Developmental approach to adult personality

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Developmental approach to adult personality

• Personality is dynamic and evolves over time
• Changes are triggered by psychological needs and
  social demands
• Example Eriksons stages of psychosocial
  development

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Integrity vs Despair WISDOM
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Generativity vs stagnation CARE
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Old age
Intimacy vs Isolation LOVE
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Adulthood
Identify vs Confusion FIDELITY
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Young Adulthood
Industry vs Inferiority COMPETENCE
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Adolescence
Initiative vs Guilt PURPOSE
School Age
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Autonomy vs Shame WILL
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Play Age
Trust vs Mistrust HOPE
Early Childhood
Infancy
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Is there a ninth stage?

• Gero-transcendence in very old age
• New feeling of cosmic communion
• Time is circumscribed to now, and maybe next week
• Space has decreasing dimensions
• Death becomes the way of all living things
• Self expands to include past and coming
  generations

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Generativity study (McAdams et al, 1993)
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Trait approach to adult personality

• Personality is stable in adulthood
• People may actively promote stability by seeking
  out situations that favour the basic traits
• Example Costa and McCraes five-factor model

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Hostility
Depression
Impulsiveness
Anxiety
Neuroticism
Conscien-- tiousness
Agreeableness
Excitement-seeking
Openness to experience
Extraversion
Fantasy
Warmth
Aesthetics
Gregariousness
Feelings
Positive emotions
Assertiveness
Actions
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NEO-PI Neuroticism Items
Sometimes I feel completely worthless. I tend to
be cynical and skeptical of others intentions. I
rarely feel lonely and blue. I often get angry at
the way people treat me. I often feel tense and
jittery. SD D N A SA
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NEO-PI Extraversion Items
I like to have a lot of people around me. I like
to be where the action is. I usually prefer to do
things alone. If I dont like people, I let them
know it. I often feel as if I am bursting with
energy. SD D N A SA
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NEO-PI Openness to Experience Items
I have little interest in speculating on the
nature of the universe or the human condition. I
have a lot of intellectual curiosity. I often
enjoy playing with theories or abstract
ideas. Poetry has little or no effect on
me. SD D N A SA
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BLSA 6-year follow-upCosta McCrae, 1988
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Attitudes toward death

• Americans are better prepared to operate a VCR
  than they are prepared for death
• Time, 2000

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• The Living Will is a document that instructs
  _____
• Cremation is more likely to be the preferred
  means of body disposal
• for _____
• Which factor is most important for how a person
  grieves
• a death______
• How much money does an organ donors family
  receive ______
• What are the odds that a death certificate will
  state the specific
• cause of death _____
• A has health insurance, B has not. Which of these
  people is more
• likely to be alive ten years from now_____
• The leading cause of death in North America is
  _____
• The leading cause of death in 3rd World countries
  is _____

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Assisted suicide and euthanasia

• Assisted suicide is providing the means (the
  lethal agent) for a person to take his/her own
  life
• Voluntary euthanasia is giving the lethal agent,
  thus taking a persons life for him/her
• Physician-assisted is legally accepted only in
  Oregon (US), Switzerland, the Netherlands, and
  Belgium

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Living will

• A legal document that contains a persons wishes
  about future health care and treatment
• The will takes effect when a person can no longer
  understand the treatment choices he/she has

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Instructions
For each of the following health situations,
imagine that you are in the situation described,
and then you develop a further medical problem
that requires treatment. If you do not receive
the treatment, you would die. If you receive the
treatment, the chance that you will live depends
on the nature of the medical problem. Even if you
recover fully from the medical problem, you would
return to the health situation you were in before
you developed the further medical problem.
Adapted from University of Toronto Joint Centre
for Bioethics, 2005
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Yes No Trial Undecided
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Health care proxy(ies)

• May be single or multiple
• May have to give written acceptance
• May be obligated to follow instructions exactly
  or utilize them as a guideline
• If multiple, may have to make decisions as a group