Personality and Mental Health, 3B Flashcards
Diathesis-Stress Models
Diathesis refers to an inherent vulnerability to develop an illness, while stress increases the risk of developing an illness.
According to Haslam (2007), there are many potential relationships between diathesis and risk levels, and the effects of diathesis and stress are unlikely to be simply additive.
Identifying Personality Diatheses is difficult due to several reasons:
There could be several diatheses per disorder.
There may be protective factors involved.
Diatheses may be differentially sensitive to certain types of congruent stressors.
Personality Diatheses for Depression
Vulnerability to depression can be influenced by various diatheses, including female gender, having a relative with depression, experiencing the death of a parent in childhood, and lacking social support.
The most extensively researched personality diatheses for depression, according to Haslam (2007), are high autonomy, high dependency, self-critical personality style, and pessimistic explanatory style.
Reactive stressors that can contribute to a major depressive episode include divorce, unemployment, physical illness, and others.
Major Depression Episode, as per DSM-5 criteria, involves symptoms such as prolonged depressed mood, loss of interest and pleasure, changes in weight or appetite, sleep difficulties, agitated or slowed behavior, fatigue or loss of energy, reduced concentration, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, and thoughts of death or suicide.
Personality Diathesis and Predicted Domain-Congruent Stressors (SVH)
High autonomy: characterized by “compulsive self-reliance” and an aversion to being controlled by or dependent on others.
Self-critical personality style: individuals with unreasonably high self-standards and prone to punishing self-evaluations.
Pessimistic explanatory style: tendency to explain negative events according to stable and global causes, feeling unable to avoid negative events.
High dependency: characterized by an “anxious attachment,” with an exaggerated need for others’ guidance, nurturance, and approval, along with fears of separation and abandonment.
Predicted Domain-Congruent Stressors (SVH):
Indicators of personal failure: e.g., poor exam performance, failure to get a promotion.
Negative life events attributed to personal responsibility: e.g., accidents or mistakes.
Negative life events attributed to stable/global causes: e.g., failure.
Events related to interpersonal conflict, loss, rejection, and separation: e.g., relationship break-up.
Specific Vulnerability Hypothesis (SVH) and Inconsistencies
Abela et al. (2012) findings on the SVH:
Mixed results in tests of the SVH.
Three possible causes of inconsistencies:
Little focus on other risk and protective factors, such as self-esteem.
Excessive focus on individual stress level relative to the group.
Differences in interpretation of stressful events and potential spill-over effects.
Analyses by Abela et al. (2012):
Examining the ability of dependency and self-criticism to predict depression.
Assessing the effect of increased total stress, not just congruence.
Investigating the role of self-esteem as a protective factor.
Findings from Abela et al. (2012):
No evidence that self-criticism acts as a diathesis for depression.
Diathesis-stress effects apparent for dependency.
Dependency acts as a diathesis but is buffered by the protective effects of self-esteem.
Schizotypy and its Associations
Schizotypy refers to a personality organization characterized by traits and behaviors that resemble, but fall short of, the clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Kwapil et al. (2013) conducted a study with 534 undergraduates using the Wisconsin Schizotypy Scales. A 10-year follow-up with 508 participants revealed associations between different dimensions of schizotypy and various outcomes.
Positive schizotypy, characterized by traits like perceptual aberration and magical ideation, was associated with mood disorders, substance abuse, and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
Negative schizotypy, characterized by physical and social anhedonia, was associated with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, schizoid traits, and lower relationship closeness.
Specific Vulnerabilities in Schizotypy
Haslam (2009) proposed specific vulnerabilities associated with different dimensions of schizotypy.
Positive schizotypy was linked to a chaotic environment, which increased the risk of developing schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
Negative schizotypy was associated with birth complications, which also increased the risk of developing schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
Schizotypy, Psychosis, and Creativity
Schizotypy has been linked to both psychosis and creativity.
In schizophrenia, “overinclusive” thinking refers to thought and speech containing illogically connected ideas.
In the context of creativity, “bisociation” refers to the ability to think in wide associative patterns, where seemingly unrelated concepts or ideas are brought together. Comedians, for example, often train their brains to think in such patterns for joke writing.
Schizotypy in Comedians and Actors
Ando, Claridge, and Clark (2014) conducted a study comparing schizotypy levels in comedians (N=523) and actors (N=364) with normal control groups.
Both comedians and actors scored higher on most subscales of schizotypy compared to normal controls.
Comedians scored higher than actors on three subscales, suggesting that comedians may exhibit even higher levels of schizotypy traits than actors.
Schizotypy in Poets
Mason, Hort, and Woo (2015) conducted an online recruitment study with 294 poets and compared their schizotypy levels with existing normal control groups.
The study found that 18.37% of the poets met the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder, which is significantly higher than the general population prevalence of 3.7%.
The highest levels of schizotypy were observed in “avant-garde” poets, indicating a potential association between schizotypy and unconventional or experimental artistic expression in the poetic domain.
