Personality.

Personality

Unique, relatively stable pattern of thoughts, emotions and actions.

The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character.

General definition x psychological definition  -  different personality theories – partly different point of view

Personality assessment

one of the most common tasks for clinical psychologists

Observation

Interview

Objectives tests

Projective tests

Psychiatric x psychological approach

Describe personality – what for?

Concept of personality disorders

Observation and interview

Almost always present in one way or another

The most important part of a psychological diagnostics

Observation – what to concentrate on? (evaluation guidelines)

What is specific for a diagnostic interview?

How to ask?

Structured x unstructured

The data you already have got

Objective tests

Personality tests, inventories

- questionnaires, written response multiple choice or yes no answer

„objective“ – how much objective information can we expect? (deliberate deception, social desirability bias, defensivive stands, propriate useage of methods)

MMPI-2 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is the most widely used and researched standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology.

567 items questionnaire - clinical scales, validity scales, supplemental scales

The 16PF Questionnaire (R. Cattell) 1949, (1994)

for individual and marital counseling, career counseling and employee development, in educational settings, and for basic research

MBTI - Myers-Briggs Type Indicator   preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions (16-type indicator test, Carl Jung's Psychological Types, (Extroversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling and Judging-Perceiving)Generally well known, almost not used in clinical practise

TCI Temperament and Character Inventory (240 item) operates with seven dimensions of personality traits: four so-called temperaments: Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA), Reward Dependence (RD), Persistence (PS)and three so-called characters: Self-Directedness (SD), Cooperativeness (CO), Self-Transcendence (ST)

NEO PI-R - The Revised NEO Personality Inventory, (240-item) P. T. Costa, Jr. and Robert R. McCraeThe Big Five personality traits are five broad domains or dimensions of personality that are used to describe human personality - the Five Factor Model (FFM).Five Factor Model (FFM) is widely used personality assessment that describes five core traits that a person possesses:Openness - degree to which people enjoy experiencing new stimuliConscientiousness - degree to which people are dutiful and goal-orientedExtraversion - degree to which people seek stimuli outside of themselvesAgreeableness - degree to which people aim to cooperate and please othersNeuroticism - degree to which people are emotionally unstable

MCMI-III The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (175 true-false questions)provides information on psychopathology (DSM-IV)standardized specifically on clinical populations, should not be used with the general populationhas multiaxial format

Projective tests

 Personality test designed to let a person respond to unstructured stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts.

The Rorschach inkblot test was introduced in 1921 by Herman Rorschach as a way to determine personality by the interpretation of abstract inkblots.

The Thematic Apperception Test was commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the 1930s to identify personalities that might be susceptible to being turned by enemy intelligence.

The Hand Test

The Word Association Test

The Sentence completion test

The Draw-A-Person test

The oldest typology of personality

Hippocrates - successor Galen - the balance of bodily fluids:

Choleric people - an excess of yellow bile, making them irascible and ambitious.

Melancholic people - an excess of black bile; pessimistic and analytical.

Phlegmatic people - an excess of phlegm; relaxed, calm temperament.

Sanguine people - an excess of blood; cheerful, pleasure seeking.

Trait theories

The definition of a trait: A relatively stable and consistent characteristic that can be used to describe a personality

The first lists of traits ever done included about 4500 of them (Gordon Allport 1937)

reduction of the number of items by using the so called factor analysisnarrowing down to the most basic traits:

The „Big Five“ Modelreduces the whole complex of a human personality down to five basic traits:

1. „O“ Openness

2. „C“ Conscientiousness

3. „E“ Extraversion

4. „A“ Agreeableness

5. „N“ Neuroticism (emotional stability)

Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic theories Trait theories try to describe personality, psychoanalytic theories try to explain it.

Sigmund Freud

Levels of consciousness - the whole mind „psyche“ consists of three main levels of awareness:

The preconscious – not our current thoughts but those that can be readily brought into mind

The conscious – current thoughts

The unconscious – can‘t be brought into mind under standard conditions – instinctual motives, repressed emotions prevented from being brought unto conscious mind, thoughts burdened with anxiety…

Personality structure: each personality consists of three main structures

The superego (morality principle)

The ego (reality principle)

The id (pleasure principle)

Defense mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are the ways of the mind of transferring the uncomfortable into the unconscious

Repression – preventing „those thoughts“ from entering the consciousness – forgetting traumatic events

Sublimation – working off unmet desires or unacceptable impulses into constructive activities

Denial – refusing to perceive an unpleasant reality

Rationalization – justifying unacceptably motivated actions by substituting the real motives with positive ones

Intellectualization – ignoring the emotional aspects of a situation and focusing only on the abstract ideas

Projection – transferring unacceptable thoughts and motives into others

Reaction formation – exaggerating the opposite of the unacceptable urges that are held

Regression – responding to a situation in a way appropriate for an earlier age

Displacement – substituting a less threatening subject for the original object of impulse

Freud – Psychosexual developmentstage Approxiamate

ageErogenous zone

Key conflict or task Effects of fixation or regression

Oral 0-18 months Mouth Weaning (from breast or bottle)

Gullibility, dependency, excessive pleasures from eating, drinking…

Anal 18 months – 3 years

Anus Toilet training Excessive orderliness and stubbornness or messiness and rebelliousness

Phallic 3 – 6 years Genitals Overcoming the Oedipal complex

Castration anxiety struggles with authority M, penis envy, flirtatiousness F

Latency 6 years - puberty None Interacting with same sex peers

Being asexual

Genital Puberty to adult Genitals Establishing intimate relationships

Psychodynamic theories

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)theory of individual psychologycentred around conciousness more, motivation, will-to-power, inferiority complex

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)analytical psychology, distinguishes personal and collective unconcious, archetypes

Karen Horney (1885–1952)Challenges the sexism of Freud‘s theories, emphasises on socialized differences between the sexes rather than biological – redefines the „penis envy“ to „power envy“theories on personality Development, basic anxiety

Humanistic theories

Believing in the natural goodness and positive drive towards self-fulfilment of people

Carl Rogers (1902–1987) – the self-concept theory of personality

the „self-concept“ – all the and believes you have as an individual regarding your own nature, behaviors, qualities…

Poor mental health and maladjustment come from differences between the „self-concept“ and the life experiences

Low self-esteems originates from experiences (mostly parental) that define their love and approval as conditional .

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Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

„self actualization“ – the inborn drive to develop all one‘s talents and capacities

Ongoing desire, process of growth

One of the every person‘s basic needsMaslow‘s hierarchy of human‘s needs:

Social/cognitive perspective

Albert Bandura (born1925)„self efficacy“ – belief one can generally succeed, regardless of past failures and current problemsthis belief also affects how others respond to the person and thereby actually affects the chances they have – reciprocal determinism

Julian Rotter (1916-2014)„locus of control“ – internal or externalinternals believe they can control the events in their lives

externals think it‘s mainly environment and external causes

The biological theories

Brain structures

Neurochemistry

Genetic predispositions

Personality Theories with Biological Basis Eysenck's Three Factor Model of Personality

based on activation of reticular formation and limbic system

The reticular formation is a region in the brainstem that is involved in mediating arousal and consciousness. The limbic system is involved in mediating emotion, behavior, motivation, and long-term memory.

Cloninger Model of Personality

This model of personality is based on the idea that different responses to punishing, rewarding, and novel stimuli is caused by an interaction of the three dimensions:

Novelty Seeking (NS) - degree to which people are impulsive, correlated with low dopamine activity.

Harm Avoidance (HA) - degree to which people are anxious, correlated with high serotonin activity.

Reward Dependence (RD) - degree to which people are approval seeking, correlated with low noradrenaline activity.