13th European Conference on Personality Athens, Greece

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13th European Conference on Personality
Athens, Greece
DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY GROUP UNIVERSITY OF
EDINBURGH
What can psychologists do with personality-health
associations? The five Ts
Gareth Hagger-Johnson
23rd -26th July 2006
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Outline

• Personality-health associations
• Need for applications
• Typology the Five Ts
• Targeting
• Tailoring
• Training
• Treatment
• Transformation
• Examples for each
• Slides and references online
• www.psy.ed.ac.uk/people

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Pioneers vs. consumers
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• PIONEERS Personality-health researchers1
• CONSUMERS Those able to develop interventions
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Health Promotion
• Sociology
• Medicine
• Calls for greater collaboration with health
  sciences2

1Hogan (2005) Human Performance
2Krueger et al. (2000) J Pers
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Personality-health associations
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Pioneers focus efforts on groundwork
• Criteria for judgement
• strength of association
• is association specific?
• consistency of association
• dose-response relationship
• temporal sequence of events
• experimental evidence / RCTs
• Ongoing network of studies
• Met by consumers with scepticism

Bhopal (2002) Concepts of Epidemiology
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Response from consumers
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• no practical meaning for prevention and
  prediction purposes
• too much face validity
• not designed with specific knowledge of
  brain/behavior relationships in mind
• why should we care about personality?
• Five Ts form a response

Nelson et al. (1998) Arch Clin Neuropsychol
Stansfeld (2002) Int J Epidemiol
Myrtek (2001) Int J Cardiol
Barrick Mount (2005) Human Performance
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Targeting
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Health promotion campaigns
• Targeting groups sharing characteristics
• different types of individuals may attend to,
  comprehend, accept, and retain different types of
  messages1
• High SS require
• novelty, intensity, sound, drama, stimulation,
  suspense, fast pace, emotionality, complexity,
  ambiguity, unconventionality, movement2.

1Caspi et al. (1997) J Pers Soc Psychol
2Palmgreen et al. (2001) J Res in Pers
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SENTAR
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• HSS adolescents reduced cannabis use
• 72 hotline callers HSS
• May replicate with other traits
• Principles
• select trait to target
• conduct focus group research
• design high/low message versions
• place in appropriate contexts

Palmgreen et al. (2001) J Res in Pers
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Tailoring
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Interventions guide by individual assessment1
• Personally relevant information retained
• Assessment
• mental ability, traits, cognitive styles2,3
• Intervention customized feedback
• leaflets, booklets, letters, videotapes,
  audiotapes, web sites, kiosks, CD-ROMs

1Kreuter Skinner (2000) Health Educ Res
2Skinner et al. (1994) Am J Public Health
3Williams-Piehota et al. (2005) Health Psychol
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Tailor to what?
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Mental ability prime candidate
• Materials written above capabilities
• need to verify not presume that their
  communications are being understood
• Ability assessment, remove extra text
• voluminous, abstract, multifaceted, ambiguous,
  uncertain, changing, novel
• Low C, high SS?

Gottfredson (2004) J Pers Soc Psychol
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Training Big Five
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Psychotherapy and trait change
• vocational skills (Conscientiousness)
• coping ability (Neuroticism)
• spiritual development (Openness)
• social skills (Extraversion and Agreeableness)
• Post-treatment change of 0.5 SD
• Significant at 15 month follow-up

Piedmont (2001) J Res in Pers
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Training Optimism and resiliency
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Penn Resiliency Program
• CBT for children/adolescents
• Discouraged internal, stable, global styles
• Skills
• assertiveness
• putting it into perspective
• one step at a time
• Two years lower depression1
• 10 years depression, anxiety, adjustment2

1Gillham et al. (1995) Psychol Sci
2Gillham et al. (2006) J Abnorm Child Psychol
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Treatment new neurotechnologies
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Rising interest new neurotechnologies
• Medications changing molecular events underlying
  cognition, emotions, identity1 - and personality
• Interesting side effects
• Prozac (lowered N, raised E)
• five studies
• Ritalin (concentration)4
• Alertec (alertness)5

1Farah (2004) Cogn Sci
2Schwartz (2005) Am J Bioeth
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Treatment or enhancement?
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Treatment
• IQ 100 gt lead gt IQ 80 gt medication gt IQ 100
• Enhancement without medical need1
• IQ 80 gt medication gt IQ 100
• Potential enhancement targets2
• memory, mental ability, mood, traits
• Not hypothetical
• Alertec in Iraq
• Ritalin prescriptions outweigh ADHD
• Prozac better than well
• Future Cosmetic psychopharmacology and traits?

1Schwartz (2005) Am J Bioeth
2Wolpe (2002) Brain Cogn
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Treatment Recent ethical debates
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Issue of authority
• parents childrens traits (Human Rights Act)
• governments citizens traits
• self our traits
• Who decides on desired traits?
• Undermines 'dignity of hard work'
• Equality of access to enhancements
• Advertising invents needs/wants

Parens (1998) Enhancing Human Traits
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Transformation
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Personality change
• multiple sclerosis, dementia, stroke
• Neglected emotional, cognitive
• Predictive/preventive potential (carers)
• carers notice change first
• patient insight blunted emotional agnosia
• distress for all
• Premorbid trait measures lacking
• Reluctance to use Big Five

Stone et al. (2004) J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry
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Transformation Measurement
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Neuropsychology Behavior and Affect Profile1
• Indifference (injury insight)
• Inappropriateness (behaviour)
• Depression (symptomatology)
• Mania (irritability, euphoria)
• Pragnosia (communication style)
• Need for basic (Big Five) measures
• Collaboration
• Personality informed assessment
• prediction, onset, change, adjustment, coping
• DIALS

1Nelson et al. (1998) Arch Clin Neuropsychol
2Taylor (this session) DIALS
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Analogy Groundwork is the circle line
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

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(No Transcript)
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Conclusion
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Applications / destinations are neglected
• Personality-health associations have utility
• Collaboration with consumers will
• develop the Five Ts
• improve the groundwork
• demonstrating associations requires
  interdisciplinary work
• Pioneers absent from work so far
• If we dont discuss applications, others will

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Thank you
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Dr. Martha Whiteman
• Prof. Margaret Vollrath
• Kendra DeBusk
• Ann Finucane
• Andrew Wasyniak
• Alan Gow
• Beverly Shipley
• Dr. Michelle Taylor
• Richard Street

Slides www.psy.ed.ac.uk/people
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Prozac and N/E change References
GROUNDWORK TARGETING TAILORING TRAINING TREATMENT
TRANSFORMATION

• Andrews et al. (1998) J Affect Disorders
• Bagby et al. (1999) Psychiatry Research
• Du et al. (2002) J Affect Disorders
• Jain et al. (1999) J Affect Disorders
• Knutson et al. (1998) Am J Psychiatry