Jan Strelau

His research concentrated for several decades on temperament and its functional significance in human adaptation, especially under extreme conditions (stressors) and as a factor influencing behavior disorders.

He transferred Ivan Pavlov’s concepts of higher nervous system properties such as strength of excitation, strength of inhibition and mobility of nervous processes into psychological constructs (traits) to be measured since the 1970s by the Strelau Temperament Inventory (STI)[1] and beginning from 1999 by the Pavlovian Temperament Survey (PTS) – an inventory constructed by Strelau, Angleitner and Newberry.

[8] The Formal Characteristics of Behavior – Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI), developed by Strelau and Bogdan Zawadzki and adapted to many language versions allows for measuring these traits.

A lot of empirical evidence has been collected by Strelau and his collaborators demonstrating that heritability explains about 40 percent of the variance in RTT temperament traits.

In many studies, conducted among others on victims of disasters and catastrophes it came out that such traits as emotional reactivity, perseverance and activity are significant moderators of psychological consequences (e.g. PTSD) of experienced trauma.