Cargando…

Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship

With the rise of new technologies, also human enhancement is widely discussed. Especially the philosophical movement “transhumanism” urges for creating “better humans” by applying different enhancement methods, namely: pharmacological, current-based, and genetic enhancement as well as mind uploading...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Grinschgl, Sandra, Tawakol, Zadaf, Neubauer, Aljoscha C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9092989/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35574200
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09359
_version_ 1784705243325399040
author Grinschgl, Sandra
Tawakol, Zadaf
Neubauer, Aljoscha C.
author_facet Grinschgl, Sandra
Tawakol, Zadaf
Neubauer, Aljoscha C.
author_sort Grinschgl, Sandra
collection PubMed
description With the rise of new technologies, also human enhancement is widely discussed. Especially the philosophical movement “transhumanism” urges for creating “better humans” by applying different enhancement methods, namely: pharmacological, current-based, and genetic enhancement as well as mind uploading. While the first three aim at enhancing human characteristics, mind uploading promises immortality by uploading one's brain onto an external storage medium. In the present study, we adapted the method of divergent thinking tasks to assess individuals' assumptions about enhancement methods. These were rated regarding their negativity/positivity and societal-/individual-orientation and then tested whether they are predicted by basic human values and selected personality traits. While individuals' values were not related to their assumptions about enhancement, openness predicted more negative assumptions about most enhancement methods, and a higher intellect predicted more societal-oriented assumptions about genetic enhancement. Furthermore, higher grandiose narcissism predicted more negative assumptions about current-based enhancement and higher psychopathic tendencies predicted more positive assumptions about genetic enhancement. Additionally, higher Machiavellianism predicted more individual-oriented assumptions about pharmacological and current-based enhancement. However, all relationships were of small effect size. We urge for further psychological research in this increasingly relevant field.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9092989
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Elsevier
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-90929892022-05-12 Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship Grinschgl, Sandra Tawakol, Zadaf Neubauer, Aljoscha C. Heliyon Research Article With the rise of new technologies, also human enhancement is widely discussed. Especially the philosophical movement “transhumanism” urges for creating “better humans” by applying different enhancement methods, namely: pharmacological, current-based, and genetic enhancement as well as mind uploading. While the first three aim at enhancing human characteristics, mind uploading promises immortality by uploading one's brain onto an external storage medium. In the present study, we adapted the method of divergent thinking tasks to assess individuals' assumptions about enhancement methods. These were rated regarding their negativity/positivity and societal-/individual-orientation and then tested whether they are predicted by basic human values and selected personality traits. While individuals' values were not related to their assumptions about enhancement, openness predicted more negative assumptions about most enhancement methods, and a higher intellect predicted more societal-oriented assumptions about genetic enhancement. Furthermore, higher grandiose narcissism predicted more negative assumptions about current-based enhancement and higher psychopathic tendencies predicted more positive assumptions about genetic enhancement. Additionally, higher Machiavellianism predicted more individual-oriented assumptions about pharmacological and current-based enhancement. However, all relationships were of small effect size. We urge for further psychological research in this increasingly relevant field. Elsevier 2022-04-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9092989/ /pubmed/35574200 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09359 Text en © 2022 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Research Article
Grinschgl, Sandra
Tawakol, Zadaf
Neubauer, Aljoscha C.
Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship
title Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship
title_full Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship
title_fullStr Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship
title_full_unstemmed Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship
title_short Human enhancement and personality: A new approach towards investigating their relationship
title_sort human enhancement and personality: a new approach towards investigating their relationship
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9092989/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35574200
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09359
work_keys_str_mv AT grinschglsandra humanenhancementandpersonalityanewapproachtowardsinvestigatingtheirrelationship
AT tawakolzadaf humanenhancementandpersonalityanewapproachtowardsinvestigatingtheirrelationship
AT neubaueraljoschac humanenhancementandpersonalityanewapproachtowardsinvestigatingtheirrelationship