Figure 2.

Levels of explanation for personality neuroscience. Conventional reductive explanation for phenomena at the observational (including social and ecological) levels can usefully descend through cognitive and neuromorphic levels to constructs at the neural level (McNaughton & Smillie, 2018). That is, a detailed theory expressed in neural terms can, potentially, fully explain an observation at the personality level. However, at each of these levels, emergent properties may need to be invoked, and with some aspects of behaviour, a full explanation may include emergent properties at the behavioural level. In general, social and ecological factors will operate at too high a level to provide useful detailed explanation of personality, while genetics, molecular (biochemistry and chemistry) and quantum mechanics will usually provide details that confuse more than they explain. Teleonomic (evolutionary) explanations span and link the other levels of explanation.