personality Flashcards
(69 cards)
1
Q
what is a personality trait
A
- dimension of personality used to categorise people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic
2
Q
how are personality traits consistent?
A
- consistent pattern in the way an individual behaves, feels and thinks
- consistent across situations and over time
3
Q
what are the scientific functions of sleep
A
1) used as a descriptor for what a person is typically like
2) predictor of different types of behaviour such as ability to perform a certain job
3) explanation of why a person behaves in a certain way
4
Q
A
4
Q
are traits dimensional or categorical?
A
dimensional
5
Q
what is a surface trait?
A
characteristics or attributes that can be inferred from observable behaviour
6
Q
what is a source trait?
A
most fundamental aspect of personality; broad, basic traits that are thought to be universal and few in number
7
Q
how were traits identified? Galton - Allport - Cattel
A
Galton
- used lexical hypothesis
- found 1000 words expressive of character in dictionary
Allport
- listed all trait words in 1925 editions of Webster Dictionary
- 4504 words for traits
Cattel
- used factor analysis to see which traits clustered together
- 16 basic components of personality
- similar results across cultures and age groups
8
Q
what did Eysenck do?
A
- focused on biological underpinnings of traits
- used secondary factor analysis to identify higher and lower order traits
- found psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism
9
Q
what is the big 5
A
- consensus organisation of traits - 5 broad bipolar dimensions
- Fiske (1949) reanalysed Cattel data - found 5 instead of 16 factors
- Tupes and Christal reported 5 factors in a trait word analysis in 8 different samples
- Norman reproduced same 5 factor structure using peer ratings
Digman and Takenoto-Chcok- further analysis confirmed Norman’s 5 factor solution
10
Q
how are the 5 factors split into facets?
A
extraversion - gregariousness, activity levels, assertiveness, excitement seeking, positive emotions, warmth
agreeableness - straightforward, trust, altruism, modesty, tendermindedness, compliance
conscientiousness - self discipline, dutifulness, competence, order, deliberation, achievement striving
neuroticism - anxiety, self conscientiousness, depression, vulnerability, impulsiveness, angry hostility
openness - fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, ideas, actions, values
-
11
Q
what are the big 2
A
- neuroticism + agreeableness + conscientiousness makes stability
- extraversion + openness makes plasticity
stability = need to maintain a stable psychosocial organisation to achieve various goals
plasticity = need to incorporate novel info into that organisation as the situation of the individual changes both internally and externally
12
Q
extraversion
A
low scores = self-contained, quiet
high scores = smile, laugh, competitive, ambitious
13
Q
neuroticism
A
low scores = not anxious, dont worry
high scores = anxious, sad, worried
14
Q
conscientiousness
A
low scores = late, change plans
high scores = stick to routine, self-discipline, punctual
15
Q
agreeableness
A
low scores = fight with others, dont care what others think
high scores = attend to needs of others
16
Q
openness
A
low scores = literal, concrete, orthodox views
high scores = metaphorical, prefer arts, unusual beliefs
17
Q
how is extraversion linked to reward?
A
the gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory linked extraversion to reward
- subsequent theorists, Depue, forwarded the reward-processing view of extraversion
- both theories center around the midbrain dopamine system
18
Q
what is intra-cranial self-stimulation?
A
- biological root of reward
- electrode is place on the brain of a rat when a button is pressed the brain is stimulated for a release of dopamine
- rat will sit and press buttons repeatedly
- dopamine is involved in this reward
- cocaine has a similar effect on humans due to inducing a similar dopamine release
19
Q
what structures are included in the reward processing pathways?
A
the mesolimbic pathway
- starts in vental tegmental area (VTA) and is connected to the nucleus accumbens
the mesocortical pathway
- starts in VTA to cerebral cortex and frontal lobe
20
Q
how does dopamine mediate reward?
A
dopamine is released before pleasure during anticipation
21
Q
is there individual differences in response to the reward system?
A
the nucleus accumbens is more active for large rewards than small rewards. study measured how happy someone was with the reward in comparison to the activation of their n.accumbens
happiness correlated with amount of activation seen
22
Q
how is extraversion linked to the reward system?
A
- study looked at whether anticipation would cause a greater activity in dopamine areas of the brain reward system
- participants shown monetary reward cue, then left to anticipate, then shown a target and had to press a button in a certain timeframe. they would then be left to fixate and then told the outcome and how much they would be rewarded
- when participants were anticipating large monetary gains their left nucleus accumbens activity correlated significantly with the trait of positive arousal
23
Q
the medial orbitofrontal cortex and extraversion
A
a key cortical component of the reward system and normal variation in extraversion
there are correlations of extraversion and volume in the OFC and amygdala
24
the amygdala
- associated with the experience of fear, anxiety, aggression and emotion
- important for processing emotional memories and decision-making
- patient SM didnt experience fear due to rare genetic condition which resulted in complete bilateral amygdala destruction
25
how is overactivation of the amygdala linked to neuroticism?
findings suggest close relationship between psychiatric symptoms and an exaggerated amygdala response to emotional material
amygdala activation is positively correlated to self-reported anxiety and PTSD severity.
we know that high neuroticism levels can increase risk of mental disorders however can we be certain that this connects neuroticism to the amygdala?
26
what are the types of personality measures?
explicit self-rating measures
- self-description using personality questionnaire
behavioural
- spontaneous behaviour in a particular situation
performance
- how long can you sit with a spider crawling up your arm - measure of neuroticism
implicit measures
sensation seeking
- scale for 4 primary scales
--> disinhibition
--> boredom susceptibility
--> thrill and adventure seeking
--> experience seeking
27
what are the 6 facets if conscientiousness?
self-discipline
dutifulness
competence
order
deliberation
achievement stiving
28
what are the 6 facets of agreeableness?
straightforwardness
trust
altruism
modesty
tendermindedness
compliance
29
agreeableness, conscientiousness and antisocial behaviour
- these are twin checks against antisocial behaviour
- C = better at thinking and deliberating
- A = attend to the suffering of others
- in a prison population scores are lower for both A and c
30
what are some correlates for agreeableness and conscientiousness?
1) addiction appears to be highly comorbid with conscientiousness but not agreeableness
2) high agreeableness predicts harmonious relationships and social support
3) conscientiousness predicts job performance, academic performance and physical health but not agreeableness
31
predicting athletic performance using the 5 factor model study
- athletes complete a bipolar adjective 5 factor measure
- coaches rated several performance dimensions
- game stats collated
- regression analyses indicated that the personality dimensions of neuroticism and conscientiousness explained approx. 23% of variance in coaches scores
- conscientiousness was sole predictor of actual game states explaining 8% of variance
32
correlates of conscientiousness
- healthy behaviours
- increased life expectancy
- strict moral principles
- perfectionism
- adherence to rules
- fewer short-term mating episodes
- decreased fitness
33
what are the correlates of agreeableness?
- harmonious relationships
- mentalising abilities
- avoid conflict
- excessive attention to the needs of others
- excessive trust in people
- negatively associated with pay/creative accomplishment
- decreased fitness
34
the frontal lobe as neurobiological mechanism of conscientiousness
- low conscientiousness - self-discipline facet - following traumatic brain injury to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- in a health brain during the go/no go task areas of the right frontal cortex became significantly more active on No Go trial than Go trials
- however this area of the brain is also linked to working memory and IQ an therefore must ensure that the neural substrate for conscientiousness is distinct from neural substrate of working memory and intelligence
35
how was the multicomponent behaviour task used to measure conscientiousness?
- forced participants to either use an inefficient behaviour or use top-down behaviour
- the strategy which the individual chose would relate to conscientiousness
- highly conscientious people showed a more effective processing strategy
- more flexible in adjusting their priorities of goals
- prioritising goals effectively may explain why conscientious people appear to be good at resisting distraction and disruptive impulses
36
conscientiousness and the goal priority network
there is a significant correlation
goal priority network comprised of the anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
37
what are the neurobiological mechanisms of agreeableness
- theory of mind
- attention to mental state of others key variable/correlate of agreeableness
- a poor theory of mind suggests that a person struggles to understand another's actions and/or intentions
38
what are the two tests for theory of mind
perceptual ToM
- 'reading the mind in the eyes' test
- lacks a correlation with agreeableness
cognitive ToM
- Stiller-Dunbar story
- person given a scenario and asked comprehension questions about it
- measured how well people perform depending on their memory abilities
- also predicted social network size
- good correlation with agreeableness
39
can theory of mind performance account for individual differences in IQ?
yes
40
how can theory of mind manipulate honesty?
- the ability to lie associated with advanced theory of mind abilities
- involved the triangle task - triangles either displayed random movement or social movement - asked to describe this movement
- activation of the default network measured using fMRI
- default network activation in the dorsal medial subsystem greater for social versus random movement
- default network activation in response to social animations predicted better performance in social cognition tasks and higher agreeableness
41
what is empathy?
sharing emotions and feeling states of another individual, whilst explicitly knowing that the feeling originates from the other
42
what is compassion?
feelings of warmth and concern in response to another's suffering along with the motivation to help
43
how is empathy different to compassion?
- empathy is a self-related emotion often related to negative emotions, withdrawal and non-social behaviour
- compassion is other-related emotion often linked to positive emotions and prosocial behaviour
- empathy = activity in the insula and anterior cingulate cortex when perceiving another's pain
- compassion = activity in the orbital frontal cortex and striatum
44
How is empathy not related to theory of mind abilities
- aggressive criminal offenders show empathy deficits without changes to their theory of mind
45
could personality be heritable?
- twin studies suggest personality could be heritable
- estimate of a 40% range common when resemblance compared between MZ and DZ twins
46
what approach was proposed to find which genes where important for each factor trait
- candidate gene approach
- suggested if you can measure the molecule which is responsible for the personality trait then you can measure the heritability of the personality
47
dopamine and responsiveness of mid brain reward systems and extraversion
- is variation in the DRD4 dopamine receptor gene associated with novelty seeking and extraversion?
- this gene is polymorphic so appears in several forms with the 3 most common variants being DRD4 2R, DRD4 4R, DRD4 7R
- DRD4 7R has dopamine receptors having less affinity for dopamine binding
- people with this version have higher novelty seeking than others
- with this version, a person is more likely to report extra-relationship sexual experiences and promiscuous sexual experiences
-these traits could link to higher extraversion
48
serotonin, responsiveness of the distress system and neuroticism
- the serotonin transporter gene terminates the action of serotonin by facilitating its reuptake
- a polymorphism in the promoter region of the 5HTT gene = 5-HTTLPR and comes in a short and long version as an allele
- the short allele appears to be associated with decreased serotonergic function
- when a person is short/long or short/short they score higher on neuroticism scales than a long/long person
- accounts for 3-4% of total variance in anxiety- related personality traits of individuals
49
what is the genome-wide association studies approach
- due to lack of replication of candidate gene approach studies
- so instead set markers across whole genome to find all variants associated with phenotype of interest
- exploratory and needs a larger sample to gain statistical power required
50
genome-wide association studies and missing heritability
- found some associations but usually isnt replicated across studies
- also twins may not be as identical as first thought due to genetic mutations seen as early as the first stages of development
- may have led to overestimations
- multiple genes may have small individual affects that contribute to the same given gene but a single gene may only predict a small amount of variance
51
what is the epigenome?
a secondary layer of biochemical info which modifies or marks the genome in a way which alters the instructions given by DNA
- epigenetic factors which may not be part of the DNA can influence which genes are turned on and off at certain times and places in the body
- these can be altered by the environment
- these subsequent changes can also be past generation to generation
52
how can early experiences and personality influence variation?
- individual differences in sex and relationship behaviours
- is early and promiscuous sexuality an adaptive response to certain types of early experience
- harsh developmental context predicts stimulation of:
--> earlier pubertal maturation and initiation of sexual activity
--> short-term and unstable pair bonds
--> limited parental investment
53
childhood experience and age of first pregnancy
- study of 3000 women
- 4 measures of parental investment/stability in first 7 yrs = being breastfed, longest separation from mother, father's role and residential moves
- more adversities = earlier first pregnancy
- those breastfed longer older at first pregnancy
- a longer separation from mother meant earlier first pregnancy
- more adversities = younger first preg
54
menarche and sexual behaviour in one-parent households
- onset of these behaviours earlier in girls of one-parent household and a larger number of sexual partners
55
puberty predictions and childhood adversity
- maltreated girls reached pubertal maturity 8 months earlier
- harsh parenting at 4.5yrs predicted earlier menache and greater sexual risk-taking in adolescence
56
what are some traits of openness?
- rich vocab
- vivid imagination
- quick to understand
- spend time reflecting
- importance of art
57
how do openness and extraversion link together
- both reflect a general tendency towards exploration
- extraversion = behavioural exploration and sensitivity to reward
- openness = cognitive exploration
58
how are openness and intellect similar but different?
openness = the cognitive engagement with perceptual and sensory info - artistic and aesthetic interests which lead to detection of spatial and temporal correlation pattern in sensory and perception info
intellect = cognitive engagement with abstract or sematic info and ideas through reasoning leading to detection of logical or causal patterns in abstract and sematic information
59
what are some other correlates for openness?
- divergent thinking and trait creativity
- paranormal beliefs
- DSM-5 psychoticism and with symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder
- unusual experiences and magical thinking
60
creativity and pathology
- no genius has ever existed without a strain of madness
- santosa et al 2007 - compared performance on the Barron-Welsh art scale
- participant groups = unipolar depression, bipolar depression, creative healthy control, non-creative healthy controls
- individuals with bipolar and creative controls scored significantly higher than unipolar disorder and non-creative controls
61
kyaga et al study into creativity and psychiatric disorders
- is creativity associated with all psychiatric disorders or restricted to those with features of psychosis
- Diagnoses included were schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, autism, ADHD, anorexia nervosa, and completed suicide.
- individuals with creative professions were not more likely to suffer from these
- However, being an author was specifically associated with increased likelihood of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.
- In addition, there was an association between creative professions and first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa, and for siblings of autistic individuals
62
autism and creativity
- Pennisi et al 2020 explored whether there was a relationship
- systematic lit review prev 10yrs
- average creative profile of autistic people showed inhibited fluency, but high levels of detail and originality
63
what is the mad genius paradox?
- creative and psychopathology have been found to be both positively and negatively correlated with one another
- among all creative individuals the most creative are at higher risk for mental illness than are the less creative
- tiny proportion - Lotkas law - the minority produce the most
64
correlates to openness to experience
- psychoticism
- intelligence
- creativity
- mating success - nonclinical
- upward job changes
- increased paranormal beliefs
- reduced reproductive success - clinical
- depression
65
what is latent inhibition?
- familiar stimulus takes longer to obtain meaning than a new stimulus
- reduced latent inhibition associated with schizophrenia in psychotic-prone individuals
- increase in openness
- increased creative achievement in high IQ individuals
66
creativity and latent inhibition
- participants exposed to 4 assessment tools: creativity achievement questionnaire, divergent thinking tasks, and creative personality scale, latent inhibition paradigm
- Pre exposure phase = P listening to 30 nonsense syllables and asked to pay attention to one and record how many times they heard it (masking material). At the same time exposed to 31 random white noise bursts superimposed over the syllables (target stimuli)
- Test phase – still hear the two previous noises, also asked to watch screen where yellow disks appear, told there was a rule to the screen and asked to say when they figured out what the rule was, disk appeared when the white noise played. Then had to raise hand every time the white noise played
Group 2
- Non pre-exposure phase – didn’t have the white noise playing randomly over the nonsense syllables
- Then completed the same test phase
- Those in the pre-exposed condition took longer to figure out the rule in the test condition as had learnt that the white noise was irrelevant whereas the second group had not
67
dopamine and openness to experience
- link between dopamine in exploratory/curiosity behaviour
- biological underpinnings of latent inhibition associated with increased dopaminergic activity
- treatments for schizophrenia mostly involve blockade of dopamine receptors
68
neurobiological underpinnings of openness
- suggested extraversion is linked to the value coding dopaminergic system
- DeYoung proposed openness is linked to dopaminergic neurones which:
--> code for salience
--> are activated by both positive and negative information
--> innervate different brain regions than the value-coding dopaminergic neurone
