Histrionic Personality Disorder, according to the textbook Psychology, Seventh Edition, by David Myers, 2004, is a person who is very dramatic, impulsive, and displays shallow emotions to get attention from others and goes to great lengths to gain other’s admiration and assurance. Individuals with HPD are highly emotional, charming, energetic, manipulative, seductive, impulsive, erratic and demanding. They are very uncomfortable in situations where he/she is not the center of attention.
HPD is the only personality disorder associated with one’s physical appearance and go as far as throwing temper tantrums, exaggerating, and crying if they are not the center of attention. They are also naïve, gullible, have a low frustration threshold, and strong dependency needs. These are a few indications of someone with HPD:
• Interaction with others is sexually seductive or provocative behavior
• Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions
• Consistently uses their physical appearance to draw attention to themselves.
• Speech is excessively impressionistic and lacks detail
• Shows self-dramatization
• Easily influenced by others
• Considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are
There is not very much research on the causes of HPD, but biological genetics, developmental, cognitive, and social culture could play a large role in how HPD affects an individual. The environment one developed in could have an affect on the way they react around other people. Individuals who had trauma during childhood have been shown to be at a greater risk of developing HPD. HPD may also be diagnosed more in Hispanic and Latin-American cultures and less frequently in Asian cultures. HPD is more frequent and females and about 2%-3% of the American population are diagnosed with this personality disorder.
The diagnostic of Histrionic Personality Disorder is very complicated because it commonly occurs with other personality disorders....