Personality Theory and Research An International Perspective, Canadian Solution Manual

Type:

Solution Manual

Resource:

Personality Theory and Research An International Perspective

Edition:

1st Edition

Author(s):

Gordon L. Flett

Instructor’s Manual to Accompany Flett/Personality Theory and Research

Personality: An Introduction CHAPTER 1 Chapter Table of Contents The Goals of Chapter 1 What is Personality?

The Goals of Personality Research Personality Goals from an Idiographic versus a Nomothetic Perspective The Five Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why Overarching Themes in the Personality Field and in this Book Personality is a Science Personality Is Not Just Common Sense Personality Must be Viewed from a Critical Thinking Perspective Personality Development Reflects Multiple Influences Personality Must Be Studied from a Cross-Cultural Perspective Personality Differences Are Expressed in Many Ways The Practical, Applied Side of Personality Organization of this Book Summary

Chapter Overview This chapter defines personality and gives an overview of the study of personality. Personality refers to a person’s external styles of expression, believed to present early in life. To study personality is to study the individual person and the differences found across individuals. This chapter discusses the scope and levels of personality inquiry, which include things that are true of all people, things that are true of groups, things that are true of particular individuals. This chapter also discusses the goals of personality research⎯description, explanation, and prediction⎯ and the two main approaches used in this inquiry, the nomothetic and the idiographic. This chapter also presents the overarching themes of personality in this book, which are personality as a science, cross-cultural aspects, and practical/applied aspects of personality.

Detailed Chapter Summary The Goals of Chapter 1 This chapter has four main goals: to define what is meant by “personality”, to outline the goals and purposes of personality research, to outline and highlight several of the key themes that run throughout this book, and to provide an overview of the subsequent chapters of this book.

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Instructor’s Manual to Accompany Flett/Personality Theory and Research

What is Personality?

Personality is the study of individual differences and is conducted by a personologist. Personality refers to relatively stable individual differences that are believed to present early in life and involves characteristics that generalize across time and across situations. Although much of the field focuses on factors and variables that can be used to distinguish individuals, there are universal factors and processes that are shared by everyone. Research at different levels of analysis can focus on how all people are similar or how certain people are similar (versus other dissimilar people), or research can focus on the uniqueness of a particular individual. There are levels of personality inquiry: that which is true of all people (Universals), which is where we find topics such as psychodynamic theories, social learning principles, phenomenological processes and cognitive developmental stages; that which is true of groups (Group differences), which are usually based on things such as sex, race, personality characteristics, social class, culture, historical period, or other group differences; and that which is true of particular individuals, such as Van Gogh, Lincoln, Freud, V. Woolf, Malcom X, clinical patients, yourself, or other individuals of interest.

The Goals of Personality Research The three main goals or objectives of personality research are description, explanation and prediction. Personality research is guided by the goals of description, explanation, and prediction. Explanation is seen as vitally important because there is a need to understand why people are different and how different personalities emerge as different explanations may lead to positive or negative outcomes. Personality measures are used in many parts of the world to make decisions about people based on expectations about their future behaviour. The interconnection across description, explanation and prediction is essential to the study of personality.

Personality Goals from an Idiographic versus a Nomothetic Perspective

When it comes to description, explanation and prediction, there are two main approaches used to study personality. Most personality research adopts a nomothetic perspective. The nomothetic approach involves gathering a small amount of data from a relatively large sample in the hopes of identifying general laws or principles for the purpose of understanding human functioning by looking at variables and how and why variables relate to other variables. Others have argued for more of an idiographic focus that seeks to examine the complexities and intricacies of the individual person. The idiographic approach, a more personcentered approach, involves gathering a large amount of data from one person or only a few people in the hopes of understanding the “whole person”, including each person’s traits, life goals, values, personal experiences, and so on. The idiographic approach is also referred to as the “case study”.

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The Five Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why

Both approaches make links to the Five Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The nomothetic approach focuses on the five questions in terms of variables and variability across large numbers of people, while the idiographic focuses on the specific Five Ws related to the behaviour of a given individual. In effect, both approaches make sense of description, explanation and prediction, but the subject differs (many versus a few). A third term, morphogenic, falls within the idiographic approach and reflects a greater focus on the pattern or structure that exists within the individual, than on the variables existing within any given person.

Overarching Themes in the Personality Field and in this Book Personality Is a Science

The personality field is guided centrally by a number of overarching themes.

Themes discussed in this chapter include the notion that personality is a science and requires a scientific approach, and personality is much more than common sense. Specific explanations, such as EEG activity, links to personality but cannot be determined by common sense alone without scientific methodology and measurement tools. Experimental and correlational studies that are in accordance with accepted standards and principles of science take common sense up to an objective level of truth finding.

Personality Is Not Just Common Sense

One person’s common sense is too limited a sample from which to draw conclusions about personality for humanity. One must also be mindful of such effects as the Barnum effect. The Barnum effect refers to the widespread tendency for people to accept personality feedback provided to them as accurate, even though the feedback itself is quite general and vague. Science is needed to counter-balance limited personal experience (common sense) and the possibility of being subjectively influenced.

Personality Must be Viewed from a Critical Thinking Perspective

Students are encouraged to adopt a critical thinking perspective when interpreting theory and research in the personality field. They are invited to go beyond the limits of their own personal experiences and histories. Objective data is required to study myths and generalizations before accepting any claims about the nature of personality.

Personality Development Reflects Multiple Influences

This section discusses the fact that some personality characteristics and behaviours may look the same on the surface but may have developed through very different developmental routes, including the effects of physical maturation and pubertal changes, peer influence, family influence, cultural influences, temperament, and actual levels of ability. Personality differences are expressed and revealed in many different ways, and it is important to consider the respective roles of emotional, cognitive, motivational, behavioural, and interpersonal factors.

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Personality development is seen as the product of multiple influences that contribute dynamically to personality.

Personality Must Be Studied from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

This section discusses the possibility of a functional interdependence between culture and personality. The personality field is becoming increasingly international in scope. This adds yet another layer to the complexities of multiple influences involved in personality development. Kluckholn presents nine points about personality and culture and how culture relates to personality development.

Diener and Scollon state that personality science will become even more international in the future. Such cultural ways of looking at personality, such as the Japanese linking of personality to blood type, offer interesting novel international ways of considering the study of personality and the evolution of related products ranging from chewing gum, soft drinks, calendars, etc, all based on blood type, and personality.

Personality Differences Are Expressed in Many Ways

This section serves to give a taste of the complexity of personality expression by briefly touching on examples of the five modes of personality expression. They are: emotion/affect, behaviour, cognition, motivation, and interpersonal/social tendencies. A few specific and various studies⎯which look at the different ways in which personality is expressed and discuss findings on a number of examples of the five modes, including emotional intensity, hostility, the relationship between trust and hostility, the tendency to flee or to fight, and the motivation to “tend-and-befriend” during stressful times⎯are presented.

The Practical, Applied Side of Personality

The study of personality is discussed in relation to consequences for the individual, for social relationships, and for society. The practical and applied aspects of personality include, for example, outcomes associated with happiness, physical health, psychological health, personal identity, family relationships, peer relationships, dating and marital relationships, engaging in pro-social or antisocial and criminal activities, career selection, or how a person can function in extreme environments.

Organization of this Book This section presents the focus of each subsequent chapter. The first four chapters introduce what is meant by personality and the broad scope of personality research and theory. The next six chapters focus on the various theories. Chapters 11 to 13 focus on the specific topics and themes that tend to be of great interest to students. The final chapter examines personality from a psychobiographical approach and includes case studies of specific people.

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LECTURE STARTERS 1.

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Chapter one addresses how the study of personality is scientific and more than just common sense. Ask the students to list the 3 main personality characteristics of each of their parents. Open a discussion about what scientific basis the student utilized to draw these conclusions in terms of observation, testing, comparison to parental norms, range of available data, etc. Then ask the students whether or not it is possible that there is more to the personality of their parents beyond their own experience of them.

Chapter one discusses the Five Ws and that personality development has multiple influences. Take any one of those Five Ws and put it to the students.

For example, ask the students to recollect how they were when they were 15 years old. In what ways has the student changed since then? “Why” did the changes happen? Conduct a class discussion to reveal multiple influences.

Chapter one notes that personality differences between people are expressed in many different ways. Ask the students to think about their own siblings and/or family members. Propose that each sibling and/or family member undergoes a similar event, for example, being fired from a job. Ask them to discuss, in small groups of 3 or 4 students, how that event would elicit different reactions from the siblings/family members and how they would explain these differences, given that all of you enjoy a similar socio-economic environment.

Chapter one speaks of the application of personality theory to job selection, in particular, the “right stuff” of being an astronaut. Ask small groups of students to identify the five major personality requirements of a few types of occupations, such as Librarian, Waiter, Professor, Successful Student. Collect their opinions across groups to ascertain the degree of agreement of these independent personality analysts.

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Units of Personality: Types versus Traits CHAPTER 2 Chapter Table of Contents Personality Types Sheldon’s Somatotype Theory Contemporary Research on Personality Types Personality Traits Allport’s Bold Assertions Allport’s Conceptualizations of Traits Traits versus Types Mischel’s Challenge to the Trait Approach Situationalism The Trait-Situation Interaction in Personality Research Beyond Traits Personality Capabilities and the Maximal versus the Typical Personality Metatraits and Traitedness How Many Supertraits Are there?

Eyenck’s Big Three Five-Factor Models and the Big Seven The Predictiveness of Specific “Narrow” Traits Supertraits across Cultures Challenges for the Five-Factor Model Analysis of a Key Personality Trait: Locus of Control Spheres of Control The Desire for Control Summary

Chapter Overview This chapter discusses personality from various perspectives, namely, types and traits, situationism, the interaction between traits and situationism in research. The chapter then goes on to present interesting information that take the reader beyond traits and into the domain of supertraits, including a detailed discussion on how many supertraits exist. Lastly, this chapter discusses a key personality trait, locus of control. A scale is presented, by which students can start understanding the concept of locus of control and from which the author takes the reader into yet a higher level of understanding by presenting the thinking regarding spheres of control.

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Detailed Chapter Summary Personality Types Sheldon’s Somatotype Theory

Sheldon linked personality to body type in his “constitutional psychology” by identifying three main body types: ectomorphic, mesomorphic and endomorphic.

Researchers have since explored this further and have concluded that while there is some evidence which supports Sheldon’s theory, it is important to also consider other constructs such as self-monitoring and significant cultural elements as found through anthropological research.

Contemporary Research on Personality Types

The author states that type approach has become more prominent in recent years.

Such type factors as “ego control”, “ego resiliency”, “overcontrolling”, “undercontrolling”, and “brittleness” have been considered and well-researched indicating validity of these general personality types. In particular, many studies of types amongst children has focused on “developmental trajectories” over time.

This research has led to a further specification of various types and sub-types.

Personality Traits Allport’s Bold Assertions

Allport’s Bold Assertions about personality traits are as follows: a personality trait has more than a nominal existence; is more generalized than a habit; is dynamic, or at least discriminative, in behaviour; may be established empirically; is only relatively independent of other traits; is not synonymous with moral or social judgment; may be viewed either in the light of the personality which contains it or in the light of its distribution in the population at large; and lastly, he states that acts, and even habits, that are inconsistent with a trait are not proof of the nonexistence of the trait.

Allport’s Conceptualizations of Traits

Allport made some important distinctions between types of traits and ways of thinking about traits. Allport identified the difference between common traits (shared by other people) and unique traits (unique to a particular individual). He went on to distinguish between phenotypical personal dispositions (focus is on describing behaviour in a situation in the here and now) versus genotypical personal dispositions (deeper core description resulting from studying a person’s whole life). Allport also went on to speak of pseudotraits, which are traits that are acted out in order to make an impression, and how these are not true dispositions.

Lastly, Allport stated that a person could be characterized by one or two cardinal dispositions central to the personality, and also by five to ten central dispositions which are less obvious and less generalized but are nevertheless key components to the personality of any given individual.

Traits versus Types

Strube states that types differ from traits in their perceived antecedents. That is, types arise from a small number of necessary conditions that must be entirely

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present. A trait, however, involves the gradual or incomplete acquisition of certain behaviours. There may be some differences in terms of the developmental sequences for types versus traits. The differences between traits versus types hold implications for how to change personality or deal with adjustment problems.

Mischel’s Challenge to the Trait Approach

Mischel concluded that traits are poor predictors of behaviours in situations; the situation is better than personality traits when seeking to understand individual differences in behaviour; and if you change the situation, you often change the behaviours in a way which is inconsistent with trait assumptions.

Situationalism Basically, Mischel’s observations led to the “situationism” approach, which focuses on the impact of situational factors and their role in contributing to differences in behaviour. A classic example of situationism was the Milgram experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s. However, in these experiements, while the situation was a strong factor in determining behavioural responses, not every participant acted in the same obedient fashion. Factors such as authoritatianism, and extroversion helped to explain some of the variance across subjects.

The Trait-Situation Interaction in Personality Research As a result of these studies, Norman Endler and others adopted a more interactionistic model that incorporates both the effect of the situation on the person and also the effect of the person on the situation. These are referred to as “reciprocal interactionism models”. Ender’s process model of stress, anxiety, and coping demonstrates this interactionism dynamic. Most studies support the interaction model.

Beyond Traits Personality Capabilities and the Maximal versus the Typical Personality

A very interesting spin on personality is to not only describe what a person is all about but also to consider what a person could be all about. Thus we can discuss “personality capabilities” and the “maximal approach”, which takes us into the range of behaviours that are possible for an individual. While little research has incorporated this idea, it holds promise in assessing capability in various situations and adjustment challenges.

Metatraits and Traitedness

Metatraits are those traits that are highly relevant to an individual. A person’s metatraits will impact how a person responds to a questionnaire or in an interview. Another term for the metatrait concept is traitedness. Both terms matter when it comes to establishing the validity of any measurement tool or methodological research approach.

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How Many Supertraits Are there?

Supertraits are broadly applicable, main traits that are universal and that capture the major proportion of variance in behaviour in a sample of people or samples of people across various nations.

Eysenck’s Big Three

Eysenck’s big three supertraits are Extroversion-Introversion, NeuroticismEmotional Stability, and Psychoticism versus Superego Control. He believed that criminals had higher levels of psychoticism, extroversion and neuroticism (PEN model).

Five-Factor Models and the Big Seven

Research and scholarly contributions has brought us to the end result of a great deal of thinking about supertraits, which is captured in the work by Costa and Mccrae in their highly influential personality scale called the NEO-PI-R. The current version of this scale includes a number of subscales under each of five supertraits, which are Neuroticism, Extroversion/Introversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness/Antagonism, and Conscientiousness. Other researchers however have identified seven superfactors by identifying “positive valence” and “negative valence” linked to self-evaluations, which has cultural relevance when thinking about personality.

The Predictiveness of Specific “Narrow” Traits

An interesting point to consider is that low conscientiousness is related to high procrastination. It is by studying how traits fit together that prediction of outcomes becomes possible. There is also a smaller but still significant association between procrastination and neuroticism. And further still, there are different types of procrastinators (optimistic, pessimistic), as well as ways to procrastinate (“cyberslacking”).

Supertraits across Cultures

Research on the five-factor model has tended to support its validity when participants from various countries have been assessed. It therefore has a substantial degree of cross-cultural generalizability. However, because factors specific to certain regions also exist, the etic and emic approach to supertraits must also be taken into consideration. The Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI) for example posits supertraits into four broad personality characteristics: social potency, dependability, accommodation, and interpersonal relatedness.

Challenges for the Five-Factor Model

The main criticisms of five-factor models conclude that they are primarily descriptive rather than explanatory and that they lack the conceptual basis needed to be considered a theory. Several authors have claimed that it has limited utility when applied to severely disturbed individuals, and that it does not capture attributes such as religiosity, sexuality, fiscal conservatism, morality, honesty, or locus of control.

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Analysis of a Key Personality Trait: Locus of Control While locus of control has not been incorporated into the broad scheme of superfactors, it is still considered by some to be important. Locus of control refers to individual differences in internal versus external control of reinforcement. The text includes a 29 item questionnaire that students can use to rate and discuss this variable.

Spheres of Control

Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale has been supplemented by measures which view the construct as multidimensional. The Spheres of Control Scale by Paulhus identifies three dimensions: personal control, interpersonal control, and sociopolitical control. The locus of control construct is culturally sensitive. While Asians, relative to Americans, seem to score as having more external locus of control, it is important to note that control is gained through group rather than individual means and as such the connection between self and other people needs to be considered, resulting in the conclusion that Asian people may have more internal locus of control than first believed. Additionally, cohort effects (time period and age of the sample participants) must be considered and have an effect on locus of control results. Lastly, world events (e.g. 9/11) appear to temporarily affect individual ratings on locus of control.

The Desire for Control

The Desire for Control Scale, for example, isolates three factors of desire for control: a desire to be in charge of and control others; a desire to establish a sense of control over personal outcomes involving the self; and a willingness to relinquish control to other people. It is not sufficient to know the locus of control.

The desire for control will combine with the locus of control to result in specific emotive states, behaviours, and therapy approaches.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. Chapter two discusses the concept of supertraits. Ask groups of students to list three Canadian nation-wide personality supertraits. Write these up on the board for each group. This exercise introduces the idea of supertraits and will also underline the need to update supertraits over time to ensure that old concepts don’t continue to be applied inappropriately.

2. The text discusses the idea of locus of control and presents information indicating that there are different types of control. Ask the student to identify themselves along a Needs Control⎯Relinquishes Control continuum. Draw a very long line on the blackboard and ask students to come up and indicate where they scored themselves as individuals in order to get an average for the whole class. Then introduce the concept of different types of control (spheres), and ask them to rate themselves along three new continuums (control of others, self, socio-political),

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again collecting averaged data on the board. This gives the class a deeper understanding of the “personality” of the class as it relates to locus of control.

3. The chapter refers often to the Big 5. If possible, administer the NEO-PI-R to the class, have them score and graph the results, and then present the meaning of the variables to them, including important two-point interpretations of the results, such as high impulsivity and low deliberation, or low depression and low positive emotions). This will personalize the text materials for the remainder of the course.

4. The text discusses supertraits across cultures. If your class possesses a great deal of diversity, set up groups according to nationalities of origin. Indicate the groups by drawing them up on the board. Ask each group to come up with one positive supertrait for their own group and one positive supertrait for at least two of the other groups. Have them share and discuss their assumed supertraits.

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The Development of Personality CHAPTER 3 Chapter Table of Contents Personality Differences in Children Supertraits in Children: The Five-Factor Model Eysenck’s Big Three in Children Personality Stability: Plaster, Plastic, or Both?

Factors that Promote Personality Stability Methods of Evaluating the Consistency of Personality Traits Is Personality Set by Age 30?

Another Way of Examining Stability: The Stability of Character Personality Stability and Change in Older People Personality Development Genetic versus Environmental Factors Temperament External Influences on Personality Development Parenting Styles The Personality of Parents Parenting Styles and Child Outcomes across Cultures The Directionality Issue The Unimportance of Parents?

The Role of Culture in Personality Development Type A Behaviour in Children: An Illustration of Multiple Developmental Influences Familial Factors Genetic Factors A Role for Culture?

Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter three focuses on the complex interplay of developmental factors that are intrinsic or extrinsic to the self. The chapter starts by looking at supertraits in children to explain personality differences among them, and then discusses the personality stability (plaster, plastic, or both) and the measures by which consistency/stability of personality traits are evaluated over the lifespan. The conclusion is that there is little support for the suggestion that personality is set in plaster by the age of 30. The author then goes on to discuss genetic versus environmental factors in temperament, parenting styles, the personality of the parents, parenting styles across cultures, the impact that children have on parenting style, and cultural influences (individualistic and collective) on the development of personality.

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Detailed Chapter Summary Personality Differences in Children Some individual differences can be detected shortly after birth. The early presence of personality differences is in keeping with the idea that personality traits are stable, long-lasting differences.

Supertraits in Children: The Five-Factor Model

Various studies confirm the existence of the five-factor model in very young children (6-year-olds), with the exception of the openness dimension. The salience of certain dimensions varies across cultures, as indicated by the greater emphasis on conscientiousness among Chinese parents.

Eysenck’s Big Three in Children

Collectively, research with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire – Junior (EPQJ) has confirmed the presence of reliable individual differences in extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism by the time that children reach elementary school.

Personality Stability: Plaster, Plastic, or Both?

William James questioned the stability of personality over time and discussed whether personal character was plastic and changing (Plasticity hypothesis) or like plaster and enduring (Plaster hypothesis).

Factors that Promote Personality Stability

While new life experiences can promote personality change, factors such as the continuing influence of genetics can promote personality stability. Caspi and Bem (1990) identified three other ways that may result in personality stability.

They are related to the ideas that people are proactive, reactive and evocative in their attempts to keep within their existing personality constructs.

Methods of Evaluating the Consistency of Personality Traits

Various ways of evaluating consistency of personality traits include the test of mean-level stability, test-retest correlation, rank-order stability (or differential stability), longitudinal studies, ipsative stability, ipsative scoring, dynamic stability, and flux/pulse/spin.

Is Personality Set by Age 30?

Well, yes and no. There seems to be substantial evidence for both personality stability and change. The challenge is to understand what changes and what does not, as well as when to expect stability or change, and why stability or change happens as they do.

Another Way of Examining Stability: The Stability of Character

Part of the challenge in terms of stability is to be clear about how personality is defined. Positive and negative change seems to be related to life events. For

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example, negative or positive personality change over time may be related to a series of bad luck or good planning incidents throughout life.

Personality Stability and Change in Older People

Personality change does happen to older people. Studies indicate that negative life events can increase neuroticism and decrease extroversion levels, however, openness does not change. The accentuation principles is discussed as a way to account for the role of life experiences, positing that life stressors tend to increase the stability of personality traits over time because when people are stressed, they return to familiar ways of responding.

Personality Development The process of personality development is very complex and involves the interplay across intrinsic factors (genetics, temperament, being an active agent) and extrinsic factors (other people, the environment, cultural factors, parenting style, peers).

Genetic versus Environmental Factors

The study of twins has helped us understand heritability and how behaviours or other characteristics can be in high concordance with each other, thereby indicating a strong genetic role in personality development. Special attention in twin studies must be made of the equal environment assumption, that is, the assumption that twins have been exposed to identical sets of environmental factors. The study of twins reared apart, and the study of children with no genes in common but who were adopted by the same parents, are two ways of compensating for these research issues. Regardless, there are still the nonadditive genetic effects to contend with, where personality does not depend on single genes in isolation. Thomas Bouchard and other researchers have demonstrated that heritability estimates of personality traits account for about 50% of the variance.

Temperament

Temperament refers to constitutionally based differences in reactivity and selfregulation. Research in this area has led to the identification of children with different temperaments (e.g. the easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up child).

However, children with different temperaments can have very different life outcomes. Various temperament dimensions have been identified by various researchers. These include activity level, adaptability, approach to toys, mood, mood consistency, vocal reactivity, irritability/negative emotionality, soothability, fearfulness, sociability, and behavioural inhibition. Overall, dimensions of temperament are relatively stable over time but way parents treat their children can reinforce/extinguish or exacerbate/mute pre-existing differences in temperament. Temperament dimensions seem to generalize across cultures.

However, the value, or cultural worth, of the dimension is culturally based. For example, shyness is valued differently in different cultures. This leads to different parental treatments of the same dimension across cultures. An understanding of temperament and parental treatment has led to the development of effective

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therapeutic approaches. Lastly, this section presents the Strelau model, which, among other things, allows for the possibility that a difficult temperament can actually be adaptive.

External Influences on Personality Development Parenting Styles

Baumrind’s three parenting styles are authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative.

The Parental Authority Questionnaire measures the three parenting styles. The authoritative approach is the most adaptive.

The Personality of Parents

Still under investigation is the idea that parenting style can be predicted by preexisting personality differences among parents. To date, only a limited number of characteristics have been evaluated, there needs to be more research done with fathers, and results may differ across parents. Research to date indicates that neuroticism is associated with poor parenting and that extroversion and agreeableness was associated with greater sensitivity and cognitive stimulation.

Some studies show that the pattern of personality characteristics enabling the prediction of parenting behaviours was quite different for mothers and fathers.

For fathers, openness appears to be a positive indicator of responsiveness to the infant. From this research, other parenting styles have been identified, including engaged parents, emotionally involved parents, and emotionally detached parents.

Parenting Styles and Child Outcomes across Cultures

In Scott, Scott and McCabe’s large cross-cultural study, data was obtained from children themselves and also from parents and teachers. Parental nurturance was associated with higher self-esteem and low anxiety when the focus was exclusively on the children’s self-reports. Parental punitiveness was associated with hostility in children according to parental reports, but not according to the children themselves. There was little correlation between parental characteristics reported by children and their teachers’ ratings of their personality features.

The Directionality Issue

The directionality issue has to do with the concept that parents influence children, but not other way around. The concept of self-socialization takes into account that the child makes choices and can influence feedback received from others.

Influences are therefore reciprocal. The transactional model allows for the ways in which people impact each other’s behaviours.

The Unimportance of Parents?

Harris claimed that the main contributing factors of personality development are genetic (temperament) and the influences of the peer group. However, research indicates that parental harshness has a negative impact on personality development. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that for certain children, parenting has little impact, but for others, parenting has a great deal of impact.

There appears to be less importance of parents for those children who had a more

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appealing and positive temperament. Parental over-control, for example, fosters a lack of mastery in children.

The Role of Culture in Personality Development Different theorists have very divergent views on the role of culture in personality development, with some saying that it matters greatly and others saying that it does not matter at all. Certainly there are cultural differences in the relevance or importance of personality dimensions and in terms of whether a culture demonstrates individualism or collectivism. Hofsted’s work shows that there is a robust association between individualism and extroversion. Triandid and Gelfand showed that individualism and collectivism can take many different and subtle forms within and across cultures. Holloway and Behrens put an emphasis on how a family promotes a sense of parenting self-efficacy and how that is defined differentially across cultures. Lastly, the author mentions the concept of guan, which is a mode of parenting among Chinese parents that is focused on training, and how the existence or absence of this mode across cultures may be important to not only personality development but also adult life satisfaction within different cultural groups.

Type A Behaviour in Children: An Illustration of Multiple Developmental Influences Research on Type A behaviour shows that personality differences exist at a very early age (4-5 years of age) and goes on to exist in individuals as adults. Type A is characterized by highly competitive achievement striving, speed and time urgency, chronic impatience, and hostility.

Familial Factors

There is a moderate positive association between Type A behaviour in parents and Type A behaviour in their children. The association varies depending upon which function of the Type A component is being assessed (e.g. impatience).

Genetic Factors

Several studies, including twin research, suggest that Type A behaviour has a biological component, particularly hostile behaviour. The inherited biological component is most evident in individual differences in cynical hostility. Karen Matthews, a key researcher in the area of Type A, developed the Matthews Youth Test for Heath, a widely used measure to assess two characteristics, competitiveness, and impatience-aggression. Recent research has also indicated that there are distinct family types related to Type A: not Type A, positive Type A, and negative Type A, with the positive Type A family experiencing moderate to high life satisfaction. There are, therefore, different impacts on children raised in different Type A families, resulting in a complex interplay between parent and child factors in personality development.

A Role for Culture?

The Japanese Type A behaviour pattern places much less emphasis on harddriving, individualistic competitiveness but focuses much more on hard-working

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workaholism and perfectionism–compulsive strivings designed to improve organizational outcomes rather than individual outcomes. The result of Type A across cultures is the same however: an elevated risk factor for heart attacks in both male and female workers.

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This Chapter discusses the nature/nurture question. Ask the students to list two personality characteristics they have in common with each of their parents and two which are different from either parent. Then have them form small groups to discuss what they think is the cause of these similarities and differences, keeping the focus of their discussion on the nature/nurture topic.

The text discusses the ages at which the 5 Factors are measurable. Have the students think about the question, “At what point in your childhood did you have a clear sense of who you were on each of the 5 Factors discussed in the text?” Collect this information and discuss.

Jay Belsky (1984) posits mutual, interdependent influences on how members of a system influence each other. Bugental and Shennum (1984) describe how “difficult” and “easy” children have impacts on parents and therefore influence how parents behave towards these children. Ask the students, “In what way did you manage/influence your parent’s behaviour?” Take a few examples from them to propel the discussion of children’s impacts on parenting styles.

Weinberger (1994) concluded that there is substantial evidence for both personality stability and change. Give the students a home assignment where they would ask their parents, “Has your personality changed since you turned 30? In what way(s) and why did that happen?” In the following class, ask the students to share the results of their research.

A very interesting Applied Perspective was noted in the text on pages 98-99, which outlined the practical side of working with temperament differences in childrearing practices. Ask the students, “If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change regarding how you were raised? What might have been the outcome of that different parenting approach?”

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Personality Research Methods and Assessment Issues CHAPTER 4 Chapter Table of Contents Experimental Research Independent versus Dependent Variables Moderator and Mediator Effects Benefits and Limitations of Experimental Research Linear versus Non-linear Effects Correlational Research Positive and Negative Correlations The Directionality Issue Personality Research Trends Different Types of Data Structured versus Unstructured Assessments Self-Report Measures and Their Limitations Supplementing Self-Reports with Observer Ratings Current Innovations: Data Collection via the Internet Issues in Personality Assessment Construct Validity and the Construct Validation Process The Sequential System of Test Construction Additional Test Construction Guidelines Types of Validity in Personality Assessment Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter 4 focuses on the various research methods and types of assessment utilized to study personality. It addresses the questions of how individual differences should be measured and how personality tests should be developed. It begins with an overview of experimental research by drawing a distinction between independent and dependent variables and the differences between moderator and mediator effects. The benefits and limitations of experimental research are noted. The process of conducting correlational research is described. Typical investigations and their components are described. Finally, aspects of test construction are presented with special attention paid to reliability and validity. The chapter closes with a cross-cultural perspective on personality research methods and assessment issues.

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Detailed Chapter Summary Experimental Research Personality research methods are a means to an end and the quality of knowledge obtained is influenced by the quality of the method and type of assessment used to gain that knowledge. Therefore research methods and personality assessment are quite important.

Independent versus Dependent Variables

An independent variable is manipulated in an experiment, while a dependent variable is the outcome variable that is measured in an experiment. There are two types of independent variables: a manipulated variable (applied at different levels to different subsets of participants) and a between-subjects variable (applied to some study participants but not others). Other types of variables are described such as the within-subject variable (a.k.a. repeated measures design), where a person is measured each time after being exposed to two or more levels of the independent variable;sSubject variables, which are classification variables not to be manipulated (e.g. males versus females, younger versus older participants).

Random assignment and order effects (when the same person is used repeatedly across different experimental conditions) are presented as important parts of experiments to keep in mind.

Moderator and Mediator Effects

Moderator effects (a.k.a. interaction effects) refer to the effects of an independent variable as influenced, or moderated, by the level of another independent variable.

Moderator effects need to be distinguished from mediator effects. Factors which mediate suggest that the link between a variable and another variable exist primarily because of their mutual link with another intervening variable that influences both of these variables. This section discusses the three conditions that must be present for mediation: (1) significant association between the predictor variable (e.g., the personality trait) and the criterion variable (e.g., distress); (2) significant association between the predictor variable (e.g., personality trait) and the mediating variable (e.g., the coping style); and (3) the mediator (e.g., coping); must be a significant predictor of the criterion variable (e.g., distress). An example is given in the case of prior exposure to verbal abuse from parents in childhood and how this is associated with subsequent self-criticism, which in turn is associated with depression in adulthood. Self-criticism is identified as a full mediator. This section also presents the additive model (a.k.a. main effects model), which means that factors all make independent contributions to the prediction of the outcome variable.

Benefits and Limitations of Experimental Research

The benefits of experimental research are: (1) to be able to draw conclusions about cause-effect relationships; (2) to be able to identify sex differences; (3) control of the environment in the laboratory.

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The limitations of experimental research are: (1) the fact that one cannot manipulate a person’s personality; (2) demand characteristics, such as the participant wanting to please the experimenter; (3) the demand characteristics related to the behaviours that participants expect of themselves in an experimental setting; (4) evaluation apprehension; (5) low external validity, in that the lab setting is not reality and therefore is said to be low in generalizability.

Linear versus Non-linear Effects

This section underlines the issues specific to the use of subject variables as independent variables in personality experiments. This occurs when subjects are categorized into discrete groups based on some personality characteristic such as introversion versus extroversion. The problem is that categories (which are linear) do not take into consideration the continuum upon which different subjects may score—especially for those in the middle of the continuum (e.g., ambiverts)—and this may result in non-linear effects. Another concern is how the researcher determines which group a particular subject belongs to. Two means of making this determination are discussed (tertial split and median split), but spurious effects that do not exist in reality can be created by the way subjects are categorized. This section also briefly presents the concepts of regression to the mean and measurement error as two aspects, related to score distribution and inflation of scores, which need to be considered by researchers.

Correlational Research Most personality research takes the form of correlational investigation, and intends to ascertain the degree of association between two variables. The most well-known statistical test to evaluate the magnitude of a correlation is the Pearson product-moment correlation, which is represented by the letter “r”.

Unrelated variables have an “r” of zero, and a perfect correlation has an “r” of 1.

Positive and Negative Correlations

In a positive correlation, one variable tends to increase along with the increase of other variable. In a negative correlation, as one variable increases, the other decreases. Correlational coefficients in the order of .10 are small, .30 are considered medium, and .50 are considered to be large. It is important to know that a correlation does not allow for any assumptions regarding causality because of the third-variable problem, which takes into account the possibility that both variables have been influenced by some other variable.

The Directionality Issue

The directionality issue states that if two variables are correlated, we cannot assume the direction of the causality of one on the other. An example from previous research is cited, wherein experiments seemed to show that low levels of masculinity in both men and women seemed to cause depression. However, testretest data indicated that the feelings of depression, in fact, seemed to reduce masculinity. Thus, the direction of the effect was the opposite of what was initially presumed.

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Personality Research Trends The current trend in the personality field is to publish fewer laboratory studies.

There is also a small decrease in the proportion of studies that rely on university students as participants. The trend is an increased use of older, non-student adults in research. There is also a continuing tendency for personality researchers to emphasize one-shot, cross-sectional studies instead of longitudinal studies.

Lastly, we are still in the trend of using self-report questionnaires in our research methodology but applying more sophisticated multivariate approaches to analyze the data.

Different Types of Data Block made distinctions across various types of data which can be utilized in various types of personality research. He distinguished between S-data (selfreports), L-data (life records), O-data (ratings by peers/family), and T-data (performance tests, measures of behaviour, and other objective laboratory measurements).

Structured versus Unstructured Assessments

Structured assessments use close-ended scales in which the content has already been determined by the people who constructed the measure. Unstructured assessments are open-ended, allowing people to give a verbal response in their own words, report their thoughts out loud, or a give a written response for reaction to a stimulus.

Self-Report Measures and Their Limitations

People often lack sufficient insight and self-awareness to accurately evaluate variables on themselves. Others may be characterized by a personality orientation known as self-deception, which yields an overly positive self-evaluation. The biggest concern is the social desirability response bias, where people want to create a positive impression. This section goes on to discuss measures of social desirability response bias such as the Paulhus Deception Scales. Several researchers have argued that social desirability reflects a personality trait of interest in its own right. There is also the response bias of impression management to consider in self-report measures, especially when using personality measures for employee selection purposes. Research shows that personality measures used in job contexts may be quite susceptible to attempts to create a positive impression by “faking-good”. Some measures are more susceptible than others and various methods have been put in place to reduce faking, such as forced-choice options and measurements of responding timelatency.

Supplementing Self-Reports with Observer Ratings

Observer ratings can be done by parents or peers and these too can be influenced by response biases and response styles. The evidence shows that, overall, correlations between self-reports and informant ratings are only modest in magnitude, are not redundant with each other, and that studies are strengthened by having both types of information. However, parent ratings of their children show

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little agreement and their ratings are often negatively correlated with self-reports, thereby pointing to the idea that many studies of personality in children may be highly limited because they rely solely on parental reports. The safest approach is to use multiple measures and methods within the same study (methodological pluralism).

Current Innovations: Data Collection via the Internet

The Internet is used to collect data and has the clear advantages of tapping into a diverse sample, providing an international focus of personality research, being economical, easily randomizing the order in which questions are presented, and potentially stimulating a level of honesty and self-revelation not present in traditional laboratory settings. The drawbacks include limitations on computer access, trusting that individuals are answering honestly, problems with participants following the instructions, fully reading each item, and answering an acceptable number of items. Other problems have to do with ethical issues such as informed consent and debriefing, and making copyrighted measures available online.

Issues in Personality Assessment Construct Validity and the Construct Validation Process

Scales that share the same construct name may differ in item content, depending upon how the construct was defined and what process was utilized to validate the construct. This means that what appears to be similar constructs across different tests may now always have strong correlations with each other and this may mean that individual measures, utilized without also utilizing other measures of the same construct, may not assess broad personality constructs fully.

The Sequential System of Test Construction

Jackson identified 4 principles essential to personality test development: (1) the overriding importance of psychological theory; (2) the need to suppress response style variance; (3) the importance of scale homogeneity and generalizability; and (4) the importance of establishing the convergent and discriminant validity of the measure at the start of the test development process. For the first principle, the nomological network, which consists of the factors and variables that are theoretically related to the construct in question, must be outlined. For the next principle, there is a need to generate a large pool of items and evaluate them for susceptibility to response style and, in particular, acquiescence response bias. The third principle means ensuring that all items tap into the same construct by establishing types of reliability known as internal consistency, and using the statistic known as the alpha coefficient. Test-retest reliability is another way to establish the third principle over time to show that a construct is relatively stable.

The fourth principle is discussed in the “Types of Validity in Personality Assessment” section below.

Additional Test Construction Guidelines

Basically, brief measures with high internal consistency are preferred.

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Types of Validity in Personality Assessment

This section discusses the various types of validity: construct, content, criterion, discriminant, ecological, face, factorial, concurrent, predictive, and incremental.

Jackson’s fourth principle specifically mentions convergent and discriminant validity. This means that similar measures converge on each other and have minimal correlation with other constructs. One way to test construction and refinement to evaluate concurrent and discriminant validity of a test is to apply the multitrait-multimethod matrix. The matrix examines the validity of the measures after removing variance that may be due to the procedures used to assess the construct, such as the biases associated with self-report measures. Two or more personality traits are evaluated with two or more methods. Then, through sophisticated statistical techniques such as confirmatory factor analysis, one can see how much variability is attributable to individual differences in the personality traits and how much of it is method variance due to the manner in which personality was assessed.

Another form of validity is factorial validity, which confirms the extent to which a construct possesses several different factors. As a test becomes more finalized in its construction, confirmatory factor analyses are performed to confirm the factor structure and determine how items fit the theoretical model that was postulated at the beginning of the test construction process. Ecological validity determines if the test reflects actual phenomenon in nature and will utilize experience sampling as one of its techniques, which is particularly useful when working across different cultures. Experience sampling involves collecting multiple measures of the same phenomenon, known as aggregation, leading to more reliable assessments with less measurement error.

Incremental validity answers the key question, “Does a newly introduced measure predict a phenomenon more accurately than an already existing measure?”

This section closes with a presentation of personality assessment across cultures in which important considerations are presented. The first is conceptual equivalence—does a personality concept in one culture have the same conceptual meaning in another? An aspect of this is the idea that different cultures may place greater or lesser importance on various ideas (e.g. collectivist goals, social desirability, and deception). The second is the moderation norm—do different cultures tend to use the midpoint on a scale more or less often than participants in other cultures? A third is normative equivalence—can the degree of variability in responses be compared across geographical regions and subgroups within and across regions? The fourth, and the biggest hurdle, has to do with language. A test for this consideration is back translation in order to maximize language equivalence. This means translating a scale and then translating it back into the original language to see if item content has changed.

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LECTURE STARTERS 1.

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To illustrate the differences between independent and dependent variables, present three or four research studies (overhead) to the class and let students read the study’s methodology. Then ask them to identify each type of variable.

The text refers to linear and non-linear effects. One way to demonstrate this would be to administer the MBTI to the class and have students arrange themselves on a continuum of extroversion to introversion (stand up and form a line based on scores). Present a description of the “two” categories, and then ask the students in the middle of the continuum to speak about the validity of the descriptions in personal terms.

The text refers to the use of the Internet to collect research data. Ask the students, as a piece of homework, to locate a questionnaire (on any topic) online and fill it in. Have the students come back with their concerns about the tool they found on-line, the process of having filled it in, etc. Also, ask them to state what they thought were the research advantages (to themselves personally and for the researchers) of having participated in an on-line survey/questionnaire.

Most students will have at some point in time undergone an interview for a job and/or testing as part of a job application. Ask the students to form discussion groups about the process they were asked to undergo and invite them to have a frank discussion about the topic of “faking good” as presented in the Applied Perspective 4.1 section of the text.

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Psychodynamic Theories CHAPTER 5 Chapter Table of Contents Psychodynamic Theory and Sigmund Freud Components of the Psyche Freud’s Views on Culture Freud’s Stage Theory of Psychosexual Development Defence Mechanisms Contemporary Theory and Research on Repression and Other Defence Styles Evaluation of Freud’s Contributions The Neo-Freudians: Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology The Personal and the Collective Unconscious Specific Archetypes Popular Applications of Jungian Concepts Introversion-Extroversion The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Evaluation of Jung’s Contributions The Neo-Freudians: Alfred Adler The Inferiority Complex Styles of Life and the Meaning of Life Social Interest Adlerian Analysis of the Unabomber Birth Order and Personality Evaluation of Adler’s Contributions The Neo-Freudians: Karen Horney Horney and the Importance of Culture Basic Anxiety and Basic Hostility Moving Toward, Against, and Away from People Ten Neurotic Needs Extension of Psychoanalytic Theory: Perfectionism as a Multidimensional Construct Evaluation of Horney’s Contributions Psychodynamic Assessment Techniques Dream Analysis The Rorschach Inkblot Test Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter five presents Psychodynamic Theories and Sigmund Freud, and the NeoFreudians including Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney. These theories provide the

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“whys” of personality and the development of individual differences. Each theorist adds a different flavour or angle to understanding personality: Freud’s theory of psychosexual development; Jung’s concepts of introversion/extroversion and the four functions of sensing, intuition, perception, and thinking; Adler’s notions of the inferiority/superiority complex and styles of life, plus the impacts of birth order; and finally, Horney’s presentation of the neurotic tendencies, concepts of moving towards/against/away from people and her focus on social and cultural values. These theorists have all had significant impact on the modern practice of psychotherapy and our understanding of personality functioning. The chapter closes with a review of projective forms of assessment and discusses how these projective measures are utilized in forensic and legal settings.

Detailed Chapter Summary Psychodynamic Theory and Sigmund Freud Freud’s subjective approach (introspective method) to analysis emphasized the importance of unconscious factors (the iceberg analogy). Therefore, the work of therapy was to bring the unconscious to the surface and into conscious awareness in order to effect positive change.

Components of the Psyche

This section presents the id (pleasure principle), governed by primary process thinking and wish fulfillment; the ego (reality principle), governed by secondary process thinking; and the superego (perfection principle), governed by morality and the maintenance of societal standards, rules, and principles. Concepts associated with the id include catharsis (of wish fulfillment to reduce tension), eros (life instinct) and thanatos (death instinct). The author also presents the Oedipus complex (including castration anxiety) and the Electra complex (penis envy, or what Horney would later call “womb envy”), through which boys and girls come to introject (introjection) sexual identity, and eventually, components of the superego. Freud would claim, wrongly as future studies have demonstrated, that females have weaker superegos than males. Freud is criticized for failing to see that the development of conscience actually occurs much earlier than he suggested. Alternative explanations are provided by the author regarding the development of the conscience related to temperament differences amongst children regarding “high effortful control” and/or fearful temperaments.

Freud’s Views on Culture

For Freud, “culture” and “civilization” are the same and he blames culture as the source of unhappiness for people as it restricts the id’s search for pleasure and the desire for freedom of expression. He felt that the process of id, ego, and superego development occurs at both the individual and the societal levels. Different cultures have different blend of eros and thanatos instincts. They also differ in the degree to which they employ sublimation, which is the channeling of aggressive and sexual instincts into socially approved outlets (e.g. art).

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Freud’s Stage Theory of Psychosexual Development

Personality develops through a series four stages and a latency period. It is important to get the right amount of gratification at each of these psychosexual stages because otherwise a fixation (staying stuck at a stage) may occur. The Psychosexual stages are: oral, anal, phallic (Oedipus and Electra complexes), latency period, and the final genital stage.

Defence Mechanisms

This section presents the major defence mechanisms that a person utilizes to deal with neurotic anxiety (when the id is predominant), realistic anxiety (when the ego is predominant), and moral anxiety (when the superego is predominant).

These major mechanisms include denial, displacement, projection, reaction formation, regression, repression, sublimation, and rationalization. Some styles are immature (e.g. denial) while others are mature (e.g. sublimation).

Contemporary Theory and Research on Repression and Other Defence Styles

Research has focused on repressors—those who rely on repression as a defence.

Recent findings indicate a rebound effect for those who are good at repressing, resulting in intrusive emotional memories in the long run. This section also discusses how self-report measures of defence mechanisms show only moderate correlations between self-reports and informant ratings. Well-known measures of defence styles include the Defence Mechanism Inventory and Defence Styles Questionnaire-40 (DSQ-40) which measure mature defence styles (e.g. anticipation, humour, rationalization, sublimation, and suppression), neurotic styles (e.g. idealization, passive-aggression, pseudoaltruism, reaction formation, and undoing), immature styles (e.g. acting out, autistic fantasy, denial, devaluation, displacement, dissociation, isolation, projection, somatization, and splitting). Other researchers rely more on projective tests to assess defence styles.

Four levels of defences are described by Vaillant: psychotic (delusions and distortions), immature (projection, denial), neurotic (reaction formation), and mature (sublimation). The main difference between Vaillant’s and Freud’s conceptions of defences is that Vaillant saw that certain defences are actually adaptive and also that external events can have an impact on the necessary development of defences.

Evaluation of Freud’s Contributions

Criticisms include: abstractness and untestable aspects of certain concepts; limiting motivation to sexual drives; the case study method and generalizability; that change agency is in the therapist’s hands and not the patient’s hands; Freud’s patronizing view of women; and the idea that personality is fixed and based on early childhood experiences. Important contributions include: paving the way for developmental theory; identification of the importance of the unconscious; linking personality to culture; attempting to provide a comprehensive theory of human personality functioning; and training and influencing a host of other theorists.

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The Neo-Freudians: Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology Jung accepted many of Freud’s core beliefs (e.g. the emphasis on the unconscious, the importance of defences, the impact of early experiences, significance of dreams, and general usefulness of the projective techniques), yet rejects others (e.g. basis for repression on trauma, nature of unconscious conflicts, and the limitations of only considering psychosexual energy). Instead, he focused on psychosocial energy, saw dreams as a natural form of self-expression, and placed more emphasis on spiritual matters.

The Personal and the Collective Unconscious

The personal unconscious reflects our unique experiences and conflicts, and is composed of feeling-toned complexes. The collective unconscious is an inherited shared experience that makes us similar to everyone else and is linked to history and culture, myths and legends. The collective unconscious is composed of archetypes, which are symbols that reflect our instincts and how they are expressed.

Specific Archetypes

The central archetype is the Mandala, which reflects the ultimate goal of developing a complete, whole, unified self. Other prominent archetypes include the wise old man, the hero, the trickster, the anima (feminine side of men)/animus(masculine side of women), and the shadow.

Popular Applications of Jungian Concepts

Archetypes are visible across popular culture. The hero archetype is represented

by Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo in Star War; the wise old man by Yoda; the child by any Hobbit; the shadow by Sauron and the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings; the trickster by Gollum, etc. This section also touches briefly on the concept of synchronicity, which is the co-occurrence of two things that are actually paired randomly but seem to go together.

Introversion-Extroversion

Jung was the first to identify the differences between introversion and extroversion, which have been linked to associated cognitive and cultural differences. For example, Eastern societies are more introverted, while Western societies are more extroverted. Introverts focus their attention inward on their own thoughts and perceptions, while extroverts are constantly scanning the environment. Jung also identified other individual differences, or “psychological functions”, including sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the most widely used personality measures in the world. It uses the four dimensions of ExtroversionIntroversion, Sensing-Intuition, Feeling-Thinking, and Judging-Perception, resulting in 16 possible combinations. Research indicates that the MBTI predicted performance on a social-cognitive task, above and beyond the effects of the traits of the five-factor model. The MBTI has received criticism for not taking into

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consideration ambiverts (people scoring in the middle zone on the four dimensions). There have also been problems translating the MBTI into Chinese.

Evaluation of Jung’s Contributions

Criticisms of Jung’s theory include empirical testability of concepts, questioning the inherited aspects of parts of the psyche, validity of archetypes, questioning the anima/animus aspects of masculinity and femininity, and questioning whether the collective unconscious really applies to everyone. Important contributions include the identification of introversion and extroversion, and the study of personality from a cultural perspective.

The Neo-Freudians: Alfred Adler Adler was another theorist who initially was associated with Freud. His movement, called individual psychology, reflects the idea that each person is unique, and that people are motivated by biological factors (less importance on sexual urges) related to overcoming organ inferiority.

The Inferiority Complex

Feelings of inferiority, the inferiority complex (originally thought to be organ inferiority but later seen as all types of inferiority including psychological), propel the individual into dramatic improvements which ultimately benefit mankind.

This is behind every human creation and is the source of all contributions to culture. Neurotics deny their inferiority.

Styles of Life and the Meaning of Life

Styles of life are forms of individual expression that come from early life difficulties and ways in which a person strives to achieve goals. A useful life means working with other people for mutual benefit and cooperation. Adler identified three situations that can result in “gravely mistaken” meanings in life: 1) organ inferiority (humiliation); 2) pampered children (becoming the most dangerous class of citizens); and 3) neglected children (life without friendliness).

Old rememberances are key to understanding styles of life and knowing which of the four styles of life are in operation— ruling types (need to control), getting types (dependent), avoiding types (running away) and socially useful types (social interest). Social interest is the only positive style and is described as one who has self-control and desires contributing to the welfare of society.

Social Interest

Social interest means a person can master the three basic tasks of life, which are work, love and social interaction. Adler greatly promoted volunteerism and indeed research shows that self-esteem rises as a result of helping others.

Empirical research on social interest has found low inter-correlations among five well-known measures of social interest, indicating that this construct is rather broad. Adler suggested the presence of a “superiority complex”, which is a complete lack of social interest and serves to mask the presence of the inferiority complex.

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Adlerian Analysis of the Unabomber

Unabomber Kaczynski displayed an extreme case of the superiority complex and suffered from a profound lack of social interest, even though he believed (falsely) that he was acting in the public’s best interests.

Birth Order and Personality

Adler believed that birth order and personality are associated. He was particularly hard on only children because he thought they were likely pampered and therefore would not develop social interest. Second-born children were seen as ideal. Many researchers have found that the results of studies on birth order have not supported Adler’s views, even studies on older Chinese “little emperor phenomenon” (nation of only children). Others, notably Sulloway, conclude unequivocally that birth order and personality are associated. Various studies are briefly reviewed in this section, concluding with the statement that overall the effects of birth order on personality are modest at best and seemingly inconsistent across studies. Some studies show little while others show that first-borns are more intelligent and less creative, and that higher birth order status is linked with greater occupational attainment and completing more years of schooling.

Evaluation of Adler’s Contributions

Adler is credited with three contribution— the notion of inferiority complex as part of the identify process, the significance of social interest, and his statements about pampering and neglecting children—which have led to subsequent work and research links to personality development. Criticisms include: views were highly subjective and influenced by his own personal experiences; birth order is highly subjective; and his theory is relatively narrow and lacks comprehensiveness.

The Neo-Freudians: Karen Horney Horney and the Importance of Culture

Horney felt that differences in personality and disturbances were due to cultural factors and that there are widespread differences between cultures, yielding many definitions of “normal” over time and across cultures. She identified three contradictions which confront everyone: 1) the need to be competitive and successful versus the need for love, affiliation, and humility; 2) the stimulation of our idealistic needs versus the frustration associated with being unable to attain these ideas; and 3) although people are told they are free agents who are independent, situational and contextual, constraints may substantially limit this freedom.

Basic Anxiety and Basic Hostility

Basic anxiety (fear of helplessness and worries about possible abandonment) guides much of our behaviour. Some children develop “basic hostility”, which is a reaction to parental indifference and neglect. Due to fear, basic hostility is not openly displayed. The basic conflict (anxiety and hostility) is the source of neurosis.

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Moving Toward, Against, and Away from People

These are the three neurotic desires. Moving towards reflects helplessness and the compliant type personality where individuals operate according to the self-effacing solution. Moving against reflects basic hostility and when taken to an extreme shows sadism (e.g. Hitler). Moving away represents a sense of detachment and alienation from others. Research studies have confirmed the existence of these three neurotic styles.

Ten Neurotic Needs

Horney identified ten neurotic needs which reflect the three themes of moving toward, away from, or against people. The neurotic needs are: 1) for affection and approval 2) for a partner 3) restricting one’s life to narrow borders 4) for power 5) to exploit others 6) for social recognition

7) for personal admiration 8) for personal achievement 9) for self-sufficiency and independence 10) for perfection and unassailability.

People become trapped by a “tyranny of the shoulds” as they attempt to satisfy, always to negative outcomes, their neurotic needs.

Extension of Psychoanalytic Theory: Perfectionism as a Multidimensional Construct

Contemporary research has confirmed perfectionism as an individual difference detectable in young children. It is now studied as a multidimensional construct, with some researchers identifying 4-6 aspects, while other researchers place more focus on the interpersonal. Correlations with the five-factor model places selforiented perfectionism (regardless of the number of aspects) in association with conscientiousness and its facets. Other-oriented perfectionism is associated with high levels of neuroticism. Research has established that extreme levels of selforiented and socially prescribed perfectionism are involved in many adjustment problems including eating disorders, anxiety, depression, personality dysfunction, and marital problems.

Evaluation of Horney’s Contributions

Concerns include: general concerns about the scientific merits of the work; that some concepts (e.g. moving toward, against, or away) are too broad; and that the needs may be hard to measure (if anyone ever cares to attempt to measure them).

Contributions include: examining social conflicts and other related factors rather than psychosexual conflicts; identification of the moving toward, against, and away from others, which has set the stage for contemporary research; concepts of neurotic needs and the “tyranny of the shoulds” set the stage for subsequent theory and research on errational beliefs by Albert Ellis and others; and assertion of a feminist position and objecting to a patronizing view of women.

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Psychodynamic Assessment Techniques The projective hypothesis states that unconscious themes and the self will reveal themselves through projections on ambiguous stimuli. Different people will project differentially. Free association and the word association test are two of many projective techniques.

Dream Analysis

This is another projective technique. Manifest content is the symbols or images in the dream while latent content is the deeper meaning or significance of the dream.

Dream symbolism means that certain objects are concrete representations of emotions and anxiety. Dream work is the process of transforming latent content into manifest content. Adler felt that people tend to dream about concerns and desires that the person values and thinks about daily.

The Rorschach Inkblot Test

Two more projective tests that are discussed in this chapter are the Rorschach Inkblot Test and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Both strong supporters and harsh critics exist for these kinds of tests. Systematic scoring systems have been developed. Projective tests are still extensively used. The Rorschach has been extensively utilized in criminal cases, custody cases and in personal injury cases. Supporters say that projective tests are less susceptible to faking and dissimulation than are structured personality measures. There are concerns about inter-rater reliability and deficient psychometric properties relative to other assessment procedures commonly utilized.

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Bring in a dream sample (preferably from self) and demonstrate the principles of symbolization and analysis of the use of dreams as a projective psychotherapeutic tool.

Professors could conduct a group administration of the MBTI to the class, providing them with a general presentation debrief of the results (3 hrs).

Many “Archetype” card sets exist on the market. Buy a set and distribute them to the class and ask them to self-identify strong archetypes within themselves. Then ask them to discuss, in small groups, how these archetypes came to be selected.

Ask the students to arrange themselves into groups according to birth order (eldest group; only children group; second born group; middle child group; youngest child group). Ask each group to identify a strength or ability that is special to their group. Share and discuss.

Bring a Rorschach deck to class and by using the projector, administer the Rorschach to the entire class. Do not analyze the results. Ask them in small groups to discuss what they wrote down after the presentation of each card. This stimulates discussion and enables the students to very vividly see that different people will project different things onto the cards.

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Motivational Theories and Psychological Needs CHAPTER 6 Chapter Table of Contents Henry Murray and Psychological Needs Murray from a Psychoanalytic Perspective The Importance of the Situation: Press Interdependence of Personality from a Cultural Perspective Murray as a Motivational Theorist: Needs Types of Needs Psychological Needs The Personal Needs of Henry Murray Murray and the Unibomber Evaluation of Murray’s Theory The Assessment of Psychological Needs The Thematic Apperception Test Alternative Measures of Psychological Needs The Edwards Personality Preference Schedule The Adjective Check List The Personality Research Form Specific Psychological Needs Achievement Motivation High versus Low Achievement Motivation: A TAT Illustration Achievement Motivation from a Societal Perspective Affiliation Motivation The Need for Power Contemporary Theory and Research on Motivation Personal Strivings Personal Projects Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter six focuses on individual differences in motivation by presenting Henry Murray’s theory of psychological needs, his concept of situational press, and consideration of the complex interplay of personal and situational factors. Assessment of psychological needs is examined with a special focus on achievement, affiliation and power. The chapter closes with some current approaches to the study of individual differences in motivation with emphasis on personal strivings and procrastination.

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Detailed Chapter Summary Henry Murray and Psychological Needs Murray had important contributions to personality theory and introduced the term personology—the study of human lives and the factors that influence their development.

Murray from a Psychoanalytic Perspective

Three main points of comparison are made with Freudian and Jungian theory: 1) Murray believed that psychological needs were located in the unconscious but they can be studied via manifestations of conscious thought and behaviours; 2) Murray accepted the existence of id (which also houses psychological needs beyond the Freudian conceptions of the id), ego and superego as shaping the habit system; and 3) Murray endorsed the general concept of defence mechanisms.

Murray and Morgan co-created the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Murray’s methodological approach is referred to as the multiform method, that is, the use of multiple assessment forms including assessment (different observers in as many naturalistic situations as possible.)

The Importance of the Situation: Press

Murray considered that multiple factors (both conscious and unconscious), the role of biologically inherited characteristics, and the environment were all important in influencing behaviour. Press is the role that situational factors play in putting pressure on the individual, contributing to behaviour. Alpha press is the actual situation as it objectively exists. Beta press is the perception or appraisal of the situation. Thema refers to the combination of press and the personality factors that combine to produce regularities in behaviour.

Interdependence of Personality from a Cultural Perspective

Murray put emphasis on the role of cultural factors and stated that personality reflects both inherited dispositions and environmental experiences. There are four sets of determinants in personality development: 1) constitutional, 2) group membership (including cultural factors), 3) life role, and 4) situational.

Murray as a Motivational Theorist: Needs

Murray is considered a motivational theorist because he emphasized directionality (behaviours are directed by motives and drives inside people) and because of his emphasis on needs, which are inferred from the analysis of the aftereffects of behaviours, the typical mode or pattern of behavoural expression, the selection or avoidance of certain situations, characteristic emotional expressions, and expressions of satisfaction or dissatisfaction following an effect. This section describes in detail various terms coined by Murray: concept of regnancy (regnante needs are more urgent), need set (readiness to respond), periodicity of needs (three periods of a need), fusion of needs (one action addresses two or more needs at the same time), subsidation of needs (when other needs are recruited to

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promote another more powerful need), ordination (process of planning), schedule (timing to reduce conflict among need expression), and alter ego (dissociated aspect of needs).

Types of Needs

Primary needs are physiological; secondary needs are psychological. Primary needs are viscerogenic. They are: 1) air, 2) water, 3) food, 4) sex, 5) lactation, 6) urination, 7) defecation, 8) harm avoidance, 9) noxavoidance, 10) heat avoidance, 11) cold avoidance, 12) sentience, and 13) passivity.

Psychological Needs

These include: needs associated with inanimate objects (acquisition, conservance, construction, order, retention); needs associated with ambition and desire for accomplishment (superiority, achievement, exhibition, recognition); needs associated with defending status and avoiding humiliation (inviolacy, infavoidance, defendance, counteraction); needs associated with exerting or yielding to power (autonomy, contrarience, dominance, deference, similance); needs reflecting the sado-masochistic dichotomy (aggression, abasement); needs associated with inhibition (blamavoidance), needs reflecting affection for people (affiliation, rejection, nurturance, succorance, play); and needs to ask and to tell (cognizance, exposition).

The Personal Needs of Henry Murray

Murray was very high in narcissism and his most dominant needs included uniqueness and commitment to broader causes. This section also includes an analysis of Hitler’s personality (counteractive need for dominance: superiority; counteractive need for aggression: revenge; repression of conscience, compliance and love; and projection of the criticizable elements of the self) and how Murray felt that understanding Hitler meant understanding most German people at the time, something that would be useful in his work with The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Assessment Unit. Murray was very involved in conducting assessments on potential OSS candidates. He established a complex and intense selection methodology involving 78 tests (intellectual, physical and field tests) administered in four days. Murray played a vital role to help establish personality applications in the real world.

Murray and the Unibomber

The Unibomber, Kaczynski, volunteered to be part of a study by Murray.

Kaczynski’s behaviour deteriorated over the course of Murray’s study, and many point to his involvement in Murray’s research as the turning point leading to his future bomb deployment to university professors and airlines.

Evaluation of Murray’s Theory Murray was instrumental in initiating empirical research on psychoanalytic concepts, emphasizing situation factors on individual differences in motivational factors, influencing personality assessment, and giving the impetus to the field of psychobiography. A limitation is the breadth of his theory and that perhaps there

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were just too many elements. Another limitation was that he probably based the needs on his own subjective and potentially arbitrary decisions.

The Assessment of Psychological Needs Many measures have been designed to assess psychological needs.

The Thematic Apperception Test

The TAT, originally designed by Murray and Morgan, consists of a series of black and white pictures depicting scenes where respondents provide a story that fits with the picture being shown. TAT testing can show how current crises are reflected in projective responses. Critics of the TAT are concerned about its reliability (as it has very low test-retest reliabilities) and validity (minimal correlations with other self-report measures of motivation). However, the TAT is considered to be very useful in measuring variables of clinical importance (psychopathology) and as a measure of defence mechanisms. In particular, the TAT has been used to assess individual differences in variables derived from object relations theory.

Alternative Measures of Psychological Needs The Edwards Personality Preference Schedule

The EPPS is widely used in clinical and counseling situations. It measures 15 needs: abasement, achievement, affiliation, aggression, autonomy, change, deference, dominance, endurance, exhibition, heterosexuality, intraception, nurturance, order, and succorance. There is concurrent validity of the EPPS with the NEO-PI-R. Unfortunately the EPPS uses ipsative scoring (forced choice) which tends to bias scores.

The Adjective Check List

The ACL consists of 300 adjectives arranged in alphabetical order and measures the same needs as the EPPS but contains unique scales such as creativity, military leadership, self-control, self-confidence and personal adjustment. It too displays concurrent validity to the five-factor model. It has been successfully used to evaluate cross-cultural personality stereotypes involving age and gender.

The Personality Research Form

The PRF is one of the most highly regarded personality measures of the needs described by Murray. It is relatively uncontaminated by social desirability response bias and its factors have shown the expected links to the NEO factors.

The PRF is available in 16 languages and has been utilized in many cross-cultural studies (e.g. Filipino, Zimbabwe, etc.) indicating that many basic needs are shared across cultures.

Specific Psychological Needs Achievement Motivation

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Voluminous literature exists on achievement, with David McClelland as the leading theorist in this area. He outlined how it is possible to examine individual differences in achievement motivation by analyzing folk tales and children’s stories. Implicit measures are those that do not require conscious reflection of motives while explicit measures require the respondent to reflect on his or her motives. These two measures are not significantly correlated with each other.

High versus Low Achievement Motivation: A TAT Illustration This section gives two multi-line TAT responses, one indicating a high achievement motivation (I see a boy who wants to learn the violin…) and the other a low level (I was a boy who tried to play the violin…).

Achievement Motivation from a Societal Perspective McClelland placed a greater emphasis on the acquisition of motives via learning experiences and so how a culture provides experiences to children will impact the normative motives that operate within that culture. Cultures that placed a greater emphasis on independence training and autonomy also had higher levels of achievement motivation. In studying Greek fables and legends across eras, he concluded that achievement motivation was high during its periods of maximum growth but then fell with the decline of Greek civilization. Other examples are given in this section to illustrate the connection between culture and achievement motivation.

Affiliation Motivation

Byrne, McDonald and Mikawa showed that people with high affiliation motivation produced stories reflection, high approach tendencies, and low avoidance tendencies in TAT responses. Subsequently, other researchers have identified a specific form of affiliation motivation known as intimacy motivation.

Other nuances of affiliation motivation have been demonstrated through selfreport measures such as Hill’s Interpersonal Orientation Scale: 1) attention, 2) positive stimulation, 3) social comparison, and 4) emotional support. Festinger wrote about social comparison and the similarity hypothesis, which suggests that when unsure about our opinions and attitudes, or whether our performance is good or bad, we socially compare ourselves to others and we prefer to compare with similar others based on general characteristics, respectively.

The Need for Power

David Winter’s focus was on the need for power. Effectance is the need to have an impact on people, places, and objects. Undergraduate students (male and female) with higher power motive reported more frequent sexual intercourse, while those with higher affiliation motive reported significantly less sexual intercourse. Power has been linked to higher levels of aggressiveness, gambling, persuasiveness (gestures and well-timed eyebrow lifts), drinking, and political success.

This section goes on to discuss the needs of Bill Clinton (high for achievement, initially low for power), Richard Nixon (high for achievement and affiliation, moderate for power), Mikhail Gorbachev (high for achievement and Chapter 6-5

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affiliation, average to low for power), and George Bush Sr. (high for achievement and affiliation, average to low for power, but more emotionally expressive and impulsive than Gorbachev).

Studies on personal victories and defeats show that in men with high power motivation, victories resulted in increases in testosterone, while losses yielded decreases in testosterone. Subsequent studies have shown that men already high in testosterone had further increases in testosterone as a result of watching The Godfather, Part II while women with initially high levels of testosterone had decreases in these levels after watching the movie. These studies confirm McClelland’s assertion that situational experiences influence motives.

Research has debunked the myth that females are lower than males in the need for power. What arouses the need for power in men has a similar effect on women.

Contemporary Theory and Research on Motivation Personal Strivings

Personal strivings are defined as idiographic, goal-directed units that represent what the person is typically or characteristically trying to do. The types of motivations involved in personal strivings will yield different themes in the manifestations of behaviour. Depending on the type of striving (and differing underlying motives), personal strivings can lead to either better or worse wellbeing, and overall adjustment.

Personal Projects

A personal project use a set of interrelated acts extending over time, which is intended to maintain or attain a state of affairs seen by the individual. Personal projects are similar, though not identical, to related concepts such as current concerns, life, tasks, and personal strivings in that they all focus on issues that are relevant and central to a person’s daily life. Personal projects are a “mid-level construct”, meaning that they are process-oriented and reflect proximally how a personality trait is expressed in terms of current daily goals and behaviours.

Ogilvie identified four general motives for personal projects: acquire, cure, prevent, and keep. Blunt and Pychyl showed that procrastination can be associated with all phases of personal projects but is most likely to influence the initial orientation toward a project. People high in trait optimism had more positive personal project appraisals and rated projects as being lower in strain, and higher in mastery control and positive identity fulfillment. Some key research results include: neuroticism is related to negative project appraisals, while conscientiousness is associated with positive project appraisals on the fivefactors; procrastination (low conscientiousness) is linked with a negative orientation toward starting projects; negative appraisals of personal projects are associated with a variety of forms of negative affectivity including anxiety and depression. Collectively, the findings are that types of projects that are pursued and the types of appraisals associated with these projects are key factors in personal adjustment.

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LECTURE STARTERS 1. Administer the PRF to the class and conduct a group debrief regarding the results.

2. Review Table 6.1 (Psychological Needs Identified by Murray) with the class. Ask students to identify five needs which they self-identify as high and five as low.

Invite the students to discuss (dyadic) these needs and provide within their discussions behavioural examples which support the five needs which they selfidentified as high. This would be a 30-45 minute exercise.

3. Bring in examples of TAT responses from anonymous clients and have the students identify the levels of achievement motivation across samples (ranking).

Let them discuss their rankings among themselves to demonstrate inter-rater reliability. Conduct a whole class de-brief, allowing various groups of students to share their analysis to the entire class.

4. Invite the students to apply Ogilvie’s four types of project motivations to themselves (Table 6.4—A Taxonomy of Personal Projects Categories) in terms of listing their major current projects and inviting them to categorize the goals of each current project into one or more of the dominant categories. This exercise would take approximately 30-50 minutes.

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Humanistic Theories and Self-Actualization CHAPTER 7 Chapter Table of Contents Common Themes of the Humanists Maslow’s Humanistic Theory Deficiency Motives and Growth Motives The General Characteristics of Needs The Hierarchy of Needs The Psychological Characteristics of Healthy, Self-Actualized People The B-Values Associated Research on the Nature of Self-Actualization Maslow’s Views on Personality Evaluation of Maslow’s Theory Maslow’s Views on Culture Carl Rogers The Organism, the Self, and Personality Structure The Need for Self-Regard The Need for Self-Actualization The Fully Functioning Person Contemporary Research Reflecting Rogers’ Theory Self-Worth Contingencies Personality Change and Client-Centered Therapy Evaluating the Contributions of Client-Centered Therapy Evaluation of Rogers’ Theory The Assessment and Measurement of Self-Actualization The Contemporary Focus on Well-Being Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter seven presents the humanistic phenomenological theories of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Maslow’s hierarchical model includes a universal sequence of deficit and growth needs. At the heart of Rogerian theory is the need for positive self regard. Both theorists emphasized the concepts of innate goodness of people and their continual striving for self-improvement (self-actualization). Self-actualization is a continuous and unrelenting striving to develop one’s full potential. Both theories are holistic (organistic theories) in their approach, focusing on the development of the entire organism.

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Detailed Chapter Summary Common Themes of the Humanists The shared themes among humanists are: 1) the central role of personal growth; 2) the importance of openness to personal experience; 3) living in the here and now; 4) personal responsibility; and 5) inherent goodness of people. We cannot effectively strive towards self-actualization when immediate needs have not been met. The unit of study is the individual person and each person needs to be analyzed individually. An emphasis is on the here and now, with the idea that being preoccupied with the past or the future takes away from the experienced moment. Personality responsibility is a prevailing view among humanists and goes against the Freudian view that we are controlled by early childhood experiences. Maslow is credited with the positive psychology movement and is currently being carried forward by Martin Seligman. Positive psychology focuses on positive, rather than negative, adjustment and sees people as inherently good and unique.

Maslow’s Humanistic Theory Maslow’s interest in humanism grew out of the events of WWII. His ideas have been applied to education and business and he is most famous for his hierarchy of needs and his analysis of the characteristics of healthy people.

Deficiency Motives and Growth Motives

The difference between these two motives is central to Maslow’s theory. Neurosis is a deficiency disease. Health is associated with the pursuit of growth motives and actions towards self-actualization.

The General Characteristics of Needs

The five types of needs are: survival, safety, belonging and love, esteem, and the need for self-actualization. Lower needs are stronger than higher needs and must be satisfied first. Gratification of higher needs has great civic and social consequences as self-improvement leads to social and cultural improvement.

The Hierarchy of Needs

Higher needs evolved later in human evolutionary development and also, when thinking of individuals themselves, in personal development. The first level (physiological needs) include thirst, hunger and air needs. The second level (safety needs) include both physical and emotional safety needs. These two levels are the deficiency needs and once they are addressed, interest turns to belonging and love needs. Maslow distinguished between selfish and unselfish forms of love (D-love and B-love) and this paved the pay for further research into different love styles. While most research has been on the need for love, there has been an increasing focus on the need to belong. Durkheim’s theory of anomic suicide is directly related to the idea that people are suicide-prone if they feel alienated from others and lack a sense of belonging. Maslow’s fourth level (esteem needs) reflects the need for prestige and recognition through personal accomplishments.

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which involves actualizing one’s potential and feeling closer to one’s actual being. Maslow believed that less than 1 percent of the population attain selfactualization, but even they are not perfect and the state is impossible to maintain over extended periods of time.

The Psychological Characteristics of Healthy, Self-Actualized People

The characteristics of healthy, self-actualized people include: superior perception of reality; increased acceptance of self, of others, and of nature; increased spontaneity; increase in problem-centering; increased detachment and desire for privacy; increased autonomy and resistance to enculturation; greater freshness of appreciation, and richness of emotional reaction; higher frequency of mystical, peak experiences; increased identification with the human species; changed interpersonal relations; more democratic character structure; greatly increased creativeness; and certain changes in the value system. The most notable characteristic is the “peak experience”.

Maslow identified eight behaviours leading to self-actualization: experiencing fully with vividness and complete concentration; making personal choices that are growth choices rather than fear-based choices; developing a sense of self and letting the self emerge without being influenced too much by other people, including our parents; being honest with oneself and with other people; being courageous and making wise life judgments according to personal preferences; recognizing that self-development is an ongoing process of actualizing potential at many points in time; having peak experiences and being open to them; and being aware of ego defences and stopping the use of them.

Giving up the defence mechanism of desacralizing, engaging in spirituality, mindfulness, and meditation are ways to add to the self-actualizing process.

The B-Values

B-values are meta-motivations and must be realized in order to avoid illness and realize one’s full potential. There are 15 non-hierarchically arranged B-values, each of which is associated with a pathogenic outcome: truth, goodness, beauty, unity/wholeness, dichotomy-transcendence, aliveness/process, uniqueness, perfection, necessity, completion/fullness, justice, order, simplicity, richness/totality/comprehensiveness, effortlessness, playfulness, self-sufficiency, and meaningfulness.

Associated Research on the Nature of Self-Actualization

People high in self-actualization are low in death anxiety and high in selfacceptance, tolerate failure, and focus on the whys of wants, not the whats of wants.

Maslow’s Views on Personality

Maslow concluded that the person is composed of various “personality syndromes” and behaviour is the product of multiple personality syndromes which reflect the integrated personality. The more integrated the personality, the

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healthier the person. Importantly, personality syndromes exist within situational and cultural contexts and therefore good environments (where needs are met) yields good personalities.

Evaluation of Maslow’s Theory

Research generally supports the idea that basic needs must be satisfied before psychological needs can be successfully addressed. However, some concerns regarding the hierarchy include the idea that not all individuals will place the same value on the same needs, and so they may not appear in the same order for any given individual. Also there is a need to clarify the self-actualization concept as a process rather than an end state that can take unique forms in each selfactualized person.

Maslow’s Views on Culture

Several critics suggest that the need hierarchy is far from universal. Cultures which are more communal/collectivistic may have a different definition of selfactualization than do Western cultures. Another criticism of Maslow is that he never really addressed gender differences in personality.

Carl Rogers The Organism, the Self, and Personality Structure

The organism is the source of our experiences and forms a phenomenal field (perceptual field of awareness and cognition), which reflects the totality of our existence. The self is a segment of the phenomenal field that forms over time and becomes its own distinguishable entity. That self is the basic factor in the formation of personality and in the determination of behaviour.

The Need for Self-Regard

There are two essential needs—self-regard and self actualization.

Conditions of worth are the primary threat to self-regard via other people who do not relate with respect to the individual’s true self, thereby setting the person up for an incongruence between the self and experience. The antidote is unconditional positive regard from significant others which ensures that the individual’s self and experience align with each other. Dysfunction depends on the side of the gap between the actual self and the true self.

The Need for Self-Actualization

Each person possesses an organismic valuing processs, which means that each person knows what is good or not good for him/her. Therefore, within an atmosphere of respect and freedom to make choices, the organismic valuing process would operate.

The Fully Functioning Person

When self-regard and self-actualization are satisfied, a person may become a “fully functioning person”. Defence mechanisms combat anxiety that arises when information and feedback does not align with our self-perceptions. This

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awareness is subconcious (subception) but the fully-functioning person is aware of this and does not resort to the use of defences.

Contemporary Research Reflecting Rogers’ Theory

Rogers’ ideas have led to research on the cognitive aspects of perfectionism, distress, and discrepancies from the ideal self. Research on perfectionism is reviewed in this section, indicating that perfectionists are particularly susceptible to negative affect in the form of depression about failure to attain perfection in the past and in the future. Rogers would maintain that the roots of these problems are the conditions of worth that start the person down the path of un-genuine existence.

Self-Worth Contingencies

Self-worth and depression are related. Perfectionists are higher in conditional selfworth. Self-worth contingencies can be measured. For example, the self-worth contingencies that are measured via Crocker’s research include academic competence, appearance, competition, approval from others, family support, god’s love, and virtue. Crocker’s evidence shows that students with a sense of contingent self-worth are at risk for a variety of negative outcomes. Furthermore, Assor, Roth, and Deci suggest that there is an intergenerational transmission of conditional self-regard.

Personality Change and Client-Centered Therapy

Dramatic personality change is quite possible. The key is for the therapist to provide warmth and genuineness and unconditional positive regard; that is, the conditions of acceptance and non-judgment, empathy and being non-judgmental.

This approach rests on the basic premise that people can be understood only from their own phenomenology (immediate experience) and that they should have the freedom to choose and exercise the responsibility that comes with that freedom.

Of note is the link between openness to the client and encouraging the client to be open to the self, and that openness is one of the five-factor model traits.

Evaluating the Contributions of Client-Centered Therapy

Clinical effectiveness of a therapist, regardless of the theoretical orientation, is directly linked with outcome. Therefore, comparative research needs to be done before one can conclude that Rogerian client-centered therapy is superior to other treatment approaches. Clearly however, there is a role for empathy in positive therapy outcomes. This is something that is emphasized in this particular approach.

A contribution of Client-Centered Therapy is in consideration of teaching style, the quality of the teacher-student relationship, and what level of structure to utilize in running a class (student-centered classrooms). Job enrichment research has also found a link to the principles of the Rogerian approach. Studies on person-centered e-learning have shown that deeper learning of material plus facilitation of personal growth and the development of personal skills can occur through using this approach.

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There are individuals who do not respond well to non-directive teaching, such as those low in tolerance for ambiguity and those low in uncertainty orientation.

Evaluation of Rogers’ Theory

Some suggested that Rogers was naïve if he really believed that people with antisocial and sadistic tendencies had inherent goodness that just needed to be discovered. Others raised concerns about the generalizability of Rogerian techniques across cultures that are traditional and/or collectivistic and/or authoritarian. Many researchers have also challenged the idea of a universal need for positive self-regard, especially in other cultures (e.g. Japanese).

The Assessment and Measurement of Self-Actualization The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), and the Personal Orientation Dimensions (POD), both by Shostrom, provide a great deal of insight into the self-actualization construct but are rather long to administer. Another (shorter) assessment tool is the Short Index of Self-Actualization by Jones and Crandall. Its 15 items have good psychometric properties (except for factorial validity) and can differentiate between people with high versus low levels of self-actualization.

The Contemporary Focus on Well-Being Both Maslow and Rogers contributed to a shift in psychology towards the positive aspects of human functioning, that is, the subjective sense of well-being and psychological well-being.

Ryff (1989) identified six components of psychological well-being: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relationships with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. Higher well-being is associated with lower levels of trait neuroticism, higher levels of conscientiousness and extroversion, lower levels of cardiovascular risk, lower daily salivary cortisol (a stress index), and longer duration of REM sleep.

LECTURE STARTERS 1

2

3

Place Maslow’s hierarchy on the screen and ask students to identify where they think current society lies in terms of satisfaction of needs (or their current employer). Hold a class discussion and invite them to generate ideas for improvement.

As a professor, announce that for this lecture, you would like the class to be in charge of the topics to be discussed. Ask the students to themselves identify personality topics of interest for the professor. De-brief afterwards that this was an illustration of a Rogerian approach to education. Ask them what they thought of this approach.

From Table 7.2 in the text, self-disclose the three values that you embrace as most personally meaningful. Give the genuine reasons why those are the most

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important from a “felt” perspective. Invite the students to break up into pairs and engage in a similar exercise. This should take about 30-45 minutes.

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Behavioural and Learning Theories CHAPTER 8 Chapter Table of Contents Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning The Unconditioned and Conditioned Stimulus and Response The Personality Differences among Pavlov’s Dogs Radical Behaviourism and John B. Watson Watson’s Views on Personality Classical Conditioning with People Sensitivity to Punishment and Reinforcement Operant Conditioning and B.F. Skinner Schedules of Reinforcement Skinner’s Views on Personality and Individual Differences Skinner’s Views on Culture Skinner’s Views on Humanistic Psychology Dollard and Miller’s Social Learning Theory Types of Imitation Drives, Motives, and Conflicts Rotter’s Social Learning Theory Behaviour Potential Expectancy Reinforcement Value Psychological Situations Needs Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory Baby You Can Drive My Car: Observational Learning in Action Social Learning, Imitation, and Sex Role Development Self-Efficacy Reciprocal Determinism The Aggressive Personality and the Learning of Aggressive Behaviour Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter eight presents theories which emphasize the role of external factors/contingencies in the learning and the unlearning of behaviours.

Behavioural and learning theories define personality as the sum total of learning.

The theories include Pavlov’s classical conditioning, Watson’s radical behaviourism, Skinner’s operant conditioning, Dollard and Miller’s classic social Chapter 6-1

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learning theory, Rotter’s social learning theory, and Bandura’s social cognitive theories. Various aspects of behaviour and learning theories are presented such as unconditioned and conditioned stimulus and response, reinforcement schedules, extinction and flooding, differentiation and generalization, covert sensitization, exposure therapy and systematic desensitization, the law of effect and instrumental conditioning, types of reinforcement and successive approximations, schedules of reinforcement, the response hierarchy, display rules, types of imitation, the approach-avoidance conflict, the frustration-aggression hypothesis, the power of expectancy, how needs fit into behaviourism, self efficacy/selfreinforcement/self-regulation, reciprocal determinism and triadic reciprocal causation, and finally a discussion on aggressiveness.

Detailed Chapter Summary Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning Ivan Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in 1994 for his work in classical conditioning, which involved ringing a bell just prior to putting meat powder in a dog’s mouth.

The Unconditioned and Conditioned Stimulus and Response

This section presents the basic terms of classical conditioning, including unconditioned stimulus (UCS), unconditioned response (UCR), conditioned stimulus (CS), conditioned response (CR), extinction, flooding, differentiation, generalization, and the blocking effect.

The Personality Differences among Pavlov’s Dogs

Pavlov believed that there were individual differences in temperament and induced experimental neuroses to study those differences where dogs had to choose between two conditioned responses. That work led to the introduction of excitation and inhibition, which helped understand temperament based on physiological system differences.

Radical Behaviourism and John B. Watson Watson was disenchanted with the psychoanalytic approach and wanted to focus on observable actions, rather than internal processes. Radical behaviourism focuses only on overt behaviour that can be observed, predicted, and controlled.

Radical environmentalism posits that the environment is much more of an important determinant of behaviour than is heredity or temperament. For example, avoidance conditioning (a type of operant conditioning) is manipulation (either intentional or unintentional) of environmental conditions that lead to the development of debilitating fears and phobias, but only for some people.

Prepared learning means that some people are biologically prepared to fear only certain stimuli and not others.

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Watson’s Views on Personality

Watson downplayed the possibility of constitutional factors, instead insisting that he could create any type of person by forming their habits through knowing the habits that could be evaluated by examining 1) educational history, 2) yearly achievements and accomplishments, 3) preferences in recreational activities/spare time, and 4) emotional make-up in terms of practical situations and responses to daily life events. Habit systems are mostly in place by age 30 but can be changed by unconditioning bad habit systems and conditioning new more appropriate habit systems. This section ends with some personal information about Watson’s marriage and sons.

Classical Conditioning with People

In working with people’s sexual responses, classical conditioning has been demonstrated in men but similar attempts in females have been largely unsuccessful. Classical conditioning can create unhealthy and inappropriate behaviours, for example, in the cases of Michael Briere and Ted Bundy.

Aversion therapy attempts to reduce a given behaviour by pairing it with a highly noxious stimulus. Covert sensitization requires people to imagine the consequences of their bad behaviours. Exposure therapy is commonly used to treat anxiety disorders with systematic desensitization as a refined form of this, which is highly effective. Also, a model can be utilized to show an anxious person how to relax when in the presence of an anxiety provoking stimulus.

Sensitivity to Punishment and Reinforcement

Hans Eysench and Jeffrey Gray studied introverts and extroverts regarding conditionability, showing that differences in this personality dimension relate to the cortical arousal system modulated by retriculothalamic-cortical pathways.

Introverts can be more easily conditioned under threatening environments while extroverts are more easily conditioned when there is the possibility of rewards and reinforcement. Gray postulated that personality traits of impulsivity and anxiety stem from two neurophysiological systems. The behavioural approach system (BAS) accounts for impulsivity differences and the behavioural inhibition system (BIS) accounts for anxiety differences. Measures developed to assess these concepts and subsequent research has shown that the BAS may be linked with the willingness to approach others, while the BIS may predict the need to distance oneself from other people.

Operant Conditioning and B.F. Skinner The Law of Effect means that behaviour followed by positive outcomes is likely to be repeated and visa versa. Operant conditioning means the person operates on the environment to generate consequences. Basic operant conditioning terminology is introduced in this section, including S-R learning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, primary reinforcer, secondary reinforcer, discriminative stimulus, stimulus generalization, shaping, and successive approximations.

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Schedules of Reinforcement

The schedules of reinforcement include fixed ratio, fixed interval, variable ratio, variable ratio, and variable interval. Also presented is the idea of partial reinforcement, which results in behaviours which are quite resistant to extinction.

Skinner’s Views on Personality and Individual Differences

Skinner had little interest in personality. He focused on universal principles that applied to everyone rather than focusing on the unique differences among people.

For Skinner, behavioural differences are a joint focus of genetic factors that have evolved to maximize the chances of survival, as well as the individual’s unique history of reinforcement. Skinner would rather assess behaviour than look at answers on personality questionnaires because people cannot fully describe the reinforcements and punishments they have experienced going back to early childhood. They can reflect on current experience from a phenomenological perspective. Skinner felt that needs were unimportant. The contingencies of reinforcement, not the needs to be satisfied, are the proper area for scientific attention. In sum, all characteristics can be explained by behaviours and consequences of these behaviours, even when a person is dealing with a novel experience.

Skinner’s Views on Culture

Skinner blamed culture for not having arranged effective contingencies to shape and maintain operant behaviours and saw culture as being much more important than any genetic factors. Skinner wrote Walden Two to show how a Utopian society can be maintained through the principles of reinforcement and punishment. Societies get into trouble and confusion is created when different contingencies don’t line up with each other, or do not consistently reinforce desired outcomes.

Skinner’s Views on Humanistic Psychology

Behaviourism may well be humanistic because it helps people attain healthy outcomes, bring out the best in people, and allow them to self-actualize.

Dollard and Miller’s Social Learning Theory Social learning theory revolved around four key terms: 1) drive (similar to Murray’s concepts); 2) cue (stimulus); 3) response (behaviour expressed); and 4) reinforcement (positive outcomes). The response hierarchy means that the same cue for a particular person can have multiple responses associated with it, with one response being more dominant than another. Display rules are culturally learned and socialized, and deal with the display of emotional expression. Parents also socialize responses via: 1) reward, 2) punishment, 3) override (dismissing the child’s response), 4) neglect (ignoring emotion), and 5) magnifying (matching and amplifying the child’s emotion). Masking occurs when a parent hides negative emotions behind smiles. The Display Rule Assessment Inventory (DRAI) reveals cultural differences such as Russians reporting the highest control and Americans reporting the lowest control over emotion expression.

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Types of Imitation

The three types are: 1) same behaviour (two people independently experience the same cue and make the same response; 2) matched-dependent behaviour (two people are together, but one person, the leader, provides the cue and the other imitates that behaviour); and 3) copying (imitating the actions of another person).

Drives, Motives, and Conflicts

This section presents the most basic conflicts people experience: approachavoidance, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-approach. It also presents the frustration-aggression hypothesis where frustration can give rise to possible responses, one of which is aggression.

Rotter’s Social Learning Theory Julian Rotter expanded the theory of Dollard and Miller, drawing attention to the locus of control construct. Rotter based his theory on five concepts: 1) behaviour potential; 2) expectancy; 3) reinforcement value; 4) psychological situations; and 5) needs.

Behaviour Potential

This is simply the potential of a behaviour occurring in a situation as a function of a reinforcement or set of reinforcements.

Expectancy

This is the probability held by an individual that a particular reinforcement will occur as a function of a specific behaviour on his or her part in a specific situation.

Reinforcement Value

This is the degree of the person’s preference for that reinforcement to occur if the possibility of occurrence of all alternatives were equal.

Psychological Situations

The situation is important and provides a range of cues that, in turn, activate the various expectancies that reinforcement will follow specific behaviours.

Generalizability can be evaluated by seeing what follows a behaviour that is performed across several situations.

Needs

Recognition of individual differences in needs distinguishes Rotter from other learning theorists. He endorsed Murray’s views but was different in that “need” is not a state of deprivation but simply a construct that accounts for directionality of behaviour. Rotter’s six needs are: 1) recognition-status; 2) protection-dependency; 3) dominance; 4) independence; 5) love and affection; and 6) physical comfort.

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Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory Behaviours that make up our personality are obtained via operant conditioning and observational learning (observing, reading, or hearing about other people’s behaviour either in real life or by televised images of models). The role of imitation was important as emphasized through a series of studies with children and bobo dolls in the study of aggression.

Baby You Can Drive My Car: Observational Learning in Action

There are four key processes in observational learning: 1) attention; 2) retention; 3) reproduction; and 4) motivation. This section demonstrates these processes by relating a story of a four year old boy who took his mom’s car out for a drive.

The other key point made in this section is that research suggests that exposure to parental anger and hostility tends to result in higher levels of hostility and anger among children. This holds true for exposure to media violence as well.

Social Learning, Imitation, and Sex Role Development

Imitation also plays a role in sex role development and in the process of acquiring the affective, cognitive, motivational, and behavioural characteristics appropriate for one’s biological sex within a defined culture, at least to some degree.

Self-Efficacy

This is the individual’s sense that he or she can or cannot do something. This, in turn, leads to self-reinforcement and cognitive self-regulation. Unfortunately, some people are better at self-punishment than they are at self-reward and common amongst people prone to depression. Bandura identified three forms of self-efficacy: 1) personal agency; 2) proxy agency (getting other people to act for you); and 3) collective agency (group effort for common social interest to effect change). There are cultural differences in the types of self-efficacy.

Reciprocal Determinism

Bandura’s model is based on the concept of reciprocal determinism (a.k.a. triadic reciprocal causation), that, is, the constant interaction of a person’s characertistics/behaviours and the environment. The triad consists of the person, the behaviour, and the environment and each is not necessarily always equal in their influence. This section presents the example of the television show CSI, where millions of viewers liked it, resulting in a high degree of viewing, which prompted the television industry to add more offerings of a similar nature (CSI Miami, CSI New York, etc.) showing not only that the environment can shape people’s behaviour but also that people’s behaviour can shape the environment, ergo the term reciprocal.

The Aggressive Personality and the Learning of Aggressive Behaviour This section summarizes the main findings of Leonard Eron’s twenty-two year longitudinal investigation on the aggressive personality. Key findings include: aggression reflects the confluence of multiple learning processes and influences; cognitive factors play a vitally important role in the learning of aggression and the long-term development of the aggressive personality; there are substantial Chapter 6-6

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changes over time in the predictors of aggression when aggression and related outcomes are assessed over a twenty-two year period, and 4) there is substantial long-term stability in aggressive behaviour when people are studied as children and continue to be studied as adults.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. Obtain a copy of Walden Two and read selected sections of it, or have students come up and read selected sections to the class, and then ask the class to discuss what they hear.

2. Ask the students (in groups) to come up with examples of each of the following: approach-avoidance, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-approach scenarios. Ask them to share these examples, and their frustrations and eventual outcomes, with the larger group.

3. Ask the students to identify their favourite television program. Ask them to think about what it is which is reinforcing about watching that particular program. Ask them to consider what they also might be avoiding by watching the program instead of engaging in other activity. Ask them to also consider the impacts of the program on their personality. Lastly, ask them to consider writing to the producers and identifying what it is that they would say, if they could say anything either about the favourite program or television program offerings in general.

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Cognitive Theories and Cognitive Factors CHAPTER 9 Chapter Table of Contents George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory The Person as Scientist Kelly’s Corollaries Personal Constructs of the Unabomber Empirical Research on the Nature of Personal Constructs Roles and Fixed Role Therapy Roles and the Person-Situation Interaction The Role Construct Repertory Test and Repertory Grids Kelly’s Contemporary Influence Evaluation of Kelly Kurt Lewin’s Cognitive and Field Theory of Personality Cognitively Based Personality Differences Field Dependence versus Field Independence The Need for Cognition Attributions Attributional Style Attributional Complexity Cognitive Rigidity Summary

Chapter Overview The chapter opens up with an overview about eyewitness testimony, and how the same stimulus can be recalled quite differently by different people. The cognitive theories of Kelly and Lewin account for these differences by emphasizing that different people hold different constructs and/ or different personal fields respectively, through which experience is evaluated, understood, and consequently encoded into the memory system, which other researchers have demonstrated to be linked with such traits as extroversion and affect intensity. The chapter goes on to present work by Witkin et al. on field-dependency and field-independency and how that affects perception. Attribution theory is also presented, and discusses the causal explanations people come up with in order to understand why an event has occurred. The chapter ends by showing that there are differences in cognitive flexibility and rigidity, which can be linked with differences in emotion, motivation, and social behaviour, both in consciousness and unconsciousness.

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Detailed Chapter Summary George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory Constructs are powerful cognitive categories which are unique and personal, and affect perception and, consequently, memory, behaviour, affect, etc. They are bipolar (emergent and implicit poles) and differ in degree of accessibility to conscious awareness. Three types of constructs are: 1) preverbal (one has a vague sense but can’t quite identify it), 2) submerged (one or both ends of the construct are not available for conscious reflection and verbalization), and 3) suspended (previously accessible, now forgotten). Often, people know much more than they can talk about.

The Person as Scientist

The main human motivation is to make as much sense as possible out of life events and to be able to predict what will happen next. Therefore, each person is a scientist. Kelly identified three specific conditions that undermine our ability to be scientists and form new constructs: 1) threat, 2) preoccupation with old constructs, and 3) there is no laboratory to test and update constructs as experiences unfold. Failure to update constructs yields hostility because they are out of step with their environment. For Kelly, two people can have different interpretations of the same event. This is called constructive alternativism.

Kelly’s Corollaries

Kelly expanded his Fundamental Postulate (a person’s processes are psychologically channeled by the ways in which they anticipate events) into a number of corollaries including: the construction corollary, the individuality corollary, the organization corollary, the dichotomy corollary, the choice corollary, the range corollary (including the idea of range of convenience), the experience corollary, the modulation corollary, the fragmentation corollary, the commonality corollary, and the sociality corollary.

Personal Constructs of the Unabomber

This section presents an analysis of the constructs of Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) yielding the following elements to his construction system: left wing vs. right wing thinking, inferiority vs. superiority, interpersonal sensitivity vs. insensitivity, oversocialization vs. the need for socialization, and overcontrol vs. the need for revenge and rebellion.

Empirical Research on the Nature of Personal Constructs

The empirical research is very idiographic because of the unique constellation of constructs found in any one individual. Jack Adams-Webber studied cognitive complexity (a.k.a. integrative complexity) which reflects the structure and interrelations of cognitions rather than the actual content or theme of cognition.

One outcome of his research was support for Crockett’s familiarity hypothesis, that an individual’s constructs, relative to others with whom he interacts frequently and intimately, will be more complex than his constructs relevant to categories of persons with whom he interacts less frequently.

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Roles and Fixed Role Therapy

A role reflects a person’s understanding of the different ways of thinking of those people with whom the person is associated. It is not necessarily self-concept, nor a part of the individual’s identity. In fixed role therapy, the client is required to act a role for a particular period of time, thereby allowing them to act as a scientist and find/update constructs. Comparisons on studies of anxiety between fixed role therapy, rational emotive behaviour therapy, and a control group shows that fixed role therapy leads to the greatest improvement on dependent measures. Role playing temporarily changes moods, states, and self-image, which can lead to systematic changes in the way we construe ourselves and others.

Roles and the Person-Situation Interaction

Cattell brought our attention to the idea that roles can influence behaviour and that person-situation interaction needs to be expanded to also consider life roles.

He noted that no behavioural act occurs without being influenced, to some extent, by a role. The section gives the example of being a professor in the morning and a student again in the afternoon which shows how these changing roles alter behaviour accordingly. There is a need for more systematic research on personality, life roles, and behaviour.

The Role Construct Repertory Test and Repertory Grids

One of Kelly’s big contributions to research was the development of the role construct repertory test and various repertory grids, which has since been furthered by others. Basically, they all work on the same principle of a series of comparisons on how sets of two people (or organizations, or products, or cultures) are the same, but different from a third. This yields a set of constructs. This section gives a detailed case study on a culture shock marriage where the results of repertory grid analysis explained the client’s constructs across cultures and why the relationship failed.

There are a number of forms of repertory tests, and repertory grids have been used extensively in research for people suffering from psychopathology, the evaluation of business-information technology alignment, to various aspects of the business sector, to employment candidates, to existing employees, and to expert computer system programmers. All results yield information about the construct system and, therefore, how a person thinks and is likely to react.

Kelly’s Contemporary Influence

Kelly helped promote the cognitive revolution in clinical psychology through the 70s and 80s, which remains quite strong, particularly in Great Britain. He also stimulated an area of psychology known as constructivist psychology. Kelly was a humanist because he placed emphasis on personal choice and the creation of personal meaning. He held disdain for anti-humanistic diagnostic traditions and was working on a more humanistic version of his theory at the time of his death.

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Evaluation of Kelly

Contributions include: providing one of the first purely cognitive theories of personality, promoting a focus on the unique individual as a whole person, paving the way for the subsequent cognitive revolution in psychology, and development of the role construct repertory test and its influence on therapy. Criticisms include: said lots on the structure of personality but little on content, did not deal with the developmental perspective, silent about the origins of constructs, little about why some people have more elaborate and extensive construct systems than others, and that constructs had only two endpoints or, that opposite ideas were necessarily paired together instead of being treated as different constructs entirely (e.g. pessimism and optimism).

Kurt Lewin’s Cognitive and Field Theory of Personality Lewin was regarded as the primary founder of social psychology. He emphasized cognitive factors as central to personality. His focus was on the whole human being, and maintained the Gestalt opinion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Lewin’s field theory was influenced by Galileo and Einstein in terms of forces and fields of force, which encompass individual humans functioning both in terms of the state of the environment, but also the state of the person at the time. The structure of the environment, as well as its constellation of forces, will vary with the needs, desires, and general state of the person, which become reflected in the person’s behaviour. All of that, which impacts the individual, is referred to as life space. Lewin’s view of the person had the following elements which are constantly in motion relative to each other: the foreign hull of life space that contains the boundary of life space within, which the needs, barriers to needs, psychological environment, and goals jockey about in relation to the vector driving force and vector restraining force. All elements can change from one moment to the next and over time. The six key changes in personality structure over time are: 1) differentiation, 2) complexity, 3) expansion, 4) rigidity, 5) realism, and 6) integration. Lewin had little interest in the contents of personality and his theory does not say much about the prediction of an individual’s behaviour.

Cognitively Based Personality Differences The rest of the chapter presents some specific cognitive concepts that characterize individual differences between and among people. Topics presented include: prospective memory, episodic memory, autobiographical memories, flashbulb memories and related variables across a variety of studies. Personality has been linked with associated differences in prospective memory (extroversion, introversion), short-term working memory, and autobiographical memory for past life events. Supertraits, such as extroversion and openness, predict enhanced memory, and people have better autobiographical memory if they are high in affect intensity, but the suppression of emotional expression is linked with poorer memory. This section also presents The Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire as one example of an assessment tool.

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Field Dependence versus Field Independence

Herman Witkin’s field dependent and field independent research findings are presented in this section. Field dependent people are global in their perceptual and cognitive functioning, while field independent people focus on specific details and are relatively uninfluenced by the surrounding context. Field dependant people rely on external cues, and field independent people are more likely to rely on internal sensations within themselves. Field independence was found to be associated with better academic learning in distance education courses among Hong Kong students. Pilots who are field independent have a performance advantage and are able to track a target for a longer period of time. Field independent astronauts would be less influenced by conditions of weightlessness.

Field dependence decreases as short-term memory improves. Field independence has been linked with introversion and field dependence with extroversion. Field dependent children were more task-oriented and girls were found to be more field dependent. Children from hunter-gatherer societies are more field independent.

Being raise by domineering parents tends to promote more field dependence. The Inuit are more field independent. The western mentality is more field independent while the eastern mentality is more field dependent. Some of these findings, plus studies on bicultural identity and the dynamic constructivist approach, give interesting cross-cultural insights about personality and how cognitions and schemas can influence the judgment of new information.

The Need for Cognition Some people have a need to understand, and enjoy thinking. The need for cognition scale measures this and shows that higher National Character Survey (NCS) scores predict higher course grades and higher life satisfaction. High need for cognition (NFC) is linked with thoughtful, self-regulated approaches to learning and studying. This section discusses the links between being affected by persuasive messages and the need for cognition. The five-factor analysis of the need for cognition shows that elevated NCS scores are associated positively with traits of openness and conscientiousness.

Attributions Attributions are causal explanations produced to seek and understand events and why they occur. They are more likely to occur when negative, unexpected events are experienced.

Attributional Style

This section presents the major findings of a great deal of research done in this area, including: attribution and depression, academic performance, expectancies, and parenting styles. While some evidence indicates a link between attributional style and depression across cultures, more research is needed to understand these links and to overcome research methodology difficulties, such as the presentation of hypothetical events to respondents and having adequate language cues.

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Attributional Complexity

There are differences between people in terms of the attributional complexity, which is the tendency to make complex attributions to two or more causes when presented with an environmental outcome that requires explanation. The Attributional Complexity Scale (ACS) is presented with its seven subscales (motivational component, preference for complex explanation, presence of metacognition, the causal importance of social interactions, inferring complex internal attributions, inferring complex external attributions, and use of a temporal dimension). Some interesting attributional complexity is presented regarding complexity and depression, showing a curvilinear association (mild and moderate depression is associated with the highest ACS scores but extreme levels of depression is associated with low attributional complexity).

Cognitive Rigidity Cognitive flexibility consists of three elements: 1) a person’s awareness, in any situation, that options and alternatives are available, 2) a willingness to be flexible and adapt to a situation, and 3) a sense of self-efficacy or self-confidence about the tendency to be flexible. Higher levels of threat are associated with less cognitive flexibility. Rigidity is associated with perceptions of low self-control.

This section presents the results of Schultz and Sealeman’s excellent review paper regarding rigidity of thought and behaviour based on a quantitative review of the literature. Their findings were: 1) there is a curvilinear association between age and rigidity, 2) there is a positive link between rigidity and authoritarianism strongest during periods of stress, 3) there is a negative association between cognitive rigidity and intelligence, 4) no firm link has been established between rigidity and mental retardation, 5) men are significantly higher in rigidity than women, 6) obsessive-compulsive symptoms are linked with rigidity, and 7) people with schizophrenia, relative to non-schizophrenic controls and nonschizophrenic siblings, have higher levels of cognitive rigidity, and though this difference becomes lower, it is still evident even when medication is provided.

Rigidity seems to come from temperament and seems to run in families.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. Using the section on rigidity and, in particular, the three elements of cognitive flexibility, ask the students to form small groups where one or two members describe a time when he or she was stubborn or unwilling to change. Have the group identify which element(s) were at play in the situation. Take a couple of volunteer examples to share with the entire class.

2. Invite the class to assemble, in small groups, a list of personal constructs of a well-known public figure. Then, determine the level of general agreement among the small groups to come up with a more reliable final list of constructs. The public figure can be a rock star or some other figure currently in the media.

3. Design a short story (1-2 pages) about a person or an event. Put it up on the overhead screen and ask students to individually write down their attributions to explain why the events in the story happened. Have the students share their Chapter 9-6

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attributions so that they can see that different people produce different attributions. Then, and this is the important part of the exercise, have them think about how their personal constructs were ‘projected’ into the story resulting in the attributions of events which they listed, and guide them into making some attributions, but not others.

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Interpersonal Theories and Interpersonal Styles CHAPTER 10 Chapter Table of Contents Harry Stack Sullivan The Development Epochs The Good Me, the Bad Me, and the Not Me Personifications Evaluation of Sullivan’s Theory The Interpersonal Dimensions Agency versus Communion The Interpersonal Circumplex The Machiavellian Personality The Authoritarian Personality Authoritarianism: Right-Wing versus Left-Wing Authoritarianism and Political Psychology Altemeyer’s Components of Right-Wing Authoritarianism Social Dominance Orientation Attachment Styles Categories or Dimensions?

How Stable Are Attachment Styles over Time?

Are Various Attachment Style Measures Equivalent?

Romantic Attachment Styles Evaluation of Bartholomew’s Attachment Style Model Personality in Dating and Marital Relationships Research Methods and Issues Similarity versus Dissimilarity and Relationship Adjustment Personality Traits and Relationship Satisfaction Personality Traits and Relationship Violence Attachment Styles and Relationship Violence Summary

Chapter Overview Focusing on the role of interpersonal factors in personality and individual differences, this chapter begins with the contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan, the first theorist to propose that personality is derived entirely from social interactions. The chapter then moves to a detailed presentation of the circumplex, which depicts the eight interpersonal styles. From there, the chapter presents the Machiavellianism and Chapter 10-1

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authoritarianism interpersonal constructs and focuses in particular on Adorno et al. work on the authoritarian personality and its dimensions. Adorno’s contributions led to research emphasizing the social dominance aspect related to authoritarianism. The chapter then covers theory and research on attachments styles as a dimensional personality construct, starting with the theoretical work of Hazan and Shaver, then moving on to the contemporary models of Bartholomew and Horowitz. Romantic attachments styles are then reviewed in the context of relationship problems, with discussions on the impacts of attributional style, neuroticism, and perfectionism on relationships. The chapter ends with an overview of the role of personality factors in relationship violence and attachment styles in therapeutic contexts.

Detailed Chapter Summary Harry Stack Sullivan Sullivan’s theory rests on the premise that relationships are vital and parents, in particular, play a crucial role in personality formation, shaping, and functioning.

Individuality was not as important and uniqueness not as salient in social situations. Anxiety in not individualistic but rather interpersonal in nature and origin and so the self-system is “organized…to avoid or minimize existent or foreseen anxiety”. Therefore, anxiety is a key motivator of behaviour. Sullivan’s theorem of reciprocal emotions means that people influence each other’s emotions. Culture is simply a broad interpersonal situation, and it too impacts personality.

The Development Epochs

The six epochs to adulthood are: 1) infancy, 2) childhood, 3) juvenile era, 4) preadolescence, 5) early adolescence, and 6) late adolescence. Throughout these epochs our interpersonal needs reflect desires for communion (tenderness) and personal capability (power) which, through the resolution of anxiety/tension and the interplay of interpersonal behaviour, yields perceptions and, ultimately, a positive or negative self-view.

The Good Me, the Bad Me, and the Not Me

Anxiety stems from the sense of the “bad me” that follows negative reactions from significant others. The self-system protects the child from anxiety by constructing the “good me”. The “not me” is the unknown and un-integrated aspects of ourselves that are often repressed.

Personifications

Personifications, a key part of Sullivan’s theory, are mental prototypes (cognitive categories) which are similar to schemas. They act as a guide to perceiving and thinking about current relationships. For example, the paranoid schizophrenic has personified the “not me”. The result is that, when in relationships, evil creatures are perceived.

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Evaluation of Sullivan’s Theory

Sullivan acted as a catalyst for other research on interpersonal factors and processes. Criticisms of Sullivan’s theory include that many of his tenets are abstract and hard to test, that his stages don’t extend throughout the entire life cycle, that it is overextended to a purely interpersonal emphasis, and that anxiety can reflect non-social realities, not just exclusive interpersonal realities.

The Interpersonal Dimensions Timothy Leary argued that two people have a reciprocal influence on each other in group therapy sessions and that they could be interpreted on two primary axes or dimensions (affiliation versus hostility; power versus submission). This was elaborated by Carson’s complementarity principle where, for example, if one person is dominant, the other is submissive. Research supports this but it depends on the specific behaviour expressed in cases where, for example, hostility elicits hostility.

Agency versus Communion

David Bakan elaborated on Sullivan with two meta-orientations known as agency and communion. Agency is an achievement orientation causing the need to have an instrumental impact on outcomes. Communion involves connecting with others and establishing interdependencies. Personal adjustment is a balance between these two orientations. Helgeson identified unmitigated agency (the focus is on self to the exclusion of others) and unmitigated communion (focus on others to the exclusion of the self) as measured by the extended personal attributes scale.

Both unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion predict low social support, low help seeking, and poor health behaviours and outcomes.

The Interpersonal Circumplex The eight octants, beginning at the top and moving clockwise, are ambitiousdominant, gregarious-extroverted, warm-agreeable, unassuming-ingenuous, lazysubmissive, aloof-introverted, cold-quarrelsome, and arrogant-calculating. A respondent gets a score for each of the eight dimensions, and each interpersonal style is represented by a line called the vector length. The farther a score is from the middle, the more central that style is to a person’s personality, that is, more intense, rigid, and inflexible. Measures of the circumplex include the Interpersonal Adjective Scales by Wiggins and Trapnell and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP) by Horowitz et al. The IIP’s octants are PA (domineering), BC (vindictive), DE (cold), FG (socially avoidant), HI (nonassertive), JK (exploitable), LM (overly nurturant), and NO (intrusive). Research shows that these are linked meaningfully with other self-report personality scales.

The circumplex has been used to assess people with clinical dysfunction, in research to examine the nature of other personality constructs, on the topic of perfectionism in work, in the evaluation of situational contexts and social environments (e.g. socio-economics status), and to evaluate specific personalities (e.g. rock stars).

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The Machiavellian Personality Machiavellianism is a tough-minded orientation saying, in effect, that it is acceptable to take advantage of others, use ingratiation for personal gain, and show a willingness to deceive and manipulate others, all while holding a cynical attitude about how the word operates. Men do it through aggressive tactics, while women show it by altering their self-presentation. Both are high in perfectionistic self-presentation. The main measure is Christie’s MACH-IV scale, which has been used to identify leadership attributes of managers. There is even a KIDDIEMACH for children, used in studies on bullying in schools.

The Authoritarian Personality This section maps the history of the study of authoritarianism which had it roots in the political environment of WWII, with Adorno et al. work relating to the rise of anti-Semitism, Adolf Hitler, and the German people’s compliance. Adorno saw authoritarianism as a result of overly controlled parenting, and that authoritarianism reflected a weak, irrational superego that projected its harsh evaluations on to other groups of people. More than 2,000 studies have been conducted on this topic since Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality was published in 1950.

Criticisms of the authoritarian construct include the Freudian underpinnings of the construct, the difficulty in testing the construct empirically, the political lack of objectivity in thinking about the construct, the differences between the attitude and the actual behaviours in real-life settings, and the nay or yea saying susceptibilities of the measures used to assess authoritarianism. The main measure is the California F-Scale.

An interesting research result is that extreme authoritarians are high in hypermasculinity and have a higher reported likelihood of engaging in sexual harassment.

Authoritarianism: Right-Wing versus Left-Wing

Adorno et al. legacy also maintains that authoritarianism is associated with rightwing, conservative thinking, thereby leaving out of the equation of possibility that extreme left-wing thinking can also involve authoritarianism. Altemeyer (1996) developed a measure of left-wing authoritarians, something rare in student samples, but identifiable in other samples.

Authoritarianism and Political Psychology

Research has found that the association between communism and authoritarianism in Eastern Europe and Russia may be more resistant to change than first thought, despite political changes.

Altemeyer’s Components of Right-Wing Authoritarianism

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according to the directions of established authority figures), and 3) conventionalism (the tendency to adhere to societal conventions and values endorsed by authority figures). Altemeyer’s research (via simulation games) has shown that authoritarians are not effective decision makers.

Social Dominance Orientation

Social Dominance Orientation is a variable, reflecting the extent to which a person needs or desires an in-group versus an out-group to be dominant, to remain in a favoured position, and involves preferences for establishing and maintaining superiority over others in a hierarchical fashion. Social dominance orientation is activated when another group is seen as highly competitive with one’s own group in establishing dominance and superiority. Right-wing authoritarianism is more likely when other people are a threat to cohesion, order, and social control, as would be the case when a deviant group becomes more prominent. Social dominance orientation and authoritarianism are not highly correlated. After the 9/11 attack, authoritarianism was associated with an increased perception that Iraq was a threat, while social dominance orientation was associated with reduced concern for the human costs of war. However, it is possible to find people high on both variables and these are the most prejudiced people in the world.

Attachment Styles Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby were very important figures in work involving attachment styles. Three distinct types of infants were identified through observational data: 1) securely attached, 2) anxiously attached, and 3) avoidant attached, and a fourth has been identified in recent years, 4) disorganized attachment style. Non-responsive parenting is linked with insecure attachment in young children. Incarcerated mothers had mostly children with insecure attachment styles. Children exposed prenatally to crack cocaine showed more anxious attachment. Anxious attachment style among infants predicts subsequent anxiety disorders, while an avoidant attachment style predicts other types of psychiatric disorders. Insecure attachment in adolescents is associated with the severity of suicide ratings in a clinical sample. Maltreated children still form attachments to abusive caregivers, but insecure attachment is quite common.

Categories or Dimensions?

The variability in attachment styles is more in keeping with a dimensional trait view of attachment styles rather than a categorical view.

How Stable Are Attachment Styles over Time?

Of course, attachment styles are self-perpetuating to some degree, as they are reinforced by consequences of behaviours typical to the attachment style. Bowlby stated that change happens depending upon the degree of satisfaction the pattern gives to the individual and a poor fit between working models and actual social exchanges. While most research shows that attachment styles are moderately stable over time, life events can lead to fluctuations in the usual attachment style.

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Are Various Attachment Style Measures Equivalent?

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) shows stability, but is not correlated with other self-report measures. This area requires more study.

Romantic Attachment Styles

Hazan and Shaver focused on the threefold attachment style framework outlined

by Ainsworth: 1) security, 2) anxious-ambivalent, and 3) avoidant. The two anxious attachment styles, relative to the secure style, are associated with relationships that are shorter in duration.

Bartholomew and Horowitz’s Attachment Style Model includes two broad axes: Model of Self (dependence) and model of Other (avoidance). Within those two axes are four cells, positive and negative. Clockwise, cell I is secure, cell II is preoccupied, cell III is fearful, and cell IV is dismissing. Securely attached people have positive views of self and other; preoccupied people have a negative view of the self but a positive view of others; people with fearful attachment have negative news of self and other; and dismissing people have a positive view of self but a negative view of others.

This model is measured by the Relationship Questionnaire and studies on this measure, among others, have supported the existence of the four attachment styles. In post traumatic events, a positive model of the self, relative to a positive model of others, is the key factor in protecting individuals from the experience of psychopathology, and the dismissive style is reactive, highly defensive, and associated with vulnerability.

Evaluation of Bartholomew’s Attachment Style Model

Criticisms of the model include the positive model of other people, which is supposed to be found in individuals with the preoccupied style, is often lacking, and the preoccupied attachment can involve an element of anger and jealousy.

Therefore, other measures such as the Experiences in Close Relationships Scales have been developed to offset these criticisms.

Studies on couples that must be apart from each other show that individuals with an anxious, preoccupied attachment style were most likely to report elevated levels of distress prior to the separation. Women with an avoidant attachment style showed that they were especially likely to engage in withdrawal behaviours as the separation approached.

Cross-culturally, there are differences in attachment style. Different cultures have different ideas about attachment. Regardless of culture, secure attachment is normative across cultures and predominates in 79% of cultures. Some examples of differences in cross-cultural attachment style include: German mothers value avoidant attachment; African American students and Asian American students have greater attachment avoidance than Caucasian students; Hispanic Americans have higher levels of attachment anxiety; the dismissive attachment style prevailed in Bolivia, Belgium, Ethiopia, and Malaysia; the preoccupied Chapter 10-6

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attachment style was higher than the secure attachment style in Ethiopia and Japan; the fearful attachment was higher than secure attachment in Belgium, Ethiopia and Indonesia; and higher levels of preoccupied attachment were found in South Asian countries, Southeast Asian countries, and East Asian countries.

Personality in Dating and Marital Relationships Research Methods and Issues

There are many challenges in researching personality in dating and marital relationships. As much as 60% of studies are based on self-report methods. More than half of existing studies were based on non-student participants, and roughly one third of studies focused on data from only one respondent. When couples were asked to keep daily diaries, there was less than 50% participation. Perception of the partner’s problems was a stronger predictor of relationship adjustment than self-perceptions of personal problems. Research in this area has largely been atheoretical. Another challenge is the non-independence issue, that is, responses provided by both members cannot be treated as being independent. Regardless of these difficulties, it is still possible to predict which couples are at risk and devise interventions.

Similarity versus Dissimilarity and Relationship Adjustment

In the past, research has either found no evidence, or a small but significant indication of evidence, showing that there is a link between couple similarity and relationship adjustment. More recent research, which addresses previous deficiencies in study methodologies, shows that attachment style is a significant predictor of marital quality.

Personality Traits and Relationship Satisfaction

Other research findings indicate that people who are happy or dissatisfied with their relationships tend to feel the same way across relationship partners. This suggests that their own personality is playing an important role across different interpersonal situations.

Relationships suffer when one or more partners tend to blame negative outcomes on undesirable aspects of the other partner’s personality, and there is an unwillingness to attribute positive outcomes to the partner’s personality.

Therefore, negative attributions to a partner’s personality may play a role in increasing marital distress.

Three personality factors predict long-term relationship termination: 1) neuroticism in the wife, 2) neuroticism in the husband, and 3) a low level of impulse control on the part of the husband.

The four characteristics identified by Gottman as particularly destructive to relationships are: 1) criticizing the partner, 2) showing contempt for the partner, 3) being highly defensive, and 4) stonewalling.

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Neurotic perfectionists have exacting standards for others and this puts the relationship at risk. Longitudinal research on this topic is greatly needed.

Personality Traits and Relationship Violence

Low levels of agreeableness, emotional stability, and low intellect in men predicted alcohol, physical and verbal abuse. Longitudinal studies confirmed that trait hostility in husbands and wives predicted violence. Defensiveness, impulsiveness, and aggression measures on the Jackson Personality Research Form were predictors of psychological aggression in men and women. Other research shows that precursors in temperament, leading to violence in adulthood, was identifiable in childhood.

Attachment Styles and Relationship Violence

Attachment styles do play a role in relationship violence. Depending upon the attachment style, some actually view violence as a sign of love and commitment.

The earlier violence appears in the relationship, the more likely it will exist longterm as a problem. Violence becomes more likely as relationships intensify and a bond is established. Violence in a relationship is not expressed outside the union.

Some research results include: according to spousal reports, men with preoccupied and fearful attachment styles engage in greater psychological and physical abuse; other studies show that both men and women in reciprocally aggressive relationships have higher levels of preoccupied and fearful-avoidant attachment styles and more interpersonal problems; both men and women report using violence against their partner if they had anxiety over possible abandonment; and anxiously attached participants are more sensitive to conflict and perceived more conflict overall. Therefore, insecurely attached people have greater stress reactions in response to interpersonal conflict and men with insecurely attached partners have greater stress when conflict ensues than do women.

A growing body of evidence shows that insecure attachment styles are associated with various forms of psychological distress (depression, including postpartum depression), relationship dysfunction, attachment injury (acts of betrayal), attachment and therapeutic alliances with a therapist, and therapy success.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. In order to illustrate the section on relationship satisfaction, and in particular Gottman’s four destructive features of a relationship in trouble, the professor can show the short film “Love, Lust and Marriage”. Invite the class to discuss topics such as arranged marriages, what they find attractive in a partner, and Gottman’s work in relation to their own or observed relationships.

2. Ask the students to form groups and apply the California F-Scale of Authoritarianism to two dead or living world leaders and be ready to present their analysis to the class at the end of the exercise.

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3. Ask the students to pick out a relationship for analysis (without identifying the specific individuals involved for confidentiality). Have them do an attachment analysis and an intervention recommendation for a relationship now ended, or for an active relationship, resulting in an improvement. Ask them to discuss and present what would be the precursor elements necessary to improve the likelihood that their recommended interventions would actually have a positive impact.

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Personality and the Self-Concept CHAPTER 11 Chapter Table of Contents Brief History of Conceptualizing the Self William James The Looking Glass Self The Divided Self Erik Erikson and the Psychosocial Stages of Development The Identity Crisis Generativity in Older People Evaluation of Erikson’s Model Marcia’s Levels of Ego Identity Status Motives and the Self-Concept Representations and Conceptualizations of the Self-Concept Self-Complexity and Self-Concept Clarity The Spontaneous Self-Concept Possible Selves Self-Discrepancy Theory: The Actual, Ideal, and Ought Selves Evaluation of Self-Discrepancy Theory Self-Esteem Self-Liking Versus Self-Competence Explicit Versus Implicit Self-Esteem Mattering as a Form of Self-Esteem Collective Self-Esteem The Domains of the Self-Concept The Academic, Physical, and Social Self State Self-Esteem: A Multi-Domain Construct Personality Constructs Reflecting the Self Self-Consciousness Self-Monitoring Self-Handicapping The Effects of Self-Handicapping Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter eleven explores the various facets of self concept beginning with the thinking of William James and then moving onwards to Erik Erikson’s eight life stage epigenetic theory, followed by Marcia’s four identity statuses theory. From there the author explores self concept from the position of needs such as self-enhancement, selfChapter 11-1

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consistency, and self improvement; and covers a number of self-concept related topics such as self-presentation, self-complexity, self-concept clarity, the spontaneous selfconcept, likes and dislikes, demographic attributes, our tendencies to define ourselves in ways that make us unique, possible selves, explicit versus implicit self-esteem, selfconcept in terms of collective self. Higgins’ theory (actual self, the ideal self, and the ought self) and Shavelson’s hierarchical model of the self-concept (academic, physical, and social aspects) plus performance, social and physical appearance aspects of selfesteem are presented. Three self-related constructs (self-consciousness, self-monitoring, and self-handicapping) and their adaptive and maladaptive aspects close off this chapter’s focus on self-concept.

Detailed Chapter Summary Brief History of Conceptualizing the Self In psychology, the method of introspection was used to understand one’s personal experience. Wilhelm Wundt saw the self in terms of the person’s experience of his or her own body. William James accepted the view that the self is the main element in mental life.

William James

He was one of the first theorists focusing on the multidimensional idea of selfconcept and self-esteem. His three components of the self-concept were 1) the material me (physical body and home), 2) the social me (affected by the perceptions of others – hence the sociometer theory), and 3) the spiritual me (the soul). The social self in India is presented as an example of differences in self across cultures. The social self in India puts a greater emphasis on doing one’s duty and respecting hierarchy. According to James, self-esteem can be adjusted by either increasing our accomplishments or lowering our goals and expectations.

The Looking Glass Self

This concept was introduced by Charles Cooley and says basically that our sense of self depends on the reactions of others, and that watching how others treat us permits us to see ourselves, hence, the ‘looking glass’. A person’s perception of other people’s appraisal is the reflected appraisal and this may not necessarily be the actual appraisal on the self. On a social level, George Herbert Mead proposed the symbolic interactionism theory which holds that we come to view the self from the standpoint of social groups and that self-reflection is a social construction that other people expect us to adopt in their presence.

While initial research suggested that people are not very accurate in their appraisals of how they are viewed by other people, subsequent research shows that there is at least a moderate association between how others see us and our own self-perceptions.

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The Divided Self

R.D. Laing suggested that the root of psychosis in schizophrenia is the gap between the false publicly presented self and the true self. Along similar lines to Rogerian thought, the false self is the result of a long process of detachment fro one’s own physical being.

Erik Erikson and the Psychosocial Stages of Development

Erikson emphasized the importance of personal identity and negotiation of identity crises at eight stages throughout the life cycle. Each stage requires a radical change in perspective. Erikson very much saw a role of culture as part of the negotiation of each stage. The stages (and virtues developed in each stage) are: 1) Trust versus mistrust (hope), 2) Autonomy versus shame and doubt (will)t, 3) Initiative versus guilt (purpose), 4) Industry versus inferiority (competence), 5) Identity versus role confusion (fidelity), 6) Intimacy versus isolation (love), 7) Generativity versus stagnation (care), and 8) Ego integrity versus despair (wisdom).

The Identity Crisis

While Erikson introduced the idea of “identify crisis, Baumeister, Shapiro, and Tice, added that there are two types of identity crises: 1) identity deficit (seeking to establish a desired identity), and 2) identity conflict (two or more aspects of the self are in opposition to each other).

Erikson’s theory holds the position that one crisis must be settled successfully before moving healthily onto the crises of the next stage. Not everyone agrees. It is possible that some people do establish, for example, an intimate relationship before they establish their full sense of personal identity.

Also presented in this section is the idea that both mature and immature forms of personal identity can vary over the life course. The example of Michael J. Fox is presented as a change in identity resulting from a change in health status.

Generativity in Older People

Generativity (Erikson’s 7th stage) is the willingness to engage in acts to promote the well-being of younger generations in order to promote the long-term survival of the species. It is primarily communal in its focus and reflects the themes of both agency and communion. Those engaging in generativity have been shown to possess comparatively better mental health, more successful marriages, more close friendships, and higher work achievements.

Evaluation of Erikson’s Model

A positive aspect was Erikson’s focus on the lifespan and on psychosocial and cultural influences. However certain concepts are hard to test empirically. Some authors would like to see several levels identified within certain stages.

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Marcia’s Levels of Ego Identity Status

James Marcia qualified Erikson’s model by suggesting that ego identity (Erikson’s stage 5 Identity versus Role Confusion) is not an all-or-nothing thing but rather a more continuous view entailing four levels of ego identity status: 1) identity achievement, 2) moratorium, 3) foreclosure, and 4) identify diffusion and that identity status is a reflection of commitment and exploration with respect to interpersonal values, ideology, and occupational pursuits. Status 1 and 4 are the endpoints. But a person can have problems along the path of identity formation.

Status 2, moratorium, indicates a shutdown or freezing of activity where forward movement is stalled. Status 3, foreclosure, is reflected by a clear commitment to an identity but without the experience of a meaningful identity crises leading to the formation of that commitment. Marcia developed the Identity Status Questionnaire which pinpoints the four levels of identity status.

Bradley and Marcia have applied 5 status profiles to Erikson’s generativity stage, and by doing so have deepened our understanding of self-concept development.

People with identify achievement show greater resistance to laboratory manipulations, greater resistance to stress, nonconformity to group pressure, higher levels of moral reasoning and complexity of thoughts, a capacity for intimate relationships , and a strong and autonomous sense of self.

Motives and the Self-Concept Five motives guide the self-concept and behaviour: 1) accurate self-evaluation, 2) maintaining a sense of self-consistency (even if it is negative), 3) selfenhancement (improving how one feels about oneself), 4) self-improvement (selfcompletion and/or perfection), and 5) self-presentation projection of a certain image to others). Two or more motives may simultaneously operate.

Interestingly, research on self-presentation has shown that playing a role that involves presenting the self in a highly positive light leads to an increase in selfesteem; we seen out similar people to ourselves in order to make comparisons, when the person’s goal is self-improvement the comparison is upwards, and when the goal is self-enhancement comparisons are made with worst-off others.

Motives and subsequent self-concept and behaviour shift according to cultural values. For example, the tendency toward self-enhancement is pan-cultural but the ways in which self-enhancement takes place vary by culture (collectivistic versus individualistic).

Representations and Conceptualizations of the Self-Concept Self-Complexity and Self-Concept Clarity

Self-complexity is another way to think about self-concept in terms of individual differences where some people organize their self-knowledge in more or fewer main categories. Children low in self-complexity are vulnerable to stress and depressive symptoms when something goes wrong. Self-concept clarity refers to the degree of certainty and lack of ambiguity that people have about their selfconcepts. People with low self-esteem have lower self-concept clarity. Some people, according to McGregor et al. will engage in a phenomenon called Chapter 11-4

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compensatory conviction (linked with the motive of self-consistency) in order to repress unwanted thoughts about the self and keep those thoughts out of conscious awareness.

The Spontaneous Self-Concept

McGuire and Padawer-Singer’s measure of spontaneous self-concept involves an open-ended listing of 1-20 things that a person can think of in describing themselves. The responses are sorted into seven categories: 1) activities, 2) significant others, 3) attitudes, 4) school, 5) demographic features, 6) physical characteristics, and 7) self-evaluations. This underlines the idea that self-concept is much more than self-esteem.

People with a distinct feature (e.g. red hair) are disproportionately more likely to mention that characteristic when describing their selves thereby pointing to the distinctiveness hypothesis, suggesting that we like to highlight our uniqueness relative to other people.

Possible Selves

When people describe themselves, 12% list hopes and desires while 18% mention career aspirations. The possible self is therefore a part of self-concept and this is probably influenced by society and cultural factors. This section also introduces the idea of the ‘feared possible self’.

While more research is needed, some interesting ideas are: that possessing a positive versus a negative possible self is important in recovery from very traumatic event; and that the development of positive possible selves serves a protective role in educational settings related to school achievement and drop out rates.

Self-Discrepancy Theory: The Actual, Ideal, and Ought Selves

E. Tony Higgins et al put forward the self-discrepancy theory (SDT) which holds that there are three forms of self-representation: 1) the actual self (attributes which the person has), 2) the ideal self (attributes which the person wants to have ideally), and 3) the ought self (the attributes that the person should possess based on social or cultural expectations. He also states that there are two standpoints (own standpoint and other standpoint) thereby yielding six different self-state representations (e.g. actual-own, actual other, etc. etc.). Higgins suggested that the actual-ideal discrepancy predicts individual differences in levels of depression and the size of the actual-ought discrepancy predicts individual differences in levels of anxiety. His methodology was idiographic. General support has been obtained for those proposed links between self-discrepancies and depression and anxiety. Also, it has been found that the magnitude of the perceived actual-ideal appearance discrepancy is a significant predictor of eating disorders, body-image dysphoria, and body-image disturbance, and that there is a link between negative self-evaluation and reduced immune system functioning.

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Evaluation of Self-Discrepancy Theory

Criticisms of the self-discrepancy theory include: 1) some types of discrepancies links suggest a general link rather than a specific self-discrepancy and specific form of distress link, 2) empirical distinction between ought and ideal standards are blurry and hard for severely depressed patients to keep in mind when being assessed, 3) there may be other possible discrepancies at play such as the feared self as a powerful determinant of motives and emotions, and 4) there is a question as to whether self-discrepancies have incremental validity in predicting psychological distress beyond the impact of a negative self-concept.

Self-Esteem Large studies find that distributions of self-esteem tend to be positively skewed and that most people have moderate to high self-esteem, and even people with relatively low self-esteem have at worst a mixed view of themselves with moth positive and negative attributes recognized. Self esteem levels are high in childhood, drop only a little bit in adolescence, increase throughout adulthood and then drop off significantly among the elderly. Men have a bit higher self-esteem than women. People of lower socio-economic status showed the greatest gender differences in self-esteem, but that was for White North Americans while differences were nonexistent among minority status people.

There is also the birth cohort group to consider. Analysis of data across various generations in North America has shown a steady increase in overall levels of self-esteem bur interestingly this increase in self-esteem has not paid off in societal improvements (e.g. lower divorce rates, less crime, etc.).

Self-Liking Versus Self-Competence

Global self-esteem has been subdivided by Tafarodi et al. into a) self-liking (sense of social worth) and b) self-competence (similar to Bandura’s concept of selfefficacy or self-capability). Research shows that for bulimics, both subdivisions of self-esteem are low but in those that show changes over time, the selfcompetence variable was important. These findings points to boosting selfcompetence as part of treating eating disorders. It is also possible to identify people with high self-liking but low self-competence and vice versa. Paradoxical self-esteem is seen in perfectionists who have low self-worth and that this has more impact than recognizing a high level of personal capability and talent.

Explicit Versus Implicit Self-Esteem

Explicit self esteem involves the conscious evaluations of the self and is assessed if one asks another to verbally describe his or her self-esteem and personality.

The problem may be that the role of self-enhancement affects self-esteem measures in reporting genuine self-esteem. Implicit self esteem involves the automatic evaluations and reactions to the self that occur outside of conscious awareness and this is measured by the Implicit Associations Test which relies on response time to words on a keyboard. While the two types are hypothesized to be orthogonal, research has shown small correlations between measures of these two types and that the link between implicit and explicit self-esteem is higher among women than among men.

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Defensive self-esteem relates to incongruence between implicit and explicit self esteem and suggests trait defensiveness and a vulnerable self-image (e.g. in cases of narcissism).

Mattering as a Form of Self-Esteem

Mattering means that one has a sense of feeling significant to others, especially those who are close and that the person feels that he or she counts and makes a difference. Mattering is a potent predictor of well-being. It can help predict suicidal ideation, that is, low mattering is linked with low self-esteem which in turn relates to depression which can then lead to suicidal ideation.

Collective Self-Esteem

This is important to those who derive their self-esteem from their connections with small and large groups and organizations. The Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen and Crocker) assesses four factors of collective self-esteem: 1) membership esteem (worthiness as part of an organization), 2) private collective self-esteem (person’s own evaluation of the worth of the group), 3) public collective self –esteem (how other see the worth of the group), and 4) importance to identify (how relevant or central it is to the person’s sense of self). They also developed a race-specific version of the measure.

The Domains of the Self-Concept The Academic, Physical, and Social Self

There are different self-worth/self-esteem domains including academic, social, physical, athletic, etc. etc. and measure by such instruments as the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale, and the SelfPerception Profile for Children.

The Shavelson, Hubner, and Stanton Hierarchical Model of the Self-Concept is presented which includes a general self-concept with a sub-level including academic, social, emotional and physical self-concepts.

Marsh showed that specific self-concept for a particular course as a better predictor of actual grade received in that course than were more general selfconcept measures.

Pliner, Chaiken, and Flett showed that the physical domain was more central and important to females and that this gender difference held across the entire lifespan.

It remains open as to whether global self-worth and domains of self-worth are best represented as a “top-down” or as a “bottom-up” model.

State Self-Esteem: A Multi-Domain Construct

Trait or state self-esteem warrants exploration because we can experience temporary fluctuations of self-esteem given a specific situation. The State SelfEsteem Scale assesses state self-esteem in terms of academic performance, social Chapter 11-7

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evaluation and physical appearance. Other research points to a link between state and trait self-esteem.

Personality Constructs Reflecting the Self Self-Consciousness

While some individuals are self-conscious during certain times in our lives (e.g. during puberty) others remain relatively high in self-consciousness throughout their lives. Duval and Wicklund proposed that one’s focus of attention will determine one’s locus of causal attribution.

Fenigstein, Scheier, and Buss showed that heightened levels of private selfconsciousness tend to be associated with more intense experiences of positive and negative emotions. Private self-consciousness are the thoughts that deal solely with the self, public self-consciousness is a general awareness of the self as a social object that has an effect on others, with their idea of social anxiety is related to public self-consciousness.

Certain cultural groups may have heightened self-consciousness (e.g. Japanese women using the Sound Princess to mask the sounds they make in public washrooms).

Trapnell and Campbell underlined the reality that too much self-focused attention can be maladaptive (rumination versus reflection).

Self-Monitoring

Snyder’s self-monitoring construct states that high self-monitors are excellent at reading situational prompts and interpersonal cues and can change their behaviours in accordance with those cues (e.g. those in job interviews). Other researchers have emphasized various aspects of self-monitoring such as the beliefs people hold about self-monitoring, and what motivates self-monitoring (e.g. deficits in the self).

Self-Handicapping

Self-handicapping is any action or choice of performance setting that enhances the opportunity to externalize failure and internalize success, so that failure is seen to reflect factors outside the self, but successes reflect directly on the self. It is self-defeating because attempts to protect the self from negative implications of failure can actually increase the likelihood that failure will occur.

The two types of self-handicapping are: 1) behavioural self-handicapping (actually doing something or not doing something in order to generate an excuse for the self) and 2) self-reported handicapping (which involves verbally making people aware of reasons why personal responsibility is not to blame for deficiencies).

Berglas and Jones suggest that self-handicapping reflects uncertain self-esteem rather than simply low self-esteem per se.

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Personality factors linked with self-handicapping include 1) high on trait procrastination, 2) socially prescribed perfectionism, and 3) chronic underachievement.

The Effects of Self-Handicapping

Trait self-handicapping is associated with low self-esteem and is defensive and highly maladaptive. Some male self-handicappers may be able to retain a positive self-views but this is not the case for female self-handicappers. Costs include: 1) more stress before exams and poorer exam performance, 2) substance abuse, 3) a loss of intrinsic interest in jobs over time, and 4) over time, receive less regard and liking from others.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. On the topic of self-handicapping, have the class break up into groups of four students each. Invite each group to work through the Self-Handicapping Scale (page 476). Ask each member, if he or she is comfortable doing so, to discuss his or her answer within their group. This should take about 45 minutes.

2. Following that exercise, ask the students to stay in their group and discuss the types of self-consciousness as presented by Fenigstein, Scheier, and Buss on page 468 and how comfortable each person felt with the exercise above. This should take about 20 minutes.

3. Ask each student to rate on a 10 point scale their level of self-esteem associated with each of the following: A) Academic (high marks, ability to learn new materials, ability to do well on exams), B) social (forming and keeping friendships, comfort levels meeting new people, being able to maintain conversations), C) emotional (managing one’s emotional reactions to life events, being able to express real feelings and emotions to others, knowing what you feel and why in various situations) and D) physical (appearance, beauty, fashion sense). Simply: What level of self-esteem and confidence do you have in each of these four areas: Collect the data from each student and have the teaching assistant crunch the data in order to obtain an all-class profile. Present the profile at the next lecture and discuss the findings in terms of the personality related to self-esteem of this particular class of students and also within the context of selfreport versus what others might have said about ratings in each of the four domains.

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Personality and Health CHAPTER 12 Chapter Table of Contents Coping with Sensory Deprivation and Sensation Seeking Personality and Coping Styles Primary Appraisals versus Secondary Appraisals Problem-Focused, Emotion-Focused, and Avoidance-Focused Coping The Goodness of Fit Hypothesis Controllable versus Uncontrollable Stressors A Dispositional Approach to Coping Coping with Health Problems Supertrait Correlates of Coping Styles Coping Styles as Personality Traits Theoretical Models of Personality and Health The Constitutional Risk Factor Model The Illness Behaviour Model The Stress Moderation-Mediation model The Stress Generation Model Methodological and Measurement Issues and Concerns Health Status as Categorical versus a Continuous Variable Problems with Self-Report Measures Limitations of Cross-Sectional Research Longitudinal Changes in the Association between Personality and Health Personality Types and Health The Type A Personality The Type C Personality The Type D Personality The Hardy Personality Personality Traits and Health Outcomes The Five-Factor Model Optimism versus Pessimism Self-Efficacy Health Locus on Control Integrating Personality Constructs into Larger Models Summary

Chapter Overview Chapter twelve covers various aspects of the complex link between personality and how individual differences relate to health. Primary and secondary appraisal, different coping styles such as task-focused, emotion-focused and avoidance Chapter 12-1

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focused, the adaptive goodness of fit model plus the cultural fit are discussed.

Various models are presented to explain the association between personality and health. These include the constitutional risk factor model, the illness behaviour model, the stress moderation-mediation model, and the stress generation model.

Various types of personalities are also discussed, including Type A, Type C, and Type D, and the hardy personality and how hostility, depression, and emotional inexpressiveness are associated with health risks. High trait conscientiousness, the role of trait optimism, self-efficacy (planning self-efficacy and recovery selfefficacy), and locus of control are explored in terms of their protective effects on health and recovery from illness.

Detailed Chapter Summary Coping with Sensory Deprivation and Sensation Seeking Levels of anxiety and cognitive appraisals differentiate how people respond to sensory deprivation situations. Zuckerman et al. showed that each person has an optimal level of stimulation or arousal which yields a high to low sensation seeking result on their Sensation Seeking Scale. Sensation seeking and impulsivity are strong predictors of engaging in risky sexual behaviours. Other research showed that the two best predictors of being unfaithful were low agreeableness and low conscientiousness while sexual promiscuity was best predicted by extroversion although not in Africa, South/Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Education interventions need to be adapted to be more novel, complex and emotionally intense to impact individuals with personality variables linked to risky behaviours.

Personality and Coping Styles Some people are better at coping and withstanding stress than others and a good starting point is how stressful situations are cognitively interpreted.

Primary Appraisals versus Secondary Appraisals

Lazarus and Folkman’s concepts of primary appraisal (Is it a threat?) and secondary appraisal (Can I deal with that?) propose that a personality factor may be associated with secondary appraisals and not primary appraisals or vice versa.

Many researchers have taken these concepts forward including Chang who looked at optimists and pessimists, Hemenover, Tedeschi and Calhoun, Affleck and Tennen, and Davis and McDonald all of whom have found that people appraise situations differently and this affects coping behaviour/emotions and outcome to events.

Problem-Focused, Emotion-Focused, and Avoidance-Focused Coping

This section deals with coping and that there are different types of coping.

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dealing with a problem by cognitive distraction or avoiding the problem by seeking out other people as a form of social diversion. Lazarus pointed out, through his transactional model of stress, that coping responses depend greatly on the stress situations themselves and how the individual appraises them in that specific situation, and, that personality factors are too static and fixed to be of any help in understanding how a person appraises the situation.

The Goodness of Fit Hypothesis

Problem-focused coping responses are generally adaptive but task-oriented persistence does not always work. The goodness of fit hypothesis states that a particular coping response is adaptive depending upon the degree of match between the coping response and the problem situation. There is at least partial research support for the fit hypothesis. Two new terms are introduced in this section: sojourner adjustment (ability to adjust to a new culture), and cultural fit hypothesis (notion that a personality will be adaptive in a new culture to the extent that it fits with existing norms in the host culture) with a review of the research results related to the five-factor model and tools such as the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MRQ). Lower neuroticism, higher levels of extroversion, agreeableness, higher levels of conscientiousness (from the fivefactors), and emotional stability, social initiative, cultural empathy and flexibility (from the MPQ) are the strongest predictive factors identified.

Controllable versus Uncontrollable Stressors

Higher control appraisals mean positive problem-focused coping and less avoidance-oriented coping except in situations which are uncontrollable. In uncontrollable situations, problem-focused coping is not adaptive. What may seem adaptive may, depending upon the controllability of the situation be actually less adaptive in reality. If it really depends upon the situation, can we say that coping reflects a stable personality variable across individuals or is it more of a ‘disposition’?

A Dispositional Approach to Coping

Various attempts have been made to measure coping as a personality “disposition” through the development of various measures including the Coping Strategy Indicator, the COPE Inventory, the Ways of Coping Checklist, and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations. Overall, findings indeed do support the idea that people have a characteristic way of coping with stressors and that these components of personality structure are relatively long-lasting and stable.

Coping with Health Problems

Ender and Parker’s Coping with Health Injuries and Problems (CHIP) measure four coping responses rather than coping styles and identifies such responses as catastrophization (all or none thinking), palliative coping (self-soothing strategies), instrumental coping (specific things to do to overcome the illness), and the distraction subscale (avoidance). The responses predict outcome measures such as quality of life and therefore general and health-specific coping styles should be considered.

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Supertrait Correlates of Coping Styles

Broad personality domains are distal factors that contribute to more specific coping styles which in turn predict psychological and health outcomes. As examples, supertraits such as neuroticism were associated with emotion-focused scales on the COPE (e.g. denial, focusing on and venting of emotions, and cognitive and behavioural disengagement), both trait conscientiousness and extroversion were linked with problem-oriented coping styles, and agreeableness was associated with seeking social support.

Coping Styles as Personality Traits

The problem still remains about whether or not stable and long lasting personality differences exist in coping orientation. The three ways to examine this are: 1) test-retest temporal stability of trait coping measures, 2) examining the degree of association between trait and state, and 3) assessing how the same person copes across different situations. Research results indicate that there is at least a moderate level of stability in test-retest longitudinal study correlations; that individuals are more consistent when dealing with work and school contexts problems but little consistency when responding to family members and friends; and that people high in neuroticism are less consistent in their use of coping strategies.

The research though is criticized because coping self-report checklists are too removed from real contexts, plagued with relying on participants’ memories, that those who cope well stop stress from happening at all and thus scenarios on measures are useless in describing those good at coping, that too often the focus is on an interpersonal problem, and that collectivistic versus individualistic coping results may be different. Monnier and Hobfoll add that there is a need to measure pro-social coping and also anti-social coping when facing threatening situations.

Theoretical Models of Personality and Health Much research has been done to try and link personality attributes to specific diseases or illnesses and this task is very difficult. The best approach is to focus on a general disease-prone personality style. We know that stress reduces immune competence and this can lead to problems. Similarly, optimismpessimism, self-efficacy, health locus of control, and perfectionism should have general impacts on health. What follows are four models of personality and health.

The Constitutional Risk Factor Model

This etiological trait model is based on the premise that personality is an independent risk factor for health and illness and encompasses the idea that personality differences occur due to genetic factors and that there is impact of early trauma on physiological reactivity. For example, Zuckerman emphasized precise biological factors such as impulsive sensation seeking is attributed to high dopamine and low serotonin levels. Research (twins) has confirmed that there is a genetic component in sensation seeking. This work underlines the importance of Chapter 12-4

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considering biological roots of personality constructs that serve as constitutional risk factors.

The Illness Behaviour Model

The main idea here is that range of adaptive behaviours, such as going to the doctor often and engaging in exercise, leads to more positive health outcomes.

An overview of existing literature (conducted by Jose Bermudez) shows a relationship between personality factors and unhealthy/healthy behaviour relative to substance abuse, unsafe driving, risky sex and general healthy behaviour. For example, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, hardiness, optimism, self-efficacy, internal LOC and sense of coherence lead to healthy behaviour while neuroticism, anxiety, hostility, impatience, and cynicism lead to unhealthy behaviour.

The Stress Moderation-Mediation model

The idea here is that personality may exacerbate the link between stressful events and illness. Individuals who are procrastinators, along with being stressed, will experience greater illness. More research is required though in the mediational role of stress in personality and health. Other factors such as individual differences in social support and coping efficacy need to be explored.

The Stress Generation Model

Certain people find ways to make things more stressful for themselves. For example, those who are vulnerable to depression are so at least in part, because they create problems for themselves in terms of the choices they make.

Methodological and Measurement Issues and Concerns Four relevant issues are described when dealing with specific personality traits associated with health problems.

Health Status as Categorical versus a Continuous Variable

A problem is how “health outcome” is defined. Commonly, a physician’s rating defines health status and level of functioning. Continuous measures may involve composites of various aspects of health.

Problems with Self-Report Measures

Self-report is always a problem and especially when combined with issues of properly recording frequency, intensity and duration of symptoms. Also existing measures differ in item content and use different response keys. Self-reports are affected by neuroticism and negative affect which yield higher levels of somatic complaints. The three hypotheses linking higher symptoms reporting and elevated neuroticism and negative affect are: 1) the psychosomatic hypothesis (negative affect and neuroticism cause health problems), the 2) disability hypothesis (illness leads to higher levels of negative affect), and 3) the perception hypothesis (neuroticism and negative affect are accompanied by greater attentiveness). Neuroticism results in more visits to the physician and it is linked

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with over-reporting of health problems. Conscientiousness also predicted false reports but because they may use lower criteria to determine illness.

Limitations of Cross-Sectional Research

Assessment of individuals usually only occur at one point in time.

Longitudinal Changes in the Association between Personality and Health

The initial association between personality and health may change over time.

Examples include: procrastinators report less stress and illness during the early part of a semester but more so during the later part of a semester; optimists experience more stress when faced with conflicting goals than pessimists; Optimists do better in the long-term once conflict is no longer evident; optimists will not disengage when faced with an extremely challenging goal; and optimism is favoured when confronted with less difficult and challenging situations.

“Defensive pessimism” (motivating oneself by getting anxious about possible negative outcomes) also varies over time. They over-prepare and so end up doing much better than predicted and also they give themselves a psychological cushion when disappointing results are experienced. However, extended defensive pessimism yields poorer results over time – perhaps having been worn down by the strategy.

Personality Types and Health The Type A Personality

Friedman and Rosenman identified six distinguishable attributes: 1) strong competitive drive, 2) intense desire to meet goals that are sometimes ambiguous and poorly defined, 3) strong need for public recognition and advancement, 4) speed and impatience especially with respect to deadlines, 5) persistent and vigorous physical and mental activity, and 6) high level of mental and physical alertness. This was linked to higher serum cholesterol and incidence of heart disease. For Glass and the uncontrollability model Type A people try to reassert a sense of control over the environment and over the self. Matthews felt that Type As had high and diffuse standards. Price thought that Type As were driven by particular cognitive beliefs about proving themselves leading to achievement, about the lack of universally applicable moral principle contributing to hostility, and by low availability of resources thereby leading to competitiveness.

While recent interest has waned and some studies have shown that Type A behaviour did not predict susceptibility to heart problems, there is consistent evidence that extreme anger and hostility is a heart disease and hypertension risk factor because of the greater neuroendocrine activation, higher blood pressure and heart rate that goes with anger and hostility.

Stress management as exercised through setting less demanding goals, learning muscle relaxation and emotional self-control makes a difference. Increased social support is also to be considered.

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The Type C Personality

Little evidence has been found for a link between being ‘emotionally contained’ and cancer proneness and faster disease progression. More predictive were demographic factors (having a relative with breast cancer and not having had any children). However, some evidence has been found to support a link between Type C and a faster HIV disease progression.

The Type D Personality

Research on the “distressed” personality has found links to cardiac outcomes.

Type D is characterized by negative affectivity and social inhibition (inhibiting the expression of negative emotions in social situations).

The Hardy Personality

Hardiness is protective. It is a construct, like authoritarianism which has Generated great interest but is fraught with conceptual and measurement problems. Kobasa defined hardiness as having three co-existing integrated orientations toward the self and the world: a sense of control, commitment, and challenge. Research has shown that hardiness has a buffering effect and so these individuals experience less stress impact. They also display different cognitive appraisals. The predictive usefulness of this construct is weak for control and commitment components and challenge shows relatively little linkage to health problems. The question is more one of what does hardiness tap into? Is it negative affectivity? Lastly, there may be gender differences with hardy men enjoying a stronger buffering effect than women. Research has suggested that hardiness training decreases anxiety and depression and increases self-confidence.

Personality Traits and Health Outcomes The Five-Factor Model

People high in conscientiousness and agreeableness, and low in neuroticism, tend not to smoke. Conscientiousness is linked with wellness behaviour, accident control, and less risk-taking in traffic. Boggs and Roberts found that conscientiousness was related to all of the most important behaviours in terms of established predictors of mortality.

Optimism versus Pessimism

Optimism links with health depends on how optimism is conceptualized.

Optimism is not adaptive when it gives a false sense of security (“naïve optimism”). Functional optimism refers to the benefits of optimism when a threat is actually experienced. Studies from the health field have shown that optimism is linked to slower disease progression.

Self-Efficacy

This is the belief in one’s own ability to perform a task or successfully perform a specified behaviour. Learning to cope with specific problems helps the general sense of personal capability but might not increase internal locus of control. For Bandura a person must have mastery experiences, and/or exposure to models with high self-efficacy, and/or be persuaded by others in order to increase levels of Chapter 12-7

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self-efficacy. There is extensive evidence which supports Bandura’s thinking that stress undermines a person’s sense of self-efficacy and that perceived selfefficacy is critical in determining health-related stress reactions. People with high self-efficacy also have the ability to withstand pain. Self-efficacy predicts the response of the immune system to stress, is associated with higher levels of optimism and self-esteem and lower levels of anxiety and depression, with greater academic achievement, and with higher job satisfaction.

Schwarzer distinguished among four phase-specific forms of self-efficacy: 1) goal setting self-efficacy, 2) action self-efficacy, 3) coping self-efficacy, and 4) recovery self-efficacy.

Health Locus on Control

Internal locus of control is very similar to self-efficacy and a sense of optimism when it comes to health issues. The Health Locus of Control Scale comes in various forms with Form C specifically geared to internal beliefs, chance, and powerful others with respect to specific illness. Wallston et al proposed an interesting “God Locus of Control” because for some people, positive or negative beliefs about the role played by spiritual beings can be a powerful determinant of adjustment and coping. It is unclear whether belief in a higher entity is good or bad when it comes to health.

Integrating Personality Constructs into Larger Models

It is important to remember that personality vulnerability factors (such as selfefficacy and locus of control) may be interacting and combining, with each other and other factors (such as stress, coping and social support) to produce elevated health risks.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. Take Schwarzer’s 4 phase-specific forms of self –efficacy and ask the student to discuss in small groups each person’s perception of his or her own efficacy in each of the four domains. This exercise should take about 20 minutes and serves to increase student awareness about their own self-efficacy. At the end of their discussion, the professor may introduce practical ways of obtaining self-efficacy training for each of the four domains such that students can have a better idea of what actions/behaviours they need to do in order to strengthen their overall levels of self-efficacy – borrowing strength in one area and applying it to another.

2. Present to the class a stressful scenario (e.g. you are at a cinema and you see smoke; you drive up to your house and see police cars with their lights flashing; you hear the phone ring in the middle of the night) and ask each student to quickly write done what sense he or she makes of that situation. Then, have random students call out their reactions to the class. This will illustrate the differences between people in terms of cognitive appraisal of stressful situations. The professor can then wrap up by explaining that while this exercise was useful to illustrate cognitive appraisal differences, there is no real telling how a person would think or react if the situation was real instead of hypothetical.

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3. Lazarus and Folkman presented three types of coping: problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance focused. Present three examples from the professor’s own life when each type of coping was appropriate and three examples when it was inappropriate. This will illustrate the importance of matching the right coping style to the situation in order to cope effectively with life. A general discussion with the students, allowing them to present their own examples, may be an interesting exercise to do on this particular topic.

4. Simply ask the students to generally state how they cope with common stressors (e.g. studying for an exam; facing a term paper) and as they describe their coping style, link (label) what they express to the various types of coping described in the chapter without judgment. State at the end of this exercise that various people will cope in different ways and without a detailed study of all other factors involved, it is hard to say whether or not one coping style is better or worse than, in the short term or the long term, for health. The professor can then site the results of studies on procrastination and how this coping style reduces stress in the short term but not in the long term.

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Personality, Mental Health, and Psychopathology CHAPTER 13 Chapter Table of Contents Abnormality Defined Conceptualizations of Personality Disorders The Psychiatric Approach to Personality Disorders Personality Disorder Dimensions Personality Disorder Clusters Cluster A Cluster B Cluster C Psychotherapy and Personality Disorder Clusters Dimensional Models and Personality Dysfunction Cloninger’s Tridimensional Model The Five-Factor Model in Personality Dysfunction The Psychopathogy-5 (PSY-=5) Livesley’s Dimensional Assessment of Personality Zuckerman’s Alternative Five Personality, Binge Drinking, and Alcoholism Personality and Varying Motives for Drinking Models of Drinking Behaviour The Role of Personality Factors in Depression The Five-Factor Model and Depression Self-Criticism and Dependency Sociotropy and Autonomy Perfectionism Summary

Chapter Overview This chapter presents the relationships between personality factors and psychopathology. Various ways of defining abnormality are reviewed, including a look at situational appropriateness, cultural aspects, role impairment, distress levels, rigidity and sense of self, and aberrant interpersonal relationships. Clusters A, B and C of personality disorders (category approach) are itemized followed by a discussion of the dimensional models of personality disorders with particular attention paid to Cloninger’s tri-dimensional model (reward, dependence, novelty seeking, and harm avoidance temperament dimensions). Also examined are two Chapter 13-1

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models and their relevance to personality disorders (five-factor and the PSY-5).

This chapter looks at the role of personality factors in alcoholism, binge drinking, depression, and perfectionism.

Detailed Chapter Summary Abnormality Defined Statistical infrequency, while of limited use, is only one way to define abnormality. Cultural components can also be utilized so as to avoid misinterpretation of behaviours.

Conceptualizations of Personality Disorders

While diagnostic systems are used to categorize behaviours, a dimensional approach is becoming more favoured. Such aspects as distress level, distressing others, and degree of impairment, need to be considered. Personality disorders are hard to diagnose due to client avoidance of psychotherapy, client reluctance/inability to change, the services are requested by family or the legal system, and there is limited self-awareness.

Livesley et al. saw personality disorder as a failure to inability to formulate adaptive solutions to the three life tasks of 1) forming stable, integrated and coherent representations of self and others; 2) forming intimate and positive affiliations with other people, and 3) being a useful member of society engaging in pro-social and co-operative activities.

Millon’s three criteria distinguishing normal versus disordered personality are: 1) rigid and inflexible behaviour, 2) self-defeating behaviours forming vicious cycles, and 3) structural instability meaning that the self “cracks” under conditions of stress.

The Psychiatric Approach to Personality Disorders

Deviation on two or more of these APA items defines personality disorders: 1) cognition, 2) affect, 3) interpersonal functioning, 4) impulse control. In total, there are 10 personality disorders in APA’s DSM-IV, grouped into three clusters: oddeccentric, dramatic-emotional, and anxious fearful. This system has the problems of comorbidity (two or more disorders are present in the same person – up to 80% of cases), and that personality disorder categories were not theoretically or empirically derived. The category system is therefore not particularly useful.

Personality Disorder Dimensions

This section emphasizes that personality disorders reflect extreme and rigid response tendencies that differ in degree, not in kind, from the responses of unaffected individuals. This continuum approach does not apply to psychopathy however, which may represent a discrete category (a person is, or is not, a psychopath).

Livesley and Jang proposed a two-phase approach: first clinicians determine whether or not a personality disorder exists, and then the nature of that Chapter 13-2

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disorder via dimensional ratings on a series of personality trait dimensions is identified.

Research indicates that personality disorders exist cross-culturally at more or less comparable rates with some differences found on, for example, narcissism and schizoid personality disorders (more evident than expected in Japan), and on psychopathy (lower in Scotland). It would seem that differences across cultures may not be in the expression and nature of personality but rather in the goals pursued and how individuals evaluate and value goal progress.

Personality Disorder Clusters Cluster A

The three personality disorders of Cluster A are: 1) paranoid personality disorder, 2) schizoid personality disorder, and 3) schizotypal personality disorder. They all reflect oddity or eccentricity, lack of or avoidance of social contact, lack of meaningful connectedness and interaction with others, cold and distant to others behaviour, low positive emotions, and a desire to be alone.

This section reviews Beck and Freeman’s cognitive approach, presenting the views of self, views of others, main beliefs and main behavioural strategies of the personality disorders of all the Clusters. Included in this review are the following personality disorders: avoidant, dependent, passive-aggressive, obsessive-compulsive, paranoid, anti-social, narcissistic, histrionic, and schizoid.

Cluster B

The disorders included in Cluster B include: a) anti-social personality disorder, 2) borderline personality disorder, 3) histrionic personality disorder, and 4) narcissistic personality disorder. They all reflect dramatic and erratic behaviours which can be very extra-punitive and hostile and/or giving adoration to the self.

A subset of anti-social personality disorder is psychopathy. The section describes the psychopath (e.g. glib sense of charm, no remorse, manipulative) and the main measure of measurement (Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised: PCLR). Noted is that psychopathy is often comorbid with alcohol and drug abuse, that treatment tends not work, and that re-offending in a violent manner is high.

Another subset of anti-social personality disorder is the narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). The section describes NPD (grandiose view of self, self-preoccupation, attention seeking, arrogant, little empathy for others, sensitive to criticism, deeply fearful of failure, etc.). They have few and shallow relationships and experience impoverished inner lives and fragile self-images.

Fundamentally, they have a negative view of themselves. The narcissistic construct’s main measure is Raskin and Hall’s Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). NPI has four factors: 1) leadership/authority, 2) superiority/arrogance, 3) self-absorption/self-admiration, and 4) exploitativeness/entitlement.

The section goes on to discuss the adaptive and maladaptive aspects of narcissists and narcissism cross-culturally, noting that narcissism is higher in individualistic societies than in collectivistic ones.

The final point is that researchers should not rely as much on self-report measures when studying narcissism.

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Cluster C

This cluster includes: 1) avoidant personality disorder, 2) dependent personality disorder, and 3) obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The theme is fearfulness: anxiety, fearful attachment style and a preoccupied attached style.

The dependent personality disorder has received the most attention in the literature so far. It is an insecure and preoccupied form of attachment style where there is an intense need to be taken care of. They are prone to separation anxiety.

Therefore, they are prone to let others get away with just about anything as long as they maintain proximity to the significant others. Also, they seek help from professionals. Bornstein identified four components of dependent personality disorder: 1) cognitive, 2) motivational, 3) emotional, and 4) behavioural. In terms of the five-factor model, there are small to moderate significant correlations between dependency and neuroticism and agreeableness (elevated), and extroversion, openness, and conscientiousness (lower). Adaptive and maladaptive aspects of dependency are discussed, noting that it is normative and expected in collectivist societies. Also discussed is dependency expression and the interpersonal circumplex where the three types of dependency (love, exploitable and submissive), while all associated with neuroticism, may have different behavioural outcomes depending on the type of loss. For example, love dependents may become depressed after the loss of a nurturing other while submissive dependents become so after losing a mentor.

Psychotherapy and Personality Disorder Clusters

Cluster A patients avoid treatment. Cluster B patients are hard to treat. Cluster C patients must be handled in such a way as to discourage dependency.

Dimensional Models and Personality Dysfunction Cloninger’s Tridimensional Model

This section details Cloninger et al.’s model which is one of the most influential models of personality and psychopathology. It combines temperament-based factors with three character factors. The three inherited temperament dimensions of personality are: 1) novelty seeking (associated with levels of dopamine), 2) harm avoidance (associated with levels of serontonin), and 3) reward dependence (associated with levels of norepinephrine), and, these stay relatively stable throughout life. Cloninger et al.’s three personality disorder clusters line up with the three temperament dimensions. Cluster A are linked with low reward dependence, cluster B with high novelty seeking and cluster C with high harm avoidance.

The model has been developed further by adding persistence to reward dependence and three new dimensions: self-directedness, co-operativeness and self-transcendence.

Research on the model has confirmed the defining feature of Cluster A as reward dependence, Cluster B as high novelty, and Cluster C as high harm avoidance, and has also confirmed that low self-directedness and co-operativeness were core features of all personality disorders.

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The Five-Factor Model in Personality Dysfunction

Costa and McCrae have six specific facets to each superfactor. This section summarizes (see Table 13.3) the relationship between all superfactor sub-facets and the personality disorders of paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, anti-social, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders. For example, levels of anxiousness (under the Neuroticism superfactor) are high for schizotypical, borderline, avoidance and dependent personality disorders. This table makes the same links across the 10 personality disorders and the 30 specific facets of the superfactors.

The Psychopathogy-5 (PSY-5)

The PSY-5 (derived from the MMPI) has five dimensions, and related facets including aggression (facets hostility and grandiosity/indignation), disconstraint (facets delinquent behaviours and actions and norm violation), introversion (facets low drive/expectations and low sociability), psychoticism (facets psychotic beliefs/experiences and odd mentation), and neuroticism/negative emotionality (no facets). The PSY-5 and the five-factor model have similar item content for three of the five dimensions. The PSY-5 however assesses more extreme behaviour that goes beyond low agreeableness and therefore may be better at identification of violent psychopaths. The PSY-5 has incremental validity in predicting personality dysfunction.

The section goes on to describe PSY-5 results on combat veterans and other versions of the PSY-5 (for adolescents).

Livesley’s Dimensional Assessment of Personality

This section describes Livesley’s Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology – Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ) which assesses 18 personality trait dimensions and various response styles. Statistical tests show that the DAPPBQ reflect higher-order factors of emotional dysregulation (affective liability and impulsivity), dissocial behaviour (callousness, conduct problems, and narcissism), inhibitedness (avoidance or intimacy and restricted expression of emotion) and compulsivity (obsessive-compulsiveness). Neuroticism is linked with emotional dysregulation, dissocial behaviour is linked with high psychoticism, inhibitedness is linked with low extroversion, and compulsivity is linked with high conscientiousness.

Zuckerman’s Alternative Five

Zuckerman, as one would recall, has an interest in biological factors.

Zuckerman’s factors are: 1) neuroticism-anxiety, 2) sociability, 3) aggressionhostility, 4) impulsive sensation seeking, and 5) activity. Factors 4 and 5 are the ones which most reflect Zuckerman’s work.

The section goes on to describe factor analysis results on Zuckerman’s own measure (Alternative Five), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the five-factor model.

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Personality, Binge Drinking, and Alcoholism Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks in a row for females, and six or more for males. 50% of men and 40% of women on American campuses engaged in binge drinking according to both a 1993 and a 1999 survey. Those engaging in it are more likely to get into legal trouble, experience personal injuries, and engage in unsafe sexual practices.

One explanation is that people have an addiction-prone personality. Substance abuse was predicted by 1) poor impulse control (impulsivity), 2) interpersonal alientation (insecurity and inability to form healthy relationships) and 3) emotional distress (anxiety, depression, anger). Another study showed that students characterized by novelty seeking or psychoticism were more likely to develop substance abuse disorders. Low constraint is a substantially more robust predictor of alcohol use disorders than is neuroticism. Twin research indicates that genetic factors are contributors to the link between personality and alcohol abuse.

Personality and Varying Motives for Drinking

The two main classes of variables studied in trying to link personality with substance abuse have been 1) those involved in behavioural disinhibition (e.g. sensation seeking) and 2) those involved in susceptibility to anxiety and depression.

Male versus female motives for drinking are discussed. For example, conscientiousness was associated with less drinking for women but not for men, neuroticism was linked with greater use of illicit substances for men but not women, in general females are more likely than males to drink in response to stress, and males are more likely to drink as a form of excitement seeking and affiliation with others.

Cooper identified four motives: 1) social, 2) enhancement (to get high), 3) coping, and 4) conformity.

While personality factors are robust enough to predict drinking behaviour, people do not have accurate enough insights into why they drink and this presents a stated motive and actual motives challenge for researchers studying this area.

Models of Drinking Behaviour

The three models of drinking behaviour presented in this section are the Social Learning Theory of Alcoholism (modeling and beliefs), the Self-Awareness Model of Drinking (focus on differing levels of self-consciousness), and the SelfHandicapping Theory of Drinking (excuse as a form of self-protection).

The Role of Personality Factors in Depression Estimates of the population who will suffer from depression at least once in their lives have ranged from 5-17%. Some of the personality constructs that are highly relevant to depression include low trait optimism, low self-efficacy, and selfconsciousness.

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The Five-Factor Model and Depression

Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism tend to experience higher levels of depression. However, this section explores certain key questions: 1) to what extent should or should not neuroticism be associated with other personality variables (e.g. anxiety, self-concept) in depression? And 2) what are the implications of including depression at a dispositional level as a facet of neuroticism? The overlap between predictor and criterion variables leads to a third question: 3) what is the role of neuroticism in the persistence of depression?

The answer lies in being able to test for other personality traits in order to determine whether they can predict depressive symptoms after considering related individual differences in neuroticism.

Self-Criticism and Dependency

This section presents Blatt’s work on introjective (excessive levels of selfcriticism and self-punitiveness) and anaclitic (excessive levels of dependency on others) personality styles and their role in depression. It is possible to develop high levels of self-criticism and high levels of dependency through early experiences in the family and this makes a person especially vulnerable to depression. The anxious, insecure attachment style results from parenting behaviour which is inconsistent, neglectful, and abandoning.

This section also presents an applied perspective which emphasizes the idea of matching a client’s personality structure and the particular therapeutic context that should be provided. This matching of treatments to personality led Blatt et al. to their involvement in the Menninger Psychotherapy Research Project. Results are presented such as psychoanalysis was generally more effective than supportive expressive therapy but especially for people who were high in self-criticism, and depression patients who are high in perfectionism tend to be treatment-resistance and seem to require longer treatment interventions.

Along the same lines, Costa and McCrae noted that, for example, extroverts will benefit from treatments that require social interactions, and that people low in openness will have conventional beliefs and should be more responsible to directive psychotherapies. Other such links between type of treatment and type of personality structure are presented under the heading of schema therapy.

Sociotropy and Autonomy

Beck proposed that depression is associated with sociotropy (dependency on others, pleasing others, avoiding disapproval, avoiding separation) and autonomy (self-critical goal striving, desire for solitude, individualistic form of freedom from control). His Sociotrophy-Autonomy Scale (SAS) has indicated that sociotropy is linked with depression but autonomy and depression are unrelated.

The most used measure of sociotropy and autonomy is the Personal Style Inventory (PSI) and work with it has found that autonomy was a prospective predictor of the recurrence of depression among those with a history of depression.

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Perfectionism

Research indicates that certain dimensions of perfectionism may be associated with depression and the chronicity and persistence of depressive symptoms. The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale’s dimensions are: 1) self-oriented perfectionism (exceeding high personal standards), 2) other-oriented perfectionism (demanding perfection from others), and 3) socially prescribed perfectionism (a pressure to be perfect imposed on the self). While various research results are presented in this section, it would be the self-oriented perfectionists who are especially likely to be depressed following failure experiences. Also, stress is a moderating factor and there may be other moderating factors as well such as low self-efficacy.

Three models are presented to explain how people become a perfectionist in the first place: 1) the Social Expectations Model (in response to contingent parental approval), 2) the Social Learning Model (modeling parents), and 3) the Social Reaction Model (in response to having been exposed to s harsh environment such as physical abuse and psychological maltreatment). .

LECTURE STARTERS 1. Pick a current media article published on someone who has committed a crime, committed suicide or done something dramatic. Ask the student to put forward their theories about what that person’s personality was all about and about that person’s motives. Capture some of their thinking. At the end of lecturing on this chapter, go back to the “capture of their thinking” and ask them what they might consider adding to their initial analysis.

2. The chapter touched upon the possible adaptive potential of some personality disorders. The professor can list either each personality disorders and/or elements of the disorders and ask the student to identify fields of functioning or situations or professions in which each might actually be adaptive, either to the self and/or to society. For example, where would paranoia be advantageous (e.g. in designing effective national or even home-based security systems). This would force students to step away from seeing disorders as always bad and encourage them to accept more easily individual differences in both healthy and less adaptive personality aspects.

3. Ask the students how they would feel about being “labeled” with a categorical “diagnosis” and what their reaction might be? Open a discussion regarding how they view normality. Ask them if they have ever encountered a behaviour which would be normal in one society (or cultural sub-group) and considered not so normal in another. Discuss.

4. Ask the students if they have noticed binge drinking on campus and let them provide you with theories to explain this behaviour, if it exists (and it probably does!).

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Instructor’s Manual to Accompany Flett/Personality Theory and Research

Psychobiography and Personology: Summing up the Whole Person CHAPTER 14 Chapter Table of Contents What Psychobiography Tells Us about Personality The Functions of Psychobiography Methodological Issues and Concerns Criticisms of Psychobiography Guidelines for Extracting Data Erikson’s Triple Bookkeeping Concept Psychobiographical Sketches Salvador Dali Sylvia Plath Anne Sexton Ozzy Osbourne Common Themes across the Psychobiographical Sketches Summary

Chapter Overview This chapter is idiographic in its focus and present psychobiographies which look towards understand the whole person. Strengths and limitations of psychobiographies, along with methodological issues such as generalizability, interpretive biases and internal probability are discussed. Guidelines for extracting data are presented (primacy, frequency, uniqueness, negation, and omission) in conjunction with Erikson’s Triple Bookkeeping Concept (the three levels of the body, the ego, and family and society) as important to consider in the making of good sketches. The author then presents psychobiographies on Salidor Dali, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Ozzy Osbourne ending with a listing of common themes which appear across psychobiographical sketches. .

Detailed Chapter Summary What Psychobiography Tells Us about Personality Psychobiographies tell us that any individual’s personality is exceedingly complex, that there are trends and clues about personality gleened through personal structure analysis of the contexts people experienced and how they behaved, that specific situational factors occurred in the person’s life which had Chapter 14-1

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Instructor’s Manual to Accompany Flett/Personality Theory and Research

“press” upon positive or negative development, that there are theories which explain the underlying dynamics of personality processes, that some behaviours are adaptive and some are maladaptive, that the psychobiographer’s personality can be projected into their work, and finally that there are always improvements that can be made upon a psychobiography as new information is discovered about the person and different scholars become engaged in the activity.

The Functions of Psychobiography

The four functions are: 1) exemplication (illustrates or displays how a personality concept or theory is relevant to a specific person), 2) discovery (a way to come up with a new insight or theory that advances understanding), 3) comparison (compare how the characteristics of a person fits with a theory, how different people with different lives share some attribute, and how different theories and personality frameworks prove their usefulness and comprehensiveness), and 4) practical/applied (a way to predict behaviour for hiring, political - e.g. Hitler, and social purposes – e.g. identification of criminals through personality profiling).

Methodological Issues and Concerns Sources of bias include the actor-observer bias (people ignore situational factors and focus on the dispositional personality features), the confirmatory bias (people focus on information that is consistent with their initial beliefs about why people have acted in a certain way), the sex bias and the cultural bias.

Criticisms of Psychobiography

Criticisms of psychobiographies include the critical period fallacy (places too much emphasis on one period of an individual life without fully considering other periods), originology (placing great importance on early life experiences), eventism (tracing everything back to only one or two key events), lack of adequate evidence, ignoring situational factors, and engaging in the tendency to over-pathologize.

Guidelines for Extracting Data

These include the primacy guidelines (the theme that emerges first is the most important), frequency of theme (the theme that appears most often may be the most salient), the theme’s apparent uniqueness (special emphasis is placed on highly distinctive themes), negation (look out for defense mechanisms and defense styles), omission (what is missing can be significant), and under or over estimation of the importance of some life event or life role (can indicate an important theme.

Erikson’s Triple Bookkeeping Concept

Anyone’s life can be understood by evaluating three complementary levels: 1) body (physical characteristics), 2) ego (a person’s coping with realistic conflicts and sources of anxiety yield life stories; using script theory to see how people playwright and represent their own lives), and 3) family and society (a full analysis of societal, cultural, and historical factors that affect an individual)

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This section goes on to explore psychohistory from a cultural perspective and the importance of obtaining the cultural context in order to have an accurate frame of reference in order to do meaningful cross-cultural and cross-time comparisons.

Difficulties encountered in describing Mao Zedong are described in order to illustrate two possible psychobiographical pitfalls: failure to consider all valid disorders, and/or the biographer’s biases affecting the analysis.

Psychobiographical Sketches Salvador Dali

Dali is presented as an example of narcissism and dependency with particular emphasis on his personality constructs of effectance (which is the need to have an impact on others), his need for exhibition, his need for dominance and his high degree of psychoticism and workaholicism.

Dali is viewed through Erikson’s development theory in terms of Dali’s search for identity which he was never able to resolve, Adler’s theory in terms of Dali’s inferiority/superiority to his idealized dead older brother, and the operant conditioning perspective in terms of how Dali’ was rewarded by his grandmother.

Sylvia Plath

Plath is presented as an example of perfectionism where she had exacting standards for herself and others plus possessed a highly destructive form of selfcriticism similar to self-hatred. She was acutely aware of the differences between the sexes.

Kelly would note that her personal constructs regarding masculinity versus femininity were central to her personality structure, Roger’s would posit a great deal regarding her conditions of worth, Freud would have ventured proposing an overly rigid superego, attributional theory would certainly have emphasized how she made sense of the loss of a parent in terms of self-esteem, Sullivan would say that Plath had a clear and well-articulated self of the good me, the bad me, and the not me, while Erikson would have focused on her struggle with issues of personal identity.

Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton is presented as an example of depression (post-partum with psychotic features) and alcoholism and had issues of promiscuity and needs for constant companionship. Therefore, there was a mix of impulsivity, dependency, a preoccupied and insecure attachment style, self-criticism, neuroticism, interpersonal sensitivity, and the need for approval and attention.

Attachment theory would say that she had an extreme form of the anxiousambivalent attachment style (mixed material feelings), Erikson would say that the very early stage of trust versus mistrust was never resolved and continued to plague her throughout life (emotional abuse from dad), and social learning theory would say that she had leaned inappropriate drinking behaviours and impulsiveness from observing both her mother and her father.

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Ozzy Osbourne

Osbourne is presented as a case of impulsivity, sensation-seeking, little selfconstraint/self-control, and with a strong history of substance abuse and addiction.

A medical biological model would say that Osbourne had a genetic predisposition to his problems, Freud would posit an oral fixation, social learning theory would put forth that Osborne learned his behaviours from observing his father’s drinking problems, Adler would way that using drugs and alcohol was to overcome a sense of inferiority, reinforcement theory would say that his outrageous behaviour was reinforced because it made him money.

Common Themes across the Psychobiographical Sketches

The themes are: 1) descriptive accounts must go beyond the five-factor model in order to account for key personality differences, 2) there are core cardinal traits that apply to the specific individual, 3) any descriptive analysis of personality needs to be supplemented with discussion of self-concept and sense of personal identity, 4) each person could be analyzed by his or her sense of self in relation to others and to his or her communal needs, and 5) theory plays a role to explain personality.

LECTURE STARTERS 1. Ask the student to engage in good methodology making. If each of them was asked to produce a sketch on a particular individual, how would they design a methodology which would ensure doing the job well? What would they do?

What would they use as their sources of information? If they could come up with 5-10 research actions that they would do, that would be a useful lesson on the complexity of producing a good psychobiography.

2. This text has very much utilized the NEO-PI-R five factor model as the common threat running throughout all discussion about the various aspects of personality. At the end of lecturing on this chapter, and with some NEO-PI-R Form R (Ratings) sheet in hand, identify some well known and current public figure in the entertainment field or a current criminal who has received a great deal of press (e.g. the Virginia Tech shooter). The professor may ask the students to help identify a suitable target. Ask the students, in groups of about 6 individuals, to rate the target across the 30 subscales of the NEO on one Form R sheet each (paying attention to the male and female norms). Collapse the data across groups to yield a profile and discuss how now, now at the end of the course, their naïve common sense evaluations (as discussed in Chapter 1) has evolved to a more knowledgeable personologist’s opinion about the personality of others. Hold a class discussion on the results found and the degree of inter-rater reliability across group opinions on the profile.

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