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International Journal of Medical... Sep 2020The aims of this review, focused on medical students, residents, and physicians, were a) to determine the levels of perfectionism and prevalence of impostor phenomenon,... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVES
The aims of this review, focused on medical students, residents, and physicians, were a) to determine the levels of perfectionism and prevalence of impostor phenomenon, b) to assess the relationship between perfectionism, impostor phenomenon, and mental health, and c) explore how medical culture may influence these personality characteristics.
METHODS
A narrative literature review was conducted. Search terms were entered into PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Google Scholar without date or geographic restrictions. The McMaster Critical Review Forms for Quantitative and Qualitative Studies were used for article appraisal. Final decisions on inclusion and exclusion were reached through discussion. Sixteen articles were included in this review and summarized in a data extraction table.
RESULTS
Medical students had similar perfectionism scores to other student groups but scored lower in maladaptive perfectionism. The overall prevalence of the impostor phenomenon ranged from 22.5% to 46.6%. More females (41% - 52%) experienced clinical levels of impostor phenomenon compared to males (23.7% - 48%). Most studies did not find an association between the impostor phenomenon and academic year of training. Both personality characteristics were associated with negative mental health effects. Medical culture can train for and/or exacerbate these characteristics, affecting professional identity formation. Both characteristics contribute to distress for learners during commonly-used teaching methods in medical education.
CONCLUSIONS
Comprehensive changes in medical education that consider the relationship between medical culture, professional identity formation, impostor phenomenon, and perfectionism are needed. Longitudinal studies will help identify the implications of these findings for professional identity formation and medical education.
Topics: Anxiety Disorders; Education, Medical; Female; Humans; Internship and Residency; Male; Mental Health; Perfectionism; Physicians; Prevalence; Self Concept; Sex Factors; Students, Medical
PubMed: 32996466
DOI: 10.5116/ijme.5f54.c8f8 -
Journal of Internal Medicine May 2022In line with increasing numbers of transgender (trans) and gender nonbinary people requesting hormone treatment, the body of available research is expanding. More... (Review)
Review
In line with increasing numbers of transgender (trans) and gender nonbinary people requesting hormone treatment, the body of available research is expanding. More clinical research groups are presenting data, and the numbers of participants in these studies are rising. Many previous review papers have focused on all available data, as these were scarce, but a more recent literature review is timely. Hormonal regimens have changed over time, and older data may be less relevant for today's practice. In recent literature, we have found that even though mental health problems are more prevalent in trans people compared to cisgender people, less psychological difficulties occur, and life satisfaction increases with gender-affirming hormone treatment (GAHT) for those who feel this is a necessity. With GAHT, body composition and contours change towards the affirmed sex. Studies in bone health are reassuring, but special attention is needed for adolescent and adult trans women, aiming at adequate dosage of hormonal supplementation and stimulating therapy compliance. Existing epidemiological data suggest that the use of (certain) estrogens in trans women induces an increased risk of myocardial infarction and stroke, the reason that lifestyle management can be an integral part of trans health care. The observed cancer risk in trans people does not exceed the known cancer-risk differences between men and women. Now it is time to integrate the mostly reassuring data, to leave the overly cautious approach behind, to not copy the same research questions repeatedly, and to focus on longer follow-up data with larger cohorts.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Female; Gender Identity; Humans; Male; Neoplasms; Testosterone; Transgender Persons; Transsexualism
PubMed: 34982475
DOI: 10.1111/joim.13441 -
Journal of Personality Assessment 2022Personality changes across the lifespan, but strong evidence regarding the mechanisms responsible for personality change remains elusive. Studies of personality change...
Personality changes across the lifespan, but strong evidence regarding the mechanisms responsible for personality change remains elusive. Studies of personality change and life events, for example, suggest that personality is difficult to change. But there are two key issues with assessing personality change. First, most change models optimize population-level, not individual-level, effects, which ignores heterogeneity in patterns of change. Second, optimizing change as mean-levels of self-reports fails to incorporate methods for assessing personality dynamics, such as using changes in variances of and correlations in multivariate time series data that often proceed changes in mean-levels, making variance change detection a promising technique for the study of change. Using a sample of = 388 participants (total = 21,790) assessed weekly over 60 weeks, we test a permutation-based approach for detecting individual-level personality changes in multivariate time series and compare the results to event-based methods for assessing change. We find that a non-trivial number of participants show change over the course of the year but that there was little association between these change points and life events they experienced. We conclude by highlighting the importance in idiographic and dynamic investigations of change.
Topics: Humans; Personality; Personality Disorders; Self Report; Time Factors
PubMed: 34678086
DOI: 10.1080/00223891.2021.1984246 -
Acta Psychologica Feb 2023In all, 510 Europeans completed an online questionnaire rating their beliefs about personal change, including the established Dweck Mindset measure. Their ratings of 27...
In all, 510 Europeans completed an online questionnaire rating their beliefs about personal change, including the established Dweck Mindset measure. Their ratings of 27 characteristics from BMI to sexual preference factored into 5 interpretable factors labelled Personality, Beliefs and Habits, Health, Social Status and Physical. Correlation indicated beliefs about change were most related to religious beliefs but also sex and age. Dweck ratings of ability and personality growth were logically related to beliefs about change on the five factors and also to religious beliefs and self-rated optimism. Regressions indicated that being religious was the most consistent predictor about change, as well as age and education. Many beliefs about change were in direct contraction to the academic literature on the topic. Implications and limitations are acknowledged.
Topics: Humans; Personality; Religion; Sexual Behavior; Educational Status
PubMed: 36566611
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103821 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Jul 2023Animal personality, consistent individual differences in behaviour, is an important concept for understanding how individuals vary in how they cope with environmental... (Review)
Review
Animal personality, consistent individual differences in behaviour, is an important concept for understanding how individuals vary in how they cope with environmental challenges. In order to understand the evolutionary significance of animal personality, it is crucial to understand the underlying regulatory mechanisms. Epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation are hypothesised to play a major role in explaining variation in phenotypic changes in response to environmental alterations. Several characteristics of DNA methylation also align well with the concept of animal personality. In this review paper, we summarise the current literature on the role that molecular epigenetic mechanisms may have in explaining personality variation. We elaborate on the potential for epigenetic mechanisms to explain behavioural variation, behavioural development and temporal consistency in behaviour. We then suggest future routes for this emerging field and point to potential pitfalls that may be encountered. We conclude that a more inclusive approach is needed for studying the epigenetics of animal personality and that epigenetic mechanisms cannot be studied without considering the genetic background.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Personality; Individuality; Epigenesis, Genetic; Biological Evolution
PubMed: 37094740
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105194 -
Psychoneuroendocrinology Jul 2023An aging-related immune phenotype (ARIP) has been defined as a decrease in naïve T cells (T) relative to the accumulation of memory T cells (T). Recent research...
An aging-related immune phenotype (ARIP) has been defined as a decrease in naïve T cells (T) relative to the accumulation of memory T cells (T). Recent research implicates ARIP measures, such as CD4 +T/T and CD8 +T/T ratios, in multimorbidity and mortality. This study examined whether psychological dispositions that assess how people think, feel, and behave are related to CD4 +T/T and CD8 +T/T. Participants were adults aged 50-104 years (N = 4798; 58% women, Mean Age= 67.95, SD= 9.56) from the Health and Retirement Study. Data on CD4 +T/T and CD8 +T/T were obtained in 2016. Data on personality, demographic factors, and potential clinical (body mass index, disease burden), behavioral (smoking, alcohol, physical activity), psychological (depressive symptoms, stress), and biological (cytomegalovirus IgG antibodies) mediating factors were obtained in 2014/2016. Controlling for demographic factors, higher conscientiousness was related to higher CD4 +T/T and CD8 +T/T. To a lesser extent, higher neuroticism and lower extraversion were associated with lower CD4 +T/T Physical activity, and to a lesser extent BMI and disease burden, were the most robust mediators between personality and ARIP measures. Cytomegalovirus IgG level mediated the association between conscientiousness and both CD4 +T/T and CD8 +T/T. This study provides novel evidence that personality is related to ARIP. Higher conscientiousness and, to a lesser extent, higher extraversion may be protective against age-related immunophenotype change, whereas neuroticism may be a risk factor.
Topics: Female; Male; Humans; Personality; Personality Disorders; Neuroticism; Immunoglobulin G
PubMed: 37120948
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106113 -
Perspectives on Psychological Science :... Mar 2022Education involving active engagement in the arts, herein called , is often believed to foster the development of desirable personality traits and skills in children and... (Review)
Review
Education involving active engagement in the arts, herein called , is often believed to foster the development of desirable personality traits and skills in children and adolescents. Yet the impact of arts education on personality development has rarely been systematically investigated. In the current article, we reviewed the literature on personality change through arts education. We identified 36 suitable experimental and quasi-experimental studies. Evidence from these studies tentatively suggests that arts-education programs can foster personality traits such as extraversion and conscientiousness but not self-esteem. In addition, the effects of arts education appeared to be stronger in early and middle childhood than in preadolescence and early adolescence. However, the evidence for the effectiveness of arts education was very limited among the few included true experiments. Furthermore, the reviewed studies were heterogenous and subject to content-related, methodological, and statistical limitations. Thus, the current evidence base is inconclusive as to the effects of arts education on personality development. By identifying potential effects of arts education and limitations of past research, our review serves as a call for more research and guidepost for future studies on arts education and personality change.
Topics: Adolescent; Child; Educational Status; Humans; Personality; Self Concept
PubMed: 34283673
DOI: 10.1177/1745691621991852 -
Journal of Clinical Psychology in... Mar 2022In a cross-sectional multi-method study of older adults living with and without HIV (n = 202; 69.8% HIV seropositive), we tested associations between personality...
In a cross-sectional multi-method study of older adults living with and without HIV (n = 202; 69.8% HIV seropositive), we tested associations between personality traits and everyday functioning, and whether these associations differed depending on HIV serostatus. We found that higher levels of conscientiousness and lower levels of neuroticism were associated with higher odds of being clinically independent (vs. dependent) in everyday functioning. These findings replicated across self- and clinician-reports and persisted above and beyond relevant covariates. We found no evidence of interactions between personality and HIV serostatus, suggesting that personality was equally important for everyday functioning regardless of HIV serostatus. Given the present findings and the knowledge that personality is dynamic and amenable to intervention, we discuss two different possible pathways for intervention meant to improve everyday functioning and quality of life among older adults with and without HIV: personality change and personalized medicine.
Topics: Aged; Cross-Sectional Studies; HIV Infections; Humans; Personality; Personality Disorders; Quality of Life
PubMed: 34036476
DOI: 10.1007/s10880-021-09783-3 -
Annual Review of Psychology Jan 2023Despite progress made toward increasing women's interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), women continue to be underrepresented and... (Review)
Review
Despite progress made toward increasing women's interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), women continue to be underrepresented and experience less equity and inclusion in some STEM fields. In this article, I review the psychological literature relevant to understanding and mitigating women's lower fit and inclusion in STEM. Person-level explanations concerning women's abilities, interests, and self-efficacy are insufficient for explaining these persistent gaps. Rather, women's relatively lower interest in male-dominated STEM careers such as computer science and engineering is likely to be constrained by gender stereotypes. These gender stereotypes erode women's ability to experience self-concept fit, goal fit, and/or social fit. Such effects occur independently of intentional interpersonal biases and discrimination, and yet they create systemic barriers to women's attraction to, integration in, and advancement in STEM. Dismantling these systemic barriers requires a multifaceted approach to changing organizational and educational cultures at the institutional, interpersonal, and individual level.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Science; Technology; Engineering; Motivation; Self Concept
PubMed: 35961037
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-032720-043052 -
Social Cognitive and Affective... Oct 2020Does the tendency to adjust appraisals of ourselves in the past and future in order to maintain a favourable view of ourselves in the present require episodic memory? A...
Does the tendency to adjust appraisals of ourselves in the past and future in order to maintain a favourable view of ourselves in the present require episodic memory? A developmental amnesic person with impaired episodic memory (HC) was compared with two groups of age-matched controls on tasks assessing the Big Five personality traits and social competence in relation to the past, present and future. Consistent with previous research, controls believed that their personality had changed more in the past 5 years than it will change in the next 5 years (i.e. the end-of-history illusion), and rated their present and future selves as more socially competent than their past selves (i.e. social improvement illusion), although this was moderated by self-esteem. Despite her lifelong episodic memory impairment, HC also showed these biases of temporal self-appraisal. Together, these findings do not support the theory that the temporal extension of the self-concept requires the ability to recollect richly detailed memories of the self in the past and future.
Topics: Adult; Amnesia; Female; Humans; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall; Personality; Self Concept
PubMed: 32734306
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa105