socially dependent. They may become overly depen-
dent on approval from others and readily assume the
ideas or wishes of others without regard for their own
beliefs or desires. People with low reward depen-
dence are practical, tough-minded, cold, socially in-
sensitive, irresolute, and indifferent to being alone.
Social withdrawal, detachment, aloofness, and dis-
interest in others can result.
Highly persistent people are hardworking and
ambitious overachievers who respond to fatigue or
frustration as a personal challenge. They may perse-
vere even when a situation dictates that they should
change or stop. People with low persistence are in-
active, indolent, unstable, and erratic. They tend to
give up easily when frustrated and rarely strive for
higher accomplishments.
These four temperament genetically independent
traits occur in all possible combinations. Some of the
descriptions above of high and low levels of traits cor-
respond closely with the descriptions of the various
personality disorders. For example, people with anti-
social personality disorder are low in harm avoidance
traits and high in novelty seeking traits, while people
with dependent personality disorder are high in re-
ward dependence traits and harm avoidance traits.
Psychodynamic Theories
Although temperament is largely inherited, social
learning, culture, and random life events unique to
each person influence character. Charactercon-
sists of concepts about the self and the external
world. It develops over time as a person comes into
contact with people and situations and confronts
challenges. Three major character traits have been
distinguished: self-directedness, cooperativeness, and
self-transcendence. When fully developed, these char-
acter traits define a mature personality (Cloninger &
Svrakic, 2000).
Self-directedness is the extent to which a person
is responsible, reliable, resourceful, goal-oriented,
and self-confident. Self-directed people are realistic
and effective and can adapt their behavior to achieve
goals. People low in self-directedness are blaming,
helpless, irresponsible, and unreliable. They cannot
set and pursue meaningful goals.
Cooperativeness refers to the extent to which a
person sees himself or herself as an integral part of
human society. Highly cooperative people are de-
scribed as empathic, tolerant, compassionate, sup-
portive, and principled. People with low cooperative-
ness are self-absorbed, intolerant, critical, unhelpful,
revengeful, and opportunistic; that is, they look out
for themselves without regard for the rights and feel-
ings of others.
Self-transcendence describes the extent to which
a person considers himself or herself to be an integral
part of the universe. Self-transcendent people are
spiritual, unpretentious, humble, and fulfilled. These
traits are helpful when dealing with suffering, illness,
or death. People low in self-transcendence are practi-
cal, self-conscious, materialistic, and controlling. They
may have difficulty accepting suffering, loss of control,
personal and material losses, and death.
Character matures in stepwise stages from in-
fancy through late adulthood. Chapter 3 discusses
psychological development according to Freud, Erik-
son, and others. Each stage has an associated devel-
opmental task that the person must perform for ma-
ture personality development. Failure to complete a
developmental task jeopardizes the person’s ability
to achieve future developmental tasks. For example,
if the task of basic trust is not achieved in infancy,
mistrust results and subsequently interferes with
achievement of all future tasks.
Experiences with family, peers, and others can
significantly influence psychosocial development. So-
cial education in the family creates an environment
that can support or oppress specific character devel-
opment. For example, a family environment that does
not value and demonstrate cooperation with others
(compassion, tolerance) will fail to support the devel-
opment of that trait in its children. Likewise, the per-
son with nonsupportive or difficult peer relationships
growing up may have lifelong difficulty relating to
others and forming satisfactory relationships.
In summary, personality develops in response to
inherited dispositions (temperament) and environ-
mental influences (character), which are experiences
unique to each person. Personality disorders result
when the combination of temperament and character
development produces maladaptive, inflexible ways
of viewing self, coping with the world, and relating to
others.CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS
Judgments about personality functioning must in-
volve a consideration of the person’s ethnic, cultural,
and social background (APA, 2000). Members of mi-
nority groups, immigrants, political refugees, and peo-
ple from different ethnic backgrounds may display
guarded or defensive behavior as a result of language
barriers or previous negative experiences; this should
not be confused with paranoid personality disorder.
People with religious or spiritual beliefs, such as clair-
voyance, speaking in tongues, or evil spirits as a cause
of disease, could be misinterpreted as having schizo-
typal personality disorder.
There is also a difference in how some cultural
groups view avoidance or dependent behavior, partic-16 PERSONALITYDISORDERS 377