Lecture 14

Question 1

What is ‘temperament’ in Cloninger’s Tridimensional Model (1993)?

Answer 1

o Temperament: Biological biases in automatic responses to emotional stimuli (present throughout life)

Question 2

What is ‘character’ in Cloninger’s Tridimensional Model (1993)?

Answer 2

o Character: The way an individual understands themselves in their (social) world through insight, learning, and experience (humanistic psychology)

Question 3

What are the 4 temperament factors in Cloninger’s Tridimensional model (1993)?

Answer 3

♣ Novelty Seeking (impulsiveness, disorderliness, excitability)
♣ Harm Avoidance (anticipatory worry, fear of uncertainty, shyness)
♣ Reward Dependence (dependence, attachment, sentimentality)
♣ Persistence

Question 4

What are the 3 character factors in Cloninger’s Tridimensional model (1993)?

Answer 4

♣ Self-directedness (self-esteem, personal integrity, leadership, responsibility)
♣ Cooperativeness (morality, ethics, compassion)
♣ Self-transcendence (spirituality, religiosity)

Question 5

What is Cloninger’s Tridimensional model?

Answer 5

• Consists of 4 temperament factors and 3 character factors
  o Temperament: Biological biases in automatic responses to emotional stimuli (present throughout life)
  ♣ Moderately heritable
  ♣ Relatively stable through life
  ♣ Independent of culture or life experiences
  ♣ Functions similarly to traits in adults
  o Character: The way an individual understands themselves in their (social) world through insight, learning, and experience (humanistic psychology)
  ♣ Not (directly) biologically based
  ♣ Represents emotions, habits, goals, and abilities, formed in response to the outside world
  ♣ (Fully) develop after the development of the temperament factors
• Temperament Development of disorder (pathogenesity)
• Character Specific type of disorder expressed (pathoplasticity)

Question 6

What are the core features of all personality disorders according to Cloninger’s TCI?

Answer 6

• Low self-directedness and cooperativeness are core features of all personality disorders

Question 7

How are personality factors viewed in terms of the aetiology, development and manifestation of personality disorders?

Answer 7

• Personality factors are seen as vulnerability to the aetiology, development and manifestation of personality disorders

Question 8

What are personality disorders representative of in the personality continuum (the Eysenckian model)?

Answer 8

o Personality disorders represent one extreme end of the personality continuum (the Eysenckian model)

Question 9

What two personality traits contribute to the pathoplasticity of a disorder?

Answer 9

Extraversion and introversion

Question 10

What is the Diathesis Stress model?

Answer 10

o Diathesis Stress model
♣ Under influence of a stressor, more likely to develop a disorder (if have certain traits and intensities)
♣ Diathesis ≈ disposition

Question 11

What effect can extreme stress have on normal personality traits?

Answer 11

• Under extreme stress, normal personality traits may appear or become psychopathological
  o Certain stressors psych certain traits into such an extreme that we can develop a problem

Question 12

Do traits exist in clinical or non-clinical samples?

Answer 12

• Traits exist in both non-clinical and clinical samples (e.g. anxiety, aggression, depressivity, or impulsivity)

Question 13

What traits and/or attachment styles have the most consistent associations with personality disorders?

Answer 13

o (Elements of) neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and insecure attachment (anxiety dysregulation) styles have the most consistent associations with personality disorders

Question 14

Are biology (and heritability) the same for disordered and normal personality traits?

Answer 14

o Biology (and heritability) are the same for disordered and normal personality traits (30%-60%)

Question 15

Are the biological systems responsible for normal traits and personality disorders the same?

Answer 15

o (Exactly) the same biological systems are responsible for normal traits and personality disorders

Question 16

Describe the cross-cultural significance of traits and personality disorders

Answer 16

o Cross-cultural similarity of traits and personality disorders

Question 17

What role do personality traits play in personality disorders?

Answer 17

• Personality traits play a role in the persistence or long-term stability of personality disorders
• Personality traits (can) predict symptom profile differences and help explain heterogeneity in personality disorder expressions
  o Personality traits can influence how a disorder is expressed

Question 18

What role does personality have in response to mental illness?

Answer 18

• Personality has a direct role in determining how people respond to their mental illness
  o E.g. Willingness/resistance to seek help or follow (or resistance to) treatment

Question 19

What are the three main cognitive/behavioural dimensional differences between personality disorders and normal personality traits (Millon, 2011)?

Answer 19

1. Rigidity and inflexibility in behaviour and thought
   ♣ Inability or unwillingness to adapt (extreme end of personality)
2. Increased levels of habitual engagement with self-defeating behaviour
   ♣ Harm themselves directly/indirectly (e.g. alienating people)
3. Structural instability and fragility of the self
   ♣ Especially under stress

Question 20

What are the three ecological/evolutionary dimensions of personality differentiation?

Answer 20

o Aim of existence (the Pain-Pleasure polarity)
♣ Life preservation (pain-avoidance)
♣ Life enhancement (pleasure-seeking)
o Modes of adaptation (the Passive-Active polarity)
♣ Ecological accommodation (passive orientation)
♣ Ecological modification (active orientation)
o Strategies of replication (the Self-Other polarity)
♣ Reproductive nurturance (constructively loving others, k-strategy)
♣ Reproductive propagation (individuating and actualising self, r-strategy)

Question 21

Are the ecological/evolutionary dimensions of personality differentiation a dichotomous classification?

Answer 21

No

Question 22

How should all the dimensions exist in normal individuals?

Answer 22

• All dimensions (should) exist to a balanced degree in normal individuals
  o The way you express yourself in these dimensions shows the mental illness
  ♣ These dimensions are good but how you express them could be bad and result in abnormality

Question 23

How are the dimensions of personality differentiation explained within evolutionary adaptations?

Answer 23

o Cannot have dimension that doesn’t promote fitness
♣ E.g. Can’t have: Pain-seeking »_space; Pain-avoidance »_space; Pleasure-seeking
• “Pain-seeking” is not an adaptation for fitness