Trait Theories PT. 2 Flashcards
Does personality change across the lifespan?
Research has examined mean-level changes in the five-factor taxonomy as a function of age
Mean-level change
- for a given personality trait, the degree to which a sample’s mean score changes across time
- EX: how does the mean score for conscientiousness change over time?
- Can result in population-level increases (the shift - between time 1 and time 2 - is evident in the population as a whole)
Mean-level changes in the five factor taxonomy reflect what principle?
maturity principle: as we age, we become more conscientious, dominant (a component of E), agreeable, and emotionally stable (the inverse of N)
What is a personality disorder (PD), according to the DSM?
- A pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates from the expectations of one’s culture
* Manifest in 2 or more of the following: cognition, affect (range, intensity, and appropriateness of intense emotions), interpersonal functioning, impulse control - Pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations
- The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
- The enduring pattern is stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back to adolescence or early adulthood
The DSM-V identifies 10 personality disorders, organized into 3 clusters:
- Cluster A, eccentric
- Cluster B, erratic
- Cluster C, anxious
Cluster A
eccentric: social awkwardness, odd or eccentric behaviour
Cluster B
erratic: reduced emotional control
Cluster C
anxious: anxiety-avoiding behaviour
Cluster A PDs:
- Schizotypal PD
Cluster B PDs:
- Antisocial PD
- Borderline PD
- Narcissictic PD
Cluster C PDs
- Avoidant PD
- Obsessive compulsive PD
Schizotypal PD
- Cluster A
- a pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortion and eccentricities of behaviours
Schizotypal PD: Manifest in…
- Ideas of reference (incorrect interpretations of casual external events as having a particular and unusual meaning specific to that person. EX: seeing a billboard, seeing that its targeted/pointed directly to them)
- Magical thinking/odd beliefs that influences behaviour
- Unusual perceptual experiences, including bodily illusions
- Off thinking and speech
- **Paranoid ideation/suspiciousness **
- Inappropriate or constricted ideation
- Inappropriate or constricted affect
- Behaviour or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar
- Lack of close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
- Excessive social anxiety that does not diminish with familiarity and tends to be associated with paranoid fears
Antisocial PD
- Cluster B
- A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others
Antisocial PD: Manifests in…
- Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
- Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, using aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
- Impulsivity, or failure to plan ahead
- Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
- Reckless disregard for others
- Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour or honour financial obligations
- Indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
Antisocial PD vs. psychopathy:
- Behavioural features: parasitic lifestyle, poor behavioural control, promiscuous sexual behaviour, early behaviour problems, lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, failure to accept responsibility for actions, juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility
- P: Affective/interpersonal features: Glibness/superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, need for stimulation/proneness to boredom, pathological lying, manipulative, lack of remorse/guilt, shallow affect, callous/lack of empathy
Borderline PD
- Cluster B
- A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and marked impulsivity
Borderline PD: Manifests in…
- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
- Pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships
- Identity disturbance (unstable self-image or sense of self)
- Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging
- Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour
- Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood
- Chronic feelings of emptiness
- Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger
- Transient ,stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
Narcissistic PD
- Cluster B
- A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy
Narcissistic PD: Manifests in…
- Grandiose self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements/talents, expects to be recognized as superior)
- Fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
- Believes they are “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special people
- Requires excessive admiration
- Sense of entitlement (i.e., expectations of especially favorable treatment/automatic compliance)
- Interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others)
- Lack of empathy
- Envious of others or believes others are envious
- Arrogant, naughty behaviors or attitudes
Avoidant PD
- Cluster C
- A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation
Avoidant PD: Manifest in…
- Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection
- Unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
- Shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
- Preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations
- Inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy
- Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others
- Unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing
Obsessive compulsive PD
- Cluster C
- A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency
Obsessive Compulsive: Manifest in…
- Preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules such that major point of the activity is lost
- Perfectionism that interferes with task completion
- Excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships
- Overconscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values
- Unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects
- Reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others
- Adopts a miserly spending style; money is viewed as something to be hoarded
- Shows rigidity and stubbornness
READINGS
What main question is asked?
“Can personality be modified through intervention?”
Can personality be modified through intervention? - considered in a context of a debate between what two positions?
- The state-affect position
- The cause-correction hypothesis
Answer to the question of: Can personality be modified through intervention?
- Conclude that personality can be modified through intervention, noting that “clinical and nonclinical interventions appear to change personality traits between one fifth to one third of a standard deviation.”
What can these interventions be (to modify personality)?
- Examines a number of moderators—that is, variables that may influence the efficacy of clinical and nonclinical interventions in modifying personality:
- FFM
- Therapeutic method employed (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy, supportive therapy)
- “Presenting problem” that is the focus of therapy (e.g., anxiety disorders, personality disorders), the duration of therapy (e.g., less than one month, more than two months)
- Sex
- Age
Findings suggest that…
- personality can be changed with intention
What do findings regarding changing personality entail us to do?
enables us to move “beyond the false dichotomies posed by prior generations of researchers that painted a picture in which personality traits were either perfectly stable or permanently variable” (i.e., the person-situation debate discussed in The Power of Personality).
Lecture 2
Although the DSM-5 uses categories to differentiate PDs, many theorists argue that they’re flawed - 4 REASONS
What is a personality disorder?
- Subjective identification of diagnostic categories
- Occurrence of comorbid diagnosis (With one PD, likeliness of being diagnosed with a second PD)
- High rate of “PD NOS” (PDs not otherwise specified): is a frequently applied diagnosis, for disorders not listed in the DSM)
- Poor test-retest reliability
- PDs are better represented as extremes on personality dimensions rather than categories
Maladaptive Personality Trait Model and Facets
- Psychoticism
- Disinhibition
- Detachment
- Antagonism
- Negative Affectivity
Meta-analytic findings suggest that PDs may be modified through…
In what situation can we intervene?
We can intervene, when the PD causes social distress
The state-artifact position emphasizes that…
- What appears as personality change may simply be state-level variance.
- For example, during a depressive episode, a person’s emotional stability (neuroticism) scores may decrease because their current state reflects higher negative affect. When the depressive episode resolves, emotional stability scores increase—not because the trait itself changed but because the state shifted.
In contrast, the cause-correction hypothesis posits that…
observed changes in personality traits during interventions are genuine and reflect enduring shifts in the traits themselves, rather than just temporary state changes
