Lecture 5

Question 1

Michael from the office (again)

Answer 1

Possible narcissist

Low A
need to be liked, admired and praised

Question 2

Definition of a personality disorder

Answer 2

Lasting, stable maladaptive pattern of behaviour and inner experience that markedly deviates from a person’s culture and manifested in inappropriate emotions and cognitions, lack of impulse control and chronic deficiencies in interpersonal functioning

MUST BE

recognizable in childhood or adolescence and continues through life

Significant, long term impairment in work and relationships

Question 3

Clusters

Answer 3

A - odd patterns of thinking - paranoid, schizoid, stereotypical

B - erratic patterns of behaviour - antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic

C - erratic patterns of emotions - avoidant, dependent, obsessive compulsive

Question 4

Narcissism traits (3)

What type of tv star?

Answer 4

grandiosity, lack of empathy, need for admiration,

reality tv stars when researched scored highly on this

Question 5

Issues with categorical diagnoses

Answer 5

Mental health is not like physical health
As an example, narcissism has 9 traits. 5 will make a diagnosis. SO it is possible for 2 “narcissists” to have 1 trait in common.

Different psychiatrists diagnose the same person with different traits

Personality is less amenable to categorization than to spectra

Question 6

Axis 1

Answer 6

Acute issues

Usually with a time course and a cause

Categorization might be good here eg I feel sad cos X, might be depression

Question 7

Axis 2

Answer 7

Isn’t a cause

Continuous

Here are the personality disorders
Perhaps not helpful to think of this categorically

Question 8

McCrea & Costa 2009 - outline and stuff prof agrees with (2)

Answer 8

say research shows that Axis-2 diagnostic categories for personality disorders may be classifiable in terms of the five factors

Prof semi agrees

Schizoid disorders are related to Introversion
Anitisocial disorder to low Agreeableness

Question 9

McCrea & Costa 2009 - compulsive disorders

Answer 9

Individuals high in C are prone to compulsive disorders
Scores from actual OCD diagnosed people are LOW C

Prof says high C equals trying to get stuff done efficiently

OCD people are inefficient and slow therefore this is wrong

Question 10

McCrea & Costa 2009 - Histrionic disorders

Answer 10

Are allegedly very high E

But prof says no,

high E people have high Affect when they socialize. You do not get a sense of pathology from them

Question 11

McCrea & Costa 2009 - Dependent disorder

Answer 11

Is linked by them to high A because they are submissive

Prof says submissiveness is low E

Question 12

McAdams on traits and personality disorders

Answer 12

Might involve extreme variations on general personality traits

May also include other things such as fears and motivations, thought patterns, developmental histories etc.

Hence they may include dispositional traits (level 1), Personal concerns (level 2) and internalized life stories (level 3)

Question 13

Five factor model and diagnoses - dimensional personality disorder diagnosis

Evidence

should it be used for diagnosis?

Answer 13

Hopwood (2016) the time has come for dimensional personality disorder diagnosis.

Five Factor Model (FFM) has much data

Cross cultural validity
Childhood antecedents
Temporal stability
predictability of life course
Highly predictive of positive and negative outcomes
Multivariate behavioral genetic evidence (and even molecular evidence foir N)
Neurobiological correlates

SO, given all this evidence, why use a categorical model of diagnosis based on 1920s psychoanalysis?

Question 14

DSM 5 (2013): what do you assess (2 things)

Answer 14

Assess

(1) Elements of personality functioning
(2) Extremity on pathological personality domains

Question 15

Alternative DSM model part A

Answer 15

SELF

Identity - clear sense of self. DO they now how others see them. Unique, clear boundaries between the self and others. The stability of self-esteem and accuracy of self-appraisal. Capacity to regulate emotions

Self-direction - Pursuit of coherent and meaningful short term goals.

Rate this from 1-5. 1 is great, 2 ok, 3-5 go onto next part. Probably personality issue.

INTERPERSONAL
Empathy - has it

Intimacy - Appreciation for and depth of relationship with others. Reciprocity is very important here, have they maintained a relationship with them.

Question 16

Alternative DSM model part B - pathological personality domains

Answer 16

Is a series of 5 assessed with a questionnaire of 210 items

Negatave affectivity - emotional stability (N)
Detachement vs extroversion (E)
Antagonism vs agreeableness (A)
Disinhibitiion vs Conscientiousness (C)
Psychoticism vs lucidity (O)?

Question 17

Disinhibition

Answer 17

A great description for low C

inability to control yourself

Question 18

pathological personality domains - making it

Answer 18

Lexical approach

List of negative or pathological terms

Boiled down to 25 distinct dimensions

Factor analysis

Came up with 5, hoped they would match the big 5. 4 did.

Question 19

Assessing the pathological personality domains

Answer 19

Compared it to the big 5. Versy strong match for C E A & N

None for O and psychoticism vs lucidity

The authors say doing this AND the big 5 gives you more than just the big 5 alone

Question 20

Description of openness

did the pathological personality domains get at this?

Answer 20

reflects a culture’s interest in creativity, intellect and imagination, contrasting being open-minded unusual, odd, weird, creative, peculiar and unconventional with being close minded, practical, conventional and rigid.

What they were getting at was loose, disordered thinking. not the same thing. Probably why it did not work?

Question 21

What are the 6 disorders serious personality researchers think there is evidence for?

Answer 21

Antisocial
Borderline
Avoidant
Schizotypical
Narcissistic
Obsessive Compulsive

Question 22

Narcism has two things

Answer 22

Grandiosity

Attention seeking

Question 23

How to diagnose

Answer 23

1) work out if there is an issue in self or interpersonal stuff

Rate this from 1-5. 1 is great, 2 ok, 3-5 go onto next part. Probably personality issue.

Then give the scales

Then look at the trait domains within the scales

Compare to known patterns = diagnostic

Question 24

A system for the positive? VIA Classification

Answer 24

Yes! Seigleman and peterson

6 overarching virtues and 24 charecter strengths

Question 25

Making VIA classification

Answer 25

Large sample of religious and philosophical works

Took adjectives used to describe great people

Collected themes

Made system of 6 main virtues and 24 character strengths

Question 26

When you do the VIA test, what do you get?

Answer 26

Costs 50 dollars

Get 3 key character strengths

Question 27

Concerns with VIA

Answer 27

Empirical foundation?

When you do a factor analysis on their data sometimes 3, 4 or 5 virtues come out. It is not stable

They did not use natural language, instead religion and philosophy. Not the best idea.

Predictive validity?

If you take the three virtues they give you, you can predict things. You could get all of that from the big 5 though and you would not have to pay

Question 28

Can the big 5 be used with individuals who display extremely positive traits?

Answer 28

Yes. The big 5 capture everything the VIA model does

If you want to describe someone great to someone, you need really just the big 5 data and anecdotes about them being great (which is level 3 of personality).

You do not need the expensive and complex VIA model because this adds nothing.

Question 29

Can the big 5 be used with individuals who display extremely negative traits?

Answer 29

Seems likely we will move away from a category based diagnosis model to a dimensional system in psycho pathological diagnosis soon. The newer DSM V alternative diagnosis model is going to be useful, uses the big 5 and has already been shown to be effective.