Lecture 13 Flashcards
What are 4 general premises about personality and health?
- The relationship between personality and biology
- Certain personality characteristics should be adaptive
- Personality plays a role in health-related behaviours
o Differential importance of traits
o Short-term vs. long-term effect differences - Individual differences in how people respond to and cope with stressful and traumatic experiences
o Coping styles (problem–, emotion–, and avoidance-focused)
What are 4 theoretical models of personality and health?
- The Constitutional Risk Factor Model (a.k.a. The etiologic trait model)
- The Illness Behaviour Model (a.k.a. The health process model)
- The Stress Moderation-Mediation Model
- The Stress Generation Model (Selye, 1977)
What is the Constitutional Risk Factor Model (a.k.a. The etiologic trait model)?
o Personality is an independent risk factor
o Both personality and health are influenced by biology
o Individual differences (primarily) occur due to genetic factors
♣ E.g. Sensation seeking as a constitutional risk factor
• D4 receptor gene (high), MAO (low), EP (high), gender (males)
What is the Illness Behaviour Model (a.k.a. The health process model)?
o Health behaviours mediate the personality-disease link
o Health behaviours and personality show predictable associations
o The role of personal choice and responsibility (e.g. Conscientiousness)
What is the The Stress Moderation-Mediation Model?
o Personality mediates or moderates the impact of stress on health outcomes
What is the Stress Generation Model (Selye, 1977)?
o The tendency of certain people to make things more stressful for themselves (by choice)
What are the 5 personality types?
- Type A personality
- Type B personality
- Type C personality
- Type D personality
- The Hardy personality
What is Type A personality (Friedman & Rosenman, 1959; 1974)?
o An intense and competitive achievement-oriented type (the opposite of the Type B personality)
♣ A strong competitive drive
♣ Intense desire to meet goals that are, at times, (too) ambitious
♣ A strong need for public recognition and achievement
♣ Impatience
♣ Persistent and vigorous mental and physical activities
♣ High levels of mental alertness
♣ High levels of trait aggression-hostility
• Proneness to cardiovascular disease
What is Type C personality?
o The personality type of emotionally contained people
♣ An increased tendency to experience stress
♣ Inability or unwillingness to express emotions
♣ A sense of helplessness and hopelessness
♣ Disrupted social support
♣ History of early loss and insecure parental attachment
• Affects cancer proneness and increases disease progression
What is Type D personality?
o The distress-prone personality (high N & P, low E)
♣ Negative affectivity
♣ Social inhibition: inhibition of the public expression of negative emotions
♣ Fewer affiliative ties, greater fear of strangers
♣ High interpersonal distress
♣ Constant attempts to suppress emotional expressions
• Up to six-fold increase in risk of coronary heart disease
What is the Hardy personality?
o A protective, resiliency factor (a buffering effect)
♣ Control (internal locus)
♣ Commitment (sense of purpose and meaningfulness in one’s life)
♣ Challenge (recognition that change occurs and obstacles arise)
o All the above components need to be present for this type to have a positive influence on health outcomes
o Emphasis on positive psychology (promoting well-being)
o Hardiness training decreases anxiety and depression, and increases self-confidence
What is ‘hardiness’?
o Hardiness: A specific orientation toward the self and the world
What are the issues and concerns related to personality and health?
- Health as a categorical vs. continuous variable (levels of functioning)
- Biases in self-reporting of illness
- Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal changes
- The case of optimism and pessimism
- Health locus of control
What is the issue of biases in self-reporting of illness in personality and health?
o Frequency vs. intensity of symptoms
♣ Naïve realism: The mistaken belief that health self-reports are an accurate and objective reflection of one’s health status
o The effects of Neuroticism
♣ The psychosomatic hypothesis: Neuroticism may exaggerate (perception of) health problems
♣ The disability hypothesis: Illness results in higher levels of negative affect
♣ The symptom perception hypothesis: Neuroticism is accompanied by greater attentiveness to somatic cues
What is the issue of cross-sectional vs. longitudinal changes in personality and health?
o The problem of temporal antecedence
