Personality Change (personality + change)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


A Longitudinal Study of Personality Change in Young Adulthood

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 4 2001
Richard W. Robins
The present research examined personality continuity and change in a sample of young men and women assessed at the beginning and end of college. Two-hundred seventy students completed measures of the Big Five personality traits when they first entered college and then four years later. Analyses indicate small- to medium-sized normative (i.e., mean-level) changes, large rank-order stability correlations, high levels of stability in personality structure, and moderate levels of ipsative (i.e. profile) stability. Overall, the findings are consistent with the perspective that personality traits exhibits considerable continuity over time, yet can change in systematic ways. [source]


Does personality change and, if so, what changes?,

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 1 2004
Conor Duggan
Background Although the question of whether or not personality changes is fundamental to much of what clinicians do, we do not appear to be very curious about the question itself. Method This paper considers three separate but related issues: (a) Does personality change? (b) If it does, then what changes? (c) How can we show that change has taken place? Costa and McCrea have produced a model of personality that helps to answer (a) and (b), as it distinguishes ,Basic Tendencies' from ,Characteristic Adaptations'. The former are largely innate, fixed dispositions that produce the latter (which are highly variable) depending on its interaction with differing environments. Thus, personality is both static and dynamic depending on its definition. It will also be argued that detecting change is complex as there are many alternative definitions of the relevant outcome variable. Moreover, measuring several different outcomes does not help as change in one measure is often not matched by a concordant change in another. Some practical examples are provided to support this position. Conclusions In the absence of a firm theoretical base, the author believes that only limited conclusions can be drawn about the efficacy of treatment in personality disorder. Copyright © 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source]


Big Five personality development in adolescence and adulthood

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 1 2007
Susan J. T. Branje
Abstract The present article examines Big Five personality development across adolescence and middle adulthood. Two adolescents and their fathers and mothers from 285 Dutch families rated their own and their family members' personality. Using accelerated longitudinal growth curve analyses, mean level change in Big Five factors was estimated. For boys, Extraversion and Openness decreased and for girls, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness increased. Whereas mothers' Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness increased, fathers' Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Emotional Stability decreased. Differences in self- and other-reported personality change were found, as well as interindividual differences in personality change. Results confirm that personality change is possible across the life course but these changes are not similar for all individuals and depend on the type of observer. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Stability and change in adolescents' personality: a longitudinal study

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 6 2006
Helle Pullmann
Abstract The present study examined three types of personality change and continuity (mean-level, individual-level, and rank-order stability) over the 2-year period in a nationally representative longitudinal sample of Estonian adolescents (N,=,876) aged 12,18. According to the Reliable Change Index, 82.1% of adolescents maintained the same level on any given personality trait measured by the NEO Five-Factorial Inventory (NEO-FFI) indicating that the individual-level continuity of adolescents did not differ compared to young adults. A reliable increase was found in Openness. Across the five dimensions, the average test,retest correlations were 0.51, 0.56 and 0.67, and the computed biennial stability values were 0.80, 0.83 and 0.89 for age groups 12,,,14, 14,,,16 and 16,,,18 years, respectively. Neither intelligence nor school performance moderated the differential continuity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


A Taxonomy of Passive Behaviors in People with Alzheimer's Disease

JOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 3 2000
Kathleen Byrne Colling
Purpose: To construct a taxonomy of passive behaviors for understanding people with Alzheimer's disease. Passive behaviors are those associated with decreased motor movements, decreasing interactions with the environment, and feelings of apathy and listlessness. Little is known about behaviors associated with passivity, and these behaviors have not been categorized. Organizing Construct: Taxonomy construction. Passive behaviors in people with Alzheimer's disease were conceptualized as disturbing behaviors, patterns of personality change, and negative symptoms. Methods: The taxonomy was developed using critical reviews of 15 empirical studies published 1985 through 1998. Procedures included listing behaviors; clustering behaviors into inductively derived groupings; conducting an expert panel-review, making revisions, and conduting a second review; establishing global and category-by-category reliability using Cohen's Kappa. Findings: The nonhierarchic, natural taxonomy indicated five categories of behaviors associated with passivity in Alzheimer's disease: diminutions of cognition, psychomotor activity, emotions, interactions with people, and interactions with the environment. Analysis indicated substantial agreement beyond chance and showed statistically significant agreement among the six nurse-expert raters. Areas of synchrony between the taxonomy and the Need-Driven Dementia Compromised Behavior Model were identified. Conclusions: This taxonomy of passive behaviors in patients with Alzheimer's disease showed empirical rigor and compatibility with a middle-range theory and can be viewed as a sensitizing analytic scheme to guide future practice, research, and theory development. [source]


Developmental Trajectories of Impulsivity and Their Association With Alcohol Use and Related Outcomes During Emerging and Young Adulthood I

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 8 2010
Andrew K. Littlefield
Background:, Research has documented normative patterns of personality change during emerging and young adulthood that reflect decreases in traits associated with substance use, such as impulsivity. However, evidence suggests variability in these developmental changes. Methods:, This study examined trajectories of impulsivity and their association with substance use and related problems from ages 18 to 35. Analyses were based on data collected from a cohort of college students (N = 489), at high and low risk for AUDs, first assessed as freshmen at a large, public university. Results:, Mixture modeling identified five trajectory groups that differed in baseline levels of impulsivity and developmental patterns of change. Notably, the trajectory group that exhibited the sharpest declines in impulsivity tended to display accelerated decreases in alcohol involvement from ages 18 to 25 compared to the other impulsivity groups. Conclusion:, Findings highlight the developmental nature of impulsivity across emerging and young adulthood and provide an empirical framework to identify key covariates of individual changes of impulsivity. [source]


Magnitude of trauma and personality change

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 4 2003
Klaus Fink
In this paper the author postulates that, in post-traumatic personality structures caused by overwhelming traumatic experiences, pre-traumatic personality features and childhood experiences are of little or no relevance. Sixty-four survivors of Nazi concentration camps are examined, their concentration camp experiences detailed and pre-persecution histories and post-persecution psychopathology studied. The significance of a concentration camp experience is analytically discussed and evaluated. This study shows that 52 cases (81.2%) of the 64 survivors of concentration camps presented an almost identical depressive personality structure irrespective of their prepersecution life history. The 64 survivors of concentration camps are psychologically compared to 78 cases of people who, in view of the menacing circumstances, decided to emigrate and in this way were spared from becoming victims of the Nazi ,final solution'. Finally, the author discusses the value of psychoanalytical treatment. [source]


Anti,N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis in children and adolescents,

ANNALS OF NEUROLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Nicole R. Florance MD
Objective To report the clinical features of anti,N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis in patients , 18 years old. Methods Information was obtained by the authors or referring physicians. Antibodies were determined by immunocytochemistry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using HEK293 cells ectopically expressing NR1. Results Over an 8-month period, 81 patients (12 male) with anti-NMDAR encephalitis were identified. Thirty-two (40%) were ,18 years old (youngest 23 months, median 14 years); 6 were male. The frequency of ovarian teratomas was 56% in women >18 years old, 31% in girls ,18 years old (p = 0.05), and 9% in girls ,14 years old (p = 0.008). None of the male patients had tumors. Of 32 patients ,18 years old, 87.5% presented with behavioral or personality change, sometimes associated with seizures and frequent sleep dysfunction; 9.5% with dyskinesias or dystonia; and 3% with speech reduction. On admission, 53% had severe speech deficits. Eventually, 77% developed seizures, 84% stereotyped movements, 86% autonomic instability, and 23% hypoventilation. Responses to immunotherapy were slow and variable. Overall, 74% had full or substantial recovery after immunotherapy or tumor removal. Neurological relapses occurred in 25%. At the last follow-up, full recovery occurred more frequently in patients who had a teratoma that was removed (5/8) than in those without a teratoma (4/23; p = 0.03). Interpretation Anti-NMDAR encephalitis is increasingly recognized in children, comprising 40% of all cases. Younger patients are less likely to have tumors. Behavioral and speech problems, seizures, and abnormal movements are common early symptoms. The phenotype resembles that of the adults, although dysautonomia and hypoventilation are less frequent or severe in children. Ann Neurol 2009;66:11,18 [source]


Does personality change and, if so, what changes?,

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 1 2004
Conor Duggan
Background Although the question of whether or not personality changes is fundamental to much of what clinicians do, we do not appear to be very curious about the question itself. Method This paper considers three separate but related issues: (a) Does personality change? (b) If it does, then what changes? (c) How can we show that change has taken place? Costa and McCrea have produced a model of personality that helps to answer (a) and (b), as it distinguishes ,Basic Tendencies' from ,Characteristic Adaptations'. The former are largely innate, fixed dispositions that produce the latter (which are highly variable) depending on its interaction with differing environments. Thus, personality is both static and dynamic depending on its definition. It will also be argued that detecting change is complex as there are many alternative definitions of the relevant outcome variable. Moreover, measuring several different outcomes does not help as change in one measure is often not matched by a concordant change in another. Some practical examples are provided to support this position. Conclusions In the absence of a firm theoretical base, the author believes that only limited conclusions can be drawn about the efficacy of treatment in personality disorder. Copyright © 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source]


Cenestho-hypohondriac disorders in schizophrenia started in adolescence period

ACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 2002
V. Prokudin
For 10,15 years we studied the time-course of neurosis-like disorders in 46 patients with schizophrenia manifested in adolescence with cenetesthopathic disorders (23 patients presented the cenesthopathic,hypohondriac syndrome, in 17 cenesthopathia was attended by phobias, in six it was combined with manifestations of derealization and depersonalization). The study showed that in 87% of the patients the disease ran continuously (torpidly in 29, by the type of simple form in five and by type of paranoid form in six patients), in 13% of the patients the disease ran a paroxysm-progressive course. In 10,15 years the clinical picture in half of the patients continued to be characterized by the leading cenestho,hypochondriac symptomatology, in one-fourth of patients cenestho,hypochondriac disorders were transformed into hallucinational-paranoid, in another one-fourth of patients into either psychosis-like or apatho-abulic symptomatology. It is discussed the degree of progression of the disease in different variants of its course, the social and marital status of patients, the specificity of personality changes, and peculiarities of disease relapse. In patients with neurosis-like slack-course of disease it was the tendency of regredient dynamics and stable remissions. In patients with continuous variant (paranoid form) the degree of progredience was constantly increased and there was not a stable remissions. All patients with neurosis-like slack course were characterized by good social rehabilitation, but paranoic patients , by desadaptation. Only 17% of adolescents became be married after 10,15 years of our study. [source]


Urban-Rural Differences in a Memory Disorders Clinical Population

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 5 2001
Sarah B. Wackerbarth PhD
OBJECTIVES: To compare patient characteristics and family perceptions of patient function at one urban and one rural memory disorders clinic. DESIGN: Secondary, cross-sectional data analyses of an extant clinical database. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: First time visits (n = 956) at two memory disorders clinics. MEASUREMENTS: Patient and family-member demographics and assessment results for the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), activities of daily living (ADLs), the Memory Change and Personality Change components of the Blessed Dementia Rating Scale, and the Revised Memory and Behavior Problems Checklist. RESULTS: In both clinics, patients and family members were more likely female. The typical urban clinic patient was significantly more likely to be living in a facility and more educated than the typical rural patient. Urban and rural patients did not show significant differences in age- and education-adjusted MMSE scores or raw ADL/IADL ratings, but the urban family members reported more memory problems, twice as many personality changes, more-frequent behavior problems, and more adverse reactions to problems. CONCLUSION: Physicians who practice in both urban and rural areas can anticipate differences between patients, and their families, who seek a diagnosis of memory disorders. Our most important finding is that despite similarities in reported functional abilities, urban families appear to be more sensitive to and more distressed by patients' cognitive and behavioral symptoms than rural families. These differences may reflect different underlying needs, and should be explored in further research. [source]


Personality Development From Late Adolescence to Young Adulthood: Differential Stability, Normative Maturity, and Evidence for the Maturity-Stability Hypothesis

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 2 2007
M. Brent Donnellan
ABSTRACT This investigation examined personality development during the transition from adolescence to adulthood using the brief form of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Patrick, Curtin, & Tellegen, 2002). Parent and self-reports of personality were obtained in 1994 (average age=17.60 years), and self-reports were obtained in 2003 (average age=27.24 years). There was evidence of both differential stability and normative changes in the direction of increased functional maturity during this transition. Moreover, adolescents with more mature personalities in 1994 tended to show fewer personality changes from 1994 to 2003. These maturity-stability effects held when parent reports were used to assess personality. All told, there was evidence of both stability and change in personality during the transition to adulthood. [source]


Essential tremor , Neurodegenerative or nondegenerative disease towards a working definition of ET,

MOVEMENT DISORDERS, Issue 14 2009
Günther Deuschl MD
Abstract Essential tremor (ET) is a syndrome of tremor in posture and movement, but recent studies have revealed additional cerebellar motor disturbances, cognitive disturbances, personality changes, hearing loss, and olfactory deficits. Even dementia and shortened life expectancy were found in one cohort. Recent postmortem studies have found limited Lewy body pathology in some patients and Purkinje cell loss with torpedoes and Bergmann gliosis in others. These findings have led to the hypothesis that ET is a syndrome produced by at least two neurodegenerative diseases with more widespread clinical consequences than previously appreciated. We review the evidence for and against this hypothesis and conclude that studies purporting to support this hypothesis have failed to control for age-associated comorbidities, depression, medications, and other confounding factors. We propose the alternative hypothesis that abnormal neuronal oscillation is the fundamental abnormality in ET, and the well-documented cerebellar signs and symptoms, the controversial non-motor signs, and even the cerebellar pathology of ET could be caused by this oscillation. A major problem for many studies is the lack of a diagnostic gold standard. Lacking such a standard, we propose a subclassification of ET into three categories: hereditary ET, sporadic ET, and senile ET, which we believe will help researchers resolve many of the controversies in this field. © 2009 Movement Disorder Society [source]


Progressive supranuclear palsy combined with Alzheimer's disease: A clinicopathological study of two autopsy cases

NEUROPATHOLOGY, Issue 3 2009
Rieko Sakamoto
We present here the clinicopathological characteristics of two autopsy-confirmed cases comorbid of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Histopathologically, the amount and distribution of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in the basal ganglia and brainstem fulfilled the pathological criteria of PSP proposed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke , The Society for PSP (NINDS-SPSP). The Braak stages of senile plaques and NFTs were stage C and stage V in Case 1, and stage C and stage IV in Case 2. These neuropathological findings confirmed that the two patients had combined PSP with AD. Our patients presented clinically with executive dysfunction prior to memory disturbance as an early symptom. Not only neurological symptoms such as gait disturbance, supranuclear ophthalmoplegia and pseudobulbar palsy, but emotional and personality changes and delirium were prominent. Therefore, symptoms of subcortical dementia of PSP were more predominant than AD-related symptoms in the present two patients. Comorbid PSP and AD further complicates the clinical picture and makes clinical diagnosis even more difficult. [source]


Minocycline and doxycycline are not beneficial in a model of Huntington's disease

ANNALS OF NEUROLOGY, Issue 2 2003
Donna L. Smith BSc
Huntington's Disease (HD) is an inherited neurological disorder causing movement impairment, personality changes, dementia, and premature death, for which there is currently no effective therapy. The modified tetracycline antibiotic, minocycline, has been reported to ameliorate the disease phenotype in the R6/2 mouse model of HD. Because the tetracyclines have also been reported to inhibit aggregation in other amyloid disorders, we have investigated their ability to inhibit huntingtin aggregation and further explored their efficacy in preclinical mouse trials. We show that tetracyclines are potent inhibitors of huntingtin aggregation in a hippocampal slice culture model of HD at an effective concentration of 30,M. However, despite achieving tissue levels approaching this concentration by oral treatment of R6/2 mice with minocycline, we observed no clear difference in their behavioral abnormalities, or in aggregate load postmortem. In the light of these new data, we would advise that caution be exercised in proceeding into human clinical trials of minocycline. Ann Neurol 2003 [source]