If you can't decide between left or right, then go with left-and-right

The Triune Brain and Our Personality

Dispelling the left-OR-right-brained myth—and embracing our left-AND-right- (and-mid-) brained nature—can improve our well-being and increase our professional and leadership value.

We are often two (in fact, three) minds about things: Do I follow my heart (emotional needs), my head (logic), or my gut (instinct)? This is especially distressful when we have to make a decision that we know will significantly impact our future. Regardless of our age and purpose, whether one is a student choosing his major or a leader deciding on the future of her organization, we cannot escape the three-mind phenomenon—because it lies in our nature. It lies in that three-pound mass of soft tissue that sits inside our skull: the brain. It is perhaps worth some time, then, to take a peek inside.

Not One, but Three Brains​

Many of us are familiar with the left-right brain model, as pioneered by neurobiologist, Roger W. Sperry (1961); the left being analytical, logical, and linguistic (the “head”); and the right being synthetic, creative, and imaginative (the “heart”). But there is also the less known cingulate cortex, a small if significant cortical grey matter located in the medial wall between the left and right hemispheres of our brain; it is responsible for, but not restricted to, such autonomic (“gut”) activities as action-selection, decision-making, judgment, regulation of affect, conflict execution, and survival (response to extinction). (Stevens et al., 2011)

There is also Paul MacLean's top-middle-lower brain model; respectively, the neocortex (cognition), limbic system (emotion), and R-complex (motor/instinct). (MacLean, 1990)

And then there now is the three-brains brain model, consisting of the cranial brain (the one in our skull), the cardiac brain (a cluster of neurons in our heart region) (Armour, 1991), and the enteric brain (a cluster of neurons in our belly, gut region) (Gershon, 2011).

From all of the above anatomical models, we can broadly derive a distinct triune neuropsychological factors of “head” and “heart” and “gut.” But though these different parts of the brain and the different brains each plays distinct roles, they form a singular neural network, each connected to others through billions of neurons and trillions of synapses. Our heart, head, and gut, it follows, are, under normal conditions, inseparable; and they work together on a shared network. Of course, in our subjective experiences, they do feel like forces that pull each of us from opposing ends; for example, “Should I be compassionate to the offender (heart), or should I correct his mistake (head), or should I just head-butt that SOB (gut)?” But the inner tension only reaffirms the fact that a person is inherently emotive and cognitive and instinctive; and that there are no grounds—biologically, psychologically, or philosophically—to place them on polar ends of the same continuum. There is no continuum, to begin with, if we consider that each is a separate entity with an independent function. The onus is on each of us, then, to integrate the “divisive” experiences into mutually complementing components; until our decisions for our future are congruent with our heart and head and gut—with all that we are, so to say.

In fact, we are each already a tri-unity every time we act. This becomes obvious once we give some considerations to our very own everyday activities, such as when one is painting a portrait or kicking a football: our thinking (head) and feeling (heart) and doing (gut) are consolidated naturally into one (and not three) brushstroke or one ball-pass, in any given moment.

Three Types, One Personality

Our triune neurobiology behooves upon us to establish a triune personality: we are not heart-or-head types; we are each a heart-and-head-and-gut person. The American Psychological Association defines a personality as “characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, [and] behaving,” and that the study of personality involves “how the various parts of a person come together [as a whole].”

“The Chef,” for example, is one personality composed of three—Stimulator (heart), Thinker (head), and Governor (gut)—types. (Discover your types and personality here.)

From this perspective, a personality is also a unique triplex of personal capabilities. Celebrated world leaders from Steve Jobs to Mother Teresa to Bruce Lee are each valued for a distinct personality that comprises three basic types; they each manifests a distinct trio of capabilities that are derived from their types, and they each consolidates their trio of capabilities into one creation with one distinct value: respectively, the revolutionary Apple, the saintly Missionaries of Charity, and the deadly Jeet Kune Do.

Successful individuals such as those above are not left-OR-right- brained, they are each left-AND-right-AND-mid- brained.

As are the rest of us.

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Sperry, Roger W. 1961. “The Split Brain Behaves in Many Respects Like Two Separate Brains, Providing New Research Possibilities.” Science 133, 3466: 1749–1757.

Stevens, Francis L., Robin A. Hurley, and Katherine H. Taber. 2011. “Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Unique Role in Cognition and Emotion.” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 23, no. 2 (Spring).

MacLean, Paul D. The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions. New York: Plenum.

Armour, Andrew J. 1991. “Intrinsic Cardiac Neurons.” Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology 2, no. 4 (August): 331–341.

Gershon, Michael. 2011. The Second Brain. New York: Harper.

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