Personality and Applied Contexts

Question 1

Health Psychology and How it Links to Personality

Answer 1

• trying to explain the likelihood to which people will engage in practice behaviours to be healthy

-> personality has a role to play (i.e. as one of the first factors which are looked at in model as it predicts everything else that comes into the model / health motivation is a lot of big one of these as well)

Question 2

Theory of Planned Behaviour

Answer 2

• looking at TPB, health behaviours and background factors -> all about individual differences in beliefs and perceived behavioural control

Question 3

What is Rotter’s Locus of Control?

Answer 3

A Learning Theory Approach -> degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces, have control over the outcome of events in their lives

Question 4

What are the two dimensions in Locus of Control?

Answer 4

Internal – outcomes are under one’s control

External– outcomes are under the control of external factors (e.g. luck)

Question 5

What is Multidimensional Locus of Control

Answer 5

The Idea that there are three sub scales to LoC

Question 6

What are the three dimensions in multidimensional LoC?

Answer 6

Internal – outcomes are under one’s control

Powerful others – outcomes are under the control of powerful others (e.g. government)

Chance – outcomes happen by chance (e.g. luck)

Question 7

What is Multidimensional Health LOC Scale (Wallston & Wallston, 1978)

Answer 7

It assesses three components -> three sub scales to represent the three LoC factors

Question 8

What are the three LOC factors

Answer 8

1. Internal Health Locus of Control“
   The main thing which affects my health is what I do myself”
2. Powerful Others Health Locus of Control
   “Regarding my health, I can only do what my doctor tells me to do”
   [“The type of help I receive from other people determines how soon my condition improves” – 4 factor scale]
3. Chance Health Locus of Control
   “No matter what I do, if I am going to get sick, I will get sick”

Question 9

Morowatisharifabad et al. (2009) looked at Health Locus of Control and Adherence to the Diabetes Regime in 120 Diabetic Iranian patients. The HLoC scale was developed by Ferraro et al. (1987) specifically relating to diabetes.

Some items in the scale included
* I: “If I take the right actions, I can keep my diabetes under control”
* PO (power of others): “Having regular contact with my doctor is the best way for me to keep my diabetes under control”
* C (chance): “ If it’s meant to be, my diabetes will stay under control”

Patients were asked questions about how much they adhered to the Diabetes regime, filling out a Diabetes self-care activities scale i.e. How many in the past 7 days have you adhered to… e.g. healthy diet/insulin injections

What did they find?

Answer 9

Only Internal Health LoC was positively related to sticking to the diabetes regime

*if we know people have these behaviours, can we get them to become internal so they can better look after their health

Question 10

Cheung et al. (2016) ran a meta-analysis looking at HLoC, health outcomes and behaviours. It was found that Internal HLoC was associated with:

Answer 10

• Greater degree of exercise and healthy diet
• Higher levels of mental and physical quality of life
• Lower levels of depression and anxiety

Question 11

Cheung et al. (2016) ran a meta-analysis looking at HLoC, health outcomes and behaviours. It was found that Power of Others HLoC was associated with:

Answer 11

• Lower levels of alcohol consumption
• Higher levels of physical quality of life
• Higher levels of depression and anxiety

Question 12

Cheung et al. (2016) ran a meta-analysis looking at HLoC, health outcomes and behaviours. It was found that Chance HLoC was associated with:

Answer 12

• Poor diet
• Smoking
• Lower mental and physical quality of life
• Higher levels of depression and anxiety

Question 13

Jacobs-Lawson et al., 2011 looked at associations between other factors and HLoC later on in life.

• Demographic info (e.g. marital status)
• HLoC
• Number of ailments (older you get you believe (powerful others) doctors etc have key role to play) or diseases
• Medication use
• Comparative self-rated health (state of health compared to others)
• Future time perspective (e.g. following advice for future gains - follow healthy behaviours now, so you don’t get sick in the future)
• Health self-efficacy (confidence in managing own health)
• Health risk-aversion (aversion to taking risks that affect health - how risk aversed are you in your behaviours)

What did they find?

Answer 13

Education: linked to internal and powerful others (more educated you are, more likely you are to have an associate education as positvely related to internal but in this particular study we need to bear in mind the age of this sample – older you are, you are less likely to believe everything is within your control, instead things tend to go wrong and it’s dependent on other things, not yourself)

Marriage status: believed PO had an effect on their health (whatever your spouse is doing – this may influence your health)

Comparative self-rated health: if you believe that health is totally under control, will believe their health is better than those of a similar age

N of ailments: more ailments, may need to see medical prefessionals to sort this out – your health is in hands of medical professionals BUT more ailments, the less likely you are to believe that this is down to chance – instead its down to PO

Future TP: put in work now to be healthy in long term – negatively related to chance (individuals will tend to engage in exercise, and therefore are less likely to believe their future health is determine in chance)

Self-efficacy: more internal
Health-risk behaviours: more likely to engage in risky behaviour, less likely to believe health is down to others, but more likely to believe it’s down to chance – don’t think the risk of these behaviours will change your health, instead it is down to chance

Question 14

What is Self-efficacy?

Answer 14

• stems from learning theory approach to personality
• belief in one’s ability to accomplish a goal or carry out an actual
• general (how confident you are as a person) and specific (health) measures of self-efficacy are available
• high levels are generally associated with more positive outcomes

Question 15

Self-efficacy in Terms of Health

Answer 15

• can impact behaviour change relating to health (e.g. increasing exercise, giving up smoking)
• can impact self-care or self-management of diseases or conditions (even if it’s a relatively long-term/short-term condition)

Question 16

Peters et al., (2019) studied self-efficacy in a sample managing chronic disease.

848 participants were studied and measured via questionaires.
* Demographics (age, gender, occupation etc.)
* Self-efficacy for managing chronic disease
*Quality of life:
* Living well with long term condition
* General health status
* Overall health on day of questionnaire (i.e. how healthy do you believe you are today)
* Disease burden (degree to which disease interferes with daily life)
Ran three regressions with various control variables including disease burden, demographics (age, gender, marital status, occupation), MH conditions and others.

Ran three regressions with various control variables including disease burden, demographics (age, gender, marital status, occupation), MH conditions and others. They found that self-efficacy predicted…

Answer 16

1. General health status (0.54, p<.001)
2. Overall health on the day (0.68, p<.001)
3. Living well with long term condition (0.71, p<.001)

Self-efficacy was quite significantly related to these kind out outcomes (and positive kind of beliefs)

Question 17

Alexander et al., (2019) studied self-efficacy and smoking cessation; included the role of perceived discrimination in self-efficacy levels (looking at stopping smoking -> how did self-efficacy feed into the likelihood of that when there’s perceived discrimination). What did they find?

Answer 17

The more likely there were to perceive being discriminated, the lower self-efficacy was

High level of Self-efficacy were related to lower levels of smoking (except for week three -> as there was some missing data)

HIGH SELF-EFFICACY -> MORE LIKELY TO GIVE UP SMOKING

Question 18

Zhang et al., 2019 studied Modifying Health Self-Efficacy by looking at 86 patients with chronic heart failure -> individuals who have to keep an eye and engage in healthy behaviours to avoid getting sick.

Patients were randomly allocated to one of two groups:
Control: Standard information provided (i.e. normal info on how to look after yourself, explaining what heart failure is, how to solve some issues)
Observation group: Trained staff, individualised exercise programmes tailored to each particular individual, level of accountability for adhering to exercise (family member to make sure they were doing these exercises), self-management programme (i.e. training on reflective thinking/relaxation techniques and other strategies to help manage that condition).

Measures taken at follow up:
* Chronic disease self-efficacy
* Self-management behaviour
* Quality of life
* Patient satisfaction

What did they find with patients in the observation group?

Answer 18

• higher levels of patient satisfaction
• higher levels of self-management abilities
• higher quality of life scores

higher level of self-efficacy: self-efficacy can be trained to get better and to equal better health outcomes/problems

Question 19

What is the Dyadic approach to personality-health relationship? *how does personality of partner’s affect your own health behaviours

Answer 19

• based on effect of social environment
• romantic partners mutually affect each other’s mental, physical health and health related behaviours

Question 20

How have personality of partner been found to be related to health outcomes for individual

Answer 20

• Conscientiousness predicts spouses’ health outcomes (Roberts et al, 2009)
• Neuroticism predicts partners’ poorer health (Gray & Pinchot, 2018)
• Openness and Extraversion predict better health (Gray & Pinchot, 2018)

Question 21

Hudek-Knezevic et al, 2021used the dyadic approach to look at the effect of Dark Triad traits on health-protective behaviours (HPB) -> looking at 188 Croatia couples (married or cohabiting).

Measure (completed for self and partner)
* Dark Triad measured using three separate measures (self-report)

HPB scale measured:
* Personal health practices (e.g. getting enough sleep)
* Safety practices (e.g. having first aid kit at home)
* Preventative health care (e.g. dental check ups)
* Environmental hazard avoidance (e.g. avoid areas of pollution)
* Harmful substance avoidance (e.g. don’t smoke)

]Had to fill out twice, once for themselves and once for their partner (each individual participants has four scores - two for dark triad, two for health-protective behaviours)]

Summarise what they found:

Answer 21

1. For effect of women’s DT traits on HPB
   (a) Only actor effect for Psychopathy (self-reported for both DT and HPB)
2. For effect of men’s DT traits on HPB
   (a) Actor effects for Psychopathy and Machiavellianism (higher levels of these, lower…)(both self-reported and partner reported for both DT and HPB)
   (b) Partner effects for Psychopathy and Machiavellianism (partner-reported DT and both self- and partner-reported HPB)
   (c) Actor (partner’s dark triad score has an effect on your behaviour) and partner (own dark triad score has an effect on partner’s behaviour) effects for Narcissism (partner-reported for both DT and HPB)

Question 22

what is an actors effect?

Answer 22

• your own trait has an association with your own health reported protective behaviour whether its reported by yourself or your partner

measures the association of a person’s score on the predictor to his own score on the outcome

Question 23

Actor Effects (our own traits affecting on Health-protective behaviour whether or not it’s reported by yourself or your partner)

Answer 23

• Both men and women who are high in Psychopathy are less likely to engage in HPBs (though for women, this was only with self-reported data) -> probably related to them being more impulsive / less likely to think about long-term consequences of your actions
• Men who are high in Machiavellianism are less likely to engage in HPBs (both self- and partner reported data) -> not quite good at delaying gratification to protect your health in the long-term -> Machiavellianism tends to have big overlaps with psychopathy (ran another analysis with psychopathy as a control variable -> found the effect reduced massively / was even non-sig for some -> could explain part of psychopathy as well)

Men who are high in Narcissism are less likely to engage in HPBs (only from partner-reported data) -> tend to be engaged in sensation-seeking

Question 24

Partner Effects

Answer 24

• Men who are high in Psychopathy have partners who are less likely to engage in HPBs (only from partner-reported DT -> when women are perceiving, they are less likely to engage in HPB)
• Men who are high in Machiavellianism have partners who are less likely to engage in HPBs (only from partner-reported DT) - this was only from partner recorded dark traid trait- when women are perceiving their partners to be high in DT, they are less likely to engaged in HPBs
• Men who are high in Narcissism have partners who are less likely to engage in HPBs (only from partner-reported DT and HPB)

**may be when your partner’s personality is affecting your HPB it might just be your perception of their personality

Question 25

What is the conclusion of this research?

Answer 25

• Men’s Psychopathy and Machiavellianism has reliable negative associations with their own HPBs and to some extent their partner’s HPBs (but there could be measurement issues with Machiavellianism)
• Provide further evidence that social context you find yourselves in and relationships with others can have an effect on our own health

Question 26

Hagger-Johnson and Whiteman (2008) came up with the 5 Ts which can help with interventions and the role that personality can play. What are the 5 Ts?

Answer 26

1. Targeting
2. Tailoring
3. Training
4. Treatment
5. Transformation

Question 27

Targeting

Answer 27

Target the traits that are linked to different health outcomes (targeting a specific group of people, their personality and how they looked at different health outcomes, can help us design our interventions)

Question 28

Tailoring

Answer 28

Design tailored materials for patients (design in specific ways at a material level)

Question 29

Training

Answer 29

modifying personality (training people to change their personality so their personality leads to better outcomes)

Question 30

Treatment

Answer 30

some medications can change/alter personality (be mindful of meds which can cause personality changes, how we then have to alter the way in which we support them)

Question 31

Transformation

Answer 31

track changes in personality throughout course of disease or illness (tracking changes of personality throughout a disease or illness)

Question 32

What is a Health Psychologist?

Answer 32

• Promote wellbeing and physical fitness through the use of their skills and knowledge in Psychology and Health
• Support people with the psychological and emotional aspects of health and illness
• Promote healthy living
• Advisory role to improve healthcare systems

Question 33

What’s the difference between trait and state anxiety?

Answer 33

Trait anxiety: underlying stable characteristic that affects behaviours, thoughts and emotions

State anxiety: anxiety evoked by a specific situation or event. Transient in nature (depends on a specific situation)

Question 34

People high in trait anxiety are more likely to experience…

Answer 34

…state anxiety and to a higher level than those low in trait anxiety

Question 35

What are two models with explain poor performance (in state and trait anxiety) in high pressure settings

Answer 35

• Distraction Model
• Self-focus Model

Question 36

What is the Distraction Model?

Answer 36

increase in arousal leads to attention to irrelevant cues and thus distraction

Question 37

What is the Self-focus Model?

Answer 37

conscious monitoring of a skill that has become automated leads to poor performance (flip from doing something automatically but once it’s high pressure, they think of everything in that environment which then affects their performance - people become high in state anxiety when they’re under particular pressure)

Question 38

Horikawa & Yagi (2012) studied trait and state anxiety, and performance in sport with 59 Japanese Male Soccer Players. They measured trait anxiety levels finding the group mean score = 23.1 (SD = 8.67)

They sorted into two groups of extreme anxiety to be involved in the study
Below 1SD = Low trait anxiety group
Above 1 SD = High trait anxiety group
Final sample = 16 participants matched on
* Years of experience (more than 10 yrs)
* Kicking legs (left or right)
* Skill levels

There was no goal keeper (reducing the effect of a goal keeper variable) -> took baseline state anxiety score before they started before engaging two conditions

Two conditions (within):
○ Control (Day 1): 10 Penalties
○ Pressure (Day 2): 10 Penalties. Told to shoot more successfully than Control condition and to be more competitive, told of inflated success rates of others

On each day state anxiety scores taken again after instructions but before penalties

What did they find?

Answer 38

• Pressure condition resulted in fewer goals than the control condition (so the manipulation works)
• High trait anxiety group had higher state anxiety scores in both conditions compared to low trait anxiety group
• State anxiety was higher in pressure condition but only for the high trait anxiety group
• High trait anxiety group, state anxiety was significantly higher in the high pressure condition compared to control condition (higher in trait anxiety, tend to be affected more in high state anxiety conditions)

Question 39

What was the overall findings of the football experiment?

Answer 39

Higher levels of trait anxiety tends to have higher state anxiety which interferes with performance

Question 40

Geukes et al., 2017 looked at 53 semi-professional basketball players, studying anxiety and performance. They looked at variables of interest..
* Fear of negative evaluation (measure of trait anxiety)
* Movement specific reinvestment
* Athletic identity
* Pre-competitive state anxiety (cognitive, somatic, and confidence)
* Performance (% of successful free-throws/30 for LP and in the whole game for HP)

Procedure:
1. Identity, fear of negative evaluation and reinvestment measures taken

2. Low pressure stage: in private setting in their training venue
   
   • Rated importance of situation, and completed state anxiety Q
   • Then had 5 warm up shoots followed by two blocks of 15 shots (=30)
3. High pressure stage: real world games (12 games in season)
   
   • Rated importance of situation, and completed state anxiety Q 5 mins before each game
   • Formal verification of successful free-throw attempts (officials and players)

What did they find?

Answer 40

• HP condition higher in importance, somatic and cognitive state anxiety, confidence and performance is lower
• LP higher in confidence state anxiety, and performance

Question 41

Geukes et al., 2017 Low Pressure stage findings:

Answer 41

none of the personality trait variables or the anxiety related states were significant predictors

Question 42

Geukes et al., 2017 High Pressure stage findings:

Answer 42

• Fear of negative evaluation negatively predicted performance
• Somatic and cognitive anxiety negatively predicted performance
• Confidence positively predicted performance

Shows that both state and trait anxiety affect performance in real world high pressure contexts (when in high pressure context, if your predetermined to have a higher trait anxiety, you’re more likely to have higher state anxiety)

Question 43

What is emotional intelligence?

Answer 43

“the ability to understand your own emotions and those of people around you” Maltby & Day (2017), p364

Question 44

Mayer and Salovey (1997) propose a 4 branch model for emotional intelligence. What are they?

Answer 44

1. Accurately perceiving emotions [Experiential]
2. Using emotions to facilitate thinking [Experiential] (use your nervous energy to facilitate your thinking)
3. Understanding emotional meanings [Strategic] (being able to label the emotions and recognise the relationship between different types of emotions as well - release the links between an emotion and something else)
4. Managing emotions [Strategic] (being able to pull yourself out of that situation and think if they’re reasonable within that situation)

^ these are further grouped into two sections: experiential (you tend to get better at these things through experience) and strategic (being able to plan and have intended outcomes through your emotions - a lot more likely to do better and understand and manage your emotions)

Question 45

How is emotional intelligence linked to sport?

Answer 45

• Coaching staff require leadership skills including EI - able to manage everyone’s emotions and being able to put aside their own emotions in that time
• Disappointments in sports are common and coach/manager needs to handle them appropriately to ensure future success
• Skills required involve those associated with EI

Question 46

Athletes need emotional intelligence to be able to..

Answer 46

• Deal with stressors (e.g. anxiety)
• Understand how their emotions affect performance particularly when setting long term goals (you can’t let things affect your performance, and therefore your long-term goal
• Interact effectively with others around you (e.g. team mates, coaches)

Question 47

Crombie et al., 2009 looked at EI and Sport Performance in 6 teams in South African 4-day series events.

Measures:
* Mayer-Solvey-Caruso EI Test - measured 4 sub scales individually then calculated average team EI overall and for each of the 4 sub scales
* Performance: Points (10 points win; 6 points tie; bonus points for batting and bowling performance 1-4)

What did they find?

Answer 47

• Team total EI positively predicted number of points
• Perceiving and facilitating facets of EI did not significantly predict number of points
• Understanding and Managing positively predicted number of points (managing to not let it damage your performance) - emotional intelligence affects your performance even greater

Question 48

A meta-analysis of EI and sports performance (Kopp & Jekauc, 2018)
* 21 articles examining competitive sport and EI, 2001-2018
Range of different sports (teams and individual)

What did they find?

Answer 48

Correlation between EI and performance r =.16 p<.001

^Small correlation but could be important
*If you can identify areas which could make a change, even if they’re small, they could still make a difference/be an important aspect to consider

Question 49

Improving EI: Crombie et al. (2011)
N=24 from South African National Cricket Academy (two cohorts)
* Random allocation to control or experimental (intervention) group to try and help them improve their emotional intelligence
* Baseline measure of EI taken from both groups (no difference)

Intervention
* 10 x 3 hr workshops
* Used experiential case studies to show how to develop EI skills
* Element of reflection at end of each workshop
* End of sessions given materials to show participants how to keep an EI diary

EI measure taken at end of programme from both groups

What did they find?

Answer 49

EI scores for intervention group were scoring 14.5% higher in EI than control group (p<.001) at the end of intervention

Question 50

Sport Psychology and Personality:

Answer 50

• Provide counselling to referees to deal with the stressful and demanding aspects of their role
• Advise coaches on how to build cohesion within their squad of athletes
• Help athletes with personal development and the psychological consequences of sustaining an injury.
• Optimise the benefits that can be derived from exercise participation and helping individual clients with the implementation of goal setting strategies
• Practitioners’ typically specialise in either the sport or exercise branches though some work equally in both fields.