Personality exam 2

Epigenetics

On top of genes

The effect that the environment around a cell has on gene expression at a molecular level

changes chemicals AROUND DNA sequence, not DNA itself

Stem cells

No yet differentiated into a particular type of cell

Epigenetic tags

Turn genes on or off without changing the DNA itself, just the chemicals around the DNA sequence

most of the inherited epigenetic tags are lost in the early days after fertilization, but some imprinted genes remain

Epigenetics ex: identical twins

Identical twins have the same genome and epigenome, but as they age their environments and signals from the environment activate and silence different genes

• Ex. diet, physical activity, exposure to toxins, stress

gene environment correlation

genetic features impact the environment we experience

Environmental features can also change…

the hardwiring of the brain itself

• Exp. Sustained stress increases glucocorticoids (GCs), such as cortisol, that at high rates can have negative health effects. Such as negative effects (reduction in size) on the hippocampus, a brain structure crucial for learning and memory

• Exp. Being a taxi driver in London requires learning various streets and results in an increased volume of the hippocampus - associated with spatial memory

Extraverts and introverts have different…

Levels of Arousal

What system influences LOA?

ARAS - ascending reticular activation system

Regulates attention, arousal, vigilance, and sleep-wake cycles

how do extraverts and introverts differ in their ARAS activation?

Introverts are easily overstimulated, producing distress and withdrawal

extraverts require more stimulations, and thus tend to seek out more stimulating environments

• ex. they may enjoy roller coasters or parties, whereas an introvert may not

what is the OLA

optimal level of arousal for doing a task efficiently

• Having too much or too little inhibits performance

• Geen found that introverts preferred lower levels of stimulation and performed worse when exposed to high levels of stimulation as compared to extraverts, and vice versa

what is the BIS system associated with

introversion

punishment avoiding

higher activity in the right frontal area of the brain

magnifies reactions to negative events

what is the BAS system associated with

extraverts

reward seeking

higher activity in the left frontal area of the brain

magnifies reactions to positive events

BIS and BAS are on a …

continuum

and are functionally independent, everyone has some levels of both

how reward seeking or punishment avoiding you are can be represented in

differences in brain activation (use)

4 aspects of sensation seeking

measured on SSS, sensation seeking scale - self report, positively associated with OLA

• Thrill and adventure seeking

• Experience seeking

• Disinhibition

• Boredom susceptibility

Individuals low on SSS get more stressed when closely confined with another person

Characteristics of high sensation seekers

• Risk taking behaviors - varied sexual experiences, drug use, risky driving, risky sports

• Intellectual preferences - prefer complexity, have a high tolerance for ambiguity, are more original and creative

• Interests and attitudes - liberal, permissive, nonconforming, prefer high stimulation jobs, view love more like a game

biological basis for sensation seeking

• Neurotransmitters are chemicals in the nerve cells of the brain and are crucial for transmitting nerve impulses from cell to cell across synapses

• Proper level of neurotransmitters is maintained by monoamine oxidase (MAO) which breaks down neurotransmitters after use

• Some evidence suggests that high sensation seekers are low in their MAO levels and therefore have higher neurotransmitter levels like epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, oxytocin

LINKED TO OTHER FACTORS

Hormones maintain

• Reproduction

• Metabolism and energy balance

• Growth and development

• Body defences

• General homeostasis

Purely endocrine hormones

pituitary gland - secretion of many hormones

pineal gland - melatonin

thyroid gland - metabolism

adrenal gland - kidneys, stress, blood pressure

Neurotransmitters vs hormones

Neurotransmitters live in the synaptic gap and produce shorter term effects

hormones are secreted into the blood stream and have longer lasting effects

both require receptors to do anything

what do steroid hormones have in common

• Lipid soluble - steroids are they only kind of hormones that can pass through cell membrane without a receptor

  • other hormones are water-soluble and must bind to receptors on the outside of cell membrane

• Produced from cholesterol

  • Any behaviors that influence cholesterol, influence the levels of these hormones

  • These hormones can be converted into each other also with a few reactions

    • When you change serotonin levels it also influences other neurotransmitter systems because they are affiliated 

• Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol

  • Cortisol is a type of glucocorticoid released from the adrenal glands, important in stress interactions

Testosterone associated with

High levels of testosterone are correlated with negative behaviors such as assault, going AWOL, abusing drugs, having multiple sex partners, and other issues

However, its not ALL testosterones fault, interactions between neurotransmitters, enzymes, hormones, social, and psychological factors are complicated

ex. low education

Biological assessment and change

fMRI allows researchers to trace the relations between activity at the biological level and what the person is doing, thinking, and feeling

PET scans record radioactivity in brain

risky financial decisions associated with

nucleus accumbus region of the brain

The amygdala activates more when

looking at fearful pictures

looking at novel stimuli

more blood flow to amygdala for individuals at age 22 when looking at unfamiliar faces who were inhibited (socially withdrawn) at age 2 - longitudinal study

fMRI vs PET

fMRI traces blood flow via BOLD response to identify relations between neural activity and what a person is doing, thinking, and feeling

PET scans involve injecting a radioactive tracer into the bloodstream that binds to glucose to measure metabolic activity in brain. invasive and usually not preferred unless the research question requires it

what does the amygdala do

• almond shaped

• Reacts almost immediately to danger signals, sending out behavioral, physiological, and endocrine responses to mobilize the body to fight or flee

• fear learning

• Seems to be involved with appetitive responses as well

NOT LINKED TO EXTRAVERSION

overactivity in the amygdala is associated with

inhibition and shyness

Adults who were inhibited at age 2 (shy) showed a significant higher increase in blood flow to the amygdala when presented with a novel stimulus vs those who were uninhibited at age 2

• Inhibition refers to comfort with social interaction

• Early temperamental trait associated with physiological responses

Freud assumed…

You could not count on peoples reports about themselves, you have to interpret what they say

behavior is never accidental but determined by mental motivational causes that are mostly outside of consciousness

psychoanalysis

treatment of inner conflict through dialogue between a therapist and patient

motivational determinism

behavior is never accidental; determined by mental motivational causes

Mental processes can be…

conscious - in one’s attention at a given moment

preconscious - not in ones’s attention but can easily be brought into attentions (ex. background music)

unconscious - unresponsive to deliberate efforts at recall, the main focus of Freud’s work

How can the unconscious be expressed according to Freud?

Dreams - hidden desires we are trying to avoid experiencing consciously

Free association - stereotypical image of a person on the therapists couch saying everything that comes to mind

• like TAT, no right or wrong answers

Slips of the tongue - unconscious motives

• “bald- I mean boiled egg”

criticisms of freud’s view of extracting the unconscious?

lacked evidence

room for issues with forgetting dreams or incorrectly reporting

highly subjective, based on therapists interpretations

hard to measure

Freud’s personality structure

Id: everything we inherit, life and death instincts

• pleasure principle: wants instant gratification and immediate tension reduction

• internally oriented

• unconcerned with safety and consequences, lives in fantasy

• unconscious level

Ego: in direct contact with external world, outgrowth of the id

• reality principle: making decisions according to reality, concerned with safety

• delayed gratification

• internally and externally oriented

• deals with unacceptable impulses from id and pressures from superego - mediator

• conscious and preconscious

superego: represents the morals and standards attained during development of personality

• internalizes parental rules

• strives for perfection

• on all levels of consciousness

main criticism of freuds personality structure?

too deterministic and hard to measure

biological relevance of freuds personality structure?

Amygdala - Id: intense emotional reactions, especially fearful and appetitive impulses

• ex. when you encounter something you fear you don’t care about having an “appropriate reaction”, you just want it to stop

Prefrontal cortex - ego: cool, rational thinking, and executive functions, can shut down inappropriate behaviors

Moral emotions - superego: guilt, empathy, shame, affection

• ex. even if nobody sees you steal, you may still feel bad about it

dynamics

the continuous interaction and conflicts between id, ego, and superego

conflicts lead to … which is reduced via…

anxiety, defense mechanisms

defense mechanisms

aim to reduce anxiety in response to conflict

denial and repression are most common

denial

mostly when one cannot escape or attack, happens early on

repression

type of denial, inhibition of impulses

forgetting upsetting / threatening memories

hysterica anesthesia

“loss of sensation” in a body part as a way of diverting impulses with apparently physical symptoms

unresolved conflicts lead to

unresolved conflicts turn into problems like neurotic acts and behavioral signs

focus of behavioral signs?

the focus of behavioral signs is not the behavior itself but the unconscious motivators that might underlie

ex. fear of snakes might indicate a sexual conflict regarding genitals

• No quantification or reliable measure of these neurotic behaviors as related to motivations

motives are thought to be rooted in…

early experiences

psychosexual stages

Oral (0 - 1.5) - pleasure centers on mouth

Anal (1.5 - 3) - pleasure centers on imposed control associated with toilet training

Phallic (3 - 5) - genitals, oedipus complex, penis envy or castration anxiety

Latent (6 - 13) - less overt concern with sexuality, “cooties”, bond with own gender

Maturity (13+) - onset of puberty, libido organized around genitals and sexual satisfaction

experiences at psychosexual stages can influence…

later personality traits, potential for arrested development if conflicts remain unsolved

issues with psychosexual stages / psychoanalytic theory

lack of empirical evidence

• how do you operationalize libido or unconscious?

too deterministic

little room for change

sexist, ie penis envy

pathologizes relatively normal behavior like envying or admiring mother or father

extremely time consuming

Post freudian psychodynamics paid more attention to

ego and self

social interpersonal causes

later developments throughout the life, past childhood

culture and society

scientific methods - collaboration with other fields like neuroscience and philosophy

gender, race and social standing

shorter durations of therapy

Post freudian psychodynamics paid less attention to

Id and instincts

intrapsychic causes and conflicts

earliest childhood

psychosexual stages

sex and aggression

attachment is found in…

all animals in which infants are initially in need of care

lorenz with ducks imprinting and harlows monkey studies

Behaviorists thought love and attachment are…

a learned response to having one’s needs met

Harlows monkey study challenged this, monkeys preferred a soft cloth mother than a wire mother than provided food

Bowlby’s work on humans showed an innate disposition and evolutionary need for care

How many attachments do humans have?

Multiple, serves as a biological insurance policy

mother, father, grandparents, other relatives, siblings

internal working models in attachment

bowlby theorized we create mental representations of others, the self, or relationships that guide future experiences during early childhood

secure base / safe haven

Caregivers who provide a secure base are responsive to an infant’s needs

and become a safe haven for the child to explore the world.

they make the child feel competent and worthy of affection

proximity maintenance

securely attached infants what to maintain proximity to their caregiver and protest separation

strange situation - mary ainsworth

Toddler is introduced to a playroom, accompanied by the mother and a stranger. The child is exposed to different levels of availability of the mother ranging from involved with child, to mildly preoccupied, to absent. Mother-child interactions are observed, especially at reunion

Attachment styles in infants

Securely attached (60%) - infants were distressed when mother left, but greeted her positively upon reunion and returned to playing

• responsive mothers

• children who are securely attached are more likely to remain confident on tasks, cope well in absence of parent, delay immediate gratification longer

insecure avoidant (25%) - infants avoided mother when she was present and upon return

• mothers varied in responsiveness, unresponsive to bids for attention but overbearing during independent play

insecure ambivalent (15%) - infants were distressed when alone and difficult to comfort when mother returned

• mothers inconsistent in responsiveness

what determines attachment style largely?

early experiences with primary caregiver

attachment styles in adult relationships

secure - supportive, trusting, warm families

• tend to be satisfied with relationship, believe romantic love can last

• lowest loneliness rating in both state and trait

avoidant - aloof, cold, emotionally distant families

• cynical of romantic love

ambivalent - many short lived romantic relationships, fearful of loosing partners, believe falling in love is easy but does not last

• highest state and trait loneliness

attachment patterns often…

change over time

we learn from previous relationships

current moods or motives can also affect attachment behaviors

role of situation for psychodynamic level?

minimal

ECR-R questionaire

self report measure of variation in close relationships

two sub-scales, avoidance and anxiety

lower scores on both sub scales indicates secure attachment

what attachment style is most lonely

ambivalent

Who focuses more on the function of the id and who focuses more on the ego

freudian psychodynamics focuses on id

post-freudians focus on ego and self

behavioral conditioning level looks at

things we can observe or reliably measure

how is behavioral level different from psychodynamic level?

considers impact of situation

only looks at observed behaviors

behavioral change is motivated by acquiring new experience or modifying old ones

behavioral conditioning perspective on personality

see personality as a collection of learned behaviors

learning

changing physiology and behavior due to acquisitions of new information and experiences

primary biological needs

things like hunger, thirst, sex

secondary needs

things we learn to need via association

money, power, love, creativity

strength of a drive depends on

conditions of deprivation, greater deprivation = stronger drive

classical conditioning

learning associations between cues and responses

when a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired closely with an unconditioned stimulus that is naturally powerful, it becomes a conditioned stimulus that evokes a conditioned response

ex. UCS = food

UCR = salivating

CS = bell

CR = salivating

cues

determine when, how, and where one will show response

can vary in intensity

4 important factors in learning process

drive

cue

response

reinforcement

higher order conditioning

a new neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus once associated with old conditioned stimulus and elicits original conditioned response

ex. bowl precedes bell, eventually leads to salivation on its own

neutral stimuli can become aversive when

associated with a traumatic event or outcome

ex. outfit i wore when i failed a test

operant conditioning

outcomes of any freely emitted response determine how likely they are to be repeated

reinforcers increase

punishers decrease

behaviorists will not interpret behaviors as

indicators of motives or inferred attributes

behaviorists emphasize…

the role of situation

ex. Rosenhan and colleagues, presumably mentally healthy individuals, in 1973 admitted themselves to a local mental hospital, complaining of false psychiatric symptoms

• Despite their behavior which otherwise remained rational, staff members persistently treated them as if they were psychotic

discrimination versus generalization

discrimination means the ability to tell the difference between two stimuli and only exhibit a particular response to one

• stop on red, go on green

generalization means not distinguishing between two stimuli and having the same reaction to both

• ex. fear of all furry animals after a bad experience with a dog

• can be expected to generalize when a behavior yields similar consequences in many settings

critique of behaviorism

focuses too much on observed behavior and ignores cognitive processes

sometimes behaviors are innate and not learned

largely ignores cultural differences

many of the findings at this level come from animal research which do not necessarily generalize to human behavior

behavioral assessments

focus on specific external conditions and learning processes that might govern behavior

• ex. if looking to see why a child uses verbal aggression with peers you may observe the child’s behavior at school to see when verbal aggression is more or less

functional analyses

Introduces an observable and quantifiable change and observes whether or not it produces the expected modification in behavior

• Case study: Ann self-isolates to get attention from adults. When adults stopped rewarding this behavior with attention, and only began rewarding her with attention and praise when she played with other children, she stopped self isolating. They reversed this and her behavior reverted to baseline, showing they could change behavior depending on the conditions of reinforcement. Postchecks at random intervals showed that overall this increased her interaction with children and decreased her interaction with adults

wolpe hypothesized that anxiety is …

a conditioned response to stimuli

steps for desensitization

Establishing a hierarchy of severity of anxiety linked to specific situations

• Low anxiety: reading a speech alone in your room

• Intermediate anxiety: reading a speech to a friend

• High anxiety: presenting a speech before an audience

Training an incompatible relaxation response

• Ex. deep breathing techniques

Associating anxiety stimuli and incompatible responses

• Practicing relaxation responses to the lowest item on the hierarchy and moving gradually to the higher items

what may happen if you have too much reward for a behavior?

the child may lose interest when the external rewards are reduced or stopped altogether

overjustification: excess external reward may interfere with intrinsic motivation that would otherwise be generated by the activity

contingency contract

The person contracts to receive rewards for the desired behavior which are withheld without the desired behavior

• An example was Miss X, a heavy user of amphetamines. She gave her therapist $500 (all of her money) in 10 signed checks of $50 each and committed him to send a check to the Ku Klux Klan (her least favorite organization) whenever she violated any step in a series of mutually agreed-upon specific actions for curbing her drug use. After applying the contract for 3 months, a follow-up for a 2-year period indicated that Miss X did not return to amphetamine use.

behavioral therapies criticized as …

just “symptom substitutions” that neglect the roots of issues in favor of modifying the observed behaviors

but it was found that changed behaviors are not automatically replaced by other problematic ones

what are we evaluating at this level

the consequences of behaviors, not the person

Procedure of pineles study

Baseline: measurement of skin conductance with no stimulus

Habitation: conditioned stimulus only

Acquisition: unconditioned stimulus (shock) presented after conditioned stimulus

Extinction: conditioned stimulus presented without unconditioned stimulus

Findings of pineles study

Extraversion facets affect fear acquisition differently

Neuroticism facets have paired influences on fear response

Those more open to feelings maintained or developed stronger differential fear conditioning over acquisition period

Agreeableness facets demonstrate contrasting effects

conscientiousness facets show distinct impacts

main idea of pineles study

Individuals' unique personality and their responses to fear are more intricate and multifaceted than previously thought.

Specific facets within a given personality dimension appear to be differentially associated with fear conditioning