One Personality, Multiple Selves: Integrating Personality and Social Roles

ABSTRACT How do people maintain multiple, role-specific self-conceptions as well as a consistent sense of self? In a sample of middle-aged women, we examined three issues: (a) the ways in which people view themselves as both different and similar across social roles (e.g., parent, friend, worker), (b) how role-specific self-conceptions and general self-conceptions are related, and (c) the merits of predicting role-specific criteria from role-specific and general self-conceptions. Results showed that subjects' self-conceptions were specific to role contexts, yet highly correlated across those same role contexts. In addition, role-specific self-conceptions were more similar to the general self-concept for roles with which the individual was more satisfied. Finally, as predicted from the bandwidth-fidelity trade-off, ratings of the general self correlated moderately with outcomes across all role domains, whereas ratings of role-specific self-conceptions correlated strongly with outcomes for the same role, but not in other roles.     

Social Support, Personality, and Burnout in Nurses

This study sought to find evidence for: (a) a relationship between increased levels of work-related social support and decreased burnout, (b) a relationship between personality traits and burnout, and (c) a significant interaction of social support and extraversion in relation to burnout. Seventy-six staff nurses and their supervisors at a private medical hospital participated as subjects. Two subscales of the Work Environment Scale measured social support. Personality was measured using an instrument known as PROSCAN, and Scale H of the 16PF. Burnout was measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. A strong negative correlation between work-related social support and burnout was found. Also, nurses whose supervisors received positive-feedback training showed significant reductions in emotional exhaustion, compared to those whose supervisors did not receive this training. Some dimensions of personality explained a significant amount of burnout. The study also provided further evidence of the interactive effect of social support and extraversion in relation to an emotional distress variable. That is, extraverted nurses required more work-related peer support than did introverts to avoid emotional exhaustion. Suggestions for further research are given.     

Histrionic Personality Disorder, Physical Attractiveness, and Social Adjustment

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is the only DSM-IV personality disorder (PD) explicitly linked to a person's physical appearance. This study examined the HPD–attractiveness link in a mixed-sex sample of college students. Consistent with expectations, HPD women were rated higher in attractiveness than women with other PDs or no PD. However, a parallel HPD–attractiveness link was not found in men. Subsequent analyses indicated that, relative to less attractive HPD women, more attractive HPD women (a) had a more varied and supportive social network, (b) exhibited more negative behaviors in important relationships, and (c) showed greater use of immature defenses, and less reliance on image-distorting, self-sacrificing, and mature defenses. Similar attractiveness–defense relationships were found in HPD men, but parallel results did not emerge for men in the other two domains. Implications of these findings are discussed, and suggestions for future studies are offered.     

Personality Factors S,E, and M,and their Measurement

Terms such as often, usually, and sometimes frequently modify items found in personality questionnaires. Semantic style refers to individual differences in the quantitative meanings subjects give such terms. This study investigated the relation between semantic style variables and questionnaire measures of social desirability, extraversion, and neuroticism. Significant associations were found for two of these three personality scales: social desirability and neuroticism. If semantic style is shown to be pervasive and appreciable in its influence on questionnaire response, its systematic control should become a psychometric goal of some importance. Techniques are discussed for thus achieving more valid questionnaire measures.     

癌症患者人格类型及其与应对策略、社会支持的关系

该研究旨在调查和分析癌症患者人格类型及其与应对策略、社会支持的关系。采用艾森克人格问卷简式量表、社会支持评定量表、医用应对问卷等测查工具对205名癌症病人进行调查。结果显示:1.癌症患者可以聚类为两类人格:温和健康型和身心障碍型;2.身心碍型患者的屈服应对显著高于温和健康型患者;3.身心障碍型患者的客观社会支持和主观社会支持都显著低于温和健康型患者。研究表明,癌症患者可分为温和健康型和身心障碍型两种人格类型。身心障碍型患者采用更多的屈服应对,同时获得的社会支持也更少。     

193例戒毒者人格类型及其与自尊、社会支持和应对策略的关系

以193名戒毒者为被试,运用问卷法和对数线性模型调查和分析了戒毒者个人背景及其与戒毒行为的关系,通过聚类分析概括出戒毒者的三种人格类型,并探讨了不同人格类型戒毒者在自尊、社会支持、应对策略上的特点及其关系。结果表明：(1)中低教育程度与中低经济收入显著正相关;男性所估计的戒毒时间远远少于女性;吸毒时间越长,复吸的可能性越大。(2)外向冲动型戒毒者的自尊水平最高,其次是内向顺从者,身心障碍者的自尊水平显著低于外向冲动者。(3)身心障碍者对支持的主观体验和利用程度越高,所采取的面对策略越多;所获得的支持越多,越少采取屈服策略。而内向顺从者和外向冲动者对所获支持的满意程度越高,越少采取面对策略;对支持的利用程度越高,所采取的屈服策略越多。     

Personality, Social Networks, and Perceived Social Support among Alcoholics: A Structural Equation Analysis

ABSTRACT In this study we tested relations among personality characteristics, social network properties, and perceived social support both concurrently and prospectively. A sample of 294 men in treatment at a Department of Veterans Affairs Alcohol Treatment Unit was assessed during treatment and 3 months after discharge. Results of the cross-sectional structural equation analyses indicated that the personality characteristics of extraversion and neu-roticism were related to both social network properties and perceived social support. Characteristics of the alcoholic's social network were also related to perceived availability of support. Longitudinal analyses of perceived social support after treatment indicated that two social network properties (size of the network and the proportion of confidants) were predictive net of initial levels of social support. Extraversion and neuroticism were found to be indi-rectly related to perceived social support at Time 2 through their effects on social network properties and perceived social support during treatment. Implications of these findings for models of the nature and determinants of perceived social support are discussed.     

Ideology: Its Resurgence in Social, Personality, and Political Psychology

ABSTRACT— We trace the rise, fall, and resurgence of political ideology as a topic of research in social, personality, and political psychology. For over 200 years, political belief systems have been classified usefully according to a single left–right (or liberal–conservative) dimension that, we believe, possesses two core aspects: (a) advocating versus resisting social change and (b) rejecting versus accepting inequality. There have been many skeptics of the notion that most people are ideologically inclined, but recent psychological evidence suggests that left–right differences are pronounced in many life domains. Implicit as well as explicit preferences for tradition, conformity, order, stability, traditional values, and hierarchy—versus those for progress, rebelliousness, chaos, flexibility, feminism, and equality—are associated with conservatism and liberalism, respectively. Conservatives score consistently higher than liberals on measures of system justification. Furthermore, there are personality and lifestyle differences between liberals and conservatives as well as situational variables that induce either liberal or conservative shifts in political opinions. Our thesis is that ideological belief systems may be structured according to a left–right dimension for largely psychological reasons linked to variability in the needs to reduce uncertainty and threat.     

Personality, reinforcement and learning.

Conflict in predictions resulting from Eysenck's (1957) and Gray's (1970) theoretical formulations on personality and conditioning were tested at the behavioral level. Given conditions which do not produce over-arousal, it would be predicted from Eysenck's position that Introverts would condition better than Extraverts. From Gray's formulation it would follow that Introverts condition better if negative reinforcement is used and Extraverts condition better if positive reinforcement is used. The two opposing predictions were tested in pursuit rotor learning by either positively or negatively reinforcing the hit/miss dimension of performance by 166 males aged 14 to 15 yr. The results gave support to Gray's position but if over-arousal is assumed Eysenck's position is tenable.     

人格特质、网络社会支持与网络人际信任的关系

该研究运用问卷法探讨了人格特质、网络社会支持与网络人际信任的关系。对386名大、中学生的调查结果表明：(1)人格特质和网络社会支持对网络人际信任具有直接影响;(2)人格特质还可通过网络社会支持(主要是网络主观支持)间接影响网络人际信任;(3)网络人际信任不存在性别和年龄差异。     

Patterns of Natural Language Use: Disclosure, Personality, and Social Integration

When people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about an emotionally significant event, numerous benefits in many domains (e.g., health, achievement, and well-being) result. As one step in understanding how writing achieves these effects, we have developed a computer program that provides a "fingerprint" of the words people use in writing or in natural settings. Analyses of text samples indicate that particular patterns of word use predict health and also reflect personality styles. We have also discovered that language use in the laboratory writing paradigm is associated with changes in social interactions and language use in the real world. The implications for using computer-based text analysis programs in the development of psychological theory are discussed.