Discriminating Personality Disorders Using the WAIS-R: A Comparison of Three Approaches

The purpose of this article is to determine if performance on the Wechsler Adult intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) can be used to discriminate between the different taxonomies of personality disorder classification specified by three models: the biosocial, the interpersonal, and that described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987). Three discriminant function analyses were performed and the results indicated the usefulness of the WAIS-R in making such differentiations for all the approaches. The WAIS-R proved most effective with the biosocial model, evidencing a robust and clinically meaningful pattern of results. implications for further research are discussed.     

Personality Traits as Potential Susceptibility Markers: Differential Susceptibility to Support Among Parents

In this study, we examined whether parents are differentially susceptible to support from their spouse and adolescent child depending on their personality traits, and whether differences in susceptibility to support among parents, in turn, are linked to the quality of support parents give to their children. Participants in this three‐wave longitudinal study were 288 two‐parent Dutch families with an adolescent child. Fathers were on average 43.9 years old (SD = 3.7 years), mothers were 41.7 years old (SD = 3.3 years), and adolescents (50% girls) were 14.5 years old (SD = 0.8 years). We found that the association between support from children toward their parents and subsequent support from parents toward their children was more pronounced for parents high on Openness, for better and for worse. Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability did not emerge as markers of differences in susceptibility. Also, parents did not differ in their susceptibility to support from their spouse, nor were differences in susceptibility found a year later when using data from a third wave. We found very modest support for differential susceptibility, only for Openness, and depending on the source of perceived support and on the timing of measurement.     

Comparison of Three Self-Report Measures of Personality Pathology

Levels of convergence were examined among three personality instruments: the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+ (PDQ-4+), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders Questionnaire (SCID-IIQ) and the Multi-source Assessment of Personality Pathology (MAPP). Each personality questionnaire was administered three times in an alternating sequence over nine consecutive weekdays to a sample of college students. There was some degree of convergence among the three instruments, but there were also substantial empirical differences between them. The data suggest three related conclusions: (1) in general, the self-report version of the MAPP is more conservative than the other two questionnaires, (2) these questionnaires are not interchangeable measures of personality disorders, and (3) the breadth of measurement provided varies as a function of both the questionnaire and the personality disorder being measured.     

Depressive Tendencies and Susceptibility to Anxiety: Differential Personality Correlates

Although the constructs of depression and anxiety are conceptually and clinically separable, they have been difficult to separate psychometrically. The present study is an attempt to statistically disentangle the two constructs and to evaluate their differential correlates. A common factor analysis of the items in a depression and an anxiety inventory was conducted using data collected from two samples—208 college students and eighty-seven 18-year-olds participating in the Block Longitudinal Study. In both samples two factors, interpreted as depressive tendencies and susceptibility to anxiety, were found; the factor loadings on each factor were highly correlated across the two samples. No sex differences were found in these factor structures. Factor-based scores comprised of well-differentiating items were computed for participants in the Block sample. Using partial correlation analyses, observer-measured as well as self-report-based personality correlates of the specific variance associated with depressive tendencies and with susceptibility to anxiety, respectively, were contrasted. The results indicated that a strong interpersonal component discernible in depression was less noticeable in anxiety.     

Mental Simulation, Affect, and Personality: A Conceptual Framework

Recent advances in theory and research on the relations among mental simulation, affect, and personality are summarized and combined. Research has shown that (a) affect and mental simulations can influence each other, (b) mental simulations can serve diverse self-motives, and (c) personality characteristics are related to divergent functions of mental simulations. Findings in these three areas are synthesized into a conceptual framework on the basis of three attributes of mental simulations: (a) time, whether simulations are prospective or retrospective; (b) direction, whether simulations are upward or downward; and (c) focus, whether simulations are contrasted or assimilated. This integrated framework not only may enable a greater understanding of existing findings, but also suggests novel and unique predictions for future research on understanding personality processes, automaticity in simulations, and coping with life events.     

Taxonomies of aggressive behavior: A preliminary report

It has been widely and regularly suggested that aggression is not a unitary concept but rather an omnibus term concealing important and distinct subclasses of behavior. Psychologists have offered various categorical schemes highlighting motivation and form as distinguishing criteria. Many writers have also noted the social relativity of dermitions of classes of aggression and called for a consideration of lay conceptions of aggressive behavior. The present paper explores the correspondence between psychologists' and laypersons' categorizations of aggressive acts. Ten short scenarios of aggression were generated to embody systematic permutations of form and motive as suggested by the published work of social psychologists. Subjects rated every pairwise combination in terms of perceived similarity. The data were subjected to three-factor, multidimensional scaling. The resulting structure indicated that subjects' ratings were not random and reflected consideration of motive (hostile, normative, instrumental, status) and of direct versus indirect form. The data were thus in close correspondence with the classifications generated by psychologists. The desirability of refining this technique and extending it to other cultural and subcultural groups is discussed.     

A Network Approach to Affect Regulation Dynamics and Personality Trait‐Induced Variations: Extraversion and Neuroticism Moderate Reciprocal Influences between Affect and Affect Regulation Strategies

The objectives of the present study were twofold. First, we tested a new approach to affect regulation dynamics, conceptualized as a network made up of the reciprocal influences that affect and affect regulation strategies constantly exert on each other. Second, we attempted to gain a better understanding of these dynamics by examining how they vary according to broad personality traits. To this end, we adopted an experience sampling method, involving five daily assessments over a 2‐week period. In each assessment, participants indicated their current affective experience and the way they had implemented five well‐known affect regulation strategies (i.e. appreciation, positive reappraisal, distraction, expressive suppression, and rumination) since the previous assessment. At the sample level, the network of affect regulation dynamics was characterized by positive feedback loops between positive affect and so‐called broad‐minded strategies, and between negative affect and narrow‐minded strategies. The form of this network varied according to levels of extraversion and neuroticism. Our findings are discussed in light of current knowledge about personality and affect regulation. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Runners and Meditators: A Comparison of Personality Profiles

Although both running and meditating have been considered as healthful and enlightening, no data have yet been published comparing the personality profiles of the two groups. A sample of 48 runners and 43 meditators, all males between the ages of 40 and 60, were given the Cattell 16 PF Test Profile and the results were compared. The meditators were significantly more assertive and enthusiastic than the runners. They also appear as Significantly less conscientious and controlled than the runners, as well as more experimenting and suspicious.     

A Comparison of Four Personality Inventories

Summary: The equivalence of personality constructs measured by four rationally devised inventories was tested by means of a factor analytic approach. The tests were administered to large high school and college samples. Separate analysis of each inventory were followed by analysis of pooled scales representing each factor found in any inventory. Twelve dimensions were found to be common to two or more inventories and consistent across the two samples. The results indicate a convergence on a set of basic personality constructs measurable and equivalent in several inventories.     

Workplace Helping: Interactive Effects of Personality and Momentary Positive Affect

We investigated interactions between positive affect and personality (empathy and altruism) as predictors of workplace helping. We conducted an experience sampling study with 80 participants, each of whom completed personality instruments and responded to a maximum of 5 electronic surveys per day for 5 workdays. This approach allowed us to study relationships over time between momentary positive affect and workplace helping behavior. We found that affect's relationship with later helping depended on the personality trait of altruism. We also found evidence that the relationship was reciprocal—helping others lead to increased positive affect, but again the relationship depended on altruism.     

Personality and Coping: Three Generations of Research

ABSTRACT This article introduces the Journal of Personality 's special issue on coping and personality. It first presents a historical overview of the psychological study of how people cope with stress and identifies three generations of theory and research: (a) the psychoanalysts and the ego development school, which tended to equate personality and coping strategies; (b) the transactional approach, which appeared in the 1960s and emphasized situational and cognitive influences on coping while downplaying the role of individual differences; and (c) the most recent, "third generation," whose work is represented in this special issue and focuses on the role of personality in coping while maintaining strong operational distinctions among coping, personality, appraisal, and adaptational outcomes. This introduction concludes with a discussion of unresolved conceptual and methodological issues and a brief orientation to the third-generation articles that follow in this special issue.     

Readability of Three Adult Personality Tests: Basic Personality Inventory,Jackson Personality Inventory,and Personality Research Form-E

Three personality tests, the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI), the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI), and the Personality Research Form-E (PRF-E) were evaluated for readability using a number of indices. Sentence length, word length, sentence type, and four readability formulas indicated that the readability of the BPI, JPI, and PRF-E would not impede the administration or interpretation of these tests in broad segments of the population.     

Indicators of Affect Dynamics: Structure,Reliability, and Personality Correlates

Researchers are increasingly interested in the affect dynamics of individuals for describing and explaining personality and psychopathology. Recently, the incremental validity of more complex indicators of affect dynamics (IADs; e.g. autoregression) has been called into question (Dejonckheere et al., 2019), with evidence accumulating that these might convey little unique information beyond mean level and general variability of emotions. Our study extends the evidence for the construct validity of IADs by investigating their redundancy and uniqueness, split-half reliability based on indices from odd-numbered and even-numbered days, and association with big five personality traits. We used three diverse samples that assessed daily and momentary emotions, including community participants, individuals with personality pathology, and their significant others (total N = 1192, total number of occasions = 51 278). Mean and variability of affects had high reliability and distinct nomological patterns to big five personality traits. In contrast, more complex IADs exhibited substantial redundancies with mean level and general variability of emotions. When partialing out these redundancies by using residual variables, some of the more complex IADs had acceptable reliability, but only a few of these showed incremental associations with big five personality traits, indicating that IADs have limited validity using the current assessment practices. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Ideology,Affect, Semiotics: Towards a Non-personal Theory of Personality

Personality theories, as Giordano (2014) argues, often treat Western versions of the self as having universal import. Eastern notions of self, however, offer a dramatically different basis for thinking about what personality might be. This paper, nonetheless, seeks to offer a general framework for theorizing about the epiphenomenon of personality in any culture, asserting that it is an effect of specific histories of ideological practices, semiotic networks and systems, and affect, which engage each other in dialogic and dialectical ways. The interactions of these factors, guided by ideology, regularize behavior and affective dynamics, largely in non-personal ways. Subjects are produced and reproduced from these complex interactions, which are situationally specific and simultaneously transpersonal. The subjects formed through these interactions are the basis for the folk psychology of personality, which treats the transient, varying effects of these interactions as more or less reified qualities that form a basis for the construction of selfhood, however conceived.     

Using Three Levels of Personality to Predict Time Perspective

While there is accumulating evidence that individual differences in time perspective are important predictors of a diverse set of psychosocial outcomes, there is little understanding concerning the possible origins of these individual differences. To begin to examine the possible predictors of individual differences in time perspectives, three levels of personality (life history strategy, the Big Five personality traits, and identity) were used to predict the five time perspectives identified by Zimbardo and Boyd (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1271–1288, 1999). The results are discussed in terms of the ability of the three levels of personality, in combination and individually, to predict the time perspectives.     

Personality Change in Middle Adulthood: With Focus on Differential Susceptibility

Abstract

Little attention has been paid to middle adulthood in research on personality stability and change. In addition, previous research on individual differences in personality change has not fully explained its variability. This study focused on the differential susceptibility model, which suggests that individual susceptibility interacts with environmental factors and produces variability in outcomes, and investigated individual differences in personality change with a middle adult sample. A total of 1051 Japanese middle adults (M?=?41.61?years; SD = 5.31; range 30–50?years; 534 females) participated in this two-wave short-term longitudinal study. Latent change score model analyses revealed substantial mean-level declines in Agreeableness and Honesty–Humility. Moreover, the results showed that the influences of some life events on personality change are moderated for better and for worse by individual susceptibility to one’s environment. These findings suggest that the trends of personality development may differ between Western and non-Western countries and that differential susceptibility model may play an important role in deriving individual differences in personality stability and change.     

Personality Interacts With Implicit Affect to Predict Performance in Analytic Versus Holistic Processing

Both theoretical approaches and empirical evidence suggest that negative affect fosters analytic processing, whereas positive affect fosters holistic processing, but these effects are inconsistent. We aim to show that (a) differences in affect regulation abilities (“action orientation”) and (b) implicit more so than self‐reported affect assessment need to be considered to advance our understanding of these processes. Forty participants were asked to verify whether a word was correctly or incorrectly spelled to measure analytic processing, as well as to intuitively assess whether sets of three words were coherent (remote associates task) to measure holistic processing. As expected, implicit but not explicit negative affect interacted with low action orientation (“state orientation”) to predict higher d' performance in word spelling, whereas implicit but not explicit positive affect interacted with high action orientation to predict higher d' performance in coherence judgments for word triads. Results are interpreted according to personality systems interaction theory. These findings suggest that affect and affect changes should be measured explicitly and implicitly to investigate affect‐cognition interactions. Moreover, they suggest that good affect regulators benefit from positive affect for holistic processing, whereas bad affect regulators benefit from negative affect for analytical processing.     

Personality Traits and Relationship Satisfaction in Intimate Couples: Three Perspectives on Personality

Personality traits are important predictors of relationship satisfaction. However, the majority of previous study findings are based on self‐perceptions of personality. Thus, by means of the self‐, partner‐, and meta‐perceptions of personality, the present study focused on three different perspectives on the Big Five personality traits to examine dyadic associations with relationship satisfaction of intimate couples. The study was based on the first measurement occasion of the Swiss longitudinal study ‘Co‐Development in Personality: Longitudinal Approaches to Personality Development in Dyads across the Life Span’ and included data of 216 couples. The main analyses were based on Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model. Three general findings emerged. First, the three personality perspectives represented related, albeit distinct, constructs, and showed incremental validity with respect to relationship satisfaction. Second, neuroticism was negatively related to relationship satisfaction, whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness were positively related to relationship satisfaction across all perspectives. Third, substantial associations between e xtraversion and relationship satisfaction were exclusively evident in terms of the partner‐ and meta‐perception. The present results contribute to the literature by showing that each perspective is essential for the understanding of the role of personality for relationship satisfaction. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Affect Dysregulation in Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder: Persistence and Interpersonal Triggers

We hypothesized that affect dysregulation among individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) would involve greater persistence of negative affect between interpersonal events and heightened reactivity to stimuli indicating risk of rejection or disapproval, specifically perceptions of others’ communal (agreeable-quarrelsome) behaviors. A total of 38 participants with BPD and 31 controls collected information about affect and perceptions of the interaction partner's behavior during interpersonal events for a 20-day period. Negative and positive affect persisted more across interpersonal events for individuals with BPD than for controls. In addition, individuals with BPD reported a greater increase in negative affect when they perceived less communal behavior and a smaller increase in positive affect when they perceived more communal behavior in others. Findings indicate the importance of interpersonal perceptions in the affect dysregulation of individuals with BPD.     

Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Individual Differences: The Three Major Dimensions of Personality

ABSTRACT This article deals with the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to individual differences in the three major dimensions of personality (Psychoticism, Extraversion, and Neuroticism) Twin studies indicate, and family studies confirm within limits, the strong genetic determination of these and many other personality factors, additive genetic variance accounting for roughly half the total phenotypic variance On the environmental side, shared family environment plays little or no part, all environmental effects being within-family Assortative mating, important in the formation of social attitudes, has little impact on personality Dominance may be important for Extraversion Epistasis (emergenesis) may account for the comparative low values of dizygotic (DZ) twins' correlations Evidence for differential heritability of traits is present, but not very strong It is concluded that behavioral genetics forms a vital part of the psychological understanding of the causes of individual differences in personality