Ideal Mate Personality Concepts and Compatibility in Close Relationships: A Longitudinal Analysis.

How 2 personalities may be best combined in a couple has often been answered in terms of similarity in partner's personality characteristics. However, results have been inconsistent. The present study proposed that relationship outcomes should depend more on the similarity between individuals' ideal mate personality concepts (IMPCs) and their partner's personality as both perceived by the self and selfreported by the partner. Study 1 introduces a new Q-sort to assess IMPCs and provides evidence for the interindividual variability and the short-term consistency of IMPC. By following nonmarried couples over a 9-month period, Study 2 replicated findings from Study 1 and demonstrated that, overall, the current concept of congruence predicts relationship outcomes better than both personality similarity and the partner's individual personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical diagnosis of borderline personality: Examination of professional differences.

We examined the influence of clinicians' professional affiliations on the assignment of DSM-III/DSM-III—R borderline personality disorder to clients. Practicing psychologists and psychiatrists provided data on patients who had been clinically diagnosed as manifesting personality disorder. Clinicians also were asked to indicate those features that best described their clients' symptomatology, using a checklist of the Axis II criteria that yielded a diagnosis based on DSM-III criteria. Results indicated that minimal differences existed between the two clinician groups in their diagnoses of borderline personality disorder and that both professional groups relied on the criteria specified in DSM-III. However, several differences in the professionals' weightings of specific features were found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in beliefs about groups.

The current research examined individual differences in peoples' positive versus negative beliefs about groups. Three studies were conducted to develop and validate a 16-item Beliefs About Groups (BAG) scale. Factor analyses in Studies 1 and 2 identified and replicated a 4-factor solution, with factors reflecting preferences for group versus individual work, positive group performance beliefs, negative group performance beliefs, and beliefs that others will work hard on group tasks. Study 2 also provided evidence for convergent and divergent validity, and explored relationships between the Big Five personality dimensions and group beliefs. Study 3 provided evidence for test–retest reliability. Across these 3 studies, the BAG scale had total score alphas ranging from .83 to .88. Implications of beliefs about groups for member motivation and group performance, as well as for future research and practice, are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion regulation among school-age children: The development and validation of a new criterion Q-sort scale.

To foster the study of emotion regulation beyond infancy and toddlerhood, a new criterion Q-sort was constructed. In Study 1, Q-scales for emotion regulation and autonomy were developed, and analyses supported their discriminant validity. Study 2 further explored the construct validity of the Emotion Regulation Q-Scale within a sample of 143 maltreated and 80 impoverished children, aged 6 to 12 years. A multitrait-multimethod matrix and confirmatory factor analyses indicated impressive convergence among the Emotion Regulation Q-Scale and established measures of affect regulation. This new scale also was discriminable from measures of related constructs, including Q-sort assessments of ego resiliency. The use of this new measure was further supported by its ability to distinguish between maltreated and comparison children and between groups of well-regulated versus dysregulated children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feelings change: Accounting for individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affect.

People display a remarkable variability in the patterns and trajectories with which their feelings change over time. In this article, we present a theoretical account for the dynamics of affect (DynAffect) that identifies the major processes underlying individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affective experiences. It is hypothesized that individuals are characterized by an affective home base, a baseline attractor state around which affect fluctuates. These fluctuations vary as the result of internal or external processes to which an individual is more or less sensitive and are regulated and tied back to the home base by the attractor strength. Individual differences in these 3 processes—affective home base, variability, and attractor strength—are proposed to underlie individual differences in affect dynamics. The DynAffect account is empirically evaluated by means of a diffusion modeling approach in 2 extensive experience-sampling studies on people's core affective experiences. The findings show that the model is capable of adequately capturing the observed dynamics in core affect across both large (Study 1) and shorter time scales (Study 2) and illuminate how the key processes are related to personality and emotion dispositions. Implications for the understanding of affect dynamics and affective dysfunctioning in psychopathology are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect, personality, and social activity.

Examined relations between social activity and state and trait measures of Positive and Negative Affect. In Study 1, Ss completed scales relevant to 3-factor models of personality and a weekly mood and social activity questionnaire for 13 wks. In Study 2, Ss completed measures of the 5-factor model of personality and a daily mood and social activity survey for 6–7 wks. In within- and between-Ss analyses, socializing correlated significantly with state measures of Positive Affect and with trait measures of Extraversion/Positive Emotionality. These relations were relatively general across various types of positive affect and social events; however, specific types of social events also were differentially related to affect. In contrast, social activity had no consistent association with measures of Negative Affect or the other personality dimensions. The results support a temperamental view of Extraversion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examination of predictors and moderators for self-help treatments of binge-eating disorder.

Predictors and moderators of outcomes were examined in 75 overweight patients with binge-eating disorder (BED) who participated in a randomized clinical trial of guided self-help treatments. Age variables, psychiatric and personality disorder comorbidity, and clinical characteristics were tested as predictors and moderators of treatment outcomes. Current age and age of BED onset did not predict outcomes. Key dimensional outcomes (binge frequency, eating psychopathology, and negative affect) were predominately predicted, but not moderated, by their respective pretreatment levels. Presence of personality disorders, particularly Cluster C, predicted both posttreatment negative affect and eating disorder psychopathology. Negative affect, but not major depressive disorder, predicted attrition, posttreatment negative affect, and eating disorder psychopathology. Despite the prognostic significance of these findings for dimensional outcomes, none of the variables tested were predictive of binge remission (i.e., a categorical outcome). No moderator effects were found. The present study found poorer prognosis for patients with negative affect and personality disorders, suggesting that treatment outcomes may be enhanced by attending to the cognitive and personality styles of these patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect regulation and temporal discounting: Interactions between primed, state, and trait affect.

Previous research has largely focused on the influence of experienced affect on decision making; however, other sources of affective information may also shape decisions. In two studies, we examine the interacting influences of affective information, state affect, and personality on temporal discounting rates (i.e., the tendency to choose small rewards today rather than larger rewards in the future). In Study 1, participants were primed with either positive or negative affect adjectives before making reward choices. In Study 2, participants underwent either a positive or negative affect induction before making reward choices. Results in both studies indicate that neuroticism interacts with state unpleasant affect and condition (i.e., positive or negative primes or induction) to predict discounting rates. Moreover, the nature of the interactions depends on the regulatory cues of the affective information available. These results suggest that irrelevant (i.e., primes) and stable (i.e., personality traits) sources of affective information also shape judgments and decision making. Thus, current affect levels are not the only source of affective information that guides individuals when making decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity, convergence, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples.

The current work investigates how personality and interpersonal processes combine to predict change in relationship quality. Measures of personality and emotion similarity were collected during laboratory interactions from a cross-sectional sample of dating couples (Study 1) and a 1-year longitudinal study of newlywed married couples (Study 2). Results showed that emotion similarity mediated the association between personality similarity and relationship quality (Studies 1 and 2) and that emotion convergence mediated the association between personality convergence and relationship satisfaction (Study 2). These results indicate that similarity and convergence in personality may benefit relationships by promoting similarity and convergence in partners' shared emotional experiences. Findings also lend support to models that integrate partners' enduring traits and couples' adaptive processes as antecedents of relationship outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder, and substance abuse in schizophrenia.

The validity of subtypes based on antisocial personality disorder (APD) or childhood conduct disorder without adult APD (CD only) in patients with schizophrenia (or schizoaffective disorder) and a substance use disorder (abuse or dependence) was examined. APD patients scored lower on personality measures related to socialization and higher on antisocial bebavior, psychopathy, and aggression. APD patients also reported higher rates of aggression and legal problems. APD, and to a lesser extent CD only, was associated with more severe psychiatric symptoms, an earlier age of onset of substance abuse, more severe symptoms of substance abuse, and a stronger family history of substance abuse and psychiatric hospitalization. The findings suggest that schizophrenia patients with APD represent a high-risk subgroup vulnerable to more severe substance abuse, psychiatric impairment, aggression, and legal problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intuition, affect, and personality: Unconscious coherence judgments and self-regulation of negative affect.

According to personality systems interaction theory, a negative mood was expected to reduce access to extended semantic networks and to reduce performance on intuitive judgments of coherence for participants who have an impaired ability to down-regulate negative affect (i.e., state-oriented participants). Consistent with expectations, state-oriented participants reporting higher levels of perseverating negative mood had a reduced discrimination between coherent and incoherent standard word triples (Study 1) and individually derived word triples describing persons (Study 2). Participants who are able to down-regulate negative affect (i.e., action-oriented participants) did not show this tendency. In addition, Study 2 revealed a dissociation between state orientation and Neuroticism that is discussed in terms of a functional difference between the two constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prejudice, stereotypes, and labeling effects: Sources of bias in person perception.

A preliminary study and 3 experiments compared predictions generated by contrasting models of how group labels bias person perception. An affective model assumed that how much perceivers like different groups mediates bias; a cognition model assumed that perceivers' beliefs regarding different groups mediates bias; and a third model assumed that both affect and cognition are necessary to mediate bias. Perceivers evaluated behavior samples provided by targets who were labeled as either rock music performers or child abusers in the preliminary study and the first 2 experiments; homosexuals or heterosexuals in the third experiment. In all studies, controlling for liking eliminated bias. The preliminary study and Study 3 also showed that controlling for beliefs about the groups eliminated bias. Structural equation modeling provided support for the affect model in Studies 1 and 2, and mixed support for the affect model and the cognition model in Study 3. These studies suggest an important role for affect in judgmental biases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Borderline personality-disordered alcoholics in Iceland: Descriptions on demographic, clinical, and MMPI variables.

A particular Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) high-point configuration was found to describe borderline personality disorder within a general alcoholic inpatient population. We also partially replicated, in an Icelandic sample of alcoholics, the findings of Nace, Saxon, and Shore (1983) on the clinical and demographic characteristics of borderline patients. Subjects were 51 male and female inpatient alcoholics consecutively admitted to an Icelandic psychiatric hospital. Gunderson's Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test were used to diagnose borderline personality disorder and alcoholism, respectively. As predicted, a particular MMPI high-point configuration characterized alcoholics with borderline personality disorder but did not characterize nonborderline patients. Borderline patients were also more likely to be younger, to abuse other psychotropic drugs besides alcohol, and to have a family history of mental illness. The finding of a borderline personality-disordered subgroup among alcoholics contests the view of alcoholism as a unitary disease and has implications for treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Treating trauma after dialectical behavioral therapy.

Many individuals who meet criteria for borderline personality disorder have histories of childhood trauma that may have contributed to their difficulty regulating affect. Dialectical behavioral therapy focuses on helping these patients to regulate emotional states and achieve behavioral control in Stage 1 so they can tolerate therapy that is focused on trauma and emotional experiencing in a Stage 2 treatment. Although there are effective, empirically validated treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder and its subclinical presentation, there are also a significant number of patients who find these treatments difficult to tolerate. The author discusses coupling dialectical behavioral therapy, an evidence-based therapy, with internal family systems, a therapy that is both clinically promising and compatible with dialectical behavioral therapy, as a Stage 2 therapy for trauma patients who avoid other modes of treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)