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Questions and Answers
Which personality trait is positively correlated with the Dirty Dozen measures?
In terms of social exploitation, whom do the studies suggest typically scores higher?
What aspect of narcissism might have been overlooked by reducing items on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory?
What relationship do the Dirty Dozen measures have with neuroticism?
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Why might exploiting others be more costly for women than for men, according to the content?
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What behavior is commonly seen in individuals with histrionic personality disorder?
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Which feature is associated with antisocial personality disorder?
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What is a key characteristic of paranoid personality disorder?
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How do individuals with borderline personality disorder typically react to the fear of abandonment?
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What personality trait is most associated with narcissistic personality disorder?
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Which behavior is typically NOT associated with borderline personality disorder?
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What emotional response is common among individuals with paranoid personality disorder?
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Which of the following best describes the relationship dynamics of individuals with histrionic personality disorder?
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Which pairs of personality disorders are commonly observed to co-occur?
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What term describes the occurrence of two or more personality disorders in the same individual?
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What is suggested about the classification of personality disorders in terms of symptoms?
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Which characteristic behavior is typically associated with antisocial personality disorder?
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Which symptom might NOT commonly correlate with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder?
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In terms of personality functioning, what issue might arise under 'self-direction problems'?
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What does impaired personality functioning primarily involve?
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What is claimed about the symptoms of personality disorders regarding individuals diagnosed with the same disorder?
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What primarily characterizes narcissistic personality disorder?
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Which of these behaviors is typical of someone with avoidant personality disorder?
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Individuals with dependent personality disorder likely exhibit which of the following traits?
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Which statement about individuals with avoidant personality disorder is accurate?
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What distinguishes obsessive-compulsive personality disorder from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?
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Individuals with narcissistic traits are likely to display which behavior?
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What is a common misconception about obsessive-compulsive personality disorder?
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Which characteristic is NOT associated with dependent personality disorder?
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What aspect of personality disorders often remains impaired even after losing a formal diagnosis?
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Which personality disorder shows evidence of substantial improvements in certain areas with treatment?
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What is one of the main aims of pharmacological treatments for personality disorders?
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What do psychosocial treatments primarily aim to address in individuals with borderline personality disorder?
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What complicates the evaluation of treatment efficacy for personality disorders?
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What is a characteristic of the drug trials conducted on personality disorders?
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Which factor is considered a primary manifestation of personality disorders according to psychosocial treatments?
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What is a limitation of the current research on personality disorders?
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Study Notes
Paranoid Personality Disorder
- Shares features with schizoid and schizotypal disorder.
- Characterized by strong suspiciousness of others’ motives and a sense of being persecuted.
- Individuals suspect others are trying to harm, deceive, or exploit them without good reason.
- Tend to dwell on doubts about the loyalty of those around them.
- Quickly offended by actions/comments that may be innocent.
- Hold grudges against people they perceive as causing harm.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
- Characterized by a tendency to disregard and violate the rights of others.
- Individuals are deceitful, exploit others for personal gain, and feel no remorse for the harm caused to others.
- Tend to be aggressive, irresponsible, impulsive, and reckless.
Borderline Personality Disorder
- Involves extreme instability in self-image and relationships with others, along with extreme impulsivity in various contexts.
- Individuals have intense and unstable love/hate relationships with others.
- Worry frantically about the possibility of being abandoned.
- Impulsive behavior includes drug abuse, eating binges, spending sprees, sexual escapades, and self-harming behaviors (e.g., self-mutilation or suicide attempts).
- Extremely moody, have little sense of personal identity or meaning in life.
Histrionic Personality Disorder
- Characterized by an exaggerated display of emotions and excessive attention-seeking.
- Individuals have an intense need to be the center of attention and feel uncomfortable when they are not.
- Use their physical appearance to draw attention and have a seductive, sexually provocative style.
- Display emotions in a dramatic and exaggerated way, yet these emotions are shallow and volatile.
- Easily influenced by others and consider casual acquaintances as much closer relationships than they are
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
- Involves the tendency to consider oneself as a superior individual who deserves the admiration of others, and a selfish lack of concern for others’ needs.
- Individuals think they are entitled to special treatment and admiration, and generally have an arrogant style, often exploiting others and failing to appreciate their needs.
- Tend to fantasize about having high status and envy those who are highly successful.
Avoidant Personality Disorder
- Defined by social inhibition and shyness, feelings of inadequacy, and oversensitivity to potential negative evaluation.
- Individuals have strong fears of criticism, disapproval, and rejection, which severely restricts their social interactions.
- Unwilling to participate socially unless certain of being liked and tend to avoid work activities that involve interpersonal contact.
- Lack social connection but actually want it – they are just afraid of rejection.
Dependent Personality Disorder
- Characterized by an excessive need to be taken care of and by submissive, clinging behavior, and fears of separation.
- Individuals require a great deal of advice and reassurance even in making everyday decisions and lack the confidence to undertake projects on their own.
- Need other people to take responsibility for important features of their lives and feel unable to take care of themselves when alone.
- Willing to sacrifice a lot to maintain the support and nurturance of others, e.g., by volunteering to do unpleasant tasks or by avoiding any expression of disagreement.
- Desperately seek a new relationship if a close relationship ends.
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
- Involves preoccupation with orderliness, perfection, and control.
- The individual tends to be so preoccupied with details (e.g., lists, schedules) that the entire point of an activity is lost.
- May be so concerned with attaining perfection and following specific rules that they fail to complete their tasks or projects, or delegate any tasks to others.
- Tend to put work ahead of personal relationships and to be highly stubborn and inflexible.
- There is a tendency to hoard money unnecessarily (rather than spend it) and to hoard objects unnecessarily (rather than discard them).
- This is not OCD. OCD involves repeated behaviors (e.g., hand washing, counting or tapping) and is not a personality disorder.
Problems with the DSM-5 Personality Disorders
- Symptoms of a given disorder do not necessarily co-occur.
- It is possible in some cases that two persons diagnosed with the same disorder might not have any symptoms in common.
- There are some symptoms that tend to co-occur despite being listed in different personality disorders.
- Many people are diagnosed with 2 or more personality disorders at the same time.
- Comorbidity is often observed for the following pairs of disorders:
- Schizoid & schizotypal
- Avoidant & dependent
- Histrionic & borderline
- Clusters of disorders do not match factor analysis results.
A Personality Disorder as a Continuum
- A personality disorder should be seen as a continuum, not as a category.
- Most researchers believe that having a personality disorder is a matter of degree:
- Some people may have slight indications of a disorder,
- Whereas other people may have a severe case.
An Alternative System for Personality Disorders
- A new system has been proposed that includes 2 essential features of a personality disorder:
- Impaired personality functioning
- The presence of pathological personality traits.
Impaired Personality Functioning
- Problems in personality functioning can involve the self or can be interpersonal.
- Self problems:
- Identity problems
- Self-direction problems
Treatment Approaches
- There are 2 main approaches to the treatment of personality disorders:
- Psychosocial treatments
- Pharmacological treatments
Psychosocial Treatments
- Based on the fact that personality and its disorders arise from a complex gene-environment interaction and developmental processes, are affected by adverse life events, and the primary manifestations of the disorder are difficulties with personal and social relationships.
Pharmacological Treatments
- Based on the idea that behavioral traits associated with personality disorders may be associated with neurochemical abnormalities in the CNS.
- More than 70% of all drug trials on personality disorders were on participants with borderline personality disorder.
- These trials tend to have poor design.
- Therefore, this psychobiological model remains largely untested for other personality disorders.
Aims of Treatment
- Drug treatment focuses on specific aspects of personality disorders' pathological effects (e.g., affective instability & cognitive-perceptual disturbances).
- Psychosocial treatment, mainly for borderline, aims to reduce acute life-threatening symptoms and improve distressing mental state symptoms.
- A few psychosocial treatments focus on personal identity, some on interpersonal interaction, on social adjustment, or on the general difficulties of people with mixed personality disorders by using psychoeducation and problem-solving.
The Dirty Dozen Measures
- Negatively correlated with neuroticism and positively correlated with openness.
- Both findings are consistent with work that suggests the Dark Triad reflects a latent dimension of social exploitation, where this profile of lower order personality traits is expected.
- Correlations between measures of self-esteem and the Dirty Dozen were some of the weakest reported.
- It may be that the reduction of items from the 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory to the four items used to measure narcissism caused one or more specific aspects of narcissism that relate to self-esteem instability to be lost (e.g., entitlement, grandiosity, superiority).
- The Dirty Dozen measures showed some sex differences across all studies, confirming that men tend to be more socially exploitative than women are through personality traits like the Dark Triad.
- Exploiting others may come at a higher cost for women than for men, because women are more dependent on social networks than men are on average.
- From an evolutionary perspective, men should benefit more from social exploitation and therefore should have higher scores on personality traits that reflect social exploitation.
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Description
This quiz covers key features of Paranoid, Antisocial, and Borderline Personality Disorders. Test your understanding of the characteristics, behaviors, and distinctions of these complex mental health conditions. Enhance your knowledge about personality disorders and their impact on individual behavior.
