Personality Psychology, Lecture 8
Self-Esteem, Narcissism, Attachment Style, and Repression
Professor Ian McGregor
Lecture 8 Outline
Erikson’s Final Stages
 The Learning Assumption (and video)
 Adult Attachment Styles and Repression
 Genetics and Parenting
 Borderline and Narcissistic Personalities
 Explicit and Implicit Self-Esteem
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Quiz Next Week
How is insecure attachment learned and how
might it relate to the developmental theories of
Rogers, Maslow, Freud, Erikson, Adler, and
Horney? (5 marks)
 How are emotion and goal regulation related to
optimal and stunted psychosocial
development? (3 marks)
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(total of four double spaced pages for both answers)
Erikson: Psychosocial Development
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1. Basic Trust
2. Autonomy
3. Initiative
4. Industry
5. Identity
6. Intimacy
7. Generativity
8. Integrity
5. Identity vs. Role Confusion
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Adolescents and young adults try to figure out
“Who am I?” They establish sexual, ethnic, and
career identities, or are confused about what
future roles to play.
Finding self, Piaget, genital, E, O, C, N
Erikson’s life
Marcia’s identity statuses
From success to integrity…the integrity shift
Related to self-realization and self-actualization
of Horney, Rogers, and Maslow
Rogers: Client Centered Therapy
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Reality and congruence
Responsibility: Non-directive (autonomy support).
Client growth motive—people want to be good!
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Organismic valuing process
Actualizing tendency
Permission to explore and express feelings
Unconditional, non-evaluative positive regard
Compassionate perspective-taking—active listening
Fully functioning person
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Open to wide experience and feelings
Present in the here and now (not remote or preoccupied)
Organismic trusting
Accepts freedom and responsibility for self-direction
Lady of Shalott
http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML
(Tennyson, 1843, Waterhouse, 1888, 1894)
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation
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Young adults seek companionship and love with
another person or become isolated from others.
Caring for another; relatedness; widening circle of
concern, coping with the “hell is others,” altruism,
N, E, A,O,C
B-love, D-love, I-Thou, perspective-taking,
therapeutic climate vs. Horney’s neurotic needs
and self-absorption
Relationships and the dialogical self (values and
worth). Identity negotiation. Positive illusions.
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation
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Middle-age adults are productive, performing
meaningful work and raising a family, or become
stagnant and inactive.
Caring for society and future; relatedness; still
wider circle of concern, A, E, C (family…low O)
Goals beyond death, communal goals and
shared reality, disidentification with personal
goals (Eastern and Western wisdom traditions)
McAdams’ redemption narratives
Promotes Integrity vs. Despair (final stage)
Neoanalytic theories Related to
Intimacy and Generativity
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Horney’s Neurotic Needs and Coping Strategies
 Basic
anxiety and hostility
 Moving toward, against, and away
 “Splitting” and neurotic “striving for glory”
 Either way, self-absorbed and unable to love others or
be generative
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Adler’s “social interest”
 Socially
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useful types (versus ruling, leaning, avoiding)
Fromm’s “productive mode” (**not required for quiz)
 Versus
receptive, exploitive, hoarding, manipulating
 Escapes : authoritarian, destructive, conformist
8. Integrity vs. Despair
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Older adults try to make sense out of their lives,
either seeing life as a meaningful whole or
despairing at goals never reached and questions
never answered.
Maturity: self-actualization, integrated meaning
Must have capacity to care about and integrate
with other people and society as well as within
oneself
Consensus and shared reality
Despair
group
goal
defining-memory
Integrity
traits
goals
relationships
defining
memories
groups
values
roles
possible
selves
Bowlby and Ainsworth:
Attachment Theory
The Learning Assumption
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Contingencies learned in childhood
persist into adulthood
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Harlow’s cloth and metalic mommies
 Harlow
was a colleague of Maslow for a
time at Wisconsin-Madison
 Low exploration, clingy, socially
stunted, poor mothers
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Motivation and Reward in Learning
(Video by Neal Miller…search by keyword under
streaming video on library search site)
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http://theta.library.yorku.ca/cgibin/video.cgi?num=5498
Adult Attachment Style
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I want to get closer to others than they seem to want to get to
me—this sometimes seems to scare them away. I often worry
about whether my partner truly cares for me. My relations are
characterized by obsession, desire for union, emotional highs
and lows, extreme sexual attraction, and jealousy. (Anxious)
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I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others and find it
difficult to trust others completely. Others seem to want to get
closer to me than I want to get to them. (Dismissive)
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I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable
depending on others and having others depend on me. I don't
worry too much about others' getting too close to me. My most
important love experiences have been happy, friendly, and
trusting. I am able to accept and support my partner despite my
partners' faults.(Secure)
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Dismissive (approach-motivation); Anxious (avoidancemotivation)
Adult Attachment Style Continued
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Insecurity and distortion of reality after threat
Normally ok (i.e., first date) but under stress:
 Anxious “move toward” others (35%)
 Introjection, Altruistic Surrender, Turning Against the Self
 Oral personality—security seeking
 Exaggerated distress and intrusive thoughts
 Dismissive “move away” from others under stress (15%)
 Isolation (Intellectualization), Reaction Formation, Denial in Fantasy
 Anal personality—control, power, superiority seeking
 Repression and no apparent distress, denial of past traumas
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Work groups: both disliked and ineffective over time
Preoccupied, lack of perspective-taking, compassion
Anxious x Dismissive relationships don’t work
Only one longitudinal study: r = .2. Bias? Traits?
Twin Studies on Attachment Style
%Heredity
(genetics)
Big-5 Traits
Adult and 2yr old
2 yr old attach
(Fonagy et al., 2003)
Adult Security
(Brussoni et al., 2000)
Adult Anxiety
(Brussoni et al., 2000)
Adult Dismissive
(Brussoni et al., 2000)
%Shared %Non- Shared
Environment Environment
(parents) (other relations)
50
0
50
0
50
50
35
0
65
35
0
65
0
35
65
Hope for Change, for Hope?
Attachment style affected by previous partner
 5 years with a secure security (choose
carefully)
 Practice noticing “bids” for emotional
connection
 Psychological therapy: insight and client
centered
 Notice feelings and body sensations (upside
of N?)
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 Gut
feelings vs. rational thought (Jordan’s ISE
research)
Borderline and Narcissistic Personality
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Neoanalytic origins: object relations
 Inappropriate
parental mirroring and validation
 Insecure or grandiose self-preoccupation
 Compromised ability to relate to others
Clinical Diagnosis of Borderline Personality
Unstable relationships, self-image, and mood, and five or more of:
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Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
Unstable, intense relationships characterized by extremes of
idealization and devaluation.
Unstable self-image or sense of self
Dangerous impulsivity (e.g., sex, eating, substances, driving)
Suicidal behavior, gestures, threats and self-mutilation
Mood reactivity and instability
Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
Difficulty controlling anger
Stress, paranoia, dissociative symptoms
Clinical Diagnosis of Narcissism
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Five or more of the following:
 grandiose sense of self-importance
 preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success,
power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
 believes that he or she is "special" and unique
 requires excessive admiration
 sense of entitlement
 interpersonally exploitative
 lacks empathy
 often envious of others or believes others are
envious of him or her
 arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Narcissism Scale Sample Items
I
am going to be a great person
 I am an extraordinary person
 I know I’m good because everyone keeps telling
me that I am
 Everybody likes to listen to my stories
 I insist on getting the respect that is due me
 The world would be a better place if I ruled it
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Is Narcissism and addiction to self-esteem?
Action Identification Theory
“SHIELDING THE SELF”
WITH GRANDIOSE
IDEALS
System Concepts,
Ideal Self-Guides
Principles
Programs
“ESCAPING THE SELF”
WITH DISTRACTING CONCRETE EXPERIENCES
Concrete Goals,
Behavioral Acts
Your Gut Feeling: What are the Most Beautiful Letters?
http://selfesteemgames.mcgill.ca/
Implicit Self-Esteem (ISE)
Name-Letter Effect
 Implicit Associations Test:
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 http://www.yorku.ca/ianmc/iat/iat.htm
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Maternal over-protectiveness and
unresponsiveness
 Adult
self-reports and parental reports associated
with low implicit self-esteem
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Narcissism, HESE/LISE, Dissmissive
 Approach-motivation—self-idealization