Personality and psychopathology

Question 1

How does the DSM relate to culture?

Answer 1

• many disorders are defined as things that deviate from the norm
• the norm is culturally influenced

Question 2

Personality disorders

Answer 2

• enduring patterns of experience and behavior that deviate from culture (expectations and norms)
• pattern is inflexible and rigid
• leads to distress or impairment
• stable, can be traced back to young adulthood
• not due to other disorder (debatable), or drugs

Question 3

How do traits seem to relate to personality disorders?

Answer 3

• many personality disorders seem to be extreme versions of adaptive traits
• many disorders can be described by pattern of big five traits

Question 4

-Structures of personality and their relevance to psychopathology

Answer 4

• personality and psychopathology are on a continuum
• e.g., everyone is at risk for depression, but people higher in neuroticism might be more likely to develop MDD
• many types of psychopathology are stable and trait like
• many conceptually distinct disorders are in fact related to each other empirically

Question 5

Co-morbidity and Psychopathology

Answer 5

-twins assessed for DSM mental disorders
-dimensions of: internalizing and externalizing disorders
-both men and women: negative emotionality associated with internalizing, and less constraint associated with externalizing
-for women: negative correlation between positive emotionality and internalizing disorders
(shows how clinical symptoms are correlated with personality)

Question 6

Personality in terms of the diathesis stress model

Answer 6

-personality might be the diathesis

Question 7

Does personality predict the likelihood of being clinically depressed?

Answer 7

• twins
• neuroticism predicts risk for MDD
• relation between neuroticism and MDD mainly due to genes/genetic predisposition

Question 8

MDD and maltreatment

Answer 8

• long allele (more serotonin, less negative affect) means less of a predisposition to MDD
• l/l showed no difference in development of MDD even with severe maltreatment
• s/l showed some impact, s/s shows most impact
• at no maltreatment, no difference between three groups, but large differences under maltreatment

Question 9

Specific disorders should not be studied in isolation

Answer 9

we should be looking at:

• negative emotionality
• positve emotionality
• cognitive processes
• social processes
• arousal/regulatory processes