Summary of Personality Psychology by Larsen and Buss - 1st international edition

Introduction Personality Psychology - Chapter 1

Defining personality

People often use trait-descriptive adjectives in describing their own characteristics and the characteristics of others. They reflect qualities of a person’s mind, attitude towards other people, their effect on other people, their desires and the strategies they use to attain goals. The accepted definition of personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the intra-psychic, physical, and social environments.

Psychological traits

Psychological traits are the characteristics that define how one individual is different or similar to another. For example, shyness and talkativeness are both traits. Traits describe an individual’s average tendencies, rather than their momentary behaviour. The more often someone avoids social situations, the more able we are to call them “shy”. Personality trait research looks into how many traits there are, how they are organized, their origins, and the consequences or correlations of traits. Traits help describe people and understand their differences, and can help explain behaviour. They can also help predict future behaviour and preferences.

Mechanisms

Psychological mechanisms refer to processes of personality. These differ from traits in that they involve information-processing activity. They are made up of three essential ingredients: inputs, decision rules, and outputs. The mechanism might make people sensitive to certain environmental stimuli (input), cause them to consider certain courses of action over others (decision rules), and behave in a certain way (output). Extraversion is a good example of a mechanism.

Individual, organized, enduring

Personality tends to remain from one situation to the next, somewhat stable and consistent. Traits and mechanisms are not simply random, but are organized and linked to one another. Different aspects of personality might be activated according to the specific situation. Traits tend to be enduring, especially in adulthood. In this way, traits differ from states, which are fleeting and momentary. While relatively enduring, traits can change slowly over time.

Influence

Personality traits and mechanisms have an influence on our lives, how we act, how we see ourselves, interact with others, select our environments, set our goals, and react to new stimuli.

Person-environment interaction

Individual interactions with situations include perceptions, selections, evocations and manipulation. Perceptions refer to how we interpret our environment. Selection involves choosing which situations and interactions we choose to enter. Evocations are the reactions we produce in others. Manipulations are the ways we attempt to influence the behaviour of others.

Adaptation

Adaptation, or adaptive functioning, includes the accomplishment of goals, coping, adjustment, and the way we deal with challenges and problems. Some seemingly negative personality traits may actually hold an adaptive function.

Environment

An individual’s environment can pose unique challenges that can directly threat survival. These challenges also exist in the social environment. Environmental challenges motivate behaviours, inspire us to focus our attentions, and force us to cope. Intra-psychic challenges are those that occur within the mind, like self-esteem.

Personality analysis

Three levels of personality and culture include:

1. Human nature (likeness to others)
2. Individual and group differences (likeness to only some others)
3. Individual uniqueness (likeness to no others)

These can also be considered universals, particulars, and uniqueness.

Human nature / likeness to others

Human nature describes the traits and mechanisms of personality that are typical of humans, and possessed by nearly everyone. Included are the need to belong, and the capacity for love.

Individual and group differences / likeness to some others

Individual differences are those ways in which people are only similar to some people (ex. level of extraversion.) When a whole group of people are different from another group, this is called differences between groups (ex. age groups, different cultures, gender).

Individual uniqueness/ likeness to no others

No two individuals are exactly alike, and it is this uniqueness that psychologists are often interested in. Studying individuals nomethetically involves looking at individual differences that are distributed in the population. This is used to identify universal vs. individual traits. Studying individuals ideographically involves looking at single, unique case studies.

Disrupted Field

Because theories about human nature have tended to be general, and actual research tends to be focused on individual and group differences, there is a fissure between the grand theories and contemporary research.

Grand Theories

Sigmund Freud theorized on human nature, emphasizing the instincts of sex and aggression, and a universal structure of id, ego, and superego. He also proposed universal stages of psychosexual development. Grand theories of Freud and many other founding psychologists have been drawn on to formulate contemporary theories and research.

Contemporary research

Much of contemporary research on personality focuses on the differences between individuals and groups. A criticism of current personality research is that rather than recognizing personality as a whole, research focuses mostly on individual aspects of personality. As such, the field of personality might be considered incoherent. Adding the research of many psychologists together, however, can bring up a clearer image.

Six domains of knowledge on human nature

A domain of knowledge is a specialty area of scholarship and science in which there is a specific focus on particular aspects of human nature. Specialization is important as each domain is better able to focus and create its own base of knowledge. Within the each domain, researchers develop common methods for asking questions, known facts, and have developed theoretical explanations to account for these facts. There are six main domains of personality research:

1. Dispositional Domain.

The dispositional domain deals with the way in which individuals differ from each other and how these differences develop and are maintained.

2. Biological Domain

The biological domain is based on the core assumption that much of human thought and behaviour is based on biology. This domain deals with genetics, psychophysiology and evolution. Genetic personality research focuses on the heritability of traits. Psychophysiology research addresses the interaction of the nervous system, hormones, and other physical processes on personality. Evolutionary research addresses the adaptive role of personality and how evolution has determined certain traits to be more crucial for survival than others.

3. Intrapsychic Domain

The intrapsychic domain deals with internal mental processes of personality, often those that operate below conscious awareness. Defense mechanisms and Freudian notions of the subconscious form a basis for intrapsychic research.

4. Cognitive-experiential Domain

The cognitive-experiential domain deals with cognition and the subjective experience, including the mechanisms involved in information processing. It also addresses descriptive aspects of the self, self-esteem, motivation, and emotion.

5. Social/Cultural Domain

The social/cultural domain of personality research asserts that personality is affected by and affects social and cultural context. This includes the study of how men and women interact, how people manipulate others, and how personality affects our social habits.

6. Adjustment Domain

The adjustment domain deals with how we cope with the challenges of everyday life, including health-related behaviours and abnormal or maladjusted personality disorders.

Personality theory

Personality theories serve three functions: they provide a guide for researchers, organize known findings and make predictions about behaviour and psychological phenomena that has not yet been observed. Theories are different than beliefs in that they are based on observed and tested systematic observations.

Standards for evaluating theories

There are five scientific standards used to evaluate personality theories. The first, comprehensiveness, ensures that a good theory explains all the facts and observations within its domain. The second standard is heuristic value, which determines whether the theory can act as a guide to future discoveries. The third is testability, as there should be precise enough predictions that the theory can be legitimately tested. Fourth is parsimony- it is better if a theory contains few premises and assumptions (parsimony). However, some complex theories are still necessary. The fifth scientific standard is a theory’s compatibility with other scientific laws and theories, and its ability to be integrated across domains of knowledge.

Grand ultimate theory

While biology contains a grand unifying theory (evolution), personality research does not currently have one. Freud and other psychologists have proposed some, but they do not meet all the criteria. Work in each of the six domains of personality psychology may ultimately result in such a theory.

Assessing, measuring, and designing research - Chapter 2

Sources of Data

S-Data (Self-Report Data)

The most obvious and most commonly used method of gathering data on personality is self-report. This is obtained through interviews, questionnaires, and systematic personal records. The benefit of self-report is that it can be used to gather information only the individual knows, their own personal feelings, beliefs and private experiences. Open-ended questions are considered unstructured means of information gathering, whereas true/false questions are considered structured. Open-ended instruments require coding schemes to classify responses, in order to obtain measurable data. Common structured tests include the ACL (Adjective Check List) and tests that use the Likert rating scale to measure the degree of agreement. The NEO Personality Inventory and the California Psychological Inventory measure include statements that use the Likert rating scale in this way. Problems with self-report measures include the inability to apply these measurements to unwilling participants, and the inability to account for dishonesty.

O-Data (Observer-Report Data)

Observer-report data is obtained through sources that are able to provide information about a person’s personality (including friends, family, etc.) Observer reports are able to provide information that other sources cannot, such as the unique social reputation a person has, and the ease of their interactions. When multiple observers are used, inter-rater reliability can be established.

Selecting observers

There are two strategies used to select observers: one can either choose professional personality observers or people who actually know the target participants. In the first case, professional observers watch participants in a variety of situations and independently assess their personalities. Personal observers, on the other hand, provide different advantages. They may be in a better position to observe the target’s behaviour in a private context. Multiple social personalities can be assessed – for instance, many people act differently around their spouse than around their coworkers. The main disadvantage to this choice is the existence of bias due to intimate relationships.

Naturalistic and artificial observation

In naturalistic observation, observers witness normal events that occur in the regular routine of a person’s life. This allows for more accurate information, though much less control of conditions. In experimenter-controlled, artificial situations, the advantage of control comes at the cost of realism.

T-Data (Test Data)

Personality-relevant information that comes from standardized tests is called test data. This is used to determine how people differ in reactions to an identical situation. This is often accomplished by misleading participants into believing that something else is being tested for, so that the real subject is more accurate and not skewed by acting. If the participants try to guess what trait is being measured, their responses might alter as they try to give a specific impression. Participants must also see the testing situation in the same ways as the experimenter. These situations are also inherently interpersonal, so the experimenter might unintentionally influence the results. T-data is useful as it allows real behaviour to be elicited and observed, context controlled, and specific hypotheses to be tested.

Recording devices

In some cases, mechanical devices may be used to measure aspects of personality. For example, an actigraph (a device worn on the wrist to measure activity levels) produces accurate results that correspond with those made through observation. Mechanical devices cannot measure most aspects of personality (such as introversion or conscientiousness).

Physiological information

Personality data can be captured using physiological measurements. These can assess arousal level, reactivity to stimuli, speed of information processing, and all things that may indicate personality. Sensors can be used to measure activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Brain waves can be assessed, and brain activity can be pinpointed using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans. Sexual arousal can be measured by gauging the amount of blood flow in the genitals. The startle reflex can be used to test for psychopathy. The downside of testing for physiological data is that most recording must be done in an artificial setting.

Projection

Projective techniques involve giving an individual a standard, ambiguous stimulus and asking what they see. The Rorschach inkblot test is an example of this. The content of the person’s responses is thought to reveal aspects of their personality.

L-Data (Life-Outcome Data)

Information that can be collected from the events, activities, and outcomes of a person’s life is called L-Data. Usually this information is a matter of public record (like marriages and divorces). S-data and O-data can be used to predict L-data. Children who more often exhibit severe temper tantrums have been found (by comparing O-data with later collected L-data) to indicate negative outcomes in adult life. L-data is used to determine car insurance, credit rating, and even targeted advertising on the internet.

Issues involved in assessing personality

Linking various data sources

How closely the findings of one data source correspond to those of another source is an important issue to consider. How well does S-data correspond with O-data, for example? This consistency across data sources depends largely on the personality variable that is being assessed. Some traits are less observable than others. Extraversion shows moderate agreement across data sources, but “calculating” shows less self-observer agreement. By using multiple measures, variables can be ironed out, arriving at information about the real subject of study. One problem is that lack of agreement between measures does not necessarily signify measurement error, as different data sources may have different access to relevant information.

The fallible nature of personality measurement

As scientific measurement is not 100% reliable, strategies must be used to capture the most accurate possible results. The strategy of triangulation involves assessing different measurement results and data sources to transcend single data-sources and come to more credible conclusions.

Evaluating personality measures

Reliability of a measure

Reliability is the degree to which the obtained measure accurately represents the level of the trait being measured. One can estimate reliability in more than one way. The first is repeated measurement, in which the experimenter conducts the same test more than once. If the results correlate, the measure is said to have test-retest reliability. Assessing whether items within a test correlate well with one another is a way to determine internal consistency reliability. In observer-based measures, obtaining measurements from multiple observers can be used to estimate inter-rater reliability.

Responses

The idea of response sets relates to the tendency people have to respond to questions in way that is unrelated to the actual question content. This can also be called non-content responding. Acquiescence is one type of response set in which the participants answers “yes” to questions regardless of content. This is corrected by reverse-scoring some items. Extreme responding is a response set that avoids the middle of a Likert scale, relying on the extremes at either end.

Social desirability

Social desirability is the most researched response set. It involves answering items in a way that makes one seem the most socially attractive or well-adjusted. Social desirability can be viewed as a distortion of data, or as a valid aspect of certain personality traits. Following the assumption that social desirability is a confounding variable that should be eliminated, psychologists use tests to measure this response set and statistically account for the tendency in subsequent test results. Alternately, questionnaires can be developed in ways that minimize the effects of social desirability by asking questions that do not correlate with it. One can also use a forced-choice questionnaire format which forces participants to select between a pair of statements that are equally socially desirable.

Other psychologists view social desirability as a trait in itself that correlates with other positive traits like happiness and adjustment. Some studies show that unrealistically positive and hopeful views about the self and the world are related to better health. In this case, self-deceptive optimism must be separated from impression management.

Validity of a measure

Validity is the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure. There are five types of validity:

1. Face validity: Whether the test, on the surface, appears to measure what it is supposed to measure.
2. Predictive validity: Whether the test predicts external criteria and behaviour that it should predict.
3. Convergent validity: Whether the test correlates with other measures that it should correlate with.
4. Discriminant validity: Whether the test does NOT correlate what it should not correlate with.
5. Construct validity: Whether the test measures what it claims to measure and correlates with what it is supposed to correlate with. Construct validity is based on the notion that personality variables are theoretical constructs, and is the broadest type of validity.

Generalizability of a measure

Whether a measure retains its validity across various contexts is called generalizability. A test may be examined for generalizability across different groups of persons – for example, across people of different ages, socioeconomic status, or ethnic background. It can also be examined for generalizability across different conditions – for example, a test that measures dominance may not be generalizable between work and home conditions.

Development of Measurement Instruments

There are thousands of different measurement instruments. But before a measurement instrument can be used it has to undergo a long period of development and testing.

Scale Development

There are a number of steps to developing a new scale. The first step is determining what you want to measure, called the conceptual definition. You need to know concretely what should be in the scale and what should be left out, and this is usually based on a thorough examination of the literature. The second step is generating items that measure the construct. Different items measure the same construct, but in a slightly different angle. This increases reliability and validity. An item is created by writing and re-writing it until it has adequate face-validity. Usually you create more items than you need so you can later select the best ones. If you have sufficient items you start administering the test to so-called focus groups; groups of people who represent the target population. These focus groups can give feedback on the test.

Scale Diagnostics

The third step is determining reliability and validity. This is done in a pilot-study, preferably with a large sample of participants. Data is then analyzed using statistical means. Test-Retest reliability establishes if a score on a test stays stable over time. Other methods focus on determining whether items can distinguish between low- and high-score individuals. Creating a scale takes very long and is never really done.

Designing personality research

Experimental

Experimental methods are often used to determine causality – whether one variable influences another variable. In order to establish causality, one or more of the variables must be manipulated in some way, and the participants in each condition must be equivalent to one another at the outset of the study. This can be accomplished through random assignment (random placement of participants in experimental groups) or through counterbalancing (switching the order of the conditions). It is important to establish significant differences between groups exposed to altered conditions. To determine this, five things must be known:

1. Sample size
2. Mean: The average.
3. Standard deviation: The measure of variability within each condition.
4. T-test: The difference between two means.
5. P-value: Whether the difference is large enough to be statistically significant.

Correlational

The correlational method is used to determine whether there is a relationship between two variables. The correlation coefficient is a statistical procedure for gauging relationships. Results are charted on a scatterplot and a trend can be calculated. Correlational relationships can be positive or negative in direction. The magnitude of the relationship is also of interest to psychologists. Important to note is that one cannot infer causation from correlations. There may be a directionality problem – it is impossible to know which variable may be the cause. There is also the third variable problem – there may be a third unknown variable that causes both.

Case study

The case study method examines the life of one person in-depth. These can be used to form more general and testable theories, as well as in-depth knowledge about rare phenomena and rare personalities. Among the tools of case study design are personal interviews, coding systems applied to written texts, observation, etc. Case studies are most often used as a source of hypotheses and a means to illustrate a principle.

Traits and taxonomies - Chapter 3

Traits

A trait or disposition is an attribute of a person that is characteristic and enduring over time. The study of personality traits looks at what the most important traits are, how traits are conceptualized, and how we can form a comprehensive taxonomy of traits.

Internal causal properties

When viewing traits as internal causal properties, they are seen to be motivating influences on behaviour. They are considered internal, as they produce desires that are carried over from one situation to the next and that illicit similar behaviour. Other psychologists view traits as internal dispositions that exist with or without being expressed in behaviour.

Purely descriptive summaries

The opposing view of traits sees them as descriptive summaries of attributes, making no assumptions about causality or internal processes. In this case, trait descriptors summarize expressed behaviour and nothing else. This ensures that the cause of a person's behaviour is not prejudged.

Act Frequency Formulation

Those psychologists who endorse the descriptive summary formulation have created a program of research called the act frequency approach. Traits are considered to be categories of acts. The more frequently a person performs acts that fit into a trait category, the higher they are in that trait.

Research Program

The research program of the act frequency approach consists of a couple steps:

1. Act nomination
   This procedure identifies which acts belong to which trait category.
2. Prototypical judgment
   Once acts have been nominated, those that are most prototypical of the trait category must be identified.
3. Recording acts
   This step of the act frequency research program involves the observation of act performance of people in their daily lives. Self-reports and observer-reports are the most common method of collecting this data.

Evaluating the act frequency formulation

There are many criticisms on the formulation of traits on purely descriptive grounds. One issue is that there is no distinguishing point as to how much context is needed when evaluating the trait of an act. One act can be interpreted many ways according to the broader social and situational context. This approach also looks only at overt acts, and does not assess the failure to act. It is also uncertain whether this approach can account for more complex personality traits like the fluctuating self-esteem of someone narcissistic.

The Act Frequency Formulation has made some worthy accomplishments. In making explicit descriptions of behavioural acts that reflect personality, it has provided an excellent resource for identifying regular behavioural patterns, and the difference between those of other cultures.

Identifying important traits

The lexical approach

The lexical hypothesis states that all important differences between people have become encoded in language over time. There have been found to be roughly 18 000 trait-descriptive adjectives in the English language. The lexical approach uses two criteria to identify important trait. The first, synonym frequency, examines how many words there are that refer to a certain trait. The more synonyms, the more likely the trait is an important one. Cross-cultural universality is the second criterion. The idea is that the more important the trait, the more universal its presence in language will be, among all cultures. Considering these criterion, language can be analyzed for the most essential and universal personality traits. Personality nouns have not yet been explored to the same degree. While the lexical approach should not be exclusively depended upon, it makes a good starting point for trait research.

The statistical approach

The statistical approach applies the procedure of factor analysis on data sets taken from self-ratings of trait adjectives. The groups of items are identified by factor analysis by the fact that they covary (go together). Factor loadings are indexes of how much variation in an item can be explained by the factor.

The theoretical approach

This approach begins with a theory that determines which variables are important. For example, the theory of sociosexual orientation suggests that individuals are either monogamous and child-oriented or promiscuous and less invested in parenthood.

Evaluating these approaches

While many psychologists favour one approach over the others, in practice most use a combination of the three.

Taxonomies

Taxonomies of traits are lists of personality traits, a way of better organizing and making sense of them.

Eysenck

Hans Eysenck developed a personality model based on traits that he believed were the most heritable, including extraversion-introversion (E), neuroticism-emotional stability (N), and psychoticism (P). Together they make the acronym PEN.

Each of the three major traits is made up of a number of narrower sub-traits that covary with it. Factor analysis has been an important tool in identifying these.

1. Extraversion (E) includes dominance, sensation-seeking and many other sub-traits. Those high in E tend to surround themselves with people, have a carefree manner, and are highly active. Those low in E (introverts) prefer to spend time alone or with an intimate group of friends.
2. Neuroticism (N) includes anxiety, irritability, guiltiness, low self-esteem, moodiness and shyness, among others. Those high in N tend to have more trouble returning to normal after an upsetting event and often overreact to negative emotions. They tend to be more vigilant to both social and physical threats. The low-N scorer tends to be emotionally stable, even-tempered, and quick to recover from stress.
3. Psychoticism (P) includes sub-traits like aggressiveness, coldness, creativity, egocentrism and impulsivity. Those high in P tend to be higher in a number of negative and dangerous behaviours and traits, such as Machiavellianism, antisocial acts, a penchant for violent films, and low empathy. The low P scorer tends to be more religious.

Hierarchy of PEN

At the lowest level of the hierarchy are specific acts (like talking on the phone or taking a coffee break) which cluster into habitual acts (doing specific acts on a regular basis). Groups of habitual acts make up narrow traits. Clusters of narrow traits, in turn, become super-traits, the highest in the hierarchy.

Both heritability and identifiable physiological substrate are important biological concepts in Eysenck’s personality system. For a trait to be “basic”, it must be highly heritable. It must also have an identifiable physiological substrate, a link with the properties of the brain and the central nervous system. Limits to Eysenck’s personality taxonomy are many – some equally heritable personality traits were left out in favour of extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.

Cattell

Cattell worked closely with Charles Spearman, the inventor of factor analysis. During his career in the United States he set out to identify and measure the basic units of personality. According to Cattell, true factors of personality mused be found across different types of data (including self-reports and laboratory tests). His taxonomy includes 16 basic traits; all labelled (note: order isn’t alphabetical) A: Interpersonal Warmth. B: Intelligence. C: Emotional Stability. E: Dominance. F: Impulsivity. G: Conformity. H: Boldness. I: Sensitivity. L: Suspiciousness. M: Imagination. N: Shrewdness. O: Insecurity. Q1: Radicalism. Q2: Self-Sufficiency. Q3: Self-Discipline. Q4: Tension.

Circumplex taxonomies

Circumplex taxonomies deal with circular representations of personality. Jerry Wiggins began his research into personality with the lexical approach, arguing that trait terms specify the kinds of ways in which people differ. He identified many kinds, including interpersonal trait differences, character traits, temperament traits, material traits, attitude traits, mental traits and physical traits. He was primarily concerned with interpersonal traits.

The dimensions of love and status define the two axes of the Wiggins circumplex, which is used to define interpersonal behaviour. It has the advantage of locating any transaction of the resources of status and love on the circumplex-- giving love or withholding love, granting or denying status. It also specifies relationships between each trait and every other trait in the model. Two traits may be adjacent, close to one another in the circumplex. If this is the case, they are positively correlated. Two traits could be bipolar, located at opposite sides of the circle. These are negatively correlated with each other. Finally, two traits could be orthogonally related, or perpendicular on the model. In cases like these, the traits show no correlation. The circumplex model can help psychologists identify neglected areas of interpersonal study, though it is limited by the simplicity of two dimensions.

Five-factor model

The most well-known and supported taxonomy of personality is the five-factor model. It was originally based on a combination of the lexical and statistical approaches. Allport and Odbert organized trait terms into four lists – stable traits, temporary states/moods, social evaluations, and metaphorical/physical terms. The deeper study of the stable traits using factor analysis allowed psychologists to come up with a five-factor solution, and finally identify the Big Five.

The Big Five:

1) Surgency/extraversion:

• Adventurous vs. Cautious
• Talkative vs. Silent
• Open vs. Secretive
• Sociable vs. Reclusive

2) Agreeableness:

• Cooperative vs. Negativistic
• Mild vs. Headstrong
• Good-natured vs. Irritable
• Not-jealous vs. Jealous

3) Conscientiousness:

• Scrupulous vs. Unscrupulous
• Persevering vs. Quitting
• Responsible vs. Undependable
• Fussy vs. Careless

(4) Emotional stability:

• Composed vs. Excitable
• Poised vs. Nervous
• Calm vs. Anxious

(5) Openness-intellect:

• Intellectual vs. Unreflective
• Imaginative vs. Direct
• Polished vs. Crude
• Artistic vs. Non-artistic

Empirical evidence for the five-factor model

The five-factor model is highly replicable. It can be measured using self-ratings of single-word trait adjectives, or using self-rated sentence items. The NEO-PI-R (neuroticism-extroversion-openness personality inventory, revised) is one of the most commonly used measures of the Big Five. Each of the five traits includes facets that allow for more nuance and complexity.

The fifth factor

The fifth factor is a matter of discussion, as it is identified differently among researchers. It has been called culture, intellect, imagination, openness to experience, and even tender-mindedness. It has been identified differently in language as well – for example, the Dutch have a fifth factor more akin to progressive-conservative, and the Italians have conventionality-rebelliousness.

Empirical correlates

There are many interesting ways in which the five-factor relates to real-life correlations.

Extraversion: Extraverts, for example, are often involved in social events and tend to seek more social attention. They are often leaders, confident with potential mates, and involved in their work. Introverts, on the other hand, tend to be wallflowers, timid with new people and potential mates, and enjoy their work less than extraverts.

Agreeableness: Those high in agreeableness, when faced with social conflicts, tend to use negotiation tactics to arrive at peaceful ends. They avoid conflicts and are often highly empathic. On the opposite end of this trait is aggressiveness, characterized by a tendency towards violent or rough behaviours, and more conflict.

Conscientiousness: This trait expresses itself in an industrious, hard-working attitude. Life outcomes include high job satisfaction and security, committed social relationships, and perseverance in long-term goals. Those low in conscientiousness tend to perform poorly at school and in the workplace, procrastinating more often and engaging in riskier behaviours.

Emotional Stability/ Neuroticism: Emotionally stable people tend to react less dramatically to the ups and downs of daily life. Emotionally unstable/neurotic individuals have frequent shifts in mood, more grief and depression after a loss, and poorer health. They also tend to have less stable relationships and poor professional success. Much of these problems may be due to a tendency to self-handicap.

Openness: Openness has been correlated with a tendency to experiment with new foods, travel, and even have extramarital affairs. People high in openness are less likely to hold prejudices against minority groups and are more accepting of new information.

How thorough is the five-factor model?

There are many important traits that don’t exactly fall under the five-factor model, including those on the factors of positive and negative evaluation, attractiveness, sexiness, and faithfulness. Paunonen and his colleagues identified 10 traits that do not fit the model: Integrity, Femininity, Religiosity, Thriftiness, Humorousness, Manipulativeness, Risk-taking, Conventionality, Seductiveness, and Egotism. These are more specific that the Big Five. The exploration of personality-descriptive nouns rather than adjectives might be a way to explore more personality factors beyond the Big Five. A sixth factor has been found by using the lexical approach cross-culturally: Honesty-Humility, and could yield to interesting new adjustments to the theory.

HEXACO Model of Personality

The HEXACO model includes the sixth factor of Honest-Humility into the five-factor model; which sub-factors like: Sincerity; Fairness; Greed-Avoidance and Modesty. Besides the sixth factor there are other differences: quick temper and irritability are included in the Agreeableness factor in the HEXACO, while in the big five they were part of Neuroticism. In the HEXACO the Neuroticism scale is replaces with the Emotionality scale and includes aspects related to bravery and toughness. The HEXACO scales are usually measured using the HEXACO-PI-R.

Issues in theory and measurement - Chapter 4

Issues in theory

Trait theories make three assumptions about personality traits. These assumptions are the foundation of trait psychology.

Assumption 1: Meaningful individual differences

Trait psychology focuses on determining how people differ from one another. For this reason, it is often called differential psychology. The trait perspective is concerned with accurately and quantitatively measuring traits. They believe that every personality is created through a particular combination and interaction of a few basic and primary traits.

Assumption 2: Consistency and stability over time

Trait psychologists believe that personality is relatively consistent over time, and that essential traits will remain stable over long periods of time. This is especially true of traits that are thought to have a biological basis, and much less true of attitudes and opinions. While a trait might remain, its expression can change substantially (a temperamental child may become a disagreeable employee when they grow up). Some traits decrease with intensity as a person ages. The concept of rank order describes how people of the same age group all tend to experience a decline in certain traits at the same time, so their relative ordering in accordance with this trait remains consistent. A latent (underlying, invisible) trait can be consistent over time, while the (visible, superficial) manifest behavior of the trait may vary over time. For instance sensation-seeking: when a person gets older he’s less likely to engage in dangerous activities, even though he’s still as sensation-seeking as he was when he was young.

Assumption 3: Consistency across situations

There is more debate over whether traits are consistent across situations. Is a friendly person at a party just as friendly in the workplace or towards strangers? Walter Mischel sparked a great deal of discussion when, in 1968, he suggested that the concept of personality traits was untenable as situations determine behaviour most. This position is called situationism. Trait psychologists have since amended their views and embraced the notion of person-situation interaction, and the practice of aggregation/averaging as a tool to assess personality traits. In this way, they are able to account for situational inconsistencies that may occur.

Person-situation interaction

When looking at behaviour, there are two possible explanations that must be considered: either the behaviour is a function of personality, B=f (P), or behaviour is a function of situational forces, B=f(S). Since it is clear that both personality and situation play a role in behaviour, the equation should look more like this: B=f (P x S). So, given certain circumstances, a normally unnoticed trait might express itself. In some cases, very specific situations provoke behaviour that is otherwise out of character. This is called situational specificity. In some situations (like the death of a pet, for example) nearly all people react in similar ways. These are called strong situations. In weaker or more ambiguous situations, personality has the strongest influence on behaviour.

Selecting situations

Situational selection is the tendency to choose the situations in which they participate, either through hobbies, preferences, or general life decisions. Personality influences the choices people make and which situations they select. In turn, situations can affect a person’s personality. For instance, being in a group of energetic, talkative people can raise a person’s positive affect.

Evocation

An individual’s personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment. For example, a temperamental person may evoke anger in the people they deal with, leading to more unpleasant and upsetting situations. This is related to the concept of transference in psychoanalysis, when patients evoke the same reactions in the therapist as they typically do in other persons.

Manipulation

When an individual intentionally influences the behaviour of others, this is called manipulation. Manipulative tools are called tactics. Personality affects what sort of tactics a person might use – some might be prone to using charm to get their way, while others might employ the silent treatment or try coercion.

The aggregation process

Aggregation is the process of adding up and/or averaging single observation to come to a more reliable measure of a personality trait than if a single occurrence of this trait is observed. So, while in one given moment a person might be frustrated, this does not mean that they are a generally angry person. Aggregation can account for unusual events. Because of this, longer tests are more effective than shorter ones, and many observations are better than one. The Spearman-Brown formula was developed to predict exactly how much a test will increase in reliability with more added questions. Personality traits are average tendencies of behaviour, so single acts are very difficult to predict accurately.

Measurement

Most trait measurements are self-assessment questionnaires. Traits are often represented as dimensions, and psychologists are most interested in how much of a trait a person possesses. Trait measures must be assessed for accuracy, reliability, validity, and utility.

Prediction and Personality

Personality Testing in the Workplace

It is becoming common practice to administer Intelligence tests and Personality tests during the hiring procedure among more affluent companies. These may assess a broad range of traits (as in the MMPI), or single traits of specific interest to the employer.

Selecting personnel

Sometimes employers use personality tests to determine whether people are more or less suitable to a specific job, like sales. They may also use these tests (like the MMPI) to screen out undesirable personality types.

Testing integrity

The most widely administered personality tests in the workplace are honesty/integrity measures. This is to prevent employee theft and fraud, especially in low-level positions.

Negligent hiring

In the case that an employee assaults a customer or co-worker, the company can be held liable for negligent hiring. As such, personality testing can provide evidence that the company made an effort to prevent hiring someone dangerous.

Legal issues

The Civil Rights Act requires employers to provide equal employment opportunities to all persons. There have been many cases in the past in which tests have been used during hiring procedures that are discriminatory against specific age, race, gender, and socioeconomic groups. A company must be able to prove that the administered tests have a vital importance to the hiring practice and that they are not based on stereotype or have a disparate impact.

Disparate impact

When a test has a disparate impact, it disadvantages people from a specific, protected group. Disparity is a difference statistically large enough not to have occurred by chance alone. If it is accepted that a disparate impact has occurred, the employer must prove that the selection practice is job-related and vital. This means establishing content validity, criterion validity and construct validity. Criterion validity is the most applicable to personality tests.

Race/gender norming

It is illegal to use different norms or cut-off scores for different groups of people. Some test publishers recommend different scoring practices based on norming; this is illegal, discriminatory and should be avoided.

A.D.A. (Americans with Disabilities Act)

During the selection process, the ADA prohibits questions that inquire about the presence, type, or severity of disabilities. Because testing for disability is prohibited, psychological personality tests normally used for this purpose (like the MMPI) should be avoided, and tests that deal with normal-range personality functions, or integrity, should be used in their place.

Privacy rights

There is a legal concern over whether some selection procedures might violate the right to privacy. Questions that inquire about sexual, religious, or political attitudes may intrude on this right.

Selecting the right person for a job

In cases where a job is particularly important or dangerous, as in a municipal police force, it can be pertinent to administer screening tests. The MMPI II was designed to detect mental illnesses and can help screen out dangerous or unstable applicants in these dangerous jobs. The 16 Personality Factor questionnaire (16 PF) is used in vocational advising and selection.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The most widely used personality assessment device in business is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which uses forced-choice questions to determine a person's level on 8 fundamental preferences which could lead to any one of 16 personality profiles. There are, however, some problems with the MBTI. First of all, the psychological types theory on which the test is based is not very widely endorsed among academic and research psychologists. Many people don’t see introversion-extroversion as a bimodal “type” form, but rather a dimensional trait in which the average person lies somewhere in the middle. Because cut-off scores are used to categorize people into groups, tests can be unreliable when re-administered on the same individuals. Many people score on the borders between two traits, putting them at risk of being categorized differently each time they do the test. It also assumes that all people within a category will be alike, not accounting for within-category differences. While there are many highly negative reviews of the MBTI among the scientific and psychological community, it’s simple scoring and almost horoscope-like personal quality make it continually popular in the workplace.

Hogan Personality Inventory

In order to establish an accurate measure of personality that could be used to select personnel, Robert Hogan came up with a theory based on status hierarchy in groups. In social groups, Hogan’s theory states that people need three things: acceptance (respect/approval), status/resource control, and predictability. The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) measures the aspects of the Big Five traits that are most important to these three motives. The HPI contains seven primary scales and six occupational scales that are relevant to business practices. It contains true-false items and requires only 20 minutes to administer. The HPI is based on very thorough research and is high on validity, producing better hiring results than when it is not used. Because of these many factors, it is one of the most useful tests in personnel selection.

Disposition stability, coherence and change - Chapter 5

Conceptual Issues

Personality Development

Personality development is defined as the stable, consistent traits in people and the way these change over time. There are many forms of personality stability and personality change. The three most important are listed here.

Personality stability

Rank order stability is the consistency of an individual’s position within a group over time – for example, Dominant people, while they may become less dominant with age, will still be more dominant in their age group than submissive people. Mean level stability is the constancy of the level of a trait shown in a population. For example, when an aging population remains politically liberal, this is mean level stability. In cases where people get increasingly conservative as they age, this is mean level change. In some ways, personality development involves changes in how some traits manifest themselves. For example, a child prone to temper tantrums might develop into an adult prone to aggressive and argumentative behaviour in adulthood. This is called personality coherence.

Change

Personality change is defined as internal changes in the personality that are relatively enduring over time and not a result of a temporary stimulus.

Analysis

Personality can be analyzed on three levels: the whole population, group differences within the population, and differences within groups.

The whole population

Theories that are presumed to apply to everyone fit into this level. Nearly everyone, regardless of group, becomes more sexually motivated at puberty and less impulsive in their old age.

Group differences and individual differences

Some changes affect different groups of people differently. The most obvious example are changes between genders – women collectively become less prone to risk taking after adolescence than men. Group differences also include cultural and ethnic differences. Research that focuses on the ability to predict which individuals will go through which personality changes fits into the level of individual differences

Stability over time

Temperament in infancy

Temperament is the most studied personality characteristic in infancy – it relates to emotionality and arousability. Mary Rothbart came up with six factors of temperament:

1. Activity level: Overall motor activity
2. Smiling/laughter
3. Fear: Distress and reluctance to new stimuli
4. Distress to limitations: Distress at being refused food, being dressed, confined or prevented access from something.
5. Soothability: The ease at which a child relaxes when soothed.
6. Duration of orienting: The degree to which attention is sustained on one object in the absence of sudden changes.

Observer scales are completed by the infant’s primary caregiver, and results tend to be persistent over time, and more stable nearing the end of infancy. Activity level and smiling/laughing show more stability over time than the other traits.

Stability in childhood

Longitudinal studies, while costly, are the best type to use when researching trait stability over time. One test that focused on differences in activity level (using a recording device called an actometer) showed correlations among measures over time. The correlations between identical measures obtained at two different points of time are stable coefficients. The correlations between different measures of the same trait obtained at the same time are called validity coefficients. The longer the time between testings, the lower the stability coefficients, and the less reliable personality predictions will be. Individual differences in personality emerge very early in life and tend to remain moderately stable over time, though they may manifest in different ways.

Adult rank order stability

Across self-report measures of personality taken over different intervals of adulthood, the Big Five traits show moderate to high levels of stability. Other dispositions, like self-esteem, prosocial orientation, and interpersonal empathy also show high stability over time. In order to determine when stability of traits peaks (when the traits cease to change) Roberts and DelVecchio conducted a meta-analysis of 152 longitudinal personality studies. They found that personality consistency tends to increase with age and peak in a person’s fifties.

Adult mean level stability

The Big Five show relatively consistent mean level stability over time, though there continues to be some change even after the age of fifty. Openness, extraversion and neuroticism tend to decline gradually as age increases (until 50), while conscientiousness and agreeableness show a gradual growth over time. People tend to become more emotionally stable with time and experience less negative affect. The increase in social confidence and decrease in anger and a sense of alienation have together been dubbed the “maturity principle”. The Big Five have also shown to be somewhat changeable through therapy.

Change

Self-Esteem: adolescence to adulthood

Self-esteem is the gap between the perceived “current self” and the “ideal self” – the higher the discrepancy, the lower the self-esteem. Longitudinal studies show that between adolescence and adulthood, men’s self-esteem increases somewhat, while females tend to experience a large decrease in self-esteem.

Dominance, leadership, autonomy, ambition

In a longitudinal study of male AT&T managerial candidates, ambition was shown to drop over time, while scores of autonomy, leadership motivation, achievement and dominance increased over time. This suggests an adjustment in expectations about the individual’s own limitations.

Thrill seeking

The Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) measures thrill, adventure, experience seeking, disinhibition, and susceptibility to boredom. It has found that sensation seeking increases with age, peaking around age 18-20, and then falling continuously throughout adulthood.

Femininity/masculinity

High femininity is defined as dependent, emotional, gentle, high-strung, mid, nervous, sensitive, sentimental, submissive, sympathetic and worrying, in contrast to masculinity which involves such descriptors as forceful, self-confident, and determined. In general, femininity scores drop with age.

Independence

The CPI independence scale measures two related facets of personality. The first includes self-assurance, resourcefulness and competence, the second includes the ability to distance oneself from others and act against convention. Divorced mothers, non-mothers, and working mothers tend to become increasingly more independent over time. Traditional homemakers show no decrease in independence over time. This is a correlational result, so causation cannot be determined.

Assertiveness and narcissism across cohorts

Cohort effects are those that are determined by the social time in which a person lives. Jean Twenge argues that American society has changed dramatically over the past 70 years, especially in terms of women’s social roles. There have been, for example, significant rises in women’s assertiveness trait scores since the 1930’s. This leads to the conclusion that social change can become internalized during development. Scores on narcissism have increased slightly among Americans.

Coherence over Time

Marital stability, satisfaction, and divorce

A 45-year longitudinal study of engaged and married couples found that some personality traits are predictors of marital dissatisfaction and divorce. High levels of neuroticism of either the wife or husband turned out to be the strongest predictor. Lack of impulse control on the husband’s part is also a strong predictor of divorce. Those high in emotional stability and low on neuroticism are also better able to cope with the death of a spouse.

Alcoholism

Early personality has been shown to predict the development of alcoholism and emotional disturbance. High neuroticism is the strongest predictor of these issues. High sensation-seeking, low impulse control, low agreeableness and low conscientiousness tend to predict alcoholism.

Religion

High conscientiousness and agreeableness in adolescents is a predictor of religiousness in later life. Openness to experience predicts religiousness in late life.

Education and Academic Achievement

High impulsivity predicts lower GPAs among college students, and a higher tendency to drop out. Conscientiousness is the single best predictor of successful academic and work achievement, though high emotional stability, agreeableness, and openness are also predictors.

Health

Longevity can be predicted in high conscientiousness, positive emotionality, and low hostility. This is possibly due to a greater engagement in health-promoting activities and the refraining from the use of harmful and addictive drugs. Extraverts tend to develop and maintain a stronger social support network, which has also been shown to lead to positive outcomes.

Predicting Personality Change

People whose spouses are most similar to themselves tend to show more personality stability over time than those who marry people who are different.

Genetics - Chapter 6

The Genome

A genome is the complete set of genes an organism possesses. The human genome has 20,000-30,000 genes in 23 pairs of chromosomes. Most of the genes on within the human genome are the same for every human. Some, however, are different and account for the many individual variations between individuals. A chromosome consists out of many genes that are coded instructions to make proteins. Different versions of the same genes are called alleles. Genes are stretches of DNA, a giant protein code that consists out of four basic protein codons: Thiamine, Adenine, Guanine and Cytosine. 99.9 percent of all DNA in humans is identical. Junk DNA are parts of chromosomes that have less genes. They’re called Junk because initially it was thought they served no purpose, but it was found that they in fact do have a large impact on humans, so they’re not junk at all.

The genes-personality controversy

Researchers into the genetics of personality attempt to determine the degree to which personality differences are caused by genetic versus environmental influences. The identification of certain genes as responsible for personality characteristics raises the controversial question of choosing whether or not to have a child on the basis of their predicted characteristics. Eugenics, the notion that we can design a future race by allowing babies with a certain genetic structure to live while discouraging the reproduction of people with undesirable traits, is a scary and historically dangerous concept. People also fear that behavioural genetics will be used to support political agendas. Psychologists who research genetics are careful about the application of their findings and believe that knowledge is still better than ignorance.

Goals

Behavioural geneticists are interested in figuring out the percentage of variance due to genetic and environmental causes. They also look to determine how genes interact and correlate with the environment. They examine situations in which environmental effects are taking place, as in parent-child interactions.

Heritability

Heritability is a statistical term that refers to the proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to genotypic variance. Phenotypic variance defines observed individual differences, such as height or personality. Genotypic variance refers to individual differences in a person’s genes. A heritability of .20 means that 20% of the trait is genetic. The proportion that is due to environmental influences (the other 80%) is called environmentality.

Misconceptions

Heritability cannot be applied to a single individual, only to a group or population. It is not, as sometimes believed, a constant. It is a statistic that applies only at one point in time in one set of environments. Because of this, different cultural groups may have different heritability in certain traits. Heritability is also not an absolutely precise statistic, merely an estimate.

Nature-nurture

The nature-nurture debate consists of arguments about whether genes or the environment are more important determinants of personality. At the individual level, this distinction does not matter as everyone is a unique mixture of their own genetic structure and their environment. At the level of the population, however, the influence of genes and environments can be analyzed.

Methods of behavioural genetics

Selective breeding

In pet breeding, selective breeding involves identifying dogs that possess a desired characteristic and having them mate with other dogs who have the same characteristic, thus improving the chances of the offspring sharing the trait. The more heritable the trait, the more success the breeder will have. Breeders look at both physical and behavioural traits that are moderate-high in heritability. There are obvious reasons why this cannot be used on humans, but other methods of behavioural genetics can be applied.

Family study

Family studies look at the correlation of genetic relatedness among family members with the degree of personality similarity. If a personality trait is highly heritable, then family members with the closest genetic relatedness should be more similar than those more distant on the family tree. Since families also often share the same environment, the results from family studies alone can never be definitive.

Twin study

Twin studies estimate heritability by assessing whether identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Identical (monozygotic, MZ) twins share 100% of their genes. This is because they come from a single fertilized egg which divides into two during gestation. Fraternal (dizygotic, DZ) twins, like any other siblings, share only 50% of their genes. If identical twins are more similar on a certain characteristic than fraternal twins, chances are that characteristic has a high heritability.

One formula for calculating heritability from twin data involves doubling the difference between the MZ and DZ correlation:

Heritability²= 2(r_mz – r_dz)

In this formula, r_mz is the correlation coefficient of monozygotic twins, and r_dzis the correlation between dizygotic twins. Twin studies assume that the environments of both types of twins are equal. Thus, it cannot account for an increase in similarity among identical twins whose parents treat them the same. Studies have shown, however, that the equal environments assumption is still valid, as environments experienced by identical twins are not functionally more similar than fraternal twins.

Adoption studies

Adoption studies can be one of the most powerful behavioural genetic methods available. In adoption studies, the correlations between adopted children and their adoptive parents are examined. If there is a positive correlation, then this provides evidence for a trait being environmentally influenced. The correlations between adopted children and their genetic parents can also be examined – if there is a positive correlation on a trait, than it is likely that the trait is heritable. The reverse is true for a negative correlation. There is a question of representativeness in these studies, however, as couples who choose to adopt children may not be representative of the general population. There is also the issue of selective placement, where adopted children are placed with adoptive parents similar to their birth parents. When twin and adoption studies are combined, however, some of the most powerful results can be observed.

Major Findings

Traits

Both extraversion-introversion and neuroticism-emotional stability are substantially heritable traits. Activity level has a heritability of .40 and is one of several temperaments that show moderate heritability. Fear, emotionality, sociability, persistence, distractibility and aggressiveness also show roughly 50 percent heritability. “Psychopathic” personality dispositions also show a high heritability. The Big Five traits show heritability estimates of roughly 50%.

Attitudes

Stable attitudes are considered a part of personality. Traditionalism, contrary to what one might expect, has a heritability of .59. Job preferences have also shown a high amount of heritability. Religious beliefs and attitudes towards racial integration have zero heritability. However, in adulthood, heritability of religious practices rises to .44.

Cigarettes and alcohol

These habits are seen as behavioural manifestations of sensation seeking and neuroticism. Individuals tend to have relatively stable drinking and smoking habits. Evidence has been found for the heritability of smoking habits. Alcohol drinking is even stronger in heritability, one study suggesting 71% heritability in men.

Marriage commitment

The propensity to marry has a heritability estimate of 68 percent. This may be due to married men showing higher social potency and achievement traits, which are valued by women in marriage partner selection. Marital satisfaction in women is also roughly 50% heritable, owing perhaps to the disposition of the wives.

Shared and non-shared environmental influences

The same studies that show heritability also provide useful evidence for environmental influences. There is a distinction to be made between shared and non-shared environmental influences. Shared influences are those that affect both siblings in similar ways, such as the presence of a television, or the quality of food in the home. Non-shared influences are those that are different for each child–whether one child is given preferential treatment by parents, or has a more active group of friends, for example. Some behavioural genetic designs allow us to figure out whether the shared or non-shared environment influences an effect more. Most personality variables are barely impacted by the shared environment. Two conclusions may arise from an inquiry into non-shared environments: either one critically important variable will be found, such as peer influence, or there will be too many environmental variables that all exert a small and barely significant amount of variance.

Environmental and genetic influences on personality

Genotype and environment

The genotype-environment interaction is the differential response of individuals with different genotypes to the same environments. Extraversion-introversion is a good example of genotype-environment interaction. When a person with an extraverted genotype is in a noisy environment, they will behave and perform differently than a person with an introverted genotype.

The genotype-environment correlation is the differential exposure of individuals with different genotypes to different environments. Passive genotype-environment correlation happens when parents provide both genes and a specific environment to children without them causing that environment in any way. Reactive genotype-environment correlation happens when parents create an environment in response to a child’s behaviour—for example, if one child has a genotype that makes them like being cuddled, a mother might cuddle that child more than a sibling who reacts poorly to such treatment. Active genotype-environment correlation happens when people with a certain genotype create or seek out specific environments, as in the case of high sensation seekers who expose themselves to risky situations. This is also called “niche-picking”. Genotype-environment correlations can encourage or discourage the expression of a trait. For example, inactive children may be encouraged to be more active by parents, thus discouraging their inactivity.

Genetics at a Molecular Level

Molecular genetics is the science of identifying the specific genes associated with personality traits. The most frequently examined gene is DRD4, located on chromosome 11, which codes the dopamine receptor protein. This receptor responds to the neurotransmitter dopamine and is associated with novelty-seeking and risky behaviour. Those with long repeat versions of DRD4 are higher in these traits than those without. However, these studies have been contested.

Physiological approach - Chapter 7

Introduction

Brain injury can lead to personality changes, most often manifesting in diminished impulse control. This is likely do to disruption between the executive frontal lobes and the rest of the brain. They can lead to behavioural outbursts, mood fluctuations and aggression. The advantage to a physiological approach to personality is that physiological characteristics are relative easy to measure and produce reliable results. The physiological approach is also simplistic or parsimonious. They can often explain much with very few constructs—while helpful, physiology is only one part of a more complicated structure of influences on personality.

Physiological Approach

Most research in physiological personality research focuses on measures of physiological systems like heart rate and brain waves. Researchers need to create theoretical bridges between the dimension of personality they are addressing and the physiological variables they are using to explain them.

Common Physiological Measures

Many measures are obtained using electrode sensors placed on the skin. The use of telemetry, the sending of physiological information through radio waves instead of wires, might be a new development in electrodes that will allow the participant to move around.

Electrodermal

The sympathetic nervous system directly influences the highly concentrated sweat glands on the palms of the hand and soles of the feet. Because water (and thus sweat) conducts electricity, the more sweat on someone’s palm, the more electrodermal activity (skin conductance) can be measured. In this technique, electrodes are placed on the palm of the hand to measure how much water is produced by the sweat glands, providing a measure of sympathetic nervous system activity.

Cardiovascular

Measures of blood pressure and heart rate fit into measures of cardiovascular activity. Blood pressure can increase as a result of stress, so it is useful in measuring personality. Heart rate is also easily obtained, and expressed in beats-per-minute (BPM). This is important because the heart rate increases as the body is preparing to flee or fight. This preparation occurs when a person is distressed, anxious, fearful, or more aroused than their normal state. Cognitive effort (such as what occurs in solving math problems) also increases heart rate. Cardiac reactivity to pressure is associated with Type A personality (impatience, hostility, and competitiveness).

Brain Scans

Electroencephalogram (EEG) technology measures the amount of electricity being produced in a specific region of the brain, through the use of electrodes. It can measure brain activation and alertness. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can measure what parts of the brain are activated by monitoring glucose metabolism. It can show which parts are activated by different stimuli. In personality studies, it has been used to demonstrate that people show different degrees of brain activation in response to positive and negative stimuli – neurotic people show more activation to negative stimuli, whereas extroverted people show more activation in response to positive stimuli.

Other physiological measures

Biochemical analyses of blood and saliva can determine how well a person’s immune system is functioning, which is largely related to stress and emotions. Hormones like testosterone can also be tested in saliva, and these are linked to certain personality behaviour patterns. The monoamine oxidase (MAO) enzyme regulates neurotransmitters and can also be a source of information on personality.

Physiological theories on personality

Extraversion-introversion and physiology

Eysenck proposed that introverts are characterized by higher activity in the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) of the brain. This brain stem structure is thought to be a gateway for nervous stimulation of the cortex. Introverts are thought to have a higher resting arousal level causing them to seek less stimulating situations, whereas extroverts have a lower level causing them to seek more stimulation. Eysenck believed in an optimal level of arousal for any given task. Tests showed that in a resting state, introverts and extroverts show a similar amount of arousal, but in a stimulated state, introverts are faster and more reactive to stimuli. This led him to change his theory, stating that it is the heightened arousability of introverts that causes them to seek solitude.

Reward and punishment

A biological theory of personality proposed by Jeffrey Gray is called the reinforcement sensitivity theory. It is based on two hypothesized brain systems: the behavioural activity system (BAS), and the behaviour inhibition system (BIS). BAS responds to incentives and promises of reward, causing the person to approach. BIS responds to cues for punishment, and causes avoidance behaviour. According to gray, BAS is responsible for impulsivity while BIS is responsible for anxiety. These traits relate directly to neuroticism (BIS) and extraversion (BAS). Thus, behaviours related to anxiety attacks, worry, fear, depression, phobias, obsessions, etc. are more common in those who are overly sensitive to punishment. In one experiment, BIS persons were found to perform better in situations where bad performance is punished. BAS persons performed better in situations where good behaviour was rewarded. According to Gray’s theory, since impulsive people do not learn as well from punishment, they continue to be impulsive when such behaviour backfires.

Seeking sensations

Sensation seeking is seen to have a physiological basis. Most research on this topic deals with sensory deprivation. In sensory deprivation experiments, people tend to be motivated to receive any sensory input, even if it is something they would in normal circumstances consider boring, such as a stock market report.

Hebb: The optimal level of arousal

Hebb theorized that people are motivated to reach their optimal level of arousal – when under-aroused, they are rewarded by an increase in arousal. However, when over-aroused, they seek reward by decreasing arousal. This theory contradicts the general opinion of Hebb’s time that most people are motivated to reduce tension. Hebb’s theory is consistent with sensory deprivation research.

Zuckerman

In Zuckerman’s sensory deprivation research, he noticed that some people were more distressed by the experiment than others, and tended to quit the experiment early. He hypothesized that some people require more stimulation to reach their optimal level of arousal than others. Zuckerman focuses on the role of neurotransmitters in sensation seeking personalities. Enzymes like monoamine oxidase (MAO) are responsible for the proper maintenance of neurotransmitter levels. High sensation seekers are low on MAO, suggesting that their nervous systems are less inhibited and thus provide less control over behaviour, thoughts and emotions.

The role of neurotransmitters

Dopamine seems to be associated with pleasure and reward. Dugs like cocaine mimic dopamine, but diminish the production of actual dopamine, causing an unpleasant effect when the drugs leave the system. Serotonin plays a role in depression and mood disorders. Antidepressants block the reuptake of serotonin, keeping in the synapse for a longer time. Low serotonin is linked to irritable behaviour, and high serotonin to social and outgoing behaviour. Norepinephrine is another important neurotransmitter, responsible for activating the fight-or-flight response in the sympathetic nervous system.

One personality theory based on neurotransmitters is Cloninger’s tridimensional personality model. He links three traits (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence) with the three main neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine).

Genes, neurotransmitters, and personality

As mentioned before, the type 4 dopamine receptor gene (DRD4) relates to high levels of novelty seeking. Research has found that multiple genes interact in complex ways to influence neurotransmitter systems, thus making it difficult for genetic psychologists to pinpoint exact causes.

Morning Larks and Night Owls

Being a person who prefers being active in the morning, or one who gets most done in the late evening, seems to be a stable characteristic called morningness-eveningness. This difference may relate to the underlying biological rhythms called circadian rhythms, around which much of the body processes fluctuate. This is related to body temperature and the rates of endocrine secretion. On average, people’s body temperature follows a 24-25 hour cycle, rising before awakening, and falling shortly before going to sleep. In temporal-isolation studies, where a person is removed from normal sleeping habits and indicators of day and night, people have been found to have a wide range of rhythms. Some have rhythms as short as 16 hours, others as long as 50. In normal circumstances, those with longer rhythms tend to be more energetic late at night, and those with shorter rhythms tend to be more awake and energetic early in the day. It turns out that people with differences in morningness-eveningness tend to be less satisfied living with each other.

Brain asymmetry and affect

The fewer alpha waves (those that are most active in rest) show up on an EEG, the more active that region of the brain being measured is. EEG waves have been measured for the left and right hemispheres of the brain, showing that the left activates when a person is experiencing pleasant emotions and the right when a person experiences negative emotions. Studies on crying infants have found that people vary in which side of their frontal brain most often is activated. This is called frontal brain asymmetry. Right-side dominant people show more distress at unpleasant stimuli, and left-side dominant people show more pleasant reactions to pleasant stimuli. Similar results have been found by testing levels of cortisol (the fight-or-flight activator) in monkeys. Right-brained monkeys have more cortisol, and react more often to negative stimuli. The technique of mindfulness training has been found to shift brain activity towards left-sided asymmetry, significantly reducing stress.

What are evolutionary perspectives? - Chapter 8

What is natural selection?

Natural selection is the process by which adaptations and change happen in a species over time. The changes/variants that stay are those that increase the ability for progeny to survive and reproduce. Eventually, successful variants replace unsuccessful ones in the gene pool. This is sometimes called survival selection, as genes interact to the hostile forces of nature like food shortages, diseases, etc. Those that increase survival are called adaptations.

What is sexual selection?

When characteristics evolve because they increase the chances of a successful mating encounter, this is called sexual selection. Darwin suggested that sexual selection takes two forms. The first, intrasexual competition, occurs when same sex members compete for the attention of potential mates. Characteristics that make a successful outcome more likely are thus passed down to progeny. The second, intersexual selection occurs when members of one sex choose a mate based on personal preferences. Characteristics that increase attractiveness lead to more successful mating.

What do we mean with inclusive fitness?

Genes are the DNA that parents pass onto their children. Evolution operates through the process of differential gene reproduction. This means that organisms that reproduce more frequently and successfully will pass their genes onwards to future generations. Inclusive fitness theory is a modern idea that can be defined as the combination of one’s own reproductive success and the effects one has on the reproduction chances of genetic relatives. One example would be saving the life of a sibling – if a gene makes you more likely to do so, and your sibling lives on to reproduce, chances are that they may share that gene and be more likely to pass it on to offspring.

What do we call the results of evolution?

What are adaptations?

Adaptations are things that develop in an organism, meshing with the recurrent structure of the world and solving an adaptive problem. One example would be a tendency to like sweet and fatty foods that would increase the chance of building personal resources in case of hunger. Adaptations emerge from and are structured by environments. Certain aspects of an environment must be stable over time for adaptations to emerge – for example, ripe fruit must continue to be nutritious for a preference to become embedded in the gene pool. Adaptations must solve adaptive problems, those that might impede survival or reproduction. Efficiency, precision, and reliability of an adaptation in solving a problem must be taken into account when recognizing an adaptation. This is called selective design. Since evolution is very slow, people today still retain adaptations meant for ancestral situations, when people lived in small groups, hunting and foraging for food.

What are by-products?

Evolutionary by-products are effects that are incidental and not necessarily considered adaptations. For example, the human nose has developed to increase the ability to smell, but it has the by-product of being a rather nifty place to hold up one’s glasses.

What are random variations?

Evolutionary noise consists of random variations that are neutral in selection. Characteristics/mutations that do not hinder survival or sexual selection might remain in the gene pool.

Adaptations are domain-specific, developed by evolution to solve a specific adaptive problem (ex. we find most poisonous plants bitter and unpleasant). Domain specificity is important because different problems in adaptation require different solutions.

Since over the course of human evolution, many adaptive problems must have arisen, it follows that we have many adaptive mechanisms. Our human psychology also contains a large number of psychological mechanisms, such as the tendency to fear heights, spiders, darkness and strangers.

Since psychological mechanisms are designed through evolution to solve particular adaptive problems, it is important to understand the functionality of these mechanisms.

What is empirical testing?

There is a hierarchy of levels of evolutionary analysis. At the top is the general theory of evolution by selection, which is by now taken for granted by most evolutionary psychologists. At the next level down are mid-level evolutionary theories. For example, the theory that the gender who invests more in child-bearing will be more sexually selective. From this, the next level of hypotheses can be derived. From these hypotheses, one can make predictions that are possible directions for experimentation. This hierarchical approach is called the deductive reasoning approach. Another approach is the inductive reasoning approach, in which a phenomenon is an observed around which researchers develop a theory. Both methods can interact. If a theory is true, than further predictions must follow from it, and empirically confirmed to provide evidence that the theory is a reliable one. If no predictions follow or those that can cannot be confirmed, than the theory may be unreliable.

What do we mean with the nature of human beings?

In the evolutionary perspective, human nature is a product of the evolutionary process.

What is the need for a sense of belonging?

Hogan theorized that due to a survival and reproductive benefit from group membership, people have developed an evolutionary need for acceptance and status within a group. According to this theory, being ostracized would be a damaging experience. This might be why social anxiety (distress or worry about being negatively evaluated) has evolved. Groups share food, information, and resources, provide protection from threat, contain mating possibilities, and offer opportunities for altruism and kinship investment. External threats have been proven to strengthen group ties, lending credence to this theory. Self-esteem has been shown to be higher when people spend more time with friends and relatives.

What is helping behaviour?

An evolutionary perspective on altruism suggests that it is a direct function of the ability to improve the genetic fitness of others. People are thus more likely to help those with a large genetic overlap (siblings, parents, etc.) than those with less or no genetic link. Studies show this to be a valid hypothesis. There is also support for those with more reproductive value (youth) to be helped more than those with less reproductive value (old age). In non-life-or-death situations, however, the oldest people are more likely to be helped.

Which emotions are universal?

There are three distinct evolutionary perspectives on the subject of emotions:

1. Universality of emotion can be seen through shared facial expressions across cultures, and is an adaptive development.
2. Emotions guide a person towards goals that improve fitness within an environment, and avoid those that lower fitness.
3. Emotions are designed to exploit the psychological mechanisms of other people. (manipulation hypothesis)

Research (using expressions of contempt, happiness, disgust, anger, fear, surprise and sadness) has confirmed that in every country that has been studied, emotions are recognized in the same way, through the same facial expressions.

What about sex/gender differences?

In evolutionary psychology, it is predicted that in situations where the same adaptive problems are faced, men and women will have evolved in the same way. In situations where unique adaptive problems have been faced (as in reproduction and mate selection), different characteristics will be displayed. Evolutionary-predicted sex differences raise some key issues: the domains in which the sexes have faced different adaptive problems, the sex-differentiated psychological mechanisms that have evolved in response to different adaptive problems, and the social/cultural influences on the magnitude of these expressed differences.

What about aggression?

Men are much more often the perpetrators and victims of violence. This may be the case because men are more often in competition with other men over access to women. Among males, few will sire many offspring and some will sire none at all. This process is called effective polygyny, and occurs because men have a smaller amount they need to invest in offspring. Species that are highly sexually dimorphic (showing greater differences between the sexes in size and structure) are also high in effective polygyny. That men who are poor and unmarried are more likely to commit acts of violence indicates (but cannot prove) that violence may be a last resort to those facing reproductive failure.

What about jealousy?

Evolutionary psychologists have predicted that men and women differ in the weight that they give to infidelity. Since for men, the biggest threat is that their mate will be carrying the child of another man, sexual infidelity would be worse. In women, however, the allocation of time, resources, and commitment to another woman would have a greater impact, making emotional infidelity worse. Experiments have confirmed this concept. Some psychologists, however, disagree with the causation of these reactions. Instead, they claim that it is the different beliefs about infidelity held by each sex that influence the impact. They suggest that men believe emotional infidelity naturally follows sexual infidelity, while women believe that sexual infidelity naturally follows emotional infidelity.

What about desire for sexual variety?

Men and women differ in how much sexual variety they desire. This can be predicted by the parental investment and sexual selection theories. The result that women desire having less partners in their lifetime than men has been replicated worldwide. One study has found that women think about sex on average 9 times per week, while men think about sex around 37 times a week.

What are mate preferences?

Because women bear children and thus have a higher potential parental investment, it has been predicted that they place more value on a potential mate’s financial resources, status, and ambition. Conversely, men should put a greater value on physical appearance cues that indicate fertility. In studies, this tendency has been noticed. However, personality has been cited as more important than either of these factors, for both sexes.

What are individual differences from an evolutionary perspective?

Evolutionary analysis of individual personality difference is largely speculative as it is difficult to prove empirically. One suggestion is that individual differences are the result of environmental peculiarities that activate psychological mechanisms to differing degrees. Another is that individual differences emerge from contingencies among traits – that the expression of traits may be contingent on environmental or physical cues. Frequency-dependent selection is another possible explanation. It suggests that the fitness of a trait depends on how frequent it occurs relative to the general population. Finally, the fact that the optimum level of a personality trait varies over evolutionary time and space in response to environmental adaptive problems can create heritable differences.

What are environmental triggers?

This theory suggests that the critical childhood issues (like the presence or absence of a father or the availability of resources) trigger the activation of different personality traits among people in different situations. Findings of related studies, while empirical, are largely correlational.

What are trait-contingent heritable differences?

This theory suggests that some differences are contingent on other traits. For example, aggressiveness is likely more present in men that are more stocky and muscular than in thin or chubby men due to a higher chance of success in a fight. This tendency is considered reactively heritable –it is a secondary consequence of a heritable trait.

What do we mean with frequency-dependent strategic differences?

In the context of sexual selection, two heritable variants of sexual strategy among women are present and fluctuate according to frequency-dependence. Women with a restricted sexual strategy tend to delay intercourse in a prolonged courtship designed to encourage and ensure fidelity, thus working best to achieve a relationship with a man who is more committed to providing prolonged resources. The unrestricted sexual strategy causes women to seek men who have more attractive genes (expressed in physical attractiveness, ambition, etc.), even if they may be less committed. As one strategy becomes more common, the benefit of adopting the opposite strategy increases, as the available pool of men grows.

Psychopathic personality traits unfortunately may also continue through frequency-dependent selection, as psychopathic people reproduce more and are less accountable in a more mobile society.

What do we mean with The Big Five and motivation?

One approach to the Big Five in relation to evolutionary psychology suggests that each trait expresses a difference in motivational reaction/solutions to particular adaptive problems. For example, neuroticism might increase vigilance but could also lead to stress. Heritable differences might continue because the optimum level of each trait varies over time and space, balancing their selection. Another approach suggests that personality is a result of difference-detecting mechanisms that are designed to remember the relevance of individual differences.

Which limitations do we know?

The first limitation is that much of evolutionary psychology is largely speculative, even if it is a helpful way of putting the past into perspective. The second limitation is that there is still a great lack of knowledge about the nature, details and design features of psychological mechanisms. The third limitation is that modern environments offer many different adaptive problems than ancestral environments. A fourth limitation is that one can often come up with two entirely opposing evolutionary explanations for the same behaviour. There is also an issue in the fact that evolutionary hypotheses are largely untestable and un-falsifiable, and so are not scientifically useful.

Psychoanalytic approaches - Chapter 9

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and spent most of his life in Vienna. He developed the concept of the subconscious mind, and theorized that it was expressed in dreams. Freud has been both praised and criticized for his ideas.

Assumptions of psychoanalytic theory

Sex and aggression

According to Freud, psychic energy motivates all human behaviour. Innate forces, instincts, provide the source of this energy. In Freud’s initial formulation, the fundamental instincts are the instinct for self-preservation, and sexual instincts. (This distinction follows Darwin’s selection theory) Later, Freud revised his theory, combining these two instincts as libido (life instinct) and formulating another: thanatos, the death instinct. The death instinct is a broad idea referring to any urge to destroy, harm, or be aggressive against the self or others.

Unconscious motivations

According to Freud, the mind consists of three parts:

The conscious mind: All thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that one is immediately aware of.

1. The preconscious mind: All memories, dreams and thoughts that are not immediately present but readily available for retrieval.

2. The unconscious mind: All unacceptable, troubling, or distasteful memories, feelings, thoughts and urges.

Since society does not allow the unbridled expression of libido and thanatos, these instincts must be pushed down to the unconscious and controlled.

Psychic determinism

Freud maintained that all behaviour, thought, and feeling is an expression of the mind and not merely a matter of chance. From this comes the idea of a “Freudian slip” in which a person accidentally says one word in place of another that reveals an unconscious desire. The reasons for every seemingly accidental act can be discovered when the unconscious is examined. He believed that mental illness is a result of unconscious motivations. Freud was consulted in the case of Anna O., who was being treated by physician Joseph Breuer for hysteric symptoms. Through talking about troubling memories, the symptoms began to disappear. Freud adopted the “talking cure” technique and developed it further, believing that for a psychological symptom to be cured, the unconscious cause must be revealed. This process involves discovering repressed memories of unpleasant experiences.

Personality structure

Id

The id is the most primitive part of the human mind and the source of all drives and urges. The id functions according to the pleasure principle, the desire for immediate gratification. The id dominates in infancy when all urges must be satisfied. It also operates with primary process thinking, thinking that has no rule of logic or anchor in reality, such as dreams or fantasies. Sometimes urges can be directed at a mental image or fantasy, instead of being expressed in the real world, in a process called wish fulfilment.

Ego

The ego is the part of the mind with executive function; it controls the id according to reality. Thus, the ego operates according to the reality principle. Since the urges of the id cannot always be satisfied, the ego avoids, redirects, or postpones the direct expression of these impulses. It engages in secondary process thinking, the development of problem-solving strategies. The theory of ego depletion states that self-control is limited, and the exertion of self-control in one task might lead to lower self-control in immediately subsequent tasks.

Superego

The superego is the conscience, the part of the mind that internalizes societal and moral values. Freud believed that the development of the superego is closely linked to parental relationships. It is what makes us feel guilt when we do something morally wrong and pride when we do something morally right. The superego is not bound to reality and is free to set unrealistic standards.

Interaction

These three parts of the mind, according to Freud, are in constant interaction. When confronted with a situation in which there are opposing demands from the id and superego, a person might experience anxiety. This is an unpleasant state that signals a threat to the ego. A strong ego ensures a well-balanced, un-anxious mind.

Personality dynamics

Anxiety

Freud identified three types of anxiety:

Objective: Normal fear, which occurs in response to a real external threat.

1. Neurotic: Direct conflict between the id and the ego in which there is a danger that the ego might lose control over the id.

2. Moral: Direct conflict between the superego and the ego in which a person feels shame or guilt for not meeting the standards of the superego.

Defense

The ego defends against threats and anxiety using defense mechanisms. In the conversion reaction, conflict is converted into a physical symptom helping to avoid psychological anxiety. The defense mechanisms are: repression, denial, deisplacement, rationalization, reaction formulation, projection and sublimation. They will be discussed in more detail below.

Repression

When unacceptable thoughts, feelings and urges are pushed down to the unconscious mind, this is called repression. It allows people to avoid the anxiety that might result from an awareness of these unacceptable urges.

Denial

When the reality of a situation might produce anxiety, denial is a refusal to see that reality. This may be a complete denial of reality, or a restructuring of reality to make it less anxiety-producing. The fundamental attribution error, a tendency to blame external events for one`s personal failure but accept responsibility for success, is considered a form of denial.

Displacement

Displacement involves the redirection of an unacceptable impulse from its original source to a less threatening target. For example, when one suppresses anger at an employer, they may unleash their frustration on their family. This may also occur with sexual impulses or fear.

Rationalization

In the process of rationalization, a person might generate acceptable reasons for behaviour and outcomes that might otherwise be morally distasteful. This explanation might be easier to accept than the reality.

Reaction Formulation

In the reaction formulation, the expression of an unacceptable urge is stifled by an exaggerated expression of its opposite. When one might want to yell, they may become very quiet. When one might want to express their anger, instead they might be overly kind.

Projection

Projection involves the tendency to see our own unacceptable qualities on other people. For example, a person who is unfaithful to their spouse might become suspicious of their spouse, believing that they themselves are being cheated on. Homophobia might be a projection of repressed homosexual urges. A similar effect is called the false consensus effect, in which people believe that many others share their own preferences, motivations and traits. Having a false consensus over negative traits might be defensive.

Sublimation

The most adaptive mechanism, sublimation involves channelling unacceptable urges into socially desirable activities. For example, becoming a professional boxer as a way to relieve repressed anger, or taking a dangerous job as a way to sublimate a death wish.

Daily Defences

While many stresses and anxieties of daily life would be worse without the employment of defence mechanisms, they can sometimes make situations worse. Projection and displacement could cause social conflict.

Psychosexual stages of development

Freud believed that every person goes through set stages of development, each of which requires the resolution of a conflict. These stages all occur in childhood and are necessary for the formation of a full personality. In his theory of psychosexual stages, each stage is marked by a direction of libidinal energy into a specific body part in the search for gratification. Failing to resolve a conflict at any stage is called a fixation, as the individual becomes stuck.

Oral stage (0-18 months): Pleasure and tension revolves around the mouth. Weaning from the breast or bottle is the main conflict of this stage. Excessive pleasure and dependency must be confronted. If fixated on this stage, an adult might tend to overeat or smoke, and may want to be nurtured or taken care of. They might also becoming “biting”, hostile or quarrelsome.

1. Anal stage (18 months-3 years): Pleasure and tension revolve around the expulsion and retention of feces. Toilet training is the main conflict of this stage, as self-control over the urges of the id is taught. Too little control and a person might become lazy or sloppy. Too much control and they become compulsive and overly neat.

2. Phallic stage (3-5 years): Pleasure and tension revolve around the discovery of the penis (or lack of penis). Sexual desire begins to awaken, and children fall in love with their parent of the opposite sex while seeing the same sex parent as a competitor. This is called the oedipal conflict. The fear of losing the penis, castration anxiety, drives the boy to give up lust for his mother and identify with his father, wanting to become more like him. This is the beginning of the superego and morality. Girls desire their father but envy them for their penis – this is called penis envy. Jung termed this stage the Electra complex for females.

3. Latency stage (6 years-puberty): Freud believed that little psychological development occurs at this stage, but skills and tools are learned that are needed for living in the world as children attend school.

4. Genital stage (Puberty onwards): Puberty brings about a sexual awakening, in which the libido becomes focused on the genitals and signals the resolution of all prior stage conflicts.

The poorer the conflict resolution at a specific stage, the more psychic energy is left to deal with that conflict, causing a fixation to manifest.

Personality

Psychoanalysis is a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy. Undergoing psychotherapy is considered a requirement for the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Techniques

Psychoanalysis has the goal of revealing the unconscious. All psychological problems are considered a result of unconscious conflicts. Once these conflicts are identified, they can begin to be dealt with maturely. There are different techniques to uncover the unconscious, of which the following will be discussed: free association, dream analysis and projection.

Free association technique

Saying anything that comes to mind, as it occurs, is called free association. It involves relaxing the personal censor that blocks unacceptable thoughts. The psychoanalyst must be able to recognize subtle signs of importance through the body language, tenor, and hesitation of the patient.

Dream analysis

Freud believed that dreams contain a disguised form of unconscious wishes and desires. Dream analysis is a technique for uncovering this material and distinguishing between manifest content (actual content of a dream) and latent content (the hidden meanings). This involves interpreting the symbols in dreams.

Projection

Techniques that deal with projection involve presenting the patient with ambiguous stimuli (like an inkblot) and analyzing their interpretation. People project their personalities into how they interpret the stimuli. A similar technique involves asking the person to draw something, like a person.

Psychoanalytic process

Through these previously mentioned techniques, the psychoanalyst begins to understand the unconscious of the patient. Near the end of the treatment, the psychoanalyst offers the patient interpretations of their problems. Through the understanding of unconscious sources for problems, the patient gains insight. This involves an intense release of emotion that accompanies the release of repressed material. Repressive forces work to resist psychoanalysis, often manifesting in aggression, reluctance, or avoidance. Resistance is a cue that important progress is being made. Transference is also an important step, and involves the patient reacting to the analyst as an important figure from their own life, relating to them as a father or mother.

The importance of psychoanalysis

Many of Freud’s ideas and techniques continue to influence the field of psychology today. Research psychologists are experiencing a resurge of interest in the topics of the unconscious, psychic energy, and defence mechanisms. In popular culture, many of Freud’s ideas have become incorporated into language and our understanding of people’s behaviour. Freud’s ideas have also laid the foundation for many of the topics still being addressed by psychologists today.

Contemporary issues in psychoanalysis - Chapter 10

Neo-analysis

Drew Weston is one of the most active proponents of contemporary psychoanalysis, with much of the focus now lying in childhood relationships and adult conflicts. Contemporary psychoanalysis is based on five postulates:

The unconscious plays a large role in life.

1. Behaviour reflects compromises in conflicts between opposing mental processes.
2. Childhood has a great deal of impact on the development of personality and adult relationships.
3. Mental representations of the self and others guide our interactions with others.
4. Development involves moving from social dependence and immaturity to mature, independent relationship styles.

Repression and memory

Repression has been repeatedly proven through research. Some recovered memories may be false memories, as in the case of Holly Ramona, but others may be true recollections. Leading questions and statements by psychologists might case the production of false memories, as has been repeatedly shown. These recollections could be as minor as mistaken details in witnessing a car accident, or as drastic of remembering childhood abuse that never occurred. Hypnosis has been used as a technique to cause patience to recall repressed memory. Research, however, has found that it does not improve memory and may serve to distort facts or create memories. Interpreting symptoms as signs of repressed trauma, dream interpretation, suggestive interviewing, and hypnosis can be ways to implant false memories. The imagined inflation effect occurs when a memory is elaborated upon through imagination – the imagined event and the memory become indistinguishable to the patient. Therapists might also suffer from a confirmatory bias, the tendency to look only for evidence which confirms a prior assumption or hunch.

The unconscious from a contemporary standpoint

The idea of the unconscious is still considered by contemporary psychologists to be an important part of psychology. Many believe that it has an influence on behaviour, but no longer agree with Freud that it has its own autonomous motivation. Freud’s view can be called the motivated unconscious, and the contemporary view can be called the cognitive unconscious. Subliminal perception, the quick perception of stimuli that is unrecognized but nevertheless impacts thought, is an example of a cognitive unconscious process. Priming is the process of preparing the mind to more readily accept associated material.

Psychology of the ego

While Freud’s version of psychoanalysis focused on the id, current psychoanalysis focuses on the ego. Erik Erikson, one of Freud’s students, emphasized the importance of the ego as a part of personality. According to Erikson, the primary function of the ego is establishing a secure identity. An identity crisis occurs when a person has not developed a strong sense of personality and feels confused.

Erikson’s eight stages of development

Erik Erikson expanded on Freud’s theory of psychosexual development to account for external influences such as society and culture. He also believed that development continues throughout a person’s lifetime. He came up with eight stages in his theory of psychosocial development; the success of each stage can develop important virtues, the lack of which can cause psychological issues.

1. Basic trust versus mistrust. Virtue: Hope.

2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt. Virtue: Will.

3. Initiative versus guilt. Virtue: Purpose.

4. Industry versus inferiority. Virtue: Skill.

5. Identity versus identity confusion. Virtue: Fidelity.

6. Intimacy versus isolation. Virtue: Love.

7. Generativity versus stagnation. Virtue: Care.

8. Integrity versus despair. Virtue: Wisdom.

Rather than psychosexual conflicts, Erikson described the major conflicts as being social. He maintained the idea of stage-based development and the notion of fixation in the event of unresolved conflict.

Karen Horney

Karen Horney was another proponent of ego psychology and disagreed with many of Freud’s more paternalistic notions. Horney specified that in “penis envy”, the penis desired is a symbol of social power rather than the actual organ. Thus, girls desired the same special power that the culture afforded to boys at the time. She also brought up the issue of the double standard toward sexual promiscuity. She focused on the impact of culture on gender roles, and coined the phrase fear of success as a way to point out the typical female reaction to competition. Horney established the use of the terms masculine and feminine to replace “male” and “female”, and ascribed roles as gender differences rather than sex differences.

Narcissism and the self

Most people engage in self-serving biases, in which they tend to take credit for success while denying responsibility for failure. This is one way in which self-esteem can remain at a high and healthy level. Those who take this self-esteem to far, however, are considered narcissistic. Narcissists try to appear better than others and to seek positive attention from others. This inflated self-focus is characterized by feelings of entitlement and a search for admirers. The narcissistic paradox occurs when the person appears to have high self-esteem but actually doubts their own worth and is particularly vulnerable to personal attacks.

Object relations

The object relations theory is an alternative to Freud’s developmental stage concept. Object relations theorists believe that sexuality is not the fundamental aspect of development, but that social relationships are. The phallic stage, then, is not about oedipal attractions but rather about healthy social relationship development.

All objects relations theories have some basic assumptions:

A child’s internal wishes and urges are secondary to relationship development.

1. Other people (ex. parents) become internalized by the child as mental objects or representations that remain even in the absence of those people.

Internalization depends on a child’s developing relationship with their mother. If positive, the internal object is a caring, nurturing mother-type. This impacts how the children view others in subsequent relationships. If the mother object that is internalized is not trustworthy, the child may grow up distrusting others.

Attachments in early childhood

Harry Harlow conducted experiments with apes, providing fake mothers to infants and observing the effects. This led him to conclude that attachment between an infant and its primary caregiver requires physical contact with a warm and responsive mother. This attachment is vitally important to psychological development. John Bowlby identified separation anxiety, the distress that some infants experience when separated from their mother that is only calmed by the mother’s return.

Ainsworth and colleagues studied this anxiety in the strange situation procedure. In this procedure, a mother and child enter the room. The mother sits and allows the child to explore. After a few minutes, a friendly stranger enters. Shortly thereafter, the mother leaves the child alone with the stranger. She then returns and the stranger leaves. Ainsworth, et.al. identified three different patterns, called attachment styles:

Secure attachment style: The infant endured the separation, waited patiently or even engaged with the stranger, and was happy when the mother returned.

1. Avoidant attachment style: The infant was unconcerned when the mother left and gave little attention to the mother upon her return.

2. Ambivalent attachment style: The infant was anxious about the separation and difficult to calm in the absence of the mother. Upon the mother’s return, the infant behaved angry but also wanted to be close to the mother, approaching but fighting against being held.

Adult relationship attachment styles

These styles become working models for adult relationships. An adult with a secure relationship style will have few problems developing satisfying relationship bonds. An adult with avoidant relationship style tends to have difficulty in trusting others and making commitments for fear of being abandoned. An adult with ambivalent relationship style tends to be vulnerable and uncertain about relationships and may become overly needy in a relationship. These styles are directly related to childhood measurements of attachment with the mother.

Personality and motives - Chapter 11

Basics

In this chapter, the importance of motives is discussed. Motives are the internal states that direct and encourage behaviour towards specific goals. They are often based on the tense state of being in need, as happens when one becomes hungry and is motivated to find food. Motives are intrapsychic because they are internal psychological needs and urges that lead to action. Motives are often unrecognized or projective.

Motive psychologists are similar to dispositional psychologists in that they stress the difference of motive strength and type between different individuals. They claim these differences can be measured, and are associated with life outcomes like marital success. These differences between people are stable over time. Successfully defining a motive may enlighten us on the cause of certain behaviours. Henry Murray was one of the first psychologists to develop a modern theory of motivation (between the 1930’s and 1960’s).

Need

According to Murray, a need is a state of tension that one seeks to reduce, finding the process of this goal striving often more satisfying than the tensionless state it produces. Needs compel people towards necessary action, even when such action requires sacrifice. Murray proposed a list of human needs that each associate with a set of emotions, tendencies towards actions and specific desires. Each individual has a hierarchy of needs that determines how they act. These various needs interact, making the concept of motive a dynamic one. Some of Murray’s needs include: achievement, exhibition, order, dominance, abasement, aggression, autonomy, blame-avoidance, affiliation, nurturance, and succour.

Press

The term press was used by Murray to refer to the aspects of a person’s environment that are need-relevant. Press is divided into the real environment (alpha press) and the perceived environment (beta press). Events that may mean something entirely different in reality (such as a smile from a passing stranger) may be interpreted according to an individual’s need-influenced perceptions.

Apperception

Apperception is a term that refers to the individual interpretation and perception of a situation’s meaning. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) uses ambiguous images to seek out the particular needs and motives that influence their interpreter, by having them describe creatively what may be happening in the picture. TAT can be used to assess state levels and trait levels of needs. State levels of a need are momentary, based on a person’s immediate situation. Trait levels, on the other hand, are based on a person’s average tendency towards a specific need. A newer technique is the Mutli-Motive Grid, which combines TAT with self-report questionnaires.

Three big motives

Three big needs/motives will be discussed: the need for achievement, the need for power and the need for intimacy.

Achievement need (nAch)

This need (nAch) is defined as the desire to improve, be successful, and feel competent. Individuals with this need tend to choose tasks that are moderately challenging, and thus allow the strongest possibility of feeling successful (not too hard that nobody can succeed, nor too easy that everyone can). They tend to enjoy tasks in which they are responsible for the outcome and those that provide feedback on their performance.

Increasing achievement

To determine one’s level of nAch, a correlation of TAT need for achievement scores with other measures is considered to be helpful. People with high nAch tend to more often pursue entrepreneurial careers and to take deliberate care in their choice of classes and in their studies. Training in nAch can improve success in business. NAch is expressed differently among cultures.

Gender differences

Female nAch has been found to occur on different trajectories, either focusing on work success, family success, or a combination of the two. One of the main differences in nAch comes from childhood influences. Where male children, when provided with a stable, supportive environment showed greater levels of nAch, female children in divorced, critical environments showed greater levels of nAch.

Promoting achievement in children

A parenting practice called independence training can help encourage autonomy and nAch. Strict toilet training in early childhood has been associated with high nAch later in life, demonstrating the idea that encouraging independent self-care promotes a sense of mastery and confidence. Setting clear and moderately challenging standards is also important to encourage striving for excellence. Children with secure attachment styles tend to be higher in nAch than others. It has been found that the belief in the malleability of one’s skills actually improves the effort one puts into achievement, and this believe is now being encouraged in schools.

Power Need (nPow)

Social impact

The need for power (nPow) is one’s desire to have an impact on other people. This need energizes and directs behaviour in situations that afford opportunities to exert power. The TAT is used to assess need for power.

Research results

NPow correlates with argumentativeness, presence in student government, risky gambling, and acquiring possessions that demonstrate prestige. People with a high nPow are more likely to seek submissive partners and unpopular friends.

Gender differences

There are not many differences in need for power between genders. One difference is that women with high nPow are less likely to engage in impulsive and aggressive behaviours than men with high nPow. Men are more likely to exhibit profligate impulsive behaviours (drinking, aggression, and sexual exploitation) than women. Responsibility training in childhood diminishes this tendency.

Health and nPow

People high in nPow are susceptible to stress when their power is denied. This can have a negative effect on health and can increase blood pressure and cause hypertension.

Politics and nPow

An interesting study applied the criteria of TAT to presidential speeches in history, and discovered that in and around times of war, power imagery was highest. In communications, power imagery can escalate conflict.

Intimacy Need (nInt)

Intimacy

The need for intimacy (nInt) is the reoccurring preference for close, warm and communicative interaction with others. High nInt people need more meaningful human interactions than low nInt people.

Research results

Like the other motives, TAT is used to measure the strength of this motive. Those with high nInt spend more time thinking about relationships, feel more pleasant emotions in company, make more eye contact, and have more conversations. Unlike extraverts, high nInt individuals are more likely to have a few close friends. High nInt is associated with life satisfaction in women and diminished strain in men, and overall eases adjustment.

Humanistic tradition of motives

The humanistic tradition approach to motivation emphasizes the conscious awareness of needs, choice, and personal responsibility. Taking responsibility for one’s choices allows one to create a meaningful life. According to the humanistic tradition, human nature is marked for the need for personal growth and self-actualization. A great deal of motivation, in this view, is based on the need to develop into what one is meant to be. Contrary to other traditions which view motivation as arising from a deficit, the humanistic tradition sees most motivations as being growth-based. Self-actualization is defined as becoming more attuned to oneself and becoming all that one can be.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

According to Maslow, needs are organized in a hierarchy. Each level of needs must, according to him, reach a certain stage of fulfilment for the next to be possible. Needs lower in the hierarchy are more pressing than those at the top. Maslow defines five levels:

Physiological (the base of the pyramid): This category includes all biological and survival-important needs, including food, sex, and sleep.

1. Safety: This category includes needs that ensure the safety of the person, shelter and security. Routines and insurance purchases can be seen as an expression of this need.
2. Belonging: This category includes needs that are related to group membership and acceptance, and may arise out of an evolutionary pack tendency.
3. Esteem: This category includes the need for self-esteem and for the esteem of others. We want to feel respected and admired by our peers and to have high levels of self-confidence.
4. Self-actualization: The need to develop to one’s full potential.

Research results

Studies have shown that people feel more distressed when the lower level needs (rather than the higher ones) are not satisfied, and happier when the higher level needs (rather than lower ones) were satisfied.

Self-Actualized individuals

Maslow studied people who had made contributions to society as self-actualized individuals, though ordinary people can be self-actualized just as easily. He was able to determine fifteen characteristics that these case studies shared: an efficient perception of reality, acceptance of themselves and nature, spontaneity, problem-focus, affinity for solitude, independence of cultural trends, continued freshness of appreciation, frequent “peak” experiences, desire to help humanity, deep ties with few people, democratic values, ability to discriminate between means and ends, philosophical sense of humour, creativity, and resistance to enculturation.

Flow is a state of being in which one is so involved in something that they forget all but the activity itself. It is a point of balance between skill and challenge, with a clear goal and prompt feedback. This is said to be an indication of experiencing self-actualization.

Carl Rogers

Rogers believed in the idea that humans are naturally good and benevolent, but are turned astray by life influences. For him, the fully functioning person is one who is on the way to self-actualization. These people are open, living life on a daily basis, and trust themselves to make their own decisions.

Positive regard and conditions of worth

Rogers believed that all children are born with an innate desire for the love, acceptance and positive regard of their parents. Parents often make positive regard contingent on good behaviour and success – these parameters are called conditions of worth. When positive regard must be earned, it is called conditional positive regard. Children who are given too many conditions may grow into adults who think first about what others want, about making others happy and winning approval. They may lose track of their own desire and responsibility. Unconditional positive regard, on the other hand, allows children to understand that even in their shortcomings, they are still loved. In not needing to earn regard, they are able to develop their own directions and develop unconditional positive self-regard.

Promoting Self-Actualization

Anxiety can occur when someone has an experience that is counter to their self-conception. If they believe that academic achievement earns the regard of their parents, and they incorporate this into their self-image, they may feel anxiety if they begin to get lower grades. Fully-functioning individuals might change their self-concept to incorporate the new experience. However, less functional individuals might use defense mechanisms. Distortion occurs when one modifies their experience to reduce a threat. Emotional intelligence (EI) has been found to correlate with a self-actualization tendency.

Rogers’s therapy is called client-centred therapy. In this, the therapist tries not to influence the client’s choices, but instead creates the right conditions for self-change. There are three core conditions:

Genuine acceptance: the therapist accepts the client in an honest way.

1. Unconditional positive regard: the therapist accepts everything the client says without passing judgement.

2. Empathic understanding: the therapist tries to understand their client from their point of view. This can be shown using the parroting technique, restating what is said.

Cognition and personality - Chapter 12

Personality

Cognitive approaches to personality look at the difference in how people think and perceive their environments. Two major types of cognition employed in understanding situations include personalizing cognition, in which the individual relates a situation to their own life and experiences, and objectifying cognition, in which the individual recalls objective facts that relate to the situation. The term cognition refers to thinking. This includes information processing, which consists of the mental acts of perception, attention, interpretation, memory, belief, judgement, decision, and anticipation. Information processing psychologists study the differences between how people deal with information. The three levels of cognition that personality psychologists focus on are expanded in this section – they include perception, interpretation, and goal-making.

Perception

Perception is the process of imposing order on information received through the senses. Perception is a very subjective and often individual process.

Field dependence versus field independence

Herman Witkin studied perceptual differences and how they reveal personality. He designed an apparatus called the Rod and Frame Test (RFT). This test studies individual differences in how one perceives a situation, by changing various aspects of a simple situation involving a glowing rod, a frame, and a chair to create the same resulting perceptual image. Based on what the individual does to right the image, the experimenter can determine what the participant’s perception is based on. Field dependent perception relies on cues received in the field of vision. On the other hand, field independent perception relies more on the individual’s sensations, rather than the visual field. A simpler test is called the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). It involves a large image in which smaller pictures have been embedded. When people have trouble finding these images, they may be focusing more on the field provided (field dependent), rather than separating objects from the bigger picture (field independent).

Life choices influenced by field dependence/independence

Studies have shown differences in study choices related to field differences – field dependent people tend to favour social sciences and education while field independent people favour maths and natural sciences. Field dependent people are also attentive to social cues, seeking more interaction with others. Field independent people are more autonomous and prefer non-social situations.

Recent research

Recent research has come up with much new information on the differences between these perception styles. Field independent people are better able to focus on important details of a situation while filtering out distracting information and noise, and are better at decoding facial expressions in photographs. Field independent students learn more easily in complex hypermedia lessons than do field dependent students, demonstrating that they may be better able to focus on the important information in a high-stimulus situation, and switch the focus of their attention more easily. Field independent people also have an easier time picking up a second language. They also tend to be more creative, though less social.

Pain tolerance

People experience pain differently. Those with a high pain tolerance report feeling less pain when receiving the same treatment as someone with a low pain tolerance. Petrie had a theory that people with a high tolerance for pain have a nervous system that reduces pain, while people with a low tolerance have a nervous system that augments (amplifies) it. This is the reducer/augmenter theory. Reducers seem to be motivated towards stimulus-intense activities that correct for low sensory reactivity. These include coffee drinking, louder music preferences, drug and alcohol use.

Interpretation

Interpretation is the process of explaining things or events, giving them meaning. Interpretation is often used in dealing with questions of blame and responsibility.

George Kelly’s personal construct theory

Kelly believed that all people want to better understand their experiences and circumstances so they can predict future occurrences. He sees humans as scientists who want to explain situations so they can predict and control events. People use personal constructs, individual sets of observations and rules, to help them interpret their world. All constructs, according to Kelly, consist of a characteristic understood by its opposite (nice-mean, boring-interesting). These are used to create social groups and determine who to interact with. Kelly can be considered an early postmodernist thinker. His theory included the notion that people, even if largely different, will get along if they share a personal construct system. He believed anxiety arises from a lack of understanding one’s circumstances.

Internal/external locus of control

Locus of control is a person’s perception of responsibility for experienced events. If one has an internal locus of control, they find themselves responsible. If they have an external locus of control, they see others, fate, or chance as holding responsibility. This concept began with Julian Rotter, who was working on social learning theory. His expectancy model of learning behaviour suggested that some people expect that their actions will bring reinforcement, while others do not see the connection between their behaviour and reinforcement. Rotter found that these generalized expectations held over a variety of situations, and fashioned a questionnaire to determine locus of control. Internal locus of control is a predictor of lower obesity, timely degree completion, and higher credit rating. Researchers are now more interested in specific expectancies, when locus of control affects specific parts of life.

Learned helplessness and interpretation

Learned Helplessness occurs when a person is subjected to a repeated and unpleasant situation from which there is no escape. Eventually, even if an escape becomes possible, they will not try to avoid their unpleasant circumstances. They have learned that trying is hopeless, and thus feel unable to act. This has been seen to occur in real-life circumstances, including among abused wives.

Conscious goal-making

Goals are the standards people hold themselves to and the tasks they set for themselves. The focus of this approach to cognition is on what people intend. Self-guides are standards by which people measure themselves.

Personal projects

Personal projects are sets of actions that are performed with the intent of achieving a goal. Personal projects vary in importance and priority on a daily basis. Little’s Personal Projects Analysis method assesses how people choose, manage, and feel about their personal projects. It has been related to the Big Five personality traits, with results showing more dissatisfaction and stress among those high in neuroticism over the completion of personal projects. Little has determined that bringing personal projects to a successful completion is important in overall levels of life satisfaction and happiness.

Social cognition

Cognitive psychologists aim to understand how we receive, perceive and store information regarding other human beings. One point of particular interest is that we can learn from watching others. Other points are group membership, reputation, group identification.

The cognitive social learning approach

Theories that focus on the notion that personality is expressed in goal choice make up the cognitive social learning approach to personality.

Self-efficacy and Albert Bandura

Bandura expanded on the behaviourist concept of human behaviour by including intentions, forethought, and social observation in classic learning theory. One of his most important concepts is self-efficacy, one’s belief that they are able to execute a course of action to complete their goals. Higher self-efficacy leads to more concerted effort and persistence towards goal-completion and more ambitious goals. Splitting large objectives into more easily achievable sub-goals can increase overall self-efficacy. Seeing others succeed (in a process called modeling) can also influence self-efficacy.

Mastery orientation and Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck’s research deals with helpless and mastery-oriented behaviours in children. Children with an entity view of intelligence believe that it is an unchangeable personal trait. Conversely, children with an incremental view of intelligence believe that it is something that can change and improve. These children tend to try harder and have a higher sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem than entity children.

Regulatory focus and E. Tory Higgins

According to Higgins, there are two different ways that people regulate their goal-oriented behaviour. Those with a promotion focus are concerned with growth, advancement and accomplishments and tend to approach goals with eagerness. Those with a prevention focus are concerned with safety, protection, and avoidance of negative outcomes. They tend to act vigilant and cautious. People with a promotion focus have been found more likely to write a possibly incorrect answer on a test than to omit an answer when they are not sure.

Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) and Walter Mischel

In the late 60’s, Mischel was critical of the concept that personality traits cause behaviour and argued for the importance of situational influences. More recently, he has developed the Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS), which views personality as combination of affective and cognitive activities that influence behaviour and reactions to situations, rather than a collection of traits. CAPS takes situation into account, seeing personality expressed in “if…then…” propositions. Profiles could be made up for individuals according to their reactions to certain situations.

How do emotions and personality relate to each other? - Chapter 13

What are the three components of emotions?

Emotions are made up of three components: subjective feelings (affects), bodily reactions (expressions, posture, etc.), and action tendencies (a likelihood for certain behaviours). Some theories of emotion deal with its evolutionary basis. Darwin’s functional analysis of emotions and expressions sought to explain the evolutionary benefit of emotions. Personality psychologists look at individual differences in emotional reactions to situations and events.

What is the link between states versus traits?

Emotional states are transitory and usually dependent on a situation. Their cause is usually external. On the other hand, an emotional trait is a consistent pattern of emotional responses that an individual might experience over time, and is generally stable.

What is the link between categorical versus dimensional?

The categorical approach to emotion research suggests that the primary, distinct emotions are most important to study. Researchers taking this approach try to discern the basic emotions out of a complex web of secondary emotions. There is disagreement, however, on which emotions are the primary ones, and what criteria to use in defining them.

The dimensional approach to emotion research applies statistical measures to self-rating tests. It has determined two main dimensions: how pleasant or unpleasant an emotion is, and whether it is highly active or less active. This approach deals more with how emotions are experienced than how they are reflected upon.

What do we mean with content and style?

The content of emotion is the specific sort of emotion a person experience (happiness, anger), and the style is the way in which it is experienced (frequently, intensely). These are useful terms for discussing emotion and personality.

How can we describe content?

The content of a person’s emotional life is made up of the type of emotions they most often feel. “Happy” people experience more pleasant emotions overall than “angry” people.

How can we describe happiness and life satisfaction?

Studies on happiness most often take the form of self-report questionnaires. One such questionnaire asks people to express their happiness in terms of a percentage. Results predict many happiness-related aspects of personality. Happiness is divided by researchers into a rating of life satisfaction, and of the predominance of positive emotions in one’s life. These two aspects are often correlated. Studies have found that people who have positive illusions about themselves are generally happier. People who are measured to be happier tend to be less hostile, self-centred, and more trusting, energetic, and healthy.

What are the benefits of happiness?

Happiness is correlated with positive outcomes in life tasks like marriage, self-esteem, and job satisfaction. The causal direction of the relationship is a matter of debate. Evidence has been found that happiness is often involved in the positive outcome of life events. These successes can, in turn, increase happiness. This complex, back-and-forth interaction is called reciprocal causality.

How do people become happy people?

It has been found that there is roughly no difference between levels of happiness in men and women. Circumstances that make people happy have been found to change with age, but no specific age has been found to be the “happiest”. There is also little difference in happiness levels between ethnic groups. Among countries, however, there is a difference in reported subjective well-being. Those with more civil and political rights and protections tend to have higher levels of happiness.

What is the link between personality and general well-being?

Costa and McCrae determined that general happiness might be based in a disposition towards positive emotion. They theorized that happiness is affected by levels of neuroticism (related to negative affect) and extraversion (related to positive affect). Many studies support this notion, although they tend to be correlational and thus unable to determine the causal relationship. Findings of the mood induction tests performed by Larsen, et.al. have shown that extraversion amplifies positive emotions and neuroticism amplifies negative emotions.

What is neuroticism and trait anxiety?

People high in neuroticism are more prone to negative emotions, and often overreact to unpleasant situations, taking a longer time to return to a neutral state. They tend to worry and be more anxious than other individuals. They are also more easily irritated.

What involves the biological theory?

Eysenck argues that neuroticism is based on a biological tendency of the limbic system in the brain to be more easily activated. Because of this, they have more emotions related to flight or fight reactions dictated by the limbic system. While this has not been sufficiently proven due to issues in measurement, there are three logical arguments that support the theory that neuroticism is biological:

• Neuroticism is consistent and stable over a period of 45 years.

• Neuroticism is listed as a major personality dimension across cultures and data sources.

• Neuroticism has been shown to be somewhat heritable.

Studies have found that the anterior cingulate portion of the brain is most active when strong emotions are experienced. In the self-regulation of negative emotions, the prefrontal cortex was found to be most active.

What are cognitive theories?

Studies have shown that people with high neuroticism recall more negative criticism about themselves than people with low neuroticism. This is perhaps due to the fact that individuals high in neuroticism tend to have more negative experiences and thoughts with which to associate new information, thus making information processing more efficient for negative events. They also recall and report more symptoms of illness than low neuroticism individuals. Recent studies have shown that this may be due impart to the diminished state of the immune system immediately following stress. Chronic stress related to a neurotic's worries and anxieties can leave one vulnerable to threats. A modified version of the Stroop test has been used to determine that people high in neuroticism pay more attention to anxiety and threat-related words, further indicating that they pay more attention to negative things than people low in neuroticism.

What is melancholy?

Depression is a dimension of emotion that is also trait-like. The diathesis-stress model suggests that some people have a pre-existing tendency towards depression, which must be triggered by a stressful life event in order to manifest.

What involves Aaron Beck's cognitive theory?

Beck suggests that a vulnerability towards depression stems from a cognitive schema that distorts information in a negative light. He suggests that three main areas of life are most influenced by this schema: information on the self, information on the world, and information on the future. This is the cognitive triad. An overgeneralizing distortion may take negative events and use them as proof for personal inadequacy, an unfair world, or a hopeless future. Other distortions include arbitrary inferences (assuming the most negative conclusion), personalizing (assuming blame), and catastrophizing (assuming the worst is bound to happen). These distortions in thinking can lead to issues – when people behave as if they will fail, they might well do so out of a lack of motivation. This is called self-fulfilling prophecy.

What is the neurotransmitter theory of depression?

The neurotransmitter theory of depression suggests that depression is a result of a neurotransmitter imbalance (involving norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine). Some anti-depression medications work to correct this issue. Exercise is suggested as another method to both prevent and treat depression.

What about anger and hostility?

Certain situations, like being treated unfairly or being frustrated in trying to attain a goal, tend to illicit anger responses in most people. However, individual differences to reactions indicate personality factors to be involved. Hostile people are more irritable and prone to uncooperative, antagonistic and angry ways to everyday situations. Hostility is related to coronary heart issues and is linked to the type A behaviour pattern. Anger can lead to a loss of self-control. People with a certain biology (problems in the prefrontal cortex) may be more prone to violent expression of anger than others.

What do we mean with intensity of affect?

The dimension of affect intensity is ascertained by measuring an individual's self-reported moods over a period of time to determine the typical intensity of their moods. Those with high affect intensity experience emotions strongly and with more variation. They alternate between extremes of mood more rapidly and frequently than those with low affect intensity. Those with low affect intensity experience milder emotions with minor reactions and only gradual mood changes. This term reflects a tendency and may not be the case in the wake of extremely emotional life events like deaths and marriages.

What is the link between assessing mood variability and affect intensity?

A questionnaire called the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM) is used to quickly assess emotional style, rather than the traditional longitudinal measure. It is hard to say if high or low affect intensity is better, as extremes in emotion also allow for heights of joy, but have the risk of deep depression. It can be said that high affect intensity can be a stress on the sympathetic nervous system.

What are the research results?

Individuals with high affect intensity have been shown to rate their life events more severely (both the good and the bad) than objective raters. They are, therefore, more emotionally reactive to life events than low affect intensity people. Affect intensity correlates with both extraversion and neuroticism. High affect intensity is also characterized by an extreme variability in moods, as well as a tendency to seek emotionally intense situations.

How does content and style interact?

The hedonic balance is the degree of pleasantness over a person's lifetime that can represent the content of a person's emotional life. Hedonic balance and affect intensity are unrelated to one another, though they interact to create unique personality characteristics.

Personality and emotions - Chapter 14

Emotions are made up of three components: subjective feelings (affects), bodily reactions (expressions, posture, etc.), and action tendencies (a likelihood for certain behaviours). Some theories of emotion deal with its evolutionary basis. Darwin’s functional analysis of emotions and expressions sought to explain the evolutionary benefit of emotions. Personality psychologists look at individual differences in emotional reactions to situations and events.

Issues

States versus traits

Emotional states are transitory and usually dependent on a situation. Their cause is usually external. On the other hand, an emotional trait is a consistent pattern of emotional responses that an individual might experience over time, and is generally stable.

Categorical versus dimensional

The categorical approach to emotion research suggests that the primary, distinct emotions are most important to study. Researchers taking this approach try to discern the basic emotions out of a complex web of secondary emotions. There is disagreement, however, on which emotions are the primary ones, and what criteria to use in defining them.

The dimensional approach to emotion research applies statistical measures to self-rating tests. It has determined two main dimensions: how pleasant or unpleasant an emotion is, and whether it is highly active or less active. This approach deals more with how emotions are experienced than how they are reflected upon.

Content and style

The content of emotion is the specific sort of emotion a person experience (happiness, anger), and the style is the way in which it is experienced (frequently, intensely). These are useful terms for discussing emotion and personality.

Content

The content of a person’s emotional life is made up of the type of emotions they most often feel. “Happy” people experience more pleasant emotions overall than “angry” people.

Positive emotions

Happiness and life satisfaction

Studies on happiness most often take the form of self-report questionnaires. One such questionnaire asks people to express their happiness in terms of a percentage. Results predict many happiness-related aspects of personality. Happiness is divided by researchers into a rating of life satisfaction, and of the predominance of positive emotions in one’s life. These two aspects are often correlated. Studies have found that people who have positive illusions about themselves are generally happier. People who are measured to be happier tend to be less hostile, self0centred, and more trusting, energetic, and healthy.

The benefits of happiness

Happiness is correlated with positive outcomes in life tasks like marriage, self-esteem, and job satisfaction. The causal direction of the relationship is a matter of debate. Evidence has been found that happiness is often involved in the positive outcome of life events. These successes can, in turn, increase happiness. This complex, back-and-forth interaction is called reciprocal causality.

Happy people

It has been found that there is roughly no difference between levels of happiness in men and women. Circumstances that make people happy have been found to change with age, but no specific age has been found to be the “happiest”. There is also little difference in happiness levels between ethnic groups. Among countries, however, there is a difference in reported subjective well-being. Those with more civil and political rights and protections tend to have higher levels of happiness.

Personality and general well-being

Costa and McCrae determined that general happiness might be based in a disposition towards positive emotion. They theorized that happiness is affected by levels of neuroticism (related to negative affect) and extraversion (related to positive affect). Many studies support this notion, although they tend to be correlational and thus unable to determine the causal relationship. Findings of the mood induction tests performed by Larsen, et.al. have shown that extraversion amplifies positive emotions and neuroticism amplifies negative emotions.

Negative Emotions

Neuroticism and trait anxiety

People high in neuroticism are more prone to negative emotions, and often overreact to unpleasant situations, taking a longer time to return to a neutral state. They tend to worry and be more anxious than other individuals. They are also more easily irritated.

The biological theory

Eysenck argues that neuroticism is based on a biological tendency of the limbic system in the brain to be more easily activated. Because of this, they have more emotions related to flight or fight reactions dictated by the limbic system. While this has not been sufficiently proven due to issues in measurement, there are three logical arguments that support the theory that neuroticism is biological:

Neuroticism is consistent and stable over a period of 45 years.

1. Neuroticism is listed as a major personality dimension across cultures and data sources.
2. Neuroticism has been shown to be somewhat heritable.

Studies have found that the anterior cingulate portion of the brain is most active when strong emotions are experienced. In the self-regulation of negative emotions, the prefrontal cortex was found to be most active.

Cognitive theories

Studies have shown that people with high neuroticism recall more negative criticism about themselves than people with low neuroticism. This is perhaps due to the fact that individuals high in neuroticism tend to have more negative experiences and thoughts with which to associate new information, thus making information processing more efficient for negative events. They also recall and report more symptoms of illness than low neuroticism individuals. Recent studies have shown that this may be due impart to the diminished state of the immune system immediately following stress. Chronic stress related to a neurotic's worries and anxieties can leave one vulnerable to threats. A modified version of the Stroop test has been used to determine that people high in neuroticism pay more attention to anxiety and threat-related words, further indicating that they pay more attention to negative things than people low in neuroticism.

Melancholy

Depression is a dimension of emotion that is also trait-like. The diathesis-stress model suggests that some people have a pre-existing tendency towards depression, which must be triggered by a stressful life event in order to manifest.

Aaron Beck's cognitive theory

Beck suggests that a vulnerability towards depression stems from a cognitive schema that distorts information in a negative light. He suggests that three main areas of life are most influenced by this schema: information on the self, information on the world, and information on the future. This is the cognitive triad. An overgeneralizing distortion may take negative events and use them as proof for personal inadequacy, an unfair world, or a hopeless future. Other distortions include arbitrary inferences (assuming the most negative conclusion), personalizing (assuming blame), and catastrophizing (assuming the worst is bound to happen). These distortions in thinking can lead to issues – when people behave as if they will fail, they might well do so out of a lack of motivation. This is called self-fulfilling prophecy.

Biology

The neurotransmitter theory of depression suggests that depression is a result of a neurotransmitter imbalance (involving norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine). Some anti-depression medications work to correct this issue. Exercise is suggested as another method to both prevent and treat depression.

Anger and hostility

Certain situations, like being treated unfairly or being frustrated in trying to attain a goal, tend to illicit anger responses in most people. However, individual differences to reactions indicate personality factors to be involved. Hostile people are more irritable and prone to uncooperative, antagonistic and angry ways to everyday situations. Hostility is related to coronary heart issues and is linked to the type A behaviour pattern. Anger can lead to a loss of self-control. People with a certain biology (problems in the prefrontal cortex) may be more prone to violent expression of anger than others.

Emotional style

Intensity of affect

The dimension of affect intensity is ascertained by measuring an individual's self-reported moods over a period of time to determine the typical intensity of their moods. Those with high affect intensity experience emotions strongly and with more variation. They alternate between extremes of mood more rapidly and frequently than those with low affect intensity. Those with low affect intensity experience milder emotions with minor reactions and only gradual mood changes. This term reflects a tendency and may not be the case in the wake of extremely emotional life events like deaths and marriages.

Assessing mood variability and affect intensity

A questionnaire called the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM) is used to quickly assess emotional style, rather than the traditional longitudinal measure. It is hard to say if high or low affect intensity is better, as extremes in emotion also allow for heights of joy, but have the risk of deep depression. It can be said that high affect intensity can be a stress on the sympathetic nervous system.

Research results

Individuals with high affect intensity have been shown to rate their life events more severely (both the good and the bad) than objective raters. They are, therefore, more emotionally reactive to life events than low affect intensity people. Affect intensity correlates with both extraversion and neuroticism. High affect intensity is also characterized by an extreme variability in moods, as well as a tendency to seek emotionally intense situations.

How content and style interact

The hedonic balance is the degree of pleasantness over a person's lifetime that can represent the content of a person's emotional life. Hedonic balance and affect intensity are unrelated to one another, though they interact to create unique personality characteristics.

Personality and Social Interaction - Chapter 16

In short, all social behaviors can be divided into three parts: Selection, Evocation and Manipulation.

Selection

Situational selection is the decisions we make regarding which situation we chose to attend and which situations not to attend. Personality influences the decisions we make.

Personality Characteristics in Long-Term Romantic Partnership

In a large international study it was found that after mutual attraction, the personality characteristics like dependability (Conscientiousness), emotional stability and a pleasing disposition (Agreeableness) were universally desired in long term partners. Another big study showed that the top 5 most desired qualities were intelligence (openness to experience), humor (extraversion), honesty (conscientiousness), kindness (agreeableness) and good looks.

Assortative Mating

The complementary needs theory states people look for partners with different (complementary) characteristics. The attraction similarity theory states that people look for partners with similar characteristics. The scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the attraction similarity theory. Assortive Mating is the finding that in every aspect of life (from single actions to lifestyles) people tend to choose partners that are similar to them. Usually people partner up with people close to them. This could also account for the similarity. Studies show however that this is not the case, that people really desire someone like them.

Do People Get the Mates They Want?

Relationship satisfaction is predicted by partner’s personality traits. Agreeableness, Emotional Stability and Openness all predict relationship satisfaction. However, the difference between someone’s ideal partner’s personality and their actual partner’s personality made no difference. Disagreeableness was especially dangerous to relationship satisfaction.

In the first year of marriage people rate their spouse higher on extraversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness. After the first year these ratings decline. This is called the honeymoon effect. In Northern compared to Southern Europe, people tend to cohabit more often. Also, in the entirety of Europe, there is a shift to more unmarried couples living together.

Personality and the Selective Break-up of Couples

The violation of desire theory states that people are more likely to break up when their partner shows less desirable qualities. Emotional instability is the biggest predictor of break-ups. Low agreeableness and high angriness also predict dissatisfaction. Similarity in overall personality profile and a match between an individual’s conception of an ideal mate and their actual mate also predict marriage satisfaction.

Shyness and the Selection of Social Situations

Shyness is the tendency to feel tense or worried, anxious or nervous in social situations. It occurs with 90 percent of all people, but some seem to be shyer than others. Shyness can result in the avoidance of social situations and difficulty in forming new relationships. Shy women have more trouble bringing up the use of contraceptives before sexual intercourse and also avoid going to the gynecologist, putting themselves at risk of STD’s.

Selection in the Digital Era

It was found Neuroticism is positively correlated with how much time people spend on Facebook. Extraverts were reported to be part of more Facebook groups, and have more Facebook friends than introverts. Extraverts report less regret than introverts over stuff they put online. Agreeable people report more regret in that regard. Narcissistic users upload more self-promoting and sexy content than others.

Facebook users reported themselves as more neurotic, extraverted sociable and less needy of cognitive stimulation than Twitter users. Facebook is also a form of impression management, leaving out the bad things and emphasizing the good things. A study showed that heavy Facebook users believed others were happier than they were.

Facebook information can end up in wrong places. For instance, it was found that over 40 percent of recruitment operations used LinkedIn and Facebook as a way of assessing candidates prior to an interview. Trait Jealousy and Facebook Jealousy also correlate highly and reinforce each other.

Other Personality Traits and Situation Selection

Empathic people tend to engage more in voluntary work. High psychoticism leads to choosing more volatile and spontaneous situations, instead of stable ones. High need for closure (preferring order and predictability over chaotic, ambiguous situations) leads people to engage in more predictable situations, like going to the cinema. Low need for closure enjoy more loosely structured activities, like a party. High Machiavellianism (High Machs) like close and personal situations, perhaps because then they can apply their manipulative skills better. High Machs also use more manipulation and deceit to get what they want, even in situations where cooperation might be better. High sensation seekers volunteer more for risky or unusual experiments, involving drugs and sex, and are engage more in these types of situations. They also enter into more risky sexual behavior.

Affective Forecasting is the accuracy with which we predict our own emotional reactions to events. For instance if you’re asked how you would feel if a family member died. Studies have shown the correlation between predicted reactions and actual reactions are pretty low, and most of us overestimate our own reactions (this is called the impact bias), both positive (how good you’d feel on holiday) and negative (like when the family member would die). Neuroticism was connected to high negative anticipation, while extraversion was connected with high positive anticipation. It is believed that our anticipated emotions cause us to engage more (or less) in the behavior anticipated on, even if these anticipations do not hold to be accurate.

Evocation

Evocation is the way certain personality characteristics cause reactions in others. For instance, a highly active child tends to elicit more competiveness in other children. Aggressive people elicit aggressiveness in others. Aggressive people interpret ambiguous events as more hostile, and then react with hostility of their own (called the hostile attributional bias). In partners there are typically two ways people invoke hostility. The first way is a direct way, where a person’s personality causes them to act in a certain way which causes frustration in their partner. A second way is that sometimes people can influence their partner by systematically behaving in a certain way (dominant people being dominant), eliciting certain reactions from their partner (low self-esteem) and then getting frustrated with their reactions (angry that their partner has low self-esteem).

In marriage studies, a few of these effects have been examined. Dominant people elicit frustration from their partners by being condescending. Low conscientious people upset their partner more by way of extra-marital affairs. People low openness upset their partner by giving less attention to their partner’s emotions, withholding sex, being very self-absorbed and also by alcohol abuse. Disagreeableness and Emotional instability are the strongest predictors of evoking anger and upset and can lead to a number of negative behaviors like abuse, infidelity, name-calling etc.

High agreeableness, high conscientiousness and low neuroticism are predictive of using more compromise and better interpersonal problem-solving and less conflict. These three are also predictive of better relationships.

Expectancy Confirmation

Expectancy confirmation is the effect that beliefs about someone’s personality evokes reactions in that person that are in correspondence with these beliefs. The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is a form of expectancy confirmation. Children that were told by their teachers that the teacher believed they would succeed, had more chance of succeeding. In another experiment, two strangers who had never met were told they were to meet an aggressive person. They initially reacted hostile because of their anticipations, and this hostility was met with more hostility in return. Because of unconscious expectancy confirmation evocations of behavior, it is said you should move to a place where no one knows you if you want to change your personality.

Manipulation: Social Influence Tactics

Manipulation is the way we consciously use social influence to get people to behave in a certain way.

A Taxonomy of Eleven Tactics of Manipulation

A taxonomy is a classification system. The taxonomy of manipulation was developed using the act-nomination scheme, simply by asking people to name acts that get other people to do something. Then factor-analysis was used to identify the different factors.

1. Charm: Be nice to people to get what you want

2. Coercion: Be nasty to people till they do what you want

3. Silent Treatment: Be silent until they do what you want

4. Reason: Explain reasonably why they should do it

5. Regression: Keep whining till they do what you want

6. Self-Abasement: Act submissively till they do it

7. Responsibility Invocation: Get them to make a commitment

8. Hardball: Hit them (lying, deceiving, physical violence) so they do it

9. Pleasure Induction: Show them how much fun it will be

10. Social Comparison: “Everyone else is doing it”

11. Monetary Reward: Pay them to do it

Sex Differences in Tactics

Women use slightly more of the regression tactic, but differences are small. Both genders equally use the rest of the tactics. It was however found that women overall use more manipulation tactics, except the use of charm.

Personality Predictors of Tactics

Dominant people (high extraversion) tend to use more coercion and responsibility invocation. Low-dominance people use more self-abasement, and also more hardball tactics. Agreeable people use more pleasure induction and reason. Disagreeable people use more coercion and silent treatment. They also show more selfishness and more revenge-tactics. Conscientious people use more reason. Low conscientious people more likely to use criminal tactics to gain resources. Emotionally unstable people use a lot of different tactics: hardball, coercion, but also reason and monetary rewards. The biggest tactic they use is regression. People that score high on openness use reason. People low on openness use social comparison.

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is a social strategy, and also a personality type, that disregards moral and social values, and uses any kind of social influence to get what is wanted. Its effectiveness is highly dependent on the environment. In an unrestricted environment a high Mach has more room to use his influence and get away with it, and high macs can be very effective in these fluid situations. However, in situations with lots of rules and restrictions, high macs get caught in their cheating and lying and get a bad reputation, and soon no one wants to interact with them anymore. Low macs on the other hand are more cooperation focused, preferring tit-for-tat strategies over manipulating others.

Self-Concealment (SC) and Social Interaction

SC is the tendency to keep personal information from others and keep secrets. It is associated with low socio-emotional regulation and negative social outcomes. Self-concealers tend to withdraw from social situations where they have to talk about themselves, and don’t like to seek help. They have more trouble trusting and evoking trust of others. High SC can evoke feelings of not belonging and being left-out in others. People that rated their partner with high SC also reported less trust and more conflict. High SC people don’t give off the impression they’re open for bonding, leading others to eventually avoid them. In terms of active manipulation, self-concealers apply tactics to avoid giving away personal information, for instance by switching the topic of conversation.

Gender, sex and personality - Chapter 17

Politics and science of sex and gender studies

Gender is made up of the social interpretations of what it means to be male or female. Gender stereotypes are beliefs held about how men and women are supposed to differ, rather than how they truly differ. The study of sex differences is controversial, because some believe that the findings of sex differences might encourage gender stereotypes, or even arise out of biases towards one gender or the other. Some believe that finding sex differences may undermine the goals of egalitarianism.

History

Prior to 1973, it was common to use only male participants in psychological research, and differences were not sought out. In the early 1970’s, research on sex differences began with the work of Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklyn. They determined that women exceeded at verbal abilities where men excelled at mathematical and spatial abilities. They also concluded that men were more aggressive than women. After this research, standards were put into place encouraging the inclusion of both genders in psychological studies, and the clear recognition of sex differences in these studies. Meta-analysis has been developed as a more precise way of determining sex differences over multiple studies. It allows for more objectivity and precision, and allows for the measurement of effect size.

Calculating effect size

The effect size is also known as the d statistic. It expresses a difference in units of standard deviation. When the d is 0.50, the difference between the groups is half of a standard deviation. When the d is 1.00, the difference is one standard deviation. Effect size is calculated in each study, and then averaged across studies to provide a more objective assessment. The accepted convention for reading effect sizes is as follows: when the d score is 0.20 or -0.20, there is a small difference. When it is 0.50 or -0.50, there is a medium difference. When it is 0.80 or -0.80, there is a large difference. Positive d scores indicated that men score higher than women; negative d scores indicate the opposite. Of course, even large effect sizes do not have implications for every individual.

Maximalists and minimalists

People with a maximalist perspective argue that the magnitude of sex differences should not be trivialized, and some differences have a stronger magnitude than others. They argue that even small differences can have a large impact on behaviour. Minimalists, on the other hand, argue that most differences show small magnitudes and are not very practically relevant to real-world situations.

Personality and sex differences

Childhood temperament

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress inappropriate responses, is much stronger in females than males, and is the strongest sex difference in temperament. Perceptual sensitivity, the ability to detect subtle stimuli in an environment, is also strongest in girls. Surgency is a cluster of temperamental traits that includes high activity level, impulsiveness, and approach behaviour. In this, boys score higher than girls. A combination of these tendencies may indicate why boys more frequently tend towards physical aggressiveness. Boys and girls show barely any difference in negative affectivity, the tendency towards expressing negative emotions, though girls are slightly more fearful than boys. There is little to no evidence that girls are more emotional than boys between age 3 and 13.

Five-Factor model of personality

Extraversion

Extraversion can be split into three main aspects: gregariousness, assertiveness, and activity. Women are slightly higher on gregariousness; men are slightly higher on activity. Men score moderately higher than women on assertiveness, and place a higher importance on the value of power than do women.

1. Agreeableness / Aggressiveness

Women tend to score a small-medium amount higher than men on agreeableness, a trait that includes two main aspects: trust and tender-mindedness. Trust is a tendency to cooperate with others and believe that they are inherently good. Tender-mindedness involves being nurturing and sympathetic to those who are down. Women also smile more than men, though this may be a sign of submissiveness rather than agreeableness. Men are more physically aggressive than women, and more often fantasize about acts of violent aggression. This is reflected in the global differences in violent crime between the genders.

2. Conscientiousness

There is not much of a sex difference to be found in the trait of conscientiousness. Women surpass men only slightly in the facet of order.

3. Emotional Stability

This dimension includes calmness and stability at one end, and volatility and changing moods at the other. Women are moderately lower in emotional stability than men.

4. Intellect-openness to experience

There are essentially no sex differences in intellect-openness to experience.

Frequency and intensity of basic emotions

Significant but small differences exist between the sexes in the experience and expression of both negative and positive emotions. Internationally, women show a slightly more frequent and intense experience of both positive and negative emotions. They especially experience affection, joy, fear, and sadness more than men do.

More personality dimensions

Self-esteem between the sexes

Global self-esteem has been found to be slightly higher in men. The difference is most noticeable in the mid-late teen years, when girls show a significantly lower self-esteem than boys the same age. This evens out later in life.

Sex and sexuality

One of the largest differences in sexuality between the sexes is that men show much more interest in casual sex than do women. Men also have more issues keeping sexuality out of a platonic friendship than do women. A subset of men who are narcissistic, lack empathy, and display hostile masculinity, are more likely to be sexually aggressive than women.

People-things

The people-things dimension relates to the nature of vocational interest. Individuals who are higher in the things direction prefer vocations that involve tools, machines and materials. Those who are higher in the people direction prefer jobs that have social application, such as nursing, teaching, and religion. There is a strong sex difference in the people-things dimension, as women tend towards people and men towards things.

Sex roles, masculinity, femininity and androgyny

For most of the sex differences that do not seem to relate specifically to a known dimension of personality, the masculinity-femininity dimension is used. But when people are both masculine and feminine, androgyny may be an important concept.

Androgyny

In contrast to the earlier concept that masculinity and femininity are on opposite ends of a spectrum, new researchers start with the premise that they are two separate dimensions – one can be high in both, low in both, or higher in one and lower in the other. In this new conception of sex roles, personality instruments were developed to assess these traits. Masculinity includes assertiveness, boldness, dominance, self-sufficiency and instrumentality. Femininity includes nurturance, emotional expression, and empathy. People high in both dimensions are considered androgynous in their sex roles. These people are considered to be the most highly developed.

Criticism

Critics to the sex roles theory argue that masculinity and femininity are multidimensional constructs that cannot be so clearly established. Others argue that masculinity/femininity is a singular, bipolar trait. In light of these arguments, the Janet Spence (the author of one measure) asserts that instead of sex roles, her measure looks at instrumentality and expressiveness. Instrumentality consists of traits involved with working with objects, direct task-completion, independence and self-sufficiency. Expressiveness involves ease with emotional expression, empathy for others, and nurturance. Sandra Bem (another measure’s author) suggests that her measure looks at gender schemata, the cognitive processes that process sex-linked social information. The ideal in this is to be gender-aschematic rather than androgynous. Both genes and environment have been found to influence sex roles. External validity of all of these measures is hard to say.

Gender stereotyping

Gender stereotypes consist of three components:

Cognitive: The way in which social categories are formed (ex. “cads” vs. “dads”)

1. Affective: The warmth or hostility felt towards a person due to a social categorization.

2. Behavioural: Discriminating against people due to their social category.

Content of stereotypes

Gender stereotypes seem to be internationally similar. Men are often considered more aggressive, ambitious, autonomous, dominant, persevering and exhibitionist. Women are more often seen as affiliative, heterosexual, nurturing, deferent, and self-abasing. Women are considered communal where men are instrumental.

Subtypes of Gender Stereotypes

Men are typically viewed as falling into five stereotype subtypes, which include the playboy subtype and the career man subtype. Women fall into less subtypes, including the classically feminine, the over-sexed, and more recently, the career woman.

Prejudice

Gender stereotypes can have damaging consequences when acted upon, especially in legal decisions, medical treatment, job hunting and sales. Many prejudices favour men, although some favour women.

Theories

Socialization

The socialization theory suggests that sex differences are taught and reinforced by parents, teachers and the media. Since young girls and boys are treated different, given different toys and praised for different behaviours, they grow into their gender roles. In Bandura’s social learning theory, children also learn from observing the behaviours of models (parents, teachers, etc.) and behave according to what they see. Across cultures, parents raise their children differently according to their gender. Girls are protected and taught to stay near home and be more nurturing, where boys are encouraged to roam and compete.

Criticism

Critics question whether the parents or the tendencies of the children shape the way they are raised – perhaps little girls just like dolls, and respond better to them than to trucks. The origin of gender-specific parenting practices is also unclear. The social role theory suggests that sex differences come from the distribution of men and women into different roles (bread-winner versus child-raiser). Still, the social role theory does not account for the possible origins of these practices. As social roles change, it is becoming more apparent that sex differences are actually increased in sexually egalitarian countries.

Hormones

Hormonal theories suggest that sex differences arise due to a difference in underlying hormones. Research in this theory looks at links between hormones and sex-specific behaviours. Studies of girls who experienced congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) in the womb, in which the female foetus has an overactive adrenal gland, give credence to this theory. Girls with CAH show a number of male preferences and an increase in typically male abilities (like spatial and mathematical skills). Men have ten times the level of testosterone than women, which is linked with aggression, dominance, and career choice. Women with higher levels of testosterone tend to also show higher levels of these traits. High testosterone levels are also linked with an increased in sex drive. Of course, these observations are correlations and the causal relationship is unclear. And still, the question of origins remains unanswered.

Evolution

The evolutionary psychology perspective on sex differences suggests that men and women differ only in categories in which they were once faced with different adaptive challenges. These adaptive problems are those that need to be solved for the successful reproduction and survival of the species. Both genders like similar foods, but differences occur in the domains of mating and sexuality. Because women bear children, they must secure resources and protect their children, and so choose mates that show more “masculine” tendencies – the ability to hunt, protect, and gain social power. Men might attempt to reproduce with more women, and have more casual sex. Critics of this theory question why there are individual differences within the sexes, if this is the case.

Integrated perspective

Evolutionary psychology answers the why but not the how of sex differences. Hormonal and socialization theories answer the how and not the why. An integrated theory looks at all of these theories when analyzing sex differences.

Stress, Coping, Adjustment and Health - Chapter 19

Health psychology is the field of psychology that focuses on the mind and the body, and behavior that influences the health of the mind and the body.

Models of the Personality-Illness Connection

Stress is the feeling produced by situations that are uncontrollable or threatening. It is important to note that stress is a reaction, and not an environmental factor. The interactional model states personality moderates the relation between a stressful event and the amount of physiological effects this event will have. Personality influences which coping behavior is used, and thus what potential effects the stressor will have. In this model, a stressor holds an amount of stress which is the same for all people. However, this model was not complete enough, and soon was replaced with the transactional model. In the transactional model, personality doesn’t only influence coping behavior, but also the appraisal of stressful events, and even the events themselves. In this model it is the appraisal of event that determines how much stress they bring about.

Also, different people respond differently to situations, therefore creating different situations as a result. In the health behavior model another factor is added, that of the health behavior. Health behavior is behavior that influences health (both positively and negatively), and certain personalities might be prone to certain health behaviors more than others (like smoking, eating fat, exercising etc.). The predisposition model is not a continuation of the other three, but a stand-alone model that states personality and illness are linked because they are both the result of a third variable, namely predisposition. So instead of the view that a personality aspect like novelty seeking would lead to drug abuse, it is thought that the natural (genetic) predisposition of a person leads to drugs abuse and novelty seeking. A fifth model, the illness behavior model states that illness is in fact a collection of sensations, and that the interpretation of these sensations differ from person to person depending on personality. These sensations can lead someone to believe he’s ill and, regardless of whether this person actually is or not, can lead to (health) behaviors such as complaining or going to the doctor.

The concept of stress

Stressors can cause stress, which is a feeling of being overloaded or overwhelmed that can be paired with anxiety, fear and indecision. Stressors are often beyond our control, can be quite extreme and often produce conflicting tendencies (such as wanting to study but also put it off for as long as possible).

Stress Response

Stressors first cause a fight-or-flight response. Physiological and psychological symptoms are things like increased heart-rate, startling or sweating. If the stressor is removed, so are the symptoms. However, if prolonged exposure to the stressor occurs, something called General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) can be experienced. After the initial Alarm stage of fight-or-flight, it can progress to a second stage called the resistance stage. In this stage bodily resources are used up at a higher-than-normal rate. This can result in a third stage called the exhaustion stage, in which bodily resources are depleted and a person becomes extra vulnerable to illness.

Major Life Events

Major Life Events are events that bring about a (drastic) change in people’s lives. Holmes and Rahe comprised a list of MLE’s, the top five being: Death of a family member, death of a close friend, Divorce between parents, jail term and major personal injury or illness. Research has shown that people who’ve had more MLE’s in the last year were more likely to develop a cold after infection with common viruses, and since then it has been shown repeatedly that people with more stress have a lower function of the immune system.

Daily Hassles

Daily hassles (think weight concerns, small problems, construction workers next to your bedroom window etc.) are not as dramatic as MLE’s, but chronic exposure to daily hassles can also cause stress and lowered immune system.

Varieties of Stress

Acute Stress arises from a sudden onset of demands or (uncontrollable) circumstances. Episodic Acute Stress is a more serious and recurring form of acute stress. Traumatic Stress refers to instances of overwhelming acute stress, and differs from acute stress only in the intensity of the symptoms. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a reaction often to life-threatening experiences and is comprised of (heavy) stress reaction symptoms that keep recurring even after the event has passed. Finally, Chronic Stress is stress that doesn’t go away, and can have severe physical and emotional consequences. Health Psychologists believe that stress adds up over time (additive effects) in an individual and this can trigger more serious ailments.

Primary and Secondary Appraisal

Stress is in the subjective reaction to stressors, rather than in the stressor itself. Lazarus proposed that in order for stress to be perceived, two cognitive processes must be present. If one of the two is absent, stress is not perceived. The first (primary appraisal) is having the idea a certain circumstance is a threat to your well-being or goals, and the second (secondary appraisal) is having the idea you do not possess the cognitive or material means to deal with the circumstance.

Coping Strategies and Styles

Attributional style is the disposition to attribute causes of bad events, usually either to intrinsic or extrinsic factors, and to coincidental or intentional factors. Peterson called this the optimism/pessimism scale. Optimists make unstable, external and specific explanations for bad events (such as blaming it on coincidence), whereas pessimists make stable, general and intrinsic explanations (blaming it on a deep, stable feat of the state of affairs). Dispositional optimism refers not on how bad events are interpreted, but more on how much good events are expected to happen in the future. Bandura introduced the concept of self-efficacy, the belief in one’s ability to handle what comes your way, which is related to optimism. Generally people underestimate their own risk of running into bad things (like cancer, plane crashes etc.). This is called the optimistic bias.

The Role of Positive Emotions in Coping with Stress

It was speculated that positive emotions can help dealing with stress in three ways: 1) They may sustain coping efforts, 2) they provide a break from stress and 3) they give people time to restore depleted resources and fix relationships. Frederickson introduced the build and broaden model of positive emotions, and suggested they can help build up social support and mental energy reserves. It was found that the experience of positive emotions facilitated (bodily) recovery from stress. Three coping strategies were found that can bring about positive emotions under stress, instead of only dealing with negative ones. There is positive reappraisal, which is focusing on the good things instead of the bad. There is problem-focused coping which is set on eliminating the deeper lying problem of the stress, rather than the symptoms. And then there is the creating of positive events, which implies creating a positive time-out from the stress. These approaches to stress fall under what is called positive psychology which focuses not on what is wrong with people, but what the right things can do to improve people’s psychological state.

Optimism and Physical Well-Being

Optimism is positively correlated with recovery after illness, self-reports of health and reports of health by physicians, but also health behaviors such as exercise and avoiding unhealthy foods. It is however unknown, due to all research being correlational, what aspects of optimism influence what aspects of health, and what the exact causal relation is. Nonetheless, there have been programs to measure and improve people’s optimism and overall happiness. For example, the Bhutanese king has instigated the use of the gross national happiness (instead of the gross domestic product, a financial measure) to measure the country’s welfare.

Management of Emotions

Emotional inhibition is the suppression of emotions and not acting on them, often for the sake of not hurting others. Early psychoanalysts saw emotional suppression (pushing away negative emotions into the unconscious) as the primary source of psychological problems. From another perspective, emotional control is seen as a very mature attribute in our society, and those who do not control their emotions are often viewed as instable or childish. Research shows that the suppression of emotions costs physiological resources over and above that of the emotion itself, and can also diminish positive experiences later on. Emotional suppression can disrupt normal communications, leading to worse relationship forming. It is also associated with lower well-being. In the brain the pre-frontal cortex is most associated with successful suppression of emotions. Chronic suppression of emotions can lead to the effects of chronic sympathetic nervous system activity, which can have nasty effects on health such as increased chances at recurrence of cancer, heart disease and a suppressed immune system. In romantic relationships, emotional suppression leads to decreased satisfaction and commitment.

Disclosure

Disclosure is telling someone about private things. It is believed that disclosure can be curative, and that keeping secrets can be unhealthy. Writing about problems has been linked to better wound healing, less respiratory problems and better therapy progression. It has been linked to less symptoms of depression, even when writing about trauma that one hasn’t experienced at all. Pennebaker hypothesized that these positive effects are due to a relief of keeping a secret, that the energy that is required to keep the secret is released. Recently a second theory by Pennebaker came forward, saying that writing allows someone to reframe and reinterpret events, leading to better understanding the event and being able to deal with it. Both theories may be correct. In Holocaust victims, it was found that the using of more insight words (‘realize’, for example, or ‘understand’) was related with lower ratings of visceral emotions, less avoidance and better physical health. Self-Concealment is negatively related to various psychological and physiological measures of health.

Type A Personality and Cardiovascular Disease

Type A personality is a collection of behaviors including: Competitiveness, aggression, active and energetic speaking and acting, ambition and drive. In recent studies it was independently associated with higher rates of cardiovascular and heart disease. It is however not so that people fall into the Type A category. Instead, Type A personality could be considered at one of the ends of the normal distribution (so very few people really fit all the behaviors). It is also not a single trait, instead it consists of three sub traits: competitive achievement motivation, time urgency and hostility. When blocked from their goals people (the definition of frustration) with Type A personality resort to aggression and hostile behavior.

Hostility: The Lethal Component of Type A Behavior Pattern

Later research discovered that it was in fact the sub trait of hostility that was the predictor for heart disease, and not Type A personality as a whole. Hostility isn’t necessarily aggression. Hostile individuals tend to react disagreeable to disappointments, frustrations and inconveniences. Hostile personality is associated with higher leukocyte (white blood cell) count and systemic inflammation. This might be the link between hostile personality and increased heart disease.

How Arteries Are Damaged by Hostile Type A Behavior

The hostile component of Type A personality is linked to much frustration and stress, which causes the body to go into fight-or-flight state. This results in higher blood pressure, increased heart rate and vaso-constriction (narrowing of the blood vessels), and increased cortisol levels (the stress-hormone). This will wear cause microscopic damage to the arteries. These damaged places can become places where fatty acids and cholesterol can heap up, thus making the arteries narrower over time (arteriosclerosis). This can eventually lead to heart attacks.

Type D Personality and Heart Disease

The “distressed” personality. Just like Type A it is not really a type, but syndrome of behaviors and cognitions. It refers to two underlying traits: negative affectivity, and social inhibition. Negative affectivity is the tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, worrying, irritability. It is very similar to neuroticism. Social inhibition is very much like shyness. These people feel disapproved of by others, and are socially anxious and insecure. When someone scores high on both traits, he/she is at risk of cardiac problems. In people that already have cardiac problems, Type D personality leads to worse outcomes, faster degeneration and increased mortality. Type D personality people show increased cortisol levels, leading to inflammations in the blood vessels. Type D people were also found to spend less time outside, eat healthily, more distress about their lives, and were less likely to go to the doctor.

Personality disorders - Chapter 20

Understanding personality disorders

One can understand personality disorders by looking at the various traits, emotions, cognitions, motives, interpersonal behaviour, and self-concepts that make up theories of personality. Combinations of extreme tendencies within the five-factor personality model may make someone particularly disposed to certain personality disorders. Several personality disorders include maladaptive variations on common motives, like an extreme lack of a need for intimacy, or extreme need for power. Some disorders involve distorted cognitive processes (like perception, interpretation, and planning). Some personality disorders involve extremely distorted or volatile emotional reactions to situations and events. Most personality disorders involve an underlying emotional component. Most personality disorders also involve a severe distortion of self-concept. These disorders can also cause issues in the domain of social relationships, especially those that involve a deficit of empathy and poor social skills.

Disorder

A disorder is a pattern of behaviour that is distressing and painful to a person, leading to disability or impairment in important life domains, and that is associated with an increased risk for further suffering. Personality disorders were recognized in the history of psychology as moral insanity, implying that while a person maintains their intellect and reason, their feelings, temperament and habits may be disordered. Abnormal psychology studies emotional, thought and personality disorders.

Abnormal

Abnormal is defined in several ways. That which is statistically rare is abnormal. But behaviours that are deemed unacceptable according to societal definitions are also “abnormal”. Both of these ways have led to some diagnoses that are more reflective of old values, like the rare and once socially unacceptable issue of homosexuality. This is no longer considered a disorder, as the social norms have changed. The psychological approach to abnormality considers it more a combination of maladaptive behaviours, emotions, and thought patterns that can lead to issues in social and personal functioning. The field of psychopathology studies mental disorders. The largely accepted system for diagnosing mental disorders is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-IV.

Personality disorders

Personality disorders are enduring patterns of experience and behaviour that are very different from those expected in the individual’s culture. The essential features of a personality disorder include:

1. An enduring, deviant pattern that manifests in cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control.

2. The pattern is inflexible and pervasive over social and personal situations.

3. The pattern leads to distress and social/occupational impairment.

4. The pattern has a long duration and is stable.

5. The pattern is not a manifestation or consequence of another disorder.

6. The pattern is not a result of physiological substances or general medical conditions.

Personality disorders manifest in how people think, feel, get along with others, and control their own behaviour. There are 10 personality disorders listed in the DSM-IV, and all involve impaired social interactions.

The effect of context on personality disorders

People who must adjust to a new culture often show habits, values, and behaviours that contrast to the social norms of their new situation. Thus, being humble and soft-spoken in the United States might be considered a sign of shyness, as the U.S. is a very individualistic country that values standing apart from the crowd. However, in other countries, this would be considered normal, polite behaviour. Culture must be taken into account when assessing whether a person is disordered. Age is also a factor, as those under 18 naturally go through an identity crisis that can seem similar to the symptoms of personality disorders. Adults recovering from a great loss also experience changes that in other circumstances might indicate personality disorders. Certain disorders are found more often in one gender than the other.

Specific Disorders

Erratic disorders

The erratic group of personality disorders include those that involve difficulties with social interaction and emotional control. There are four of these: antisocial, borderline, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders.

Antisocial

Antisocial personality disorder occurs when an individual generally disregards the rights, feelings, and happiness of other people. Behavioural problems in childhood can be the first sign of the disorder. With the increase in physical strength, cognitive power, and sexual maturity, childhood manifestations of the disorder worsen. Delinquency and criminal behaviour may follow. Children with early-onset conduct problems are most likely develop the disorder in adulthood. An antisocial adult lacks concern for social norms, showing little respect for laws and the property and safety of others. Manipulating others is a feature of antisocial personality disorder. People with this disorder lie repeatedly, taking satisfaction in fooling others. They tend to be impulsive and have difficulty planning carefully. They tend to change jobs, relationships and location often partially due to inconsiderate behaviour in relationships. They are often easily irritated, to the point of being assaultive. They can be reckless in regards to safety, and irresponsible. Routine and monotony may be boring to antisocial people. They tend to lack feelings of remorse or guilt, without compassion or social concern. Psychopathy is similar, describing individuals without empathy but with superficial charm and intelligence. Psychopaths may be antisocial, but many sufferers of antisocial personality disorder do not exhibit all the traits of a psychopath.

Borderline

Borderline personality disorder is characterized by extreme instability. In relationships, borderline individuals are intense, emotional, and sometimes violent. They suffer from an intense fear of abandonment and often resort to aggression or even self-mutilation to manipulate their partners to stay. Their fickle emotions often lead from moments of idealizing their partner to contempt for their partner. They can be adoring or cruel, and hard to predict. They also have shifting views of themselves, with easily changing values, goals and opinions. They often feel that they are evil or bad at heart. Emotions run strong and are often negative. Panic, anger and despair result quickly from feelings of abandonment or neglect. They will often undermine their own efforts to improve. They are often very demanding on friends and family. The disorder may be caused in part by the early loss of parents, inhibiting the child`s capacity to form relationships.

Histrionic

Histrionic personality disorder includes excessive attention seeking and heightened emotionality. They are often dramatic, sexually provocative, and highly suggestible. Their opinions tend to be based on impressions rather than facts, and are thus easily swayed. They may have trouble suppressing strong emotions in public, displaying them with exaggerated theatrical behaviour. They may act impulsively out of a need for attention, even to the point of attempted suicide. They tend to crave drama and become bored in stable, committed relationships. Histrionic personality disorder may be displayed differently in men and women, with men becoming more hyper-masculine and women more hyper-feminine.

Narcissistic

Those with narcissistic personality disorder experience an intense need to be admired, an inflated self-importance, and a lack of insight into the feelings of others. They feel entitled, as if they deserve special treatment even without earning it. They often feel superior and often seek out important people and places to further inflate their self-importance. The narcissistic paradox occurs because with their grandiose self-esteem is easily diminished. If they do not get the admiration and attention they expect, they may become enraged or oversensitive. Their inability to recognize the needs of others leads to social issues, as they mostly focus on themselves in conversation, and do not reciprocate in a relationship. They are often easily envious of the success of others.

Eccentric Disorders

The schizoid, schizotypal, and paranoid personality disorders form the eccentric cluster of personality disorders. These include traits that make people socially awkward. The schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders include non-psychotic characteristics of schizophrenia.

Schizoid

The schizoid personality disorder is characterized by a schism (detachment) from normal social interactions. They tend to feel little satisfaction from family and group membership, and often prefer solitary hobbies and jobs. They also experience little pleasure from bodily experiences like sex and eating. They appear bland and indifferent to others, socially inept or clumsy as they fail to respond to social cues. In some cultures, a passive, socially numb set of behaviours is considered normal in the wake of change or tragedy, so cultural influences must be taken into account.

Schizotypal

Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by social anxiety and a tendency to distrust others. They are often considered odd or eccentric, harbouring unusual superstitions and experiencing unusual perceptions similar to hallucinations. They often have difficulty with relationships as they violate accepted social conventions and avoid contact with others out of anxiety. A scale to assess schizotypal traits looks at the presence of unusual experiences, cognitive disorganization, a tendency to avoid others, and nonconformity.

Paranoid

Individuals who suffer from paranoid personality disorder tend to be extremely distrustful of other people, believing that they are under attack or the victim of deception/conspiracy. They frequently seek out hidden meanings in the behaviour and comments of others. They tend to be resentful of those they believe have insulted them, and reluctant to forgive. This mistrust may manifest as pathological jealousy in a relationship. As they can be argumentative and hostile, they can elicit hostility in others.

Anxious Disorders

The anxious cluster of personality disorders includes those that illustrate the neurotic paradox: while certain behaviours may solve one problem, the can create or maintain more severe problems.

Avoidant

The avoidant personality disorder is characterized by feelings of inadequacy and sensitivity to criticism. They may go to great lengths to avoid situations in which they may be criticized or rejected. They may restrict their activities to avoid embarrassment, and miss opportunities for development in the process. They often have low self-esteem and are sensitive to life challenges.

Dependent

Individuals with dependent personality disorder have an excessive need to be nurtured by others, and given direction. They act submissively, and seek reassurance from others when making even minor decisions. They do not often take initiative, and often avoid disagreements. They often cannot work well independently as they seek someone to guide them. In an attempt to find reassurance and support, they may subject themselves to very unpleasant circumstances.

Obsessive-Compulsive

People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder hold extremely high standards for themselves. They are often preoccupied with order and perfectionistic. They tend to rely on trivial rules, schedules and procedures. They are often devoted to work over friendship and leisure. They may be morally and ethically inflexible, and become irritated when others are more relaxed about issues they find important. They can be so stubborn that it causes difficulty in relationships and the workplace. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) differs from Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in that it tends to be much milder.

Prevalence

Obsessive compulsive personality disorder is the most prevalent of the personality disorders, at 4 percent. After it are the schizotypal, histrionic, and dependent, at around 2 percent each. At any given time, roughly 13 percent of the population may be diagnosed with a personality disorder. Many personality disorders have overlapping symptoms, which makes differential diagnosis a challenge.

Gender differences

Antisocial personality disorder is much more prevalent in men than women. Some disorders have different manifestation in men and women, and gender stereotypes may affect the diagnostic process.

Dimensional Model

Widiger argues that disorders are maladaptive combinations and variants of normal personality traits. For example, avoidant personality disorder may be considered extreme introversion mixed with extremely high neuroticism. The dimensional model allows for the differences in how disorders manifest between individuals and for the exhibition of symptoms from other disorders.

Causes

Many borderline sufferers experienced poor attachment relationships in childhood and many grew up in abusive or chaotic homes. Schizotypal personality disorder, on the other hand, is more related to genetic inheritance. Antisocial personality disorder can be explained in many ways, and seems to be partly related to genetic causes, and partly due to childhood abuse and misuse of drugs and alcohol. It seems then that personality disorders have a variety of causes, and much of this data is correlational.

DSM-V: Hybrid Model of Personality Disorders

Dimensions or categories

The categorical view of disorders sees people as either diagnosed with a distinct disorder or not. Personality disorders are seen more qualitatively different than normal trait extremes. The problem with the DSM-IV-TR was that patients could have the same diagnosis, yet completely different symptoms, because for a diagnosis they needed to have a number of symptoms from a long list belonging to that disorder.

In the dimensional view, personality disorders are seen as existing in a continuum, with normality at one end and severe disturbance at the other. Research has confirmed that antisocial traits are dimensional. This view allows for a more reliable and meaningful way to classify and diagnose disorders. The only difference between normal personality traits and disorders are extremity, rigidity and maladaptiveness.

Another classification system, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), is also widely used. It has no axial system, and some of the labels can differ. For instance, Borderline personality disorder is called emotionally unstable personality disorder.

Proposed structure of the DSM-V

It is likely the DSM-V will focus on two aspects of personality disorders (PD): impairment at the level of the self, and at the level of interpersonal functioning. The first step in getting to a diagnosis with the new DSM-V, using a dimensional personality pathology severity scale, is establishing personality functioning. Also, personality trait ratings are taken into account. Then impairment at the self-level and the interpersonal level is assessed. The pattern will be compared to 6 independent PD types. If none of the 6 types matches there the option of using a PD Trait Specified. This is a tailored diagnosis to fit a specific patient who suffers some personality functioning impairment, but doesn’t fit into the categories of the DSM-V. The specified PDs will be Antisocial, Avoidant, Borderline, Narcissistic, Obsessive-Compulsive and Schizotypal PDs. The remaining four (Histrionic, Schizoid, Paranoid and Dependent) are replaced by PD Trait Specifics.