MRCPsych

Psychology ModulePersonality & Emotion

Dr Alex HuntClinical Psychologist

Personality • What is personality?

– ‘the sum total of behavioural and mental characteristics which are distinct to the individual’ - oxford dictionary of psychology

– Nature vs nurture?– How individual is personality?– Fixed characteristics or fluid over time?– Predictive?

Approaches to studying Personality

• Nomothetic approaches – Abstract generalisations and universal concepts– Concerned with classifying and types or traits

common across individuals for the purpose of comparing or discriminating between individuals

– Views personality as permanent traits or fixed characteristics

– Trait and type approaches

• Idiographic approaches – Unique Individuals rather then common types or traits

Personality Theories• Nomothetic Theories

– Eysenck– Cattel

• Ideographic Theories– Kelly– Maslow & Rogers

• Allport• Situationalist theories• Psychoanalytical Theories

Allport 1936• Neither nomothetic or ideographic

• 2 kinds of traits / characteristics– Common – cross-cultural, common to all

• e.g. aggression

– Individual Traits• Cardinal (dictate most behaviours)• Central traits (core to characteristics of interaction-

can be compared)• Secondary traits (minor)

Nomothetic Approach; Eysenck• Developed from questionnaires revealing

thousands of traits

• Used factor analysis to reveal two types

• Extroversion-introversion

• Neuroticism-stability

• Later added psychoticism (EPQ)

Factor analysis• Units of study (factors – variables)

• Find ways to represent or measure them

• Look at a series of correlations to see which ones hang together

• Rather like smelting or cooking something down to the essential elements

• Orthogonal – identifying uncorrelated / independent factors

• Oblique less powerful factors which are not independent, which inter-correlate

Typical extrovert –Eysenck 1965“...is sociable, likes parties, has many friends, needs to

have people to talk to and doesn’t like reading or studying by himself. He craves excitement, takes chances, often stick his neck out, acts on the spur of the moment and is generally an impulsive individual. He likes practical jokes, always has a ready answer and generally likes change. He is care-free, optimistic, likes to laugh and be merry. He prefers to keep moving and doing things, tends to be aggressive and lose his temper quickly, altogether his feelings aren’t kept under tight control and he’s not always a reliable person.

Typical Introvert

“...the typical introvert is a quiet, retiring sort of person, introspective, fond of books rather than people; he’s reserved and distant except to intimate friends. He tends to plan ahead, looks before he leaps and distrusts the impulse of the moment. He doesn’t like excitement, takes matters of everyday life with proper seriousness and likes a well-ordered mode of life. He keeps his feelings under close control, seldom behaves in an aggressive manner and doesn’t lose his temper easily. He is reliable, somewhat pessimistic and places great importance on ethical standards...”

Nomothetic Approach; Eysenck• Ext-Inv relates to the ARAS

• Stab-Neur relates to the ANS

• Extroverts have high inhibition in ARAS so need high stimulation

• Introverts have low inhibition in ARAS so are easy to sedate and easily conditioned

• High neur/high ext related to psychopathy

Links to therapy • Links to emotional regulation and personality

– Emotionally constriction – Emotional dysregulated

Important element of DBT theory and approach.

problems are related to emotional constriction or inhibition – ED’s

other to an inability to inhibit emotions, they rule the roost, takes over! BPD

Nomothetic Approach; Cattell• Nomothetic approach by factor analysis• Source traits vs. surface traits • 16 Personality Factors, with descriptors of

high and low range– 16PF Questionnaire

• Influenced by Freud – Ego and Super Ego strength

• Accepted situational factors determined attitudes and behaviour

Data for cattel’s theory • Cattell proposed 3 sources of data

relevant to personality:

• L-data (referring to for life) ratings by observers,

• Q-data (scores on personality questionnaires) –

• T-data (objective tests) specifically created to measure personality

16 Personality Factors; examples

Descriptors of Low Range Primary Factor Descriptors of High Range

Impersonal, distant, reserved, aloof (Schizothymia)

Warmth Warm, outgoing, attentive, kindly, likes people (Affectothymia)

Concrete thinking, lower general mental capacity (Lower

Scholastic Mental Capacity)

Reasoning Abstract-thinking, higher general mental capacity, (Higher

Scholastic Mental Capacity)

Reactive emotionally, emotionally less stable (Lower Ego Strength)

Emotional Stability Emotionally stable, adaptive, mature (Higher Ego Strength)

Expedient, nonconforming, disregards rules, self

indulgent (Low Super Ego Strength)

Rule-consciousness Rule-conscious, dutiful, conscientious, conforming, moralistic, staid, rule bound (High Super Ego Strength)

Single and multi-trait theories and the ‘big five’

• Many theories propose single trait or dimension – Locus of control (Rotter 1966) – Internal / External– Need for closure

• The Five Factor Model – “Big Five”– Intellect / Openness to experience – Conscientiousness – Extroversion – Agreeableness– Neuroticism / Emotional stability

Measured using the NEO PR-I – Revised NEO Personality Inventory

Stability versus change

• Evidence that characteristics at 3 predict later personality dispositions

• Continue to develop till 30

• Stabilise 50-70

• Neural networks

Ideographic Approach; Kelly• Personal Construct Theory• Understand personality via the persons

view of the world (man as scientist)• We have broad superordinate constructs

and narrow subordinate constructs• Used Bannister’s repertory grid - uses

significant people and bipolar adjectives

Ideographic Approach; Maslow & Rogers

• Humanistic theory- can’t really study human personality by questionnaire

• Developed self theory (with Rogers)– Congruence / Incongruence of the Actual Self

and the Ideal Self– Conditional / Unconditional Positive Regard

Psychoanalytical theories• Freud

– Three structures; Id, Ego and Superego– Iceberg analogy; large majority of the mind operates at unconscious

and preconscious levels.

• Jung – Ego (conscious mind), personal unconscious (anything not presently

conscious, but can be) and collective unconscious (innate ‘knowledge’)

• Klein– Object Relations Theory; the process of developing a mind as one

grows in relation to others in the environment

• Attachment theory – Bowlby, Winnicott – Parental responsiveness develops patterns of attachment in infants – Guide individual’s expectations / thoughts / feelings in later

relationships

Freudian theory

Situationism

• Mischel – Situation versus traits

• Measure of supposedly stable traits seem to have little ability to predict behaviour across different situations.

• Fundamental Attribution Error; tendency to attribute behaviour to disposition rather than context.

• Maintained that people are more influenced by external, situational factors rather than by internal motivations – therefore challenges trait theorists such as Eysenck or Cattell.

Interactionist Theories• Interaction between person and situation

• Bandura – Social Learning Theory

• Situation has different meaning based on past experience

• Personality traits dictate the choice of situation people choose to find themselves in

Summary - critical thoughts• Ideographic vs nomothetic;False

dichotomy?

• Complementary approaches

• Nomothetic as descriptive, doesn’t deal with why or how individuals get to be a particular way

Testing Personality• May be self reporting, via interview or by observation or

a combination • Structured techniques

– Questionnaires• EPQ – Eysenck Personality Questionnaire• NEO PI-R – Revised NEO Personality Inventory• MMPI – Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory• Millon – MCMI

• Unstructured techniques– Projective techniques; present ambiguous stimuli and

individual will ‘project’ some kind of structure that reflects underlying psychological characteristics

• Generally poor predictors of behaviour in specific situations

Clinical Applications; Personality Disorder

• “An enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual that exhibits it”. (APA)

• Axis II of DSM-IV-TR; 10 PDs grouped into 3 clusters• Cluster A (odd/eccentric); Paranoid, Schizoid etc.• Cluster B (dramatic/emotional/erratic); Antisocial, Borderline etc.• Cluster C (anxious/fearful); Avoidant, Dependent etc.

• Categorized in ICD-10 Chapter V: Mental and Behavioural Disorders

• Child abuse and neglect are antecedent risks to developing PDs in adulthood.

Clinical Applications; Personality Disorder

• Psychodynamic theories– Reliance on primitive defence mechanisms– Paranoid schizoid vs depressive position – Importance of developmental transitions

negotiating losses – Oedipus complex

What is emotion?• Lots of different types of emotions

– Non-cognitive emotions (instinctual emotions)– Cognitive emotions– Self conscious emotions

• Duration, from a few seconds (surprise) VS enduring for years (love)

• Voluntarily accessible or automatic

Identifying emotions

 

• Wundt (1896) suggested that emotional experience can be described in terms of combinations of 3 dimensions;

• pleasantness/unpleasantness,

• calm/excitement,

• relaxation/tension

(based on introspection.)

Emotions

• Six primary emotions - Ekman– Taken to be universal – Innate– All emotions related to or grow from these

basic emotions or from combinations of them– evolved for their adaptive function

•disgust•happy•sad•fear•anger•surprise

Emotion Recognition

Emotion Recognition

Emotion Recognition

Emotion Recognition

Emotion Recognition

Emotion Recognition

Theories of emotion• How does emotion work?

• What happens in what order?

• A bear walks in to the room

• You bump into an old friend you haven’t seen for a long time

Emotion• What is emotion?

– Subjective experience– Physiological changes (ANS) – Associated behaviour (CNS)– Cognitive processes??

Evolutionary Theory • Central emotions don’t vary across

cultures

• Darwin – Emotional expression developed from what

an animal (human) was about to do next – Benefit the animal that displays them then

they may be kept as a form of communication – Opposing messages complimentary

Theories of Emotion• James Lange Theory

– We label our emotional state according to bodily (visceral) changes (E.g. We are sad because we are crying)

– For each subjectively different emotion, there is a corresponding set of physiological changes. Pathways

– Evidence for • valins (1966) false heart rate feedback

• Laird (1974) face muscle manipulations

Problems with theory – False feedback – may not be any increase in

ANS activity, yet emotion was felt – physiological changes may not even be necessary for the subjective experience of emotions

– The manipulations may have actually caused ANS changes

– Doesn’t cover induced lacrimation or complicated emotions e.g. guilt

Theories of Emotion• Cannon Bard (Thalamic) Theory

– The physiology and the emotion are separate events occurring independently

– The autonomic nervous system reacts essentially the same to all emotions

– Based upon surgical experiments in animals and brain injured parients

– Fedback from vcera to the brain prevented, but normal emotional reactions.

Physiological specificity• James Lange – each emotion has

corresponding physiological changes– Not possible – not enough pathways

• Cannon bard – each emotion independent of physiological reaction – Not true – some different emotions associated

with different physiological changes • fear - adrenaline• Anger mixed adrenaline / noradrenalin

Theories of Emotion• Schachter & Singer – Two-factor Theory /

Cognitive Labelling Theory– Emotion = physiological arousal + cognition

(conscious understanding of the arousal)– We cognitively assess an emotion and its

accompanying physiological state and label different emotions according to the likely stimulus

– Bridge experiment – Dutton & Aron (1974, 1989)– Men rated female interviewer as more attractive

when interviewed on a suspension bridge– Arousal / fear interpreted as sexual feelings

Theories of emotion • Lazarus - Appraisal Theory

– Attribution theory important determinant of how things are appraised and likely outcome

– Appraisal or meaning of event which leads to emotion

– Some cognitive processing precedes any affective reaction…unconscious??

Reflections..

‘The emotional revolution’• Shift in the focus of psychological theory

– Behavioural – Cognitive – Emotions

– Emotions are critical for motivation and self-regulation

Evolutionary development of the brain

Brain evolution and function

• Reptile brain– Survival – better safe than sorry

• Mammalian brain– Reward systems (motivational / Drive)

• Primate brain – Social / affiliative emotions

Emotional regulation systems

• http://www.helpguide.org/toolkit/shore_video.htm

• Interview with Allan Schore

Shame and social- afflictive emotions

• Shame as important self regulatory emotion

• Important in moral development and regulates affiliation to the group

• Begin to show signs in toddlerhood– Self awareness– Understanding of set of standards – Falling short or not meeting standards.

Clinical Applications; Emotional Regulation

• Complex process that involves the initiating, inhibiting, or modulating emotion- related cognitions, physiological processes and behaviour

• Emotional Dysregulation (ED)– A poorly modulated emotional response that doesn’t fall

within the conventionally accepted range of emotive response. E.g. mood swings.

– Can lead to behavioural problems that interfere with a persons social interactions and relationships at home/school/work.

Clinical Applications; Emotional Regulation

• Characteristic of psychiatric disorders such as bipolar, PD and PTSD. Also found among those with autism spectrum disorders.

• Borderline Personality Disorder– Very unpredictable and rapid emotional shifts– Unable to ‘apply the breaks’ when the intensity of

emotions flare up in certain situations, may cause them to act before considering the consequences

• impulsive spending, excessive binge eating, suicidal behaviour.

A few references…

• Depue, R. & Morrone J. (2004). Neurobehavioral foundation of affiliative bonding: Implications for a human trait of affiliation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

• Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain, Sue Gerhardt

• Allan Schore’s work - www.allanschore.com