Browsing by Subject "maladaptive personality"

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    The Complex Relationship Between Personality and Functioning
    (2020-07) Wright, Zara
    In recent decades, psychopathology research has established significant evidence in support of a dimensional diagnostic model, in which maladaptive personality traits underlie and predict clusters of mental health symptoms. In this framework, psychopathology may be defined as maladaptively high or low levels of a personality trait causing distress and/or impairment. This literature, however, has yet to characterize the specific relationship between these traits and impairments in functioning (e.g., physical functioning, social functioning, mental health functioning). The current study aims to address this gap in the literature by (a) augmenting the measurement of personality traits along their full range by integrating cognate traits from the “maladaptive” and “normative” personality literature onto unidimensional personality spectra; (b) modeling the nonparametric relationship between newfound personality traits with functioning; (c) explore how these relationships are moderated by age and sex; and (d) validating initial findings using replication and confirmatory procedures in a second sample. Data for this study were collected, using item-sampling techniques, from an online personality questionnaire where individuals self-selected to participate in exchange for feedback on their personality profiles. The overall sample included 214,420 people (split into two samples of 107,210 individuals each) from 223 countries. Results provide support for the replicability of the relationships between personality and functioning. Evidence suggests these relationships are not linear and monotonic, but rather optimal functioning occurs between the extreme ends of the trait. Age and/or sex play different roles in moderating these relationships depending on the personality trait of interest. Future research is needed to address measurement problems which interfere with measuring the full spectrum of each personality trait.
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    Genetic And Environmental Influences On DSM-5 Maladaptive Personality Traits And Their Connections With Normative Personality Traits
    (2016-12) Wright, Zara
    The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) proposes an alternative model for personality disorders, a key element of which is pathological traits. These traits can be operationalized by the Personality Inventory for the DSM-5 (PID-5). Although there has been extensive research on genetic and environmental influences on normative personality, the heritability of the DSM-5 traits, and maladaptive personality in general, remains understudied. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by assessing traits indexed by the PID-5 and the International Personality Item Pool NEO (IPIP-NEO) in adult twins (N = 1,812 individuals). Research aims included 1) replicating past findings of heritability of normative personality as measured by the IPIP-NEO as a benchmark for studying maladaptive traits, 2) ascertaining univariate heritability estimates of maladaptive personality traits as measured by the PID-5, 3) establishing how much variation in maladaptive personality can be attributed to the same genetic components affecting variation in normative personality, and 4) determining residual variance in maladaptive personality after variance attributable to genetic and environmental components of normative personality has been removed. Results revealed that maladaptive personality traits reflect similar levels of heritability to that of normative personality. Further, maladaptive and normative personality traits that correlate at the phenotypic level also correlate at the genotypic level, indicating overlapping genetic components contribute to variance in both. Nevertheless, we also found evidence for genetic and environmental components unique to maladaptive personality traits, not shared with normative personality.