Personality and Personality Disorders

Personality and Personality Disorders

• Personality, in a layman's terms, refers to a person's unique qualities. A more formal definition describes it as a consistent pattern of characteristics, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that remain stable over time and situations, differentiating individuals.

• Personality encompasses intelligence, emotions, cognition, motivation, learning, psychopathology, and social interactions.

• No two people have the same personality. The study of personality aims to answer "who" a person is, "why" they act the way they do, and why some behaviors are unusual.

• A multitude of factors influence an individual's personality throughout their life, including genetics, environment, and culture.

Genetic and Environmental Influences

• Many personality characteristics are passed down from parents, with genetic inheritance being a significant determinant.

• Genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the variability in many personality traits. Environmental factors often contribute an even higher percentage. Identical twins raised separately are just as similar as identical twins raised together.

• The highest heritability is generally found in measures of abilities, intelligence, sociability, and emotional ability.

• Despite genetic predispositions, environmental and cultural factors still play a crucial role in shaping personality differences in individuals.

Personality Theories

• Culture can significantly influence personality characteristics.

• Greeks believed the body was composed of four fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile), each linked to specific personality traits.

• Hippocrates (460-371 BCE) categorized personality into four types based on fluid predominance:

• Sanguine: cheerful, optimistic, and active (abundance of blood).

• Phlegmatic: listless, sluggish, and tired (lack of phlegm).

• Melancholic: perpetually sad and brooding (abundance of black bile).

• Choleric: easily excitable and prone to anger (abundance of yellow bile).

• Modern research adds more complex models of personality. Friedman and Rosenman's research introduced Type A and Type B personality types.

Type A and Type B Personalities

• Type A: highly competitive, ambitious, aggressive, and impatient, often at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Characterized by a sense of urgency.

• Type B: more relaxed, agreeable, and less prone to time urgency. Show lower risk for CVD compared to Type A personalities.

Type C Personality

• Type C individuals are highly sociable and pleasant but are often inhibited in expressing negative emotions. They often suppress emotional responses and tend to be passive and uncomplaining. They have a "cancer-prone" personality.

Personality Approaches

• Four major approaches to understanding personality:
• Psychodynamic
• Learning
• Trait
• Phenomenological

Psychodynamic Approach

• The psychodynamic approach links personality to the interplay of conflicting forces within an individual, both conscious and unconscious. These forces include wishes, fears, and ambitions, influenced by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

• This approach postulates that hidden influences shape personality, making behavior a product of competing motivations.

Trait Approach

• The trait approach emphasizes consistent personality traits that can be measured and studied, such as friendliness, politeness, honesty.

• Psychologists try to create accurate descriptions of traits and situations where those traits are consistently displayed.

Learning Approach

• The learning approach assumes that behavior, including personality, is learned. These learning experiences can occur from individual or social experiences, including imitation, second-hand learning, reinforcement, and punishment.

Humanistic Approach

• The humanistic approach focuses on consciousness, values, and beliefs, including spiritual experiences and life-long belief systems, emphasizing that individuals deliberately, consciously make decisions.

Personality Disorders

• A personality disorder involves a persistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that create impairments in functioning and interpersonal relationships.

• Biological factors, including genetics and abnormal EEG patterns, play a role in personality disorders.

• Personality disorders are categorized into three clusters:

• Cluster A: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal. (odd or eccentric behaviors)

• Cluster B: antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic. (dramatic, emotional, or erratic behaviors)

• Cluster C: avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive. (anxious or fearful behaviors)

Specific Personality Disorders (Cluster A)

• Paranoid: mistrustful and suspicious of others, difficulty with criticism, may watch individuals for signs of betrayal.

• Schizoid: withdrawn, prefer to be alone, have little interest in social interactions or intimacy, avoid close relationships.

• Schizotypal: aloofness, odd behaviors, unusual thinking patterns.

Specific Personality Disorders (Cluster B)

• Antisocial: lack remorse, irresponsible, aggressive, engage in criminal behavior, deceitful, and show a lack of empathy for others.

• Borderline: instability in relationships, intense emotions, impulsivity, self harm, difficulty controlling emotions.

• Histrionic: overly dramatic, attention-seeking, and seductive, often exaggerate their emotions and may experience emotional dysregulation.

• Narcissistic: grandiosity, need for admiration, a sense of entitlement, difficulties with interpersonal relationships, and may exploit others.

Specific Personality Disorders (Cluster C)

• Avoidant: shy, lack self-esteem, introverted, fear rejection, and tend to avoid social situations.

• Dependent: submissive, self-doubt, clingy, reliant on others, difficulty taking responsibility or making independent decisions, excessively seek approval.

• Obsessive-Compulsive: rigid, perfectionistic, preoccupied with order and control, reluctant to spend money, prone to anxiety. (differ from clinical obsessive-compulsive disorder)

Psychosexual Development

• Freud believed that childhood experiences significantly shape adult personality and behavior. He proposed stages with specific focal points for the libido.

• Early childhood development involves psychosexual stages:

• Oral (0-1 year)

• Anal (1-3 years)

• Phallic (3-6 years)

• Latency (6-12 years)

• Genital (12+ years)

Mental Defense Mechanisms

• Mental defense mechanisms are coping strategies that help a person deal with psychological conflicts and reduce feelings of anxiety.

• Defense mechanisms include:

• Denial: refusing to accept reality.

• Repression: pushing unwanted thoughts and feelings into the unconscious mind.

• Rationalization: justifying behavior to make it seem more acceptable.

• Displacement: transferring emotions from one person or object to another.

• Projection: attributing one's own undesirable traits to others.

• Regression: reverting to a childlike state to cope with stress.

• Sublimation: channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable activities.

• Reaction Formation: behaving in the opposite manner to express unwanted feelings.

• Intellectualization: dealing with emotional distress by focusing on thoughts and ideas.

• Fixation: Attachment to behaviors from a prior stage of development.