Development of antisocial personality disorder in detained youths: The predictive value of mental disorders.

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a serious public and mental health concern. Understanding how well conduct disorder (CD) and other mental disorders predict the development of APD among youths involved in the juvenile justice system is critical for prevention. The authors used a stratified random sample of 1,112 detained youths to examine the development of APD at a 3-year follow-up interview. Nearly one fifth of male juvenile detainees later developed APD; approximately one quarter of male juvenile detainees with CD at baseline later developed APD. Significantly more males than females developed APD; no differences were found by race/ethnicity. Having 5 or more symptoms of CD, dysthymia, alcohol use disorder, or generalized anxiety disorder was significantly associated with developing modified APD (M-APD; APD without the CD requirement). Some disorders were strong predictors of APD; however, none were adequate screeners for identifying which detainees would later develop M-APD. The findings of this study have implications for interventions and further research in developmental psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional correlates of the different dimensions of schizotypal personality disorder.

Two studies explored which different dimensions of schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) were associated with negative affect, attention to emotions, clarity of emotions, and emotional intensity/instability. Study 1 included 247 college students, and questionnaires were used to measure SPD. Study 2 included 225 community residents, oversampling for individuals with elevated levels of SPD, and semistructured diagnostic interviews were used to measure SPD. In both studies (a) higher levels of negative affect were associated with higher levels of both cognitive-perceptual and interpersonal symptoms, (b) cognitive-perceptual disturbances were associated with greater attention to emotion, whereas interpersonal disturbances were associated with less attention to emotion, and (c) lower levels of emotional clarity were associated with higher levels of suspiciousness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trajectories of PTSD and substance use disorders in a longitudinal study of personality disorders.

This study investigated the co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUDs) in a sample (N = 668) recruited for personality disorders and followed longitudinally as part of the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study. The study both examined rates of co-occurring disorders at baseline and temporal relationships between PTSD and substance use disorders over 4 years. Subjects with a lifetime history of PTSD at baseline had significantly higher rates of SUDs (both alcohol and drug) than subjects without PTSD. Latent class growth analysis, a relatively novel approach used to analyze trajectories and identify homogeneous subgroups of participant on the basis of probabilities of PTSD and SUD over time, identified 6 classes, which were compared with respect to a set of functioning and personality variables. The most consistent differences were observed between the group that displayed low probabilities of both SUD and PTSD and the group that displayed high probabilities of both. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speed and accuracy of facial expression classification in avoidant personality disorder: A preliminary study.

The aim of this preliminary study was to examine whether individuals with avoidant personality disorder (APD) could be characterized by deficits in the classification of dynamically presented facial emotional expressions. Using a community sample of adults with APD (n = 17) and non-APD controls (n = 16), speed and accuracy of facial emotional expression recognition was investigated in a task that morphs facial expressions from neutral to prototypical expressions (Multi-Morph Facial Affect Recognition Task; Blair, Colledge, Murray, & Mitchell, 2001). Results indicated that individuals with APD were significantly more likely than controls to make errors when classifying fully expressed fear. However, no differences were found between groups in the speed to correctly classify facial emotional expressions. The findings are some of the first to investigate facial emotional processing in a sample of individuals with APD and point to an underlying deficit in processing social cues that may be involved in the maintenance of APD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The stability of personality traits in individuals with borderline personality disorder.

Although stability and pervasive inflexibility are general criteria for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) personality disorders (PDs), borderline PD (BPD) is characterized by instability in several domains, including interpersonal behavior, affect, and identity. The authors hypothesized that such inconsistencies notable in BPD may relate to instability at the level of the basic personality traits that are associated with this disorder. Five types of personality trait stability across 4 assessments over 6 years were compared for BPD patients (N = 130 at first interval) and patients with other PDs (N = 302). Structural stability did not differ across groups. Differential stability tended to be lower for 5-factor model (FFM) traits in the BPD group, with the strongest and most consistent effects observed for Neuroticism and Conscientiousness. Growth curve models suggested that these 2 traits also showed greater mean-level change, with Neuroticism declining faster and Conscientiousness increasing faster, in the BPD group. The BPD group was further characterized by greater individual-level instability for Neuroticism and Conscientiousness in these models. Finally, the BPD group was less stable in terms of the ipsative configuration of FFM facet-level profiles than was the other PD group over time. Results point to the importance of personality trait instability in characterizing BPD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The structure of personality disorders in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Research on the structure of personality disorders (PDs) has relied primarily on exploratory analyses to evaluate trait-based models of the factors underlying the covariation of these disorders. This study used confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate whether a model that included both PD traits and a general personality dysfunction factor would account for the comorbidity of the PDs better than a trait-only model. It also examined if the internalizing/externalizing model of psychopathology, developed previously through research on the structure of Axis I disorders, might similarly account for the covariation of the Axis II disorders in a sample of 245 veterans and nonveterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Results indicated that the best fitting model was a modified bifactor structure composed of nine lower-order common factors. These factors indexed pathology ranging from aggression to dependency, with the correlations among them accounted for by higher-order Internalizing and Externalizing factors. Further, a general factor, reflecting a construct that we termed boundary disturbance, accounted for additional variance and covariance across nearly all the indicators. The Internalizing, Externalizing, and Boundary Disturbance factors evidenced differential associations with trauma-related covariates. These findings suggest continuity in the underlying structure of psychopathology across DSM–IV Axes I and II and provide empirical evidence of a pervasive, core disturbance in the boundary between self and other across the PDs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality change over 40 years of adulthood: Hierarchical linear modeling analyses of two longitudinal samples.

Normative personality change over 40 years was shown in 2 longitudinal cohorts with hierarchical linear modeling of California Psychological Inventory data obtained at multiple times between ages 21-75. Although themes of change and the paucity of differences attributable to gender and cohort largely supported findings of multiethnic cross-sectional samples, the authors also found much quadratic change and much individual variability. The form of quadratic change supported predictions about the influence of period of life and social climate as factors in change over the adult years: Scores on Dominance and Independence peaked in the middle age of both cohorts, and scores on Responsibility were lowest during peak years of the culture of individualism. The idea that personality change is most pronounced before age 30 and then reaches a plateau received no support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Too upset to think: The interplay of borderline personality features, negative emotions, and social problem solving in the laboratory.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with poor social problem solving and problems with emotion regulation. In this study, the social problem-solving performance of undergraduates with high (n = 26), mid (n = 32), or low (n = 29) levels of BPD features was assessed with the Social Problem-Solving Inventory—Revised and using the means-ends problem-solving procedure before and after a social rejection stressor. The high-BP group, but not the low-BP group, showed a significant reduction in relevant solutions to social problems and more inappropriate solutions following the negative emotion induction. Increases in self-reported negative emotions during the emotion induction mediated the relationship between BP features and reductions in social problem-solving performance. In addition, the high-BP group demonstrated trait deficits in social problem solving on the Social Problem-Solving Inventory—Revised. These findings suggest that future research must examine social problem solving under differing emotional conditions, and that clinical interventions to improve social problem solving among persons with BP features should focus on responses to emotional contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional imaging of emotion reactivity in opiate-dependent borderline personality disorder.

Opiate dependence (OD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD), separately and together, are significant public health problems with poor treatment outcomes. BPD is associated with difficulties in emotion regulation, and brain-imaging studies in BPD individuals indicate differential activation in prefrontal cingulate cortices and their interactions with limbic regions. Likewise, a similar network is implicated in drug cue responsivity in substance abusers. The present, preliminary study used functional MRI to examine activation of this network in comorbid OD/BPD participants when engaged in an “oddball” task that required attention to a target in the context of emotionally negative distractors. Twelve male OD/BPD participants and 12 male healthy controls participated. All OD/BPD participants were taking the opiate replacement medication Suboxone, and a subset of participants was positive for substances of abuse on scan day. Relative to controls, OD/BPD participants demonstrated reduced activation to negative stimuli in the amygdala and anterior cingulate. Unlike previous studies that demonstrated hyperresponsivity in neural regions associated with affective processing in individuals with BPD versus healthy controls, comorbid OD/BPD participants were hyporesponsive to emotional cues. Future studies that also include BPD-only and OD-only groups are necessary to help clarify the individual and potentially synergistic effects of these two conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Five-factor trait instability in borderline relative to other personality disorders.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is related to five-factor model (FFM) traits and can be characterized as involving psychological and behavioral instability. A previous study comparing the FFM trait stability across individuals with borderline and other personality disorders found that the BPD group tended to have lower stability, particularly on neuroticism and conscientiousness and the overall configuration of FFM profiles over 6 years, suggesting that associated psychological and behavioral variability may be due to trait variability. The current study was designed to test the degree to which these findings replicate in another sample using different diagnostic and trait measures and extending the measurement period to 10 years. Results are consistent with previous findings in showing lower differential (rank-order) stability on conscientiousness, greater mean-level decreases on neuroticism, lower individual-level stability on conscientiousness, and lower ipsative stability of trait profile configurations among those with BPD. However, unlike the previous study, no differences were observed for differential or individual-level neuroticism or mean-level conscientiousness. Overall, findings show that the instability characteristic of BPD extends into typically stable personality traits, and that it does so with some specificity in terms of which traits are affected and how instability manifests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender differences in autonomic indicators of antisocial personality disorder features.

We investigated the autonomic indicators of antisocial personality disorder (APD) features in a mixed gender student sample. One hundred college students (50 men, 50 women) were administered an interview of APD and self-report measures of aggression and psychopathy. Participants completed a passive coping task and viewed emotionally valenced slideshows while their electrodermal activity (EDA), pre-ejection period (PEP), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were measured. Associations between APD features and autonomic reactivity were examined, controlling for aggression and psychopathy. APD features were associated with EDA hyporeactivity in men, but not women, during passive coping. While viewing threatening slides, APD features were associated with RSA hyperreactivity in women and with PEP hyperreactivity in men. APD features were associated with RSA hyperreactivity in women, but not men, while viewing slides of others in distress. These findings suggest that APD features are characterized by parasympathetic nervous system dysfunction in women but sympathetic nervous system dysfunction in men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An experimental investigation of emotion dysregulation in borderline personality disorder.

Despite the prominent role of emotion dysregulation in theoretical accounts of borderline personality disorder (BPD), few studies have examined emotion dysregulation in BPD. This study extends extant research by providing an experimental investigation of emotion dysregulation among outpatients with BPD. Specifically, this study modified an experimental measure of distress tolerance to examine differences between outpatients with BPD (n = 17) and those without a personality disorder (n = 18) in 2 aspects of emotion dysregulation: (a) the unwillingness to experience emotional distress in order to pursue goal-directed behavior and (b) the inability to engage in goal-directed behavior when distressed. As hypothesized, BPD participants were less willing to experience distress in order to pursue goal-directed behavior. However, BPD participants did not evidence greater difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior when distressed. Results highlight directions for future research and suggest that particular aspects of emotion dysregulation may be more or less relevant to BPD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cascades of emotion: The emergence of borderline personality disorder from emotional and behavioral dysregulation.

Theories of borderline personality disorder (BPD) have often considered it a disorder involving both emotional and behavioral dysregulation (Linehan, 1993), yet the connection between these phenomena has been elusive. The following paper proposes the Emotional Cascade Model, a model that attempts to establish a clear relationship between emotional dysregulation and the wide array of dysregulated behaviors found in BPD. In this model, subsequent to an emotional stimulus, ruminative processes result in a positive feedback loop that increases emotional intensity, and this emotional intensity leads to ensuing behavioral dysregulation. These behaviors then provide negative feedback, in the form of distraction, which induces temporary reduction of negative emotion and thus relief. The model is presented in a framework in which BPD is considered an emergent phenomenon (Lewin, 1992), in which the disorder arises from the total interactions of a network containing emotional cascades and other important factors. The model is then evaluated in light of various theories and therapeutic traditions, including both cognitive–behavioral and psychodynamic, indicating that it is a model that may transcend traditional theoretical and therapeutic doctrines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of perfectionism and personality disorder features in response to brief treatment for depression.

Using data from the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program (TDCRP), the authors compared the role of patients' perfectionism and features of personality disorder (PD) in the outcome of brief treatment for depression. Data were extracted as to patients' intake levels of symptoms; perfectionism; and PD features, measured as continuous variables, as well as their symptoms at termination; their contribution to the therapeutic alliance; and their satisfaction with social relations. Poorer therapeutic outcome was demonstrated for patients with elevated levels of perfectionism and odd-eccentric and depressive PD features. Patients' contribution to therapeutic alliance and satisfaction with social relations were predicted by perfectionism but not by PD features. Results highlight the central role played by patients' personality in the course of brief treatment for depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of comorbid psychopathy on criminal offending and emotion processing in male offenders with antisocial personality disorder.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy are two syndromes with substantial construct validity. To clarify relations between these syndromes, the authors evaluated 3 possibilities: (a) that ASPD with psychopathy and ASPD without psychopathy reflect a common underlying pathophysiology; (b) that ASPD with psychopathy and ASPD without psychopathy identify 2 distinct syndromes, similar in some respects; and (c) that most correlates of ASPD reflect its comorbidity with psychopathy. Participants were 472 incarcerated European American men who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for ASPD and Psychopathy Checklist criteria for psychopathy, who met the criteria for ASPD but not for psychopathy, or who did not meet diagnostic criteria for either ASPD or psychopathy (controls). Both individuals with ASPD only and those with ASPD and psychopathy were characterized by more criminal activity than were controls. In addition, ASPD with psychopathy was associated with more severe criminal behavior and weaker emotion facilitation than ASPD alone. Group differences in the association between emotion dysfunction and criminal behavior suggest tentatively that ASPD with and ASPD without prominent psychopathic features may be distinct syndromes. (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)     

Patterns and sources of adult personality development: Growth curve analyses of the NEO PI-R scales in a longitudinal twin study.

The present study examined the patterns and sources of 10-year stability and change of adult personality assessed by the 5 domains and 30 facets of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Phenotypic and biometric analyses were performed on data from 126 identical and 61 fraternal twins from the Bielefeld Longitudinal Study of Adult Twins (BiLSAT). Consistent with previous research, LGM analyses revealed significant mean-level changes in domains and facets suggesting maturation of personality. There were also substantial individual differences in the change trajectories of both domain and facet scales. Correlations between age and trait changes were modest and there were no significant associations between change and gender. Biometric extensions of growth curve models showed that 10-year stability and change of personality were influenced by both genetic as well as environmental factors. Regarding the etiology of change, the analyses uncovered a more complex picture than originally stated, as findings suggest noticeable differences between traits with respect to the magnitude of genetic and environmental effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model.

The diagnostic categories of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders were developed in the spirit of a traditional medical model that considers mental disorders to be qualitatively distinct conditions (see, e.g., American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Work is now beginning on the fifth edition of this influential diagnostic manual. It is perhaps time to consider a fundamental shift in how psychopathology is conceptualized and diagnosed. More specifically, it may be time to consider a shift to a dimensional classification of personality disorder that would help address the failures of the existing diagnostic categories as well as contribute to an integration of the psychiatric diagnostic manual with psychology's research on general personality structure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)