McAdam's three level theory of Personality

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What is McAdams saying about, Eysenck's PEN model, Gray's RST model, Costa and McCrae's five factor model?
McAdams is saying that the other models are not explaining personality fully, he is not disputing
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What was McAdam's critique of trait theories?
Traits in isolation do not provide rich enough information to explain that person, traits cant explain individuality, grounded in a cultural sociohisorical context,
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For example?
The role of women, now they can have a full career and be a parent
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What is McADam's theory based on?
Selfhood is not given, it is made, the self develops over time, people seek temporal coherence in their self
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In simple terms?
We are not born with a pre-programmed personality, we have to build ourselves as a person
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William James (1892)
Duplex self - 'I' and 'me'
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What is 'I'?
The process of building identity out of our experiences
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What is 'me'?
Outcomes of the the 'I-ing' process
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What can the 'me' do?
Change over time
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What is McAdam's integrative Theory of personality of level 1?
Level 1: Traits (These are essential for explaining personality, they d't tell you much about the individuality,
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Level 2?
Personal concerns (different developmental stages or goals in our lives
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Level 3?
Life stories
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What is level 1: traits?
FFM: 'OCEAN' (neuroticism is known as emotional stability), dispositional signatures of personality, decontextualised - fairly stable across lifespan and situations
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What do traits not reveal?
reveal information on conditional patterns of personality (Throne, 1989)
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What are level 2: personal concerns?
Motives, values, goals, beliefs, skills, coping styles...
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What is personal concerns?
The broadest level of personality, draws upon many other areas of psychology
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What does it involve?
Focus on motivation, development and strategies
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Contextualised?
Within time, place, and or role (Future orientated, these evolve and change)
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Erikson's model, 1968 Developmental stage
infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, late childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, old age
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Psychological issue?
Trust Vs mistrust, autonomy Vs shame and doubt, intiative Vs guilt, industry vs inferority, identity vs role confusion, intimacy Vs isolation, generativity Vs stagnation or self absorbtion, integrity vs despair
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Central questions?
How can I be secure? How can i be independent? How can I be powerful? How can I be good? Who am I? How can I love? How can I contribute to next generation, evaluate life?
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Why personal concerns are not the whole picture?
They do not present a unified identity sense of the person across time, place and role, they do not provide us with a sense of what the life experiences mean to the person
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What is level 3: life stories?
The formation of narrative identity= who am I? Occurs in late adolescence and young adulthood, integrates experiences into coherent and meaningful identity
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McAdams, 1996?
An internalised and evolving narrative of the self that incorporates the reconstructed past, perceived present and anticipated future
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What is a life story interview?
Method used to collect data on narrative identity, it positions the participant as a story teller
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For example?
In depth interview (2-3 hours), divides their life story into distinct chapters, describes key scenes, characters and plots
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What is about life stories?
Each life story is unique but researchers can code for common dimensions and examine how these narrative dimensions relate to variables of interest, agency, communion, personal growth, meaning making
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McAdams & McLean (2013) Narrative identity
The life story that is constructed from autobiographical memory, an evolving, integrative account, which provides temporal coherence and meaning, answer to 'Who Am I?' question
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What is developmental process facilitated by?
Parent child conversations, social interaction, meaning-making is critical, occurs in adolescence due to age related increases in meaning-making skills, collect informatin that links
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What is the importance of narrative identity?
Narrative identity is not just a bunch of random stories, life stories have predictive value
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What is flow chart?
Narrative identity --> Unity, purpose and meaning --> well being, pro-social behaviour
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Redemption in narrative identity, McAdam's (2013)
When the person describes how a negative event led to a positive outcome, master narrative in the USA (the American dream)
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For example?
In his book 'redemptive self', failing an exam teaches you how you just need to be better prepared
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McAdams et al (2001) 2 samples?
74 mid life adults- completed life story interview, 125 UG students - written version of LSI with 10 life scenes
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What was investigated?
To see if there was a relationship between well being and narrative story. A contamination way is when a narrative story is told in a different way
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Alder et al (2015) study 1?
89 late mid life participants recruited from an existing longitudinal study that included life story interview, selected if they narrated a personal health challenge
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What was assessed?
Mental and physical health assessed 5 times (each year for 4 years post baseline)
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What had participants had completed?
the life story interview
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What was selected?
4 life scenes selected: high point, low point, greatest health challenge and turning point
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How is each life scene coded for?
Agency, communion, redemption, contamination
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What is agency?
Reflects the protagonist feels they have a sense of control
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What is communion?
motivation or drive to connect with other people
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What did Alder et al(2015)?
Do individual differences in narrative identity predict change in mental and physical health over 4 years
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What is trajectory?
Change over time, therefore positive trajectory is an increase over time.
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What was found?
There was no relationship to physical health for any of the themes
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Alder et al (2015) study 2
Do the findings still hold in a prospective investigation in the wake of a negative experience
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What happened?
54 participants drawn from existing longitudinal study, 27 people: Major illness diagnosis, 27 matched people - remained healthy for study duration, abbreviated life story interview, same 4 themes coded across whole interview
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What was the results?
Poorer trajectories of PH (not MH) over 2 years in illness group compared to control groups, they had a decrease in physical health between the baseline and the 2 year period
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What were the results for the control group?
No significant changes in MH or PH over time
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Dunlop and tracy study 2?
Does redemptive narrative preced behavioural change in recovering alcholics
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For example?
44 participants: T1- narrative on last drink and questionnaires on health, personality, months of sobriety, T2: 4 months after T1, questionnaires re-administered
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How participants divided?
Into redemption (12) Vs non redepmption narrative (32) groups
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For example?
Redemption significantly predicted sobriety (83% vs 44%), health of redemption group significantly improved T1 and T2, findings held when controlling for personality, mental health, AA involvement, narrative features
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What are the first summary conclusions?
There is variation in narrative identity across individuals, individual differences in narrative identity predict differences in mental health, narrative identity seems to be particularly central to work through negative events
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what are issues to consider?
Unique stories – generalizability is more challenging. Small (but meaningful) effects Narratives usually assessed at only 1 time point. Evidence to show narrative identity predicts mental health, but less evidence to show it predicts behaviour.
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What was McAdam's critique of trait theories?

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Traits in isolation do not provide rich enough information to explain that person, traits cant explain individuality, grounded in a cultural sociohisorical context,

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For example?

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Card 4

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What is McADam's theory based on?

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In simple terms?

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