3b - personality and mental health

Question 1

Diathesis-Stress Models

Answer 1

Diathesis: an inherent vulnerability to develop an illness.
Stress: increase the risk of developing an illness
Together, vulnerability and experience of life stress (experiential factors) interact to influence risk of developing mental health problem

Question 2

Identifying Personality Diatheses is difficult because - 3 reasons

Answer 2

1. There could be several diatheses per disorder
2. There may be protective factors
3. Diatheses may be differentially sensitive to certain types of (congruent) stressor

SVH: the Specific Vulnerability Hypothesis (Blatt & Zuroff, 1992)

Question 3

Vulnerability to Depression: its diathesis

Answer 3

Several diatheses: Female gender, Relative with depression, Death of parent in childhood, Lack of social support

Reactive to stressors

Question 4

Haslam - personality diathesis that are most effected by domain congruent stressors
High autonomy

Answer 4

high autonomy: compulsive self-reliance: aversion to being controlled by/dependent on others
effected by: indicators of personal failure

Question 5

high dependency:

Answer 5

anxious attachment. exaggerate need for others
effects by: interpersonal conflict, loss, rejection, separation

Question 6

pessimistic explanatory style:

Answer 6

explain neg events according to stable and global causes. feel unable avoid neg events
effected by: neg life events that can be attributed to stable global causes

Question 7

self-critcal personality style

Answer 7

: hold unreasonalbly high standards for self and prone to punishing self-evaluations
effected by: negative life events they feel responsible for

Question 8

Specific vulnerability hypothesis: Three possible causes of inconsistencies

Answer 8

1) Little focus on other risk and protective factors (e.g. self-esteem).
2) Too much focus on individual stress level relative to group.
3) Researcher cannot classify stressful events for each individual.(differences in interpretation, plus ‘spill over’ effects.)

Question 9

Abela - depression risk

Answer 9

children w parent w history of depression
Ability of Dependency and Self-Crit to predict depression.
Effect of increased amount of total stress (not congruence).
Role of self-esteem as a protective factor.

Question 10

abela results - dependency/self-crit

Answer 10

No evidence that self-criticism acts as a diathesis.
Diathesis-stress effects apparent for Dependency.
Dependency acts as a diathesis, but is buffered by protective effects of self-esteem.

Question 11

specific vulnerability to schizotypy - positive and negartive

Answer 11

positive schizotypy - chaotic env
negative schizoypy - birth complications

both lead to Sz spectrum disordders

Question 12

positive and neg schizotypy

Answer 12

positive: perceptual aberration and magical ideation - leads to mood disorders and substance abuse + Sz disorders

negative: physical and social anhedonia - scjizoid traits and lower relationship closeness

Question 13

Schizotypy & Creativity - 2 studies

Answer 13

Ando, Claridge & Clark (2014)
Actors and comedians scored higher than normal controls on most subscales.
Comedians > actors for three subscales.

Mason, Hort and Woo (2015)
Poets: 18.37% met diagnostic criteria for self-reported bipolar
Highest levels of schizotypy for ‘avant-garde’ poets