization.”

This play ethos lays the groundwork for human communities. It begins in early childhood when children learn to play structured games, negotiate rules, and adopt roles. Play becomes the mechanism through which we integrate social behavior.

Personality and Cognitive Ability

Personality is not a unitary structure—it is clearly five-dimensional:

Openness to Experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Cognitive ability, on the other hand, is unitary. General intelligence (g) emerges from a person’s ability to perform across multiple domains of cognitive tasks:

People with higher IQs tend to have larger brains relative to body size, faster neurological transmission, and greater resistance to degeneration.
The best predictor for maintaining cognitive ability is physical health: weightlifting and cardiovascular exercise.

“Weightlifting keeps your brain healthy because the brain is metabolically demanding.”

The Role of Play in Development

Play is not frivolous. It is essential for children to learn socialization, roles, and reciprocity:

Dramatic play helps children develop their identities and negotiate social hierarchies.
Children use pretend play to act out adult roles and explore moral frameworks in a low-risk way.
Screen time is a major threat to childhood development because it substitutes structured play with passive consumption.

*”If you substitute screen time for dramatic play, you interfere with childhood development. Children *must* play to develop socially and cognitively.”*

Why Play Matters for Adults

The highest form of maturity is the ability to rediscover play while retaining adult wisdom:

Relationships become play when there is reciprocity and shared goals.
Work becomes play when it aligns with your interests and allows for exploration and creativity.
A well-structured life reflects the ethos of fair play.

“Your relationship becomes play, your work becomes play. That’s the highest ideal of living.”

Final Thoughts

Personality emerges through the interplay of action, motivation, and cognition. Play is the foundation of this development, both as children and adults. It is through play that we build friendships, communities, and even our identities. As Panksepp demonstrated, the ethos of reciprocity is natural—it emerges even in rats. It is our responsibility to cultivate this ethos and extend it into every aspect of our lives.

When life feels fragmented or miserable, it may be worth asking: Am I missing something? Often, the answer lies in returning to the spirit of play, to exploration, and to wonder.