Personality Traits: Theory, Testing and Influences

232 Pages·2011·3.1 MB·English

by  Melissa E. Jordan (editor)

PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS, MOTIVATIONS AND ACTIONS

PERSONALITY TRAITS:
THEORY, TESTING AND INFLUENCES

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PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS, MOTIVATIONS
AND ACTIONS

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PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS, MOTIVATIONS AND ACTIONS

PERSONALITY TRAITS:
THEORY, TESTING AND INFLUENCES

MELISSA E. JORDAN
EDITOR

Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
New York
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Personality traits : theory, testing and influences / editor, Melissa E.
Jordan.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61761-169-8 (eBook)
1. Personality tests. 2. Personality assessment. 3. Personality
disorders. I. Jordan, Melissa E.
BF698.5.P47 2010
155.2'32--dc22
2010026177

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. + New York
CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Addiction: Frontal Personality Change but Not Personality
Disorder Comorbidity Implications for Treatment of Addictive
Disorders 1
Eduardo J. Pedrero-Pérez, Ana López-Durán
and Alvaro Olivar-Arroyo
Chapter 2 Circadian Preference and Personality: A Minireview 37
Lorenzo Tonetti
Chapter 3 The Imaginary Companion Experience in Adults: Asset, Disorder or
Personality Feature? 55
Lino Faccini
Chapter 4 Schizotypal Personality Traits: Auditory Hallucination-like
Experiences and Atypical Hemispheric Lateralization 71
Tomohisa Asai, Eriko Sugimoriand Yoshihiko Tanno
Chapter 5 Genetics of Personalitity Disorders 89
Gonzalo Haro, Ernesto Tarragón, César Mateu, Ana Benito
and Cecilio Álamo
Chapter 6 Structural and Functional Neuroimaging Studies of the Anxiety-
Related Personality Trait: Implications for the Neurobiological
Basis of Human Anxious Personality 103
Yuko Hakamata and Toshiya Inada
Chapter 7 Too Much of a Good Thing?: Optimistic or Pessimistic
Personality Traits 133
Francine Conway and Laura Kelly
Chapter 8 Illness Recognition and Beliefs about Treatment for Schizophrenia
in a Community Sample of Mexico City: Differences According to
Personality Traits 145
Ana Fresánand Rebeca Robles-García
vi Contents
Chapter 9 Is Developmentally Informed Therapy for Persons with ID and
Criminal Personality/Offenses Relevant? 155
Lino Faccini
Chapter 10 Personality Traits:Reflections in the Brain 161
Feryal Cam Celikel
Chapter 11 The Caregivers of Persons with Alzheimer‘s Disease: The Impact of
Personality Traits on Own Stress Perception and in Evaluating
Cognitive and Functional Impairment of Their Relatives 175
Marco Vista, Lucia Picchi and Monica Mazzoni
Commentary How ―to Be or Not to Be‖: The Answer Is in Identity 203
Lino Faccini
Index 207
PREFACE

Chapter 1 – A high prevalence of co-occurrence among addictive disorders and
personality disorders has been documented. Studies have usually found between a 50 and 75
percent of addicted individuals with Axis II concurrent diagnosis. However, such diagnoses
often do not take account of several changes related to the course of addiction that affect
functioning of the frontal lobe and, consequently, the overall programming of behaviour.
Simple diagnosis based on the ICD or DSM classifications, without regard to etiological
factors, is just a still photograph reflecting a fractal of a long development process altered by
addiction. Impairment of frontal cortical function due to direct effects of the substance or to
mediators as stress factors, are the basis of most of the symptoms justifying the diagnosis of
personality disorders. Miller's proposals on stable and induced-by-stress disorders, as well as
new findings on executive dysfunction linked to addiction must be taken into consideration.
Personality disorders, so understood, should be treated differently from the present, including
cognitive stimulation techniques and attending to stress and coping, preventing symptomatic
prescribing of drugs with dubious benefits and multiple side effects. New neurological and
neuropsychological perspectives of addiction do not support concepts such as comorbidity as
a priority intervention guide.
Chapter 2 - The aim of this chapter is to update the status of the art of the relationship
between morningness-eveningness preference and personality. To this end, keeping in mind
the wide number of personality models available in literature, this chapter discusses three of
them: 1) Eysenck‘s model; 2) Big Five model; 3) Cloninger‘s model. On the basis of main
data reported in papers, it is suggested that future studies should focus on the Cloninger‘s
psychobiological model of personality because it takes into account both biological
(temperament dimensions) and socio-cultural (character dimensions) aspects, being thus
useful to address their respective importance linking circadian rhythms with personality
characteristics. To this aim, cross-cultural comparisons are specifically needed. Implications
of this chapter in several applied areas are also discussed.
Chapter 3 – Clinical and Forensic cases are reviewed regarding how an examiner should
conceptualize the adult experience of having Imaginary Companions (IC). Some clinical and
forensic research indicates that there is an overlap between adult IC and Dissociative
experiences/disorders. However, other forensic case studies, a phenomenological perspective
and expert opinion also indicate that the adult IC experience can occur in other clinical
disorders, with personality disorders, and as the sole feature of one‘s clinical presentation.
Also, research has identified that adult ICs can be linked to acts of violence, sex offending
viii Melissa E. Jordan
and self-harm. The diagnostic dilemma of how to conceptualize and diagnose these cases is
most pertinent when ICs are involved and blamed for the commission of violent and criminal
acts. Since the creation and dismissing of Adult ICs is a conscious and voluntary experience,
the legal plea of Not Guilty by Reason of (Insanity) Mental Disease or Defect is not
appropriate. Several different diagnostic possibilities are presented, consistent with DSM IV-
TR. The Fantasy Prone Personality is also presented as another diagnostic classification
possibility but with no current counterpart in the DSM IV-TR. The current gap in the authors
knowledge in how to diagnose the presentation of ICs in adults, especially when they are
involved in the commission of criminal acts should prompt more dialogue between clinicians,
forensic examiners and researchers to develop a new diagnostic nomenclature.
The creation of Imaginary Companions (IC) that persist into adulthood can influence
one‘s adult functioning and lead to clinical disorders and even forensic consequences.
Currently, there exists a gap in our diagnostic nomenclature in how to regard, and diagnose
the existence of ICs in the forensic evaluation. Cases were reviewed from the clinical and
forensic literature regarding how to conceptualize the adult IC experience. A number of
studies suggest an over-lap between the adult IC experience and dissociative and other
clinical disorders. However, other studies, a phenomenological perspective and expert
opinion describes them as different phenomena. Cases involving IC involvement and acts of
violence will also be presented, and the difficulties of how to diagnose these cases is
highlighted and suggestions are offered, including the Fantasy Prone Personality (Disorder).
Although the Fantasy-Prone Personality is not regarded as a valid diagnostic category
according to DSM IV-TR, the focus of this article is to highlight the current ambiguity in how
to regard the adult IC phenomena, the personality type who continues to possess one into
adulthood, and to suggest the Fantasy Prone Personality as one possible diagnostic alternative
as well as other diagnostic options.
Chapter 4 – Individual differences in schizotypal personality traits (schizotypy), which
might be the predisposition to schizophrenia, have commonly been explored as a means of
examining the nature and structure of schizophrenia symptoms. Research on schizotypal
personality in the general population may provide a particular opportunity to study the
biological and cognitive markers of vulnerability to schizophrenia without the confounding
effects of long-term hospitalization, medication, and severe psychotic symptoms.
A systematic review of general-population surveys indicated that the experiences
associated with schizophrenia and related categories, such as paranoid delusional thinking and
auditory hallucinations, are observed in an attenuated form in 5–8% of healthy people. These
attenuated expressions could be regarded as the behavioral marker of an underlying risk for
schizophrenia and related disorders, just as high blood pressure indicates high susceptibility
for cardiovascular disease in a dose–response fashion.
Auditory hallucination (AH) refers to the perception that one‘s own inner speech
originates outside the self. Patients with AH make external misattributions of the source of
perceived speech. Recent studies have suggested that auditory hallucinations in patients with
schizophrenia might occur in the right hemisphere, where they might produce irregular and
unpredicted inner speech, which their auditory and sensory feedback processing system does
not attribute to themselves.
In the present study, general participants judged self–other attribution in speech
subjectively in response to on-line auditory feedback presented through their right, left, and
both ears. People with high auditory-hallucination-like experiences made external