Chapter Ten: Psychological Disorders

Personality Disorders

INTRODUCTION

Rigid, maladaptive traits that cause distress or an inability to get along with others.

WHAT'S AHEAD

• When does being self-centered become a disorder?
• What do a charming but heartless tycoon and a remorseless killer have in common?
• Why are some people seemingly incapable of feeling guilt and shame?

KEY CONCEPTS

Problem Personalities
The Antisocial Personality

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Problem Personalities (p.348)


KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED

• Paranoid Personality Disorder
  
  
  • Pervasive unfound suspiciousness and mistrust of others.
    
    
  • Delusions of being persecuted.
    
    
  • Beliefs are immune to disconfirmation.
    
    
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  
  
  • Exaggerated sense of importance and self-absorption.
    
    
  • Preoccupied with fantasies of success, brilliance, or ideal love.
    
    
  • Demand constant attention but unwilling to reciprocate.
    
    
• Culture influences classification.

GLOSSARY

	personality disorders
	paranoid personality disorder
	narcissistic personality disorder

LINKS About the Narcissistic and Paranoid Personality Disorders

• www.link: Your roommate?.
• www.link: Paranoid personality description

Antisocial Personality (APD) (p.349)

INTRODUCTION

Engages in antisocial behavior with a lack of appropriate emotions.

KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED

• Lack of normal emotions
  
  
  • Lack of empathy - the ability to take another's perspective.
    
    
  • Lack of shame.
    
    
  • Lack of guilt - the ability to feel remorse.
    
    
• Without conscience - no regard for the rights of others.
  
  
  • Will charm, lie, and seduce others without a qualm.
    
    
  • When caught, appears sincerely sorry but is just acting.

• Does not respond normally to punishment.
  
  
  • May not be able to feel the anxiety that is necessary for learning that this action will have unpleasant consequences.

• Incidence
  
  
  • More common in men (3-5%) than women (1%).
    
    
  • May account for over 1/2 of the serious violent crimes.

• Behavior patterns appear in childhood.

• Possible Causes of APD:
  
  
  • Problems in behavioral inhibition
    
    
    • Common inherited disorder.
      
      
    • The ability to control response to frustration or inhibit a pleasurable action that may have unpleasant repercussions.
      
      
  • Neurological impairments
    • Physical abuse and birth complications.
      
      
  • Vulnerability-stress model.
    
    
    • Brain damage interacts with social deprivation and experiences to produce impulsive, violent individual.
      
      
• Culture may foster APD.
  
  
  • Success at all costs values.
    
    
  • Incidence varies across cultures.

GLOSSARY

antisocial personality disorder

LINKS About the Antisocial Personality Disorder

• www.link: New trends in research.
• www.link: Antisocial personality description
• www.link: The sociobiology of antisocial personality disorders.

Next Topic - Dissociative Disorders.......... ..............................Chapter Contents