Level of agreement between self and spouse in the assessment of personality pathology

Informant reports can provide important information regarding the presence of pathological personality traits, and they can serve as useful supplements to self-report instruments. Ratings from a spouse may be a particularly valuable source of personality assessment because spouses are very well acquainted with the target person, have typically known the person for a long time, and witness behaviors across a variety of situations. In the current study, self- and spouse report measures based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) personality disorder criteria were collected from a nonclinical sample of 82 couples (N = 164). Agreement between self- and spouse report for several pathological personality factors was significant and somewhat higher than has been found for self and peer agreement. Nevertheless, the magnitude of self-spouse agreement was still moderate in size (mean r = .36). Findings are discussed with regard to using spouse report in the assessment of personality pathology.