Personality

By

Dr. Sawza Hameed

 Introduction
• Personality is a mirror of what you do and say.
Essentially, your personality defines, who are you. Your
behavior reflects your personality and informs how
different you are from others.
• Personality is a dynamic organization, inside the person,
of psychophysical systems that create the person’s
characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and
behaviors.” The continuities, consistencies and stabilities
of personality traits and dispositions over time define
personality development (Larsen & Buss, 2008).
Factor affecting personality
• 1. Hereditary factors: (may be assumed as biological and
physiological factors).
• Physiological factors :
Such as Height, weight, physical defects, health and strength
affect personality and contribute to personality development
do so as a result of interactions with the particular social
environment in which people live.
• Biological factors: working of the nervous system, glands, and
blood chemistry that determines our characteristics and
habitual modes of behaviour . Adrenal gland, thyroid gland,
pituitary gland and endocrine gland affect personality
• Intelligence is mainly hereditary. Persons who are very
intelligent can make better adjustment in home, school, and
society than who are less intelligent.
• Sex differences play a vital role in the development of
personality of individual.
• Boys are generally more assertive and vigorous. Girls are
quieter and more injured by personal, emotional and social
problems.
2. Psychological factors
• Our motives, acquired interests, our attitudes, our will and
character, our intellectual capacities such as intelligence, for
examples, the ability to perceive, to observe, to imagine, to
think and to reason. These factors determine our reactions in
various situations and thus affect our personality, growth and
direction. An individual with a considerable amount of will
power will be able to make decisions more quickly than
others
3. Environment
• i. Physical Environment: climate condition
• ii. Social Environment: child learns and their personality
developed from their social environment.
• iii. Family Environment: the family can be described as a
network of interdependent relationships where each member
influencing the behavior of the other, in direct and indirect
ways. Within this network, the children themselves have a
significant influence. the child learns language, skills, social
and moral values of their culture . Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
described learning as the construction of knowledge within a
social context and development could not be separated from
its social context. The type of training and early childhood
experiences received from the family play
Cultural Environment

• Cultural Environment: it refers to certain cultural

traditions, ideas, and values which are accepted in a
particular society. For example.
• School Environment: School play an important role in
molding the personality.
• Language: Human being have a distinctive characteristic
of communication through languge.
•
Theories of personlity
Psychoanalytical theory
• Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and
actions to unconscious motives and conflicts, Instinctual
drives ; the techniques used in treating disorders by
exposing and interpreting unconscious tensions.

• Personality development depends on the interplay of

instinct and environment during the first five years of life.
• Environmental and parental experiences during childhood
influence an individual's personality during adulthood.

• For example, during the first two years of life, the infant
who is neglected (insufficiently fed) or who is over-
protected (over-fed) might become an orally-fixated
person (Freud, 1905).
The Socio-Psychological theory
• Is the contribution of Adler, Horney, Forman and Sullivan.
This theory is also called as Neo-Freudian Theory because it
differs from the Freud’s psychoanalytic theory in the following
respects:
• According to this theory, the social variables and not the
biological instincts, are the important determinants in shaping
the individual’s personality.
• Here, the motivation is conscious, i.e. an individual knows
what are his needs and wants and what kind of behavior is
required to meet these needs.
• Thus, the theorists believe that socio-psychological
factors, i.e. the combination of both the social (family,
society, wealth, religion) and the psychological factors
(feelings, thoughts, beliefs) play an important role in
shaping the personality of an individual.
• It is the society from where the individual inculcates the
cultural values and the social norms, which helps him in
shaping his personality and influences his behavior
according to the external situations.
 Allport’s Trait Theory:
• Allport’s Trait Theory: This theory is given by Gordon
Allport. According to him, the personality of an
individual can be studied through a distinction between
the common traits and the personal dispositions.
personal dispositions are
unique and are classified as
follows:
• Cardinal Traits: The cardinal traits are powerful, and
few people possess personality dominated by a single
trait. Such as Mother Teressa’s altruism.
• Central Traits: These traits are the general
characteristics possessed by many individuals in the
varying degrees. Such as loyalty, friendliness,
agreeableness, kindness, etc.
• Secondary Trait: The secondary traits show why at
times, a person behaves differently than his usual
behavior. Such as a jolly person may get miserable when
people try to tease him.
 Self Theory
The Self Theory emphasizes on the set of
perceptions an individual has for himself
and the perceptions of the relationships he
has with others and the other aspects of
life.
 Personality disorder
• Personality disorder: Impairments in personality
(self and interpersonal) To diagnose a personality
disorder, the following criteria must be met:
A.Significant impairments in self (identity or self-
direction) and interpersonal (empathy or intimacy)
functioning.
B. One or more pathological personality trait
domains or trait facets.
• The impairments are relatively stable across time
and situations.

• D. The impairments are not better understood as

normative for the individual‟s developmental
stage or sociocultural environment.

• E. The impairments are not due to the direct

physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug
of abuse, medication) or a general medical
condition (e.g., severe head trauma).
Type of personality disorder according to dsm4:

• personality disorder classified to three clusters

(A, B, C) with 10 types of personality disorders.

• Cluster A (odd, suspicious) : include (Paranoid ,

Schizoid, Schizotypal) (suspicious, odd).
Cluster B: include (Antisocial, Histrionic,
Borderline, and Narcissistic).
Cluster C:( avoidant, dependent, OCDP).
Paranoid personality disorder:

• A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness

• Suspects others are exploiting .
• Preoccupied with unjustified doubts of loyalty
• Reads hidden demeaning meanings into benign
remarks
• Perceives attacks on his character
• Recurrent suspicions regarding fidelity of spouse
or sexual partner
•
Schizoid personality disorder:

• Pervasive pattern of detachment from social

relationships and restricted expression of emotion with 4
or more the following:
• no enjoys in close relationships
• Almost chooses solitary activities
• Little interest in sexual experiences
• Lacks close friends other than first-degree relatives
• Appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others
• coldness or flattened affect
shizotypal personality disorder.

A pervasive pattern of social detachment as well as cognitive or

perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior with 5 or
more of the following:

• Ideas of reference
• Odd beliefs or magical thinking
• Unusual perceptual experiences including bodily illusions.
• Odd thinking and speech
• Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
• Inappropriate or constricted affect
• Behavior or appearance that is odd or eccentric
• Lack of close friends other than first-degree relatives
• Excessive social anxiety that does not diminish with familiarity
Cluster (B) Personality
disorder
• Anti-social personality disorder.
• Borderline personality disorder.
• Histrionic personality disorder.
• Narcisstic personality diosrder.
• anti-socail personality disorder (diagnostic criteria):
• Age at least 18.
• Evidence of conduct disorder before age 15.
• Pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others since the
age of 15 as shown by at least three of the following:
• 1. Repeated law breaking
• 2. Deceitfulness, lying
• 3. Impulsivity
• 4. Irritability and aggressiveness
• 5. Reckless disregard for own safety and that of others
• 6. Irresponsibility (in employment or financial history).
• 7. Lack of remorse
Course of antisocial PD
• Evidence of conduct disorder before age 15
• Much more common in men than women.
• Comorbid substance use very common.
• Etiology
• Genetics
• Antisocial behavior heritable (40-50%)
• Genetic risk for APD, psychopathy, conduct disorder, and
substance abuse related
• Family environment
• Lack of warmth, high negativity, and parental inconsistency
predict APD
• Poverty, exposure to violence
• Family environment interacts with genetics.
• Fearlessness
• Lack of fear or anxiety
• Low baseline levels of skin conductance; less reactive
to aversive stimuli
• Impulsivity
• Lack of response to threat when pursuing rewards.
• Deficits in empathy
• Not in tune with the emotional
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
(diagnostic criteria)

• Presence of five or more of the following in many

contexts beginning in early adulthood:
• Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment
• Unstable interpersonal relationships
• Unstable sense of self.
• Self-damaging, impulsive behaviors in at least two
areas, such as spending, sex, substance abuse.
• Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or self-injurious
behavior (e.g., cutting self)
• Chronic feelings of emptiness
• poorly controlled anger
• During stress, a tendency to experience transient
paranoid thoughts and dissociative symptoms
Etiology of borderline

• Genetic cause
• Highly heritable (60%)
• Decreased functioning of serotonin system.
• Parental separation.
• verbal and emotional abuse during childhood.
• Family invalidates or discounts emotional experiences
and expression.
•
Histrionic Personality Disorder

• Presence of five or more of the following signs of

excessive emotionality and attention seeking shown in
many contexts by early adulthood:
• Strong need to be the center of attention
• Inappropriate sexually seductive behavior
• Rapidly shifting expression of emotions
• Use of physical appearance to draw attention to self
• Speech that is excessively impressionistic.
• Exaggerated emotional expression
Narcissistic Personality Disorder

• Presence of five or more of the following shown

by early adulthood in many contexts:
• Grandiose view
• Preoccupation with one’s success, beauty
• Extreme need for admiration
• Tendency to exploit others
• Lack of empathy
• Envious of others
• Arrogant behavior or attitudes
• Etiology: A. Kohut’s Self-Psychology Model
• Parental emotional coldness and overemphasis on
child’s achievements.
• Social cognitive model:
• Narcissist has low self-esteem
• Interpersonal relationships are a way to bolster sagging self-
esteem rather than increase closeness to others.
• Cognitive bias
Anxious/Fearful Cluster:

• Avoidant Personality Disorder

• Dependent Personality Disorder.
• Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
Avoidant Personality Disorder

• A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of

inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to criticism as shown by
four or more of the following starting in early adulthood
in many contexts:
• fears of criticism or disapproval
• Unwilling to get involved with unfamiliar people
• Restrained in intimate relationships because of the fear of being
shamed or ridiculed
• Preoccupation with being criticized or rejected
• Avoid interpersonal relation due feelings of inadequacy
• Views self as socially inept or inferior
Dependent Personality Disorder

• An excessive need to be taken care of, as shown by the

presence of at least five of the following beginning in early
adulthood and shown in many contexts:
• Difficulty making decisions alone
• Need for others to take responsibility.
• Difficulty disagreeing with others for fear of losing their
support.
• Difficulty doing things on own because of lack of self-
confidence
• Doing unpleasant things as a way to obtain the approval
and support of others
• Feelings of helplessness when alone.
• Urgently seeking new relationship when one ends
• fears from take care of self
D Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

• Intense need for order and control, as shown by the

presence of at least four of the following beginning by
early adulthood and evidenced in many contexts:
• Extreme perfectionism interferes with task completion
• Inflexibility about morals and values
• Difficulty discarding worthless items
• Reluctance to delegate unless others conform to one’s
standards
• Miserliness
• Rigidity and stubbornness