Lecture 11

Question 1

What are the 6 general premises/assumptions in Personality?

Answer 1

1. Personality is highly interpersonal
2. Expression and perception of one’s interpersonal personality traits play an important role in the quality of relationships
3. Psychological needs (e.g. Murray, Adler, Maslow) tend to have a clear interpersonal emphasis
4. Parental styles and peer influences are central to personality development
5. Personality development is based on the interaction between the concept of the self and the concept of others
6. Persona: The “masks” worn when one publicly expresses their personality to other people

Question 2

What is a ‘persona’?

Answer 2

Persona: The “masks” worn when one publicly expresses their personality to other people

Question 3

Who created the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (1953)?

Answer 3

Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949)

Question 4

What is the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

What is “personality” in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?

Answer 5

o “Personality is the relatively enduring pattern of recurrent interpersonal situations, which characterise a human life”

Question 6

In the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, how is anxiety related to the self?

Answer 6

o Anxiety is central to the self and its development

Question 7

What is the ‘theorem of escape’ in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?

Answer 7

♣ Theorem of escape: We tend to resist experiences that evoke feelings of anxiety

Question 8

What is the ‘theorem of reciprocal emotions’ in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?

Answer 8

♣ Theorem of reciprocal emotions: Other people influence our emotions, and we, in turn, influence their emotions as well

Question 9

What are ‘personifications’ in the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry?

Answer 9

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)

Question 10

What are the two orthogonal dimensions that Timothy Leary (1920-1996) proposed interpersonal behaviour can be represented on?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What is needed in the two orthogonal dimensions of interpersonal behaviour to lead to personal adjustment?

Answer 11

o A healthy balance on the dimensions of (Affiliation vs. Hostility) and (Power vs. Submission) lead to personal adjustment

Question 12

What is Gerry Wiggins’ (1991) Interpersonal Circumplex?

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

What is attachment?

Answer 13

• Attachment: The tendency of humans to form strong affectional bonds to differentiated and preferred others

Question 14

What are attachment styles?

Answer 14

• Attachment styles: Self-schemata, which represent the measure of the quality of the attachment bond

Question 15

What is Attachment Theory (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1969)?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What are adult attachment styles (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What is a strong predictor of the type of attachments in later age?

Answer 17

Early-life attachment

Question 18

What is Bartholomew’s (1991) Attachment Style Model?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What are the four styles of Bartholomew’s Attachment Style Model?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

How was Bartholomew’s model extended (Brennan, Shaver & Tobey, 1991-today)?

Answer 20

• Adult attachment can be represented as having a two-dimensional
  (anxiety-avoidance) higher structure
• Orthogonal
• Prefer dimensions

Question 21

What are the two dimensions of Bartholomew’s extended model of adult attachment (Brennan, Shaver & Tobey, 1991-today)?

Answer 21

o Anxiety dimension: Need for approval
o Avoidance dimension: Discomfort with closeness and
dependence on others

Question 22

What are the 6 issues surrounding the construct of attachment styles?

Answer 22

1. Indecision over whether to conceptualise as categories or dimensions
2. Stability over time
3. Attachment and personality
4. Attachment injury
5. Styles vs. traits (the individual-centred approach)
6. Psychopathology

Question 23

What is the issue with stability over time in attachment styles?

Answer 23

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

Question 24

What is the issue with ‘attachment and personality’ in attachment styles?

Answer 24

• 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)

Question 25

What is ‘attachment injury’?

Answer 25

• Attachment injury: Specific acts of betrayal in a romantic relationship

Question 26

What is the issue with psychopathology in attachment styles?

Answer 26

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