Personality Dynamics: Insights From the Personality Social Cognitive Literature

Abstract

Psychodynamic and social cognitive approaches to personality assessment converge now more so than at any time in the history of experimental psychology. This contribution seeks to make this point. First, the trait of neuroticism predisposes one to multiple adverse outcomes, a point not sufficiently captured by the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM–IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Second, though, self-reported levels of neuroticism are insufficient in understanding problematic outcomes for multiple reasons. Third, there are ways of experimentally modeling the many processes of interest to psychodynamic theorists such as unconscious affective biases, implicit representations of self and other, and underlying deficits in self- and emotion regulation. Implicit approaches to assessment also provide clues to interventions targeting the processes of interest, a point that will be made as well.

Notes

Meyer and Kurtz (2006) called for the elimination of the word objective to describe self-reports of personality. We entirely agree, further noting that there are many subjective elements to completing personality questionnaires (M. D. Robinson & Clore, 2002). Meyer and Kurtz also suggested that the term projective should not be used as a catch-all phrase in describing assessments that are not self-reported in nature. We agree with this point as well. We generally refer to “self-reported” or “explicit” assessments on the one hand—in which individuals self-describe their personalities—versus “implicit” on the other hand—in which personality is defined in terms of performance (e.g., reaction times) rather than self-reports. The explicit–implicit terminology is in keeping with the cognitive memory (Schultheiss, 2007), implicit motivation (McClelland, 1987), and social cognition (Fazio & Olson, 2003) literatures.

We have found a 10-item broad-bandwidth neuroticism scale to have a high degree of predictive validity. Participants are asked the extent to which (1 = very inaccurate; 5 = very accurate) they “get irritated easily,” “often feel blue,” and “worry about things,” among other items. The scale is free for use and can be found at http://ipip.ori.org/. It takes less than 5 min to complete.

Moeller and Robinson (2010) assessed punishment sensitivity in the following manner. On each trial, individuals were asked to guess whether a subsequent arrow would point upward or downward across 120 trials of a computerized task. Arrow direction was randomly manipulated by the computer, such that it was entirely unpredictable from trial to trial. Predictions would therefore be accurate approximately 50% of the time. Following each prediction, an arrow was presented and participants were told that they were “correct” or “incorrect” for the individual trial. Punishment sensitivity was implicitly assessed in terms of a higher percentage of switched predictions for the next trial (e.g., an up prediction followed by a down prediction) following incorrect relative to correct feedback on the previous trial. We view this implicit probe of punishment sensitivity as a potentially useful one in understanding clinical conditions hypothesized to reflect unduly low (e.g., psychopathy) or high (e.g., obsessive thinking) levels of punishment sensitivity. The task takes about 5 min to complete.

Participants were asked to categorize words as pleasant (e.g., kiss) or unpleasant (e.g., garbage). Such word stimuli were assigned to trial at random, such that it was equally likely for a negative target (trial n) to follow a negative or positive prime (trial n – 1). Individual differences in negative affective priming were assessed by subtracting the individual's evaluation speed for negative–negative prime–target pairs from his or her evaluation speed for positive–negative prime–target pairs. As reported in the text, higher levels of neuroticism were associated with stronger negative affective priming effects of this type. We view this implicit probe of affective priming as a potentially useful one in understanding clinical conditions hypothesized to reflect a tendency to perseverate on negative affect, such as depression (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002). The task takes about 5 min to complete.

Any basic choice reaction time task can be used to assess reaction time variability. For example, Ode et al. (in press) administered a simple Stroop task in which individuals were asked to classify font colors as red or green across 252 trials. Subsequently, and for each individual separately, we quantified average speed and the standard deviation of response speed across the 252 trials. Individual differences in reaction time variability were then quantified by controlling for average speed, which often results in higher levels of reaction time variability for reasons that are psychometric rather than psychologically informative (M. D. Robinson & Tamir, 2005). We view this implicit probe of variability as a potentially useful one in understanding clinical conditions hypothesized to result from poor ego functioning. In addition, reaction time variability might prove sensitive to therapeutic progress in realms seeking to increase ego functioning (Bellak et al., 1973). The task takes about 5 min to complete.

Agreeableness can be assessed by a well-validated 10-item scale asking individuals the extent to which (1 = very inaccurate; 5 = very accurate) they are “interested in people,” “take time out for others” and “sympathize with others’ feelings,” among other items. The scale is free for use and can be found at http://ipip.ori.org/. It takes less than 5 min to complete.

K. W. Brown and Ryan's (2003) measure of mindfulness has excellent psychometric properties and is reprinted in this article. Individuals are asked to report on the frequency (1 = almost never; 6 = almost always) with which they engage in behaviors without thinking about them (e.g., “I snack without being aware that I'm eating”). Such items are reverse-scored to assess mindful attention and awareness. Mindfulness exercises are used in several validated clinical treatment protocols, including Linehan's (1993) well-known treatment for borderline personality disorder. Moreover, it has been shown that the instrument responds to multisession interventions designed to increase self-awareness and the self-regulation skills thought to result (Shapiro, Oman, Thoresen, Plante, & Flinders, 2008).

The same or similar tasks described in footnote 4 can also be used to assess individual differences in response speed. In this case, one merely averages response speed across trials of the cognitive task. In other literatures, individuals who respond faster in choice reaction time tasks have been shown to be more intelligent (Jensen, 2006), better able to self-regulate their behaviors in health-related realms (Gottfredson & Deary, 2004), and to live for a longer period of time (Deary & Der, 2005). In all such cases, slower response speed has been shown to be problematic. Like mindfulness, M. D. Robinson and Oishi (2006) conceptualize faster response speed in terms of greater awareness of the current (stimulus) environment, which similarly should facilitate self-regulation effects (M. D. Robinson, Schmeichel, & Inzlicht, 2010). For assessments of habitual responding (M. D. Robinson, Goetz, et al., 2006) and response perseveration (M. D. Robinson, Wilkowski, Kirkeby, et al., 2006), readers are referred to the relevant publications.

We omit a discussion of how to assess HRV because such assessments are costly and require considerable technical expertise. The more general point, though, is that this measure, like many others reviewed, appears protective at higher levels of neuroticism. Nonetheless, it is important to point out that HRV is a malleable entity (Garakani et al., 2009) that might reasonably be a target of therapeutic interventions among anxiety-prone individuals (B. H. Friedman, 2007).

With reference to stress–aggression associations, the following cognitive task was used. On odd trials, individuals were asked to categorize words as stressful (e.g., frustration) or nonstressful (e.g., forward). On even trials, participants then categorized a different set of words as aggressive (e.g., hurt) or nonaggressive (e.g., house). The extent to which stressful primes activated hostile thoughts was quantified in a manner similar to footnote 3—that is, across consecutive trials of the categorization task. Here, the interest was in whether aggressive targets could be categorized more quickly following stressful primes rather than nonstressful primes. The priming procedures of Moeller et al. (2010) would seem to possess potential importance in other clinical realms as well. For example, individuals who exhibit stronger priming effects from alcohol primes to positive affective targets would likely be more vulnerable to alcoholism (Wiers & Stacy, 2006). The task takes less than 10 min to complete.

Individual differences in blame accessibility were examined in a choice reaction time task. Participants were asked, as quickly and accurately as possible, whether presented words implied blame (e.g., malpractice, sin) or not (e.g., baldness, earthquake). Speed in this block was quantified. However, because individual differences in response speed, per se, are robust across different tasks (M. D. Robinson & Oishi, 2006), a control block was administered. In the control block, a neutral categorization task (distinguishing animal vs. not animal words) was used. Subsequently, residual scores for blame accessibility were created by removing the common variance to blame–not blame and animal–not animal blocks. Such procedures essentially purify the accessibility measure of interest (M. D. Robinson & Neighbors, 2006). The administration of target and control blocks took less than 5 min. Such procedures could potentially be used to assess other problematic accessible thoughts such as those associated with self-harm.

Hitherto, the implicit measures reported were primarily of a reaction time type. In this context, Wilkowski and Robinson's (2007) word rating task deserves note. Participants evaluated (1 = extremely unpleasant; 6 = extremely pleasant) aggressive (e.g., hurt, hit, punch) and neutral (e.g., interact, notice, talk) words, with the words randomly intermixed. A hostility-related bias was defined in terms of more negative evaluations of neutral target (i.e., trial n) words that followed aggressive relative to neutral prime (i.e., trial n—1) words. Only angry individuals displayed such a hostility-related bias. The task takes approximately 5 min to complete and theoretically could be administered by paper and pencil rather than computer.

On odd trials of the implicit task, participants categorized prime words as aggressive or nonaggressive. The primes were similar to those mentioned in footnote 12. On even trials of the task, participants completed a single trial of a flanker task by categorizing, as quickly as possible, the central letter in a five-letter array (stimuli were ppppp, qqqqq, ppqpp, and qqpqq). The flanker cost is defined in terms of difficulty (i.e., slower reaction time) with the incongruent stimuli (ppqpp and qqpqq) relative to the congruent stimuli (ppppp and qqqqq). Overcoming such flanker interference costs requires cognitive control and recruitment of regions of the frontal lobes (Kerns, 2006). Only nonangry individuals differentially recruited cognitive control following aggressive primes. The task takes approximately 5 min to complete. Tasks of this type could surely be designed to assess other processes of clinical relevance. For example, primes could consist of fatty (e.g., pizza) or healthy (e.g., celery) food words. We would expect bulimics to exhibit poorer cognitive control following fatty prime words, providing insight into their unhealthy and dysregulated eating habits.

We refer the reader to Greenwald and Farnham (2000) for how to assess implicit self-esteem on the basis of the IAT. The computerized task takes approximately 5 min to complete. Implicit self-esteem can be assessed even more briefly in terms of the name-letter effect and can be done so using paper and pencil. We refer the reader to Bosson, Swann, and Pennebaker (2000) for details concerning this latter implicit measure of self-esteem.

This implicit self-importance task is quite simple and takes less than 5 min to complete. Across 120 trials, the pronouns “ME” and “YOU” are presented, either in a smaller or larger font size. Reaction times in categorizing the pronouns as “me” or “you” are collected. Implicit self-importance of this dyadic object relations type is quantified in terms of the interaction between pronoun and font size. Summary scores are quantified as follows: ((ME/big reaction time + YOU/small reaction time)—(ME/small reaction time + YOU/big reaction time)), with higher scores reflecting higher levels of implicit self-importance (Fetterman et al., 2010). Arrogant individuals exhibit higher levels of implicit self-importance in this task (see text for details). The task might prove useful in assessing object relation theories of narcissism or interpersonal arrogance more generally.