PSY 3303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Egosyntonic And Egodystonic, Common Cause, Personality Disorder

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3303
• Professor: Dave Miranda

Document Summary

One special feature of people with personality disorders is that they"re egosyntonic. One of the major problems with personality disorders is their personal relationships. Personality disorders in dsm are not well validated. Dimensional models = see personality disorders as extreme levels of normal personality traits. Neuroticism is the personality trait most related to mental health problems: high neuroticism (low emotional stability) = more anxiety, depression, more reactive and vulnerable to stress. Depression is a mood disorder, so interesting to see if emotional instability (neuroticism) and depression interrelate. Neuroticism doesn"t influence depression and depression doesn"t impact neuroticism: there is at least one cause that both neuroticism and depression share, to measure, use questionnaires (ex: tipi) to find correlations, but correlation does not mean causation. Neuroticism develops earlier, which gives the illusion of causation: even though neuroticism isn"t a risk factor/cause of depression, it is a marker, a precursor, which allows us to know that depression may follow neuroticism.