Lecture 11 Flashcards
What are the 6 general premises/assumptions in Personality?
- Personality is highly interpersonal
- Expression and perception of one’s interpersonal personality traits play an important role in the quality of relationships
- Psychological needs (e.g. Murray, Adler, Maslow) tend to have a clear interpersonal emphasis
- Parental styles and peer influences are central to personality development
- Personality development is based on the interaction between the concept of the self and the concept of others
- Persona: The “masks” worn when one publicly expresses their personality to other people
What is a ‘persona’?
Persona: The “masks” worn when one publicly expresses their personality to other people
Who created the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (1953)?
Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949)
What is the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?
- The first systematic personality theory that was entirely interpersonal
o Personality has meaning only in how people interact with each other
o Parents play a crucial role in personality development
o Interpersonal relationships shape personality
♣ We construct our self-images from the appraisals provided to us by significant others
♣ Variability is due to changing social situations
What is “personality” in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?
o “Personality is the relatively enduring pattern of recurrent interpersonal situations, which characterise a human life”
In the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, how is anxiety related to the self?
o Anxiety is central to the self and its development
What is the ‘theorem of escape’ in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?
♣ Theorem of escape: We tend to resist experiences that evoke feelings of anxiety
What is the ‘theorem of reciprocal emotions’ in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?
♣ Theorem of reciprocal emotions: Other people influence our emotions, and we, in turn, influence their emotions as well
What are ‘personifications’ in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?
o Personifications: Mental prototypes (cognitive categories, schemas) that influence our perception of the self, others, and the self in relationships (the good-me, the bad-me, the not-me)
What are the two orthogonal dimensions that Timothy Leary (1920-1996) proposed interpersonal behaviour can be represented on?
o Affiliation vs. Hostility (a.k.a. Love vs. Hate; or Communion)
♣ Nurturance, warmth, solidarity, dissociation, remoteness, coldness
o Power vs. Submission (a.k.a. Dominance vs. Submission; or Agency)
♣ Dominant, independence, status-driven, passivity, weakness, submission
What is needed in the two orthogonal dimensions of interpersonal behaviour to lead to personal adjustment?
o A healthy balance on the dimensions of (Affiliation vs. Hostility) and (Power vs. Submission) lead to personal adjustment
What is Gerry Wiggins’ (1991) Interpersonal Circumplex?
- Used Leary’s et al. dimensions to mathematically generate
a circular representation of personality
o Further subdivided in eight major octants
o Scores further away from the centre indicate
dominant, intense and rigid personality traits
What is attachment?
- Attachment: The tendency of humans to form strong affectional bonds to differentiated and preferred others
What are attachment styles?
- Attachment styles: Self-schemata, which represent the measure of the quality of the attachment bond
What is Attachment Theory (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1969)?
o Attachment is a modulator of anxiety
♣ As anxiety increases, so does attachment-based behaviour
o Early attachment experience shapes the person’s cognitive-affective concept of the self as either worthy or unworthy, and of the others as reliable or unreliable
o It frames future expectations regarding relating to others and interpreting others’ behaviour and motives
What are adult attachment styles (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)?
o Adult attachment can be expressed through a variety of relationships
o Most often conceptualised in romantic love
♣ The underlying mechanisms in romantic relationships (e.g. physical contact, caressing, and even baby-talk) are similar to the ones of the child-caregiver attachment
What is a strong predictor of the type of attachments in later age?
Early-life attachment
What is Bartholomew’s (1991) Attachment Style Model?
o Adult attachment model consisting of four styles
- Refined Hazan & Shaver’s typology and, by integrating Bowlby’s model of the self and the other, proposed a four-style model for adult attachment
What are the four styles of Bartholomew’s Attachment Style Model?
o Secure: People comfortable with intimacy and autonomy
o Preoccupied: Preoccupied with relationships and strive for self-acceptance
o Fearful: Individuals who tend to avoid close involvement with others
o Dismissing: Those who maintain a sense of independence and invulnerability
How was Bartholomew’s model extended (Brennan, Shaver & Tobey, 1991-today)?
- Adult attachment can be represented as having a two-dimensional
(anxiety-avoidance) higher structure - Orthogonal
- Prefer dimensions
What are the two dimensions of Bartholomew’s extended model of adult attachment (Brennan, Shaver & Tobey, 1991-today)?
o Anxiety dimension: Need for approval
o Avoidance dimension: Discomfort with closeness and
dependence on others
What are the 6 issues surrounding the construct of attachment styles?
- Indecision over whether to conceptualise as categories or dimensions
- Stability over time
- Attachment and personality
- Attachment injury
- Styles vs. traits (the individual-centred approach)
- Psychopathology
What is the issue with stability over time in attachment styles?
o Possible changes in response to life events
♣ Relationship status can predict attachment styles
• E.g. Neuroticism levels drop once entering into a stable relationship
o Healthy individuals are more likely to adjust/adapt
o Temporary fluctuations
What is the issue with ‘attachment and personality’ in attachment styles?
- Attachment and personality
o Attachment theory offers both distal and proximal explanations of the emergence and stability of personality
o Individuals with insecure attachment tend to be higher mainly in neuroticism (r-range: .40-.50) and in part in psychoticism and introversion (r=.20) (Fraley & Shaver, 2008)
o Insecure attachments relate to shame, anger, fear, negative emotional evaluation and risk behaviours
o Attachment has genetic markers similar to personality (anxious-dopamine, avoidant-serotonin) (Gillath et al., 2008)
What is ‘attachment injury’?
- Attachment injury: Specific acts of betrayal in a romantic relationship
What is the issue with psychopathology in attachment styles?
o Men with preoccupied or fearful attachments show greater psychological and physical abuse
o Women are more violent if their partners are anxious about abandonment
o The functionality of the familial environment plays a catalytic role in the development of psychopathology
o The idea of dysfunctional attachment is present in the language of all personality disorders
o Insecure attachment has been linked to anxiety and mood disorders, borderline, dependent, schizotypal, and avoidant personality disorders
