History

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Welcome to the Personality Theory Seminar!
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History Overview of Personality Theory
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Personality Theory

• A dying field?
• Evidence elimination of subspecialty from grad
  programs,
• thickness of books on topic!

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Definition

• Personality - Individual differences
• those characteristics of a person that account
  for consistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and
  behaving
• (Pervin John, 2005).

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History

• The modern study of personality began with
  Freuds psychosexual stages.
• Attempts were made to identify types such as
  anal, oral, authoritarian, creative, etc.
  following the WWs.

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Findings on the authoritarian personality the
impact on those in a submissive role
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History

• The neo-Freudians sought to identify
• those who demonstrated a healthy
  relationship/separation from primary caretaker
  healthy adult relationships
• object relations.

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History

• This area of study is currently known as
• attachment theory rather than
• object relations
• (e.g., Ainsworths strange situation paradigm,
  Harlows monkeys).

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History

• Eysenck - A psychologist who fled Nazi Germany.
  His work was based on factor analysis, making him
  one of the first to use an empirical approach.

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History

• Eysenck criticized the Freudian approach because
  due to the emphasis on the subconscious, theories
  were not open to disproof.

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History

• Eysenck argued for three main dimensions of
  personality neuroticism (emotional stability),
  intraversion/extraversion (sociabililty),
  psychoticism (empathy).

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History

• Rich empirical data,
• Introverts - more pain sensitive, distracted by
  excitement, slower and more careful, salivate
  more when lemon juice is placed on the tongue.

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History

• Eysenck supported both the investigation of
  genetic factors and the development of behavior
  therapy - 1960s.

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History

• He authored a landmark paper showing that the
  insight therapies (aka Freudian,
• psychoanalytic therapies) were no more
• effective than a no-treatment condition.

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History

• Eysencks paper led to death threats, public
  ridicule, and massive hostility directed toward
  the author
• However, it also kicked off the era of BT!

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Eysenck on personality typology, psychotherapy
outcome, the emergence of behavior therapy
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Structure of personality versusProcess of
personality
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Structure - building blocks. Traits (broad
predispositions to respond in particular ways),
Types (clusters of traits), Habits (proscribed
behaviors).
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Process - dynamic aspects. Tension reduction
(physiological needs create tension that is
reduced thru behaviors), Incentive (behavior
is hedonically or goal-driven).
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Trait theorists - Broad predispositions
to respond in particular ways. Personality is
hierarchically organized.
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Superfactors Traits Habits Responses
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Neurotic Socially anxious Physical expressions
of anxiety Nail biting
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Extraversion Sociable Always plans weekends
w/ friends Enjoys planning parties
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Genetics Formerly assumed to be important
determinant of innate (intelligence,
temperament) but not socially-constructed
(values, beliefs) characteristics.
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Process - dynamic aspects. Tension reduction
(physiological needs create tension that is
reduced thru behaviors), Incentive (behavior
is hedonically or goal-driven).
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Relevance to clinical psych Clinical
psychologists attempt to intervene on process
to modify traits.
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For example, we might use behavior modification
to alter anxious habits, and replace them with
adaptive responses.
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This new way of responding would then alter the
process of responding to anxiety cues,
hopefully permanently.
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This would set the stage for modification of the
anxiety trait into a consciously-driven, less
anxious personality type.
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Contemporary clinical psych works from the
bottom up rather than the top down.
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Nail biting
Physical expressions of anxiety Socially
anxious Neurotic
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Cattell - also used factor analysis, argued for
the existence of 16 independent and stable
personality factors.
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However, most of these were later found to be
highly correlated and unstable.
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Improvements in the methodology of factor
analysis led to two similar models focused on
broader trait dimensions
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5 Factor Model (Costa McCrae, 1985) The Big
Five (Goldberg, 1981) Conscientiousness,
openness to experience, neuroticism,
agreeableness, extraversion.
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Mischel (1968) - Little evidence for stability of
traits. Trait indicators are dependent on
evoking maintaining conditions in the
environment.
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This motivated Cattell to posit that everyone
may shout lustily at a football game, less so at
dinner, and not at all in church.
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Block (1971) - Followed a cohort of students from
junior high to adulthood. 50 trait ratings from
time 1-2. 30 trait ratings from time 1-3.
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Personality is more rigid before we learn to take
situational factors into account! (moral
development)
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Block (1971) - Followed a cohort of students from
junior high to adulthood. 50 trait ratings from
time 1-2. 30 trait ratings from time 1-3.
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Developmental factors important Children differ
considerably on their ability to modify behavior
based on situational factors.
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Frontal lobe development is essential for
self-monitoring, self-regulation, emotional
control, usually around age of 8-10 years.
Piagets formal operations.
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Also Evolutionary perspective - Do animals have
personalities? Are some more important for
survival? (Sapolsky)

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A related question Are certain personalities
more prone to health problems? (Type A,
Alzheimers APOE 4)

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What does a maladaptive personality look
like? Are Axis II disorders valid? Reliable?
Biased diagnostic categories?