L2 - traits and stories

Question 1

what are traits? for what are they used

Answer 1

words in natural language used to describe individual characteristics

Question 2

Lexical hypothesis

Answer 2

1. those personality characteristics that are important to a group of people will eventually become a part of that group’s language
2. more important personality characteristics are more likely to be encoded into language in many words
3. PCA of the covariance structure of traits can be used to extract the most important aspects or variation in a population

Question 3

If you do principal component analysis you get covariance of traits, explain what this means

Answer 3

you see that a number of components or big groupings of words covary together

e.g., needy, nervous, irritable and moody

Question 4

method for studying covariance patterns (3)

Answer 4

1. take a large list of trait words in a language (from dictionaries)
2. use a method to derive principle components on these traits
3. arrive at a factor structure of 5 to 7

Question 5

explain how principal component analysis reveals bigger and broader groups of traits

Answer 5

• By looking at traits in a continuous spectrum (no abnormal vs normal)
• There’s a degree of stability that can be observed in large populations
• These are stable over time as well

e.g., you get covariance of needy. nervous, irritable, by analyzing these further you’d get OCEA traits –> then AMPD traits and then HiTOP groups

Question 6

So we have an observable pattern over time, what are some remaining questions?

Answer 6

• why do we so often find these 5-7 principal components in lexical studies across the world?
• what is the reason for covariance between specific traits?
• why do we find persistence? - consistency across time
• why do we find pervasiveness? - consistency over situations

Question 7

name 4 different interpretations of covariance structures (aka answers to the remaining questions)

these are not mutually exclusive

Answer 7

1. trait realism
2. situationism
3. network stability
4. stability in the performance of an actor

Question 8

trait realism + interpretation of Tellegen’s quote

Answer 8

explains the emergence of stable (persistent) traits
- personality traits seen as real, organismic (psychological, psychobiological structure) stable characteristics
- a trait gives rise to a range of behaviors that are related or similar (e.g., extraversion underlies behaviors like being talkative, expressing excitement etc.)
- traits express themselves in specific situations where they are relevant

Question 9

trait realism: extraversion example

Answer 9

1. Extraversion is thought to be a broad trait and includes general energy, general evaluation of parties and a general tendency to converse
2. If you have the general tendency then you are more likely to feel energetic at a certain time or at a certain party, like it or have a conversation

–> So there’s an inclination for extraversion from which it follows that you’re likely to be energetic at a party, to like a party and to have a conversation at a party

Question 10

A realist trait perspective: the big three

Answer 10

multidimensional personality questionnaire developed from the basic trait realist idea

three broad personality dimensions:
1. positive emotionality
2. negative emotionality
3. constraint

the idea: these are biological predispositions that we possess (evidence kind of so and so) and they cause certain traits

Question 11

positive emotionality causes (4)

Answer 11

• well-being
• social closeness
• achievement
• social potency

Question 12

negative emotionality causes (3)

Answer 12

• stress reactivity
• alienation
• aggression

Question 13

constraint is causes (3)

Answer 13

= a person’s tendency to inhibit impulses, behave cautiously, and follow rules or social norms
* harm avoidance
* control
* traditionalism

Question 14

absorption

Answer 14

capacity to become fully immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences
- getting lost in music, art etc.
- highly imaginative

Question 15

trait realism: temperament big three infant behavior questionnaire

Answer 15

a similar multidimensional personality questionnaire akin to the big three but for infants

Three broad dimensions:
1. surgency (ap, vr, hip, sl, al, ps)
2. negative affectivity (sa, dil, fear, fr=falling reactivity -> rate of recovery from stress)
3. orienting/regulation capacity (cu, lip, do, so=soothability)

allows us to study the continuation of temperament into later personality traits
- e.g., surgency is found to be a predictor of later positive emotionality

Question 16

situationism + what to note

Answer 16

the whole idea of traits and their existence + their influence on behaviors is not tenable / defendable
-> denies the existence of traits completely

instead: At a single instance, the party (situational factor) itself is more influential than the trait (Extraversion) in determining the behavior

NOTE: we now know that across multiple instances there are observable trends (so lecturer thinks that this view is itself not tenable)

Question 17

Person or situation? (trait or situation?)

Answer 17

step 1: Evidence for situations
- people act very differently in different occasions

step 2: Evidence for persons
- people act very similar from one week to the next

answer –> step 3: both are correct
- traits are best regarded as person-specific distributions of certain states-of-mind and behaviors. Thus they indicate the likelihood of such states over a certain time-period
- these person-specific distributions are quite stable (personality)
- the specific outcomes at any particular moment vary a great deal (situationism)

Question 18

Network stability: traits upside down

Answer 18

traits develop over time into generalized networks of complex systems

1. Interactions of particular acts, feelings, thoughts
2. Give rise to covariance between them
3. Resulting in generalized patterns
4. And broad traits

Small dispositions accumulate over time and bidirectionally infuence one another -> generalized patterns

Question 19

example of network stability: extraversion

Answer 19

1. I start having conversations at a party which makes me feel energetic
2. Then this energetic feeling makes me like it
3. This in turn results into a generalized pattern of “I liked that party” that is remembered by you so you go to another party which then is enjoyable as well
4. Repeatedly experiencing that generalizes into other situations as well –> emergence of stable pattern

Question 20

stability in the performance of the actor

Answer 20

The cycle between actions and perceived reactions of others + own self-judgement determine stable character of an actor
The interactions themselves = influenced partly by genetic predispositions

Question 21

verhalenbank goals (6)

Answer 21

• creating a scietific database of interviews on experiences of mental health and mental health care
• developing new methods for analyzing these narratives
• initiate possibilities for improving mental health care
• creating educational material for students in mental health care
• working against taboo and stigma
• offering comofrt, strength and inspiration to fellow patients

Question 22

example of coding narratives: agency and communion

Answer 22

Agency:
existence of an organism as an individual

Communion:
participation of the individual in some larger organism of which the individual is a part of

these 2 are part of the agent and later, the author

Question 23

agency manifests itself in (8)

Answer 23

• self-protection
• self-assertion
• self-expansion
• formation of separations
• isolation
• alienation
• aloneness
• urge to master

Question 24

communion manifests itself in (6)

Answer 24

• sense of being at one with other organisms
• lack of separations
• contact
• openness
• union
• noncontractual cooperation

Question 25

agency and communion correlation with OCEAN traits

Answer 25

agency: * extraversion * conscientiousness communion: * agreeableness

Question 26

agentic values in life stories (4)

Answer 26

* self-mastery * status/victory * empowerment * achievenement/responsibility

Question 27

communal values in life stories (4)

Answer 27

* love/friendship * dialogue * unity/togetherness * caring/help

Question 28

In Naomi's narrative how do communal themes come up, what agentic ones?

Answer 28

agentic themes: "I learnt to be vulnerable, that my emotions are allowed to be there and how I can connect with others" from increasing communal themes, Naomi also improved on agentic ones (she found it important for herself to connect with others) we refer to these as themes because you develop to look for agency and communion they are not a predisposing character trait

Question 29

what constitutes the core of personality psychopathology?

Answer 29

disturbances in self (agency) and interpersonal functioning (communion) disturbances in self: * identity * self-direction disturbances in communion: * empathy * intimacy --> found in the DSM-5

Question 30

motivational coding schemes

Answer 30

* agency * communion * growth goals - degree to which the protagonist makes intentional efforts to guide their development in a personally meaningful direction, oriented towards personal growth

Question 31

affective coding schemes

Answer 31

* contamination - moving from a good, affectively positive scene to a bad, affectively negative scene in which good things turn into bad outcomes * redemption - moving from a bad, affectively negative scene to a subsequent good, affectively positive scene * positive resolution - ability to come to peace with, or let go of a challenging event

Question 32

Themes of integrative meaning

Answer 32

* accomodative processing - degree to which protagonist has been forced to change their views of the self and world as a response to the environment * exploratory processing - degree to which active and engaged efforts to explore, reflect on or analyze a difficult experience with openness to learning from it and incorporating a sense of change into the life story * meaning-making - degree to which protagonist learns something or gleans a message from an event (vague meaning, no meaning, insights etc)

Question 33

Structural elements of narratives (coding themes)

Answer 33

* coherence - degree to which narrator situates characters of life story in contexts, story follows temporal sequence of goal-oriented actions which are culturally recognized * complexity - degree of engagement in the narrative processing, as shown by depth of thought and nuance, such as seeing a variety of perspectives or emotions

Question 34

research regarding these other themes

Answer 34

redemption & agency have a positive effect on short and long term wellbeing and psychoogical problems while contamination has a negative effect on long term wellbeing and psychological problems current well-being also predicts future well-being

Question 35

in therapy settings, what has been observed by Adler

Answer 35

agency and coherence increased first, from which it followed that well-being increased as well reveals some kind of mechanism of change over therapy

Question 36

qualitative analysis of narratives and other materials

Answer 36

- By just **coding schemes**, you tend to miss a lot of nuance and details or other themes **(top-down)** --> **qualitative analysis (bottom-up)** * Thematic analysis * Grounded theory * Case-wise narrative analysis * Phenomenological analysis Etc.

Question 37

example of a bottom-up analysis: making meaning of trauma in psychosis

Answer 37

interviewed people with a lot of psychosis and trauma 4 story types identified 1. psychiatry as the wrong setting to find meaning 2. the ongoing struggle to get trauma-therapy 3. exposure to trauma as a threat to a stable life 4. disclosure as the key to resolving alienation, each story type compriss a different plot, meaning of trauma within the self-story, integration and barriers and facilitators in the meaning-making process.