Week 13 Flashcards
Personality - McAdams and Pals Integrative Approach
Trying to provide an integrative approach to the self
5 principles
- evolution and human nature (contextual)
- dispositional signature: traits (5FM - inbuilt tendencies)
- characteristic adaptations (as we go through our lives, we learn and adapt - the way we adapt characterises our personality)
- life narratives and identity (our life story)
- role of culture
Humanistic psychologist
How do these all relate together
Personality traits are shaped by human nature, culture (display rules - shapes the expression of traits).
Culture has biggest impact on life narratives, and then characteristic adaptations
Life stories and personal identity
Developing your sense of identity
Limitation:
- most of the personality research has originated from the West (ethnocentric biases related to our theories)
- this individualist self may not reflect the entire population - they may not be universal
What is culture
Social framework
- anything that human beings have created
- a pervasive concept that is influential on personality theory
- socialization begins at birth
Focussing on cultural dimensions: where society places value (the individual or the group)
- individualism: give rise to independent sense of self (separate from other people)
- collectivism: give rise to interdependent sense of self (overlapping with others)
Personality correlate = independent or interdependent (i.e. where you subscribe value)
Bandura’s response to Individualism and Collectivism
- this is a false dichotomy (its not actually a unidimensional bipolar scale)
- personal, proxy and collective agency:
–> to be an intentional being (we are not just passive creatures)
–> personal agency - act as an individual w/ intentions
–> proxy agent - acting through a representative (other people acting on your behalf)
–> collective agent - come together with a group and act as a collective
We don’t want to create this overly simplistic division in the world
Theories of personality that claim to be universal
Trait approach (within the person)
- OCEAN as universal (culture does not trait shapes, it just shapes their expression) –> traits remain stable
- geography of personality: culture won’t shape traits, but traits will shape culture (can personality traits help us understand cultural differences - between east and west) –> found that extraversion and openness were the major personality traits distinguishing west from east
- genetic evidence is lacking
Universal approach: evolutionary psychology
- framework for understanding all aspects of what people do guided by principles of natural selection (evolution shapes personality)
- can be difficult to demonstrate evolutionary claims
- how do we account for cultural diversity of gender roles?
Transmitted culture; spread through generations
Evolutionary psych focus on evoked culture: as a response to circumstances –> specifically pathogen prevalence
Where there is greater pathogens, this will shape people’s personalities. (Murray)
- as pathogens increase, extraversion and openness decrease (adaptive response)
Categorical vs PDs
- typical categorical approach: Cluster A = odd, Cluster B= emotional Cluster C=fearful
- dimensional approach due to disatisfaction (too much co-occurrence, inter-rater reliability is poor) –> degrees of disorder
–> looks at 2 major dimensions: impaired personality functioning
–> pathological personality traits based on the 5FM
Prevalence of PDs around the world
Higher income countries have greater prevalence of PDs
- difficult to track this because most of the research is in the US
PDs and person culture clash
Criticisms of trauma research
Criterion A –> expansion of what events count as traumatic? there are so many different types of trauma
Better way to approach trauma is to take an ecological viewpoint - Harvey’s Ecological Model: traumatisation is a complex interaction between the person and the event and the environment (social support, etc) –> i.e. why its difficult to predict who gets traumatised
Complex trauma and Complex PTSD
Emerging concept (not in the DSM)
- complex trauma is trauma occurring in a period of life where individuals have attachment needs in terms of care –> its continuous / ongoing trauma –> involves poly victimisation (made a victim by someone in many types of ways)
PTSD
- over-arousal
- changes in cognition and mood
- flashbacks
Complex PTSD adds aspects of dissociation
Dissociation and DID
- dissociation = separation / disconnection
Models of DID:
- trauma model (traumatisation is a necessary requirement for DID)
- socio-cognitive model (iatrogenic factors, media, trauma)
80% of cases of DID arise in the West
but manifestation may be in terms of possession
Narcissism
- over: out in the open (think they are good and let everyone know)
- covert: hidden (might come across as shy and quiet)
narcissism is associated with aggression (in particular to provocation)
People higher in narcissism have a vulnerable sense of self / ego
Mixed studies to whether people are becoming more narcissistic –>
Twenge showed that scores are getting higher on narcissism
Pathological narcissism
- controversial diagnosis
- problems associated with NPD: was going to be removed from DSM 5, it also manifests in so many different ways
- 2 major dimensions: grandiosity and vulnerability
- cooccurs with antisocial personality disorder
- difficult to treat in therapy because it may be reinforcing narcissism, and because it co-occurs with various disorders
