The Relations between Narrative Identity and Personality Pathology among Clinical Adolescents: Findings from a Multi-Ethnic Asian Sample.

Adolescence is a period where personality difficulties can start emerging. At the same time, a great deal of development in narrative identity takes place. Given that identity impairments are a key feature in personality pathology, it is useful to understand how pathological traits and narrative identity features are related. The current study addressed this by linking pathological personality trait domains to narrative identity features in clinically-referred Singaporean adolescents. Participants (n = 118, Mage = 16.82) wrote narratives about a turning point in their lives. These narratives were coded for themes of agency, communion, self-event connection, redemption, and coherence. Communion was significantly and substantially associated with pathological trait domains of negative affectivity, detachment, disinhibition, and psychoticism, although the effect sizes were modest. Whether a lack of communion themes contribute to the development of personality pathology or whether the former is an expression of the latter is an open question for future research.

An empirically derived hierarchical tree typology of DSM-5 pathological personality traits in adolescence.

Traditional personality disorder (PD) taxonomies have been developed for adult populations. We aimed to identify an adolescent hierarchical tree typology of PD indicators to provide classification into broad severity classes but also more fine-grained classification within those classes. A large sample of community adolescents (N = 1,940) completed a validated dimensional measure that covers a comprehensive range of pathologically formulated personality traits, the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Latent class tree modeling suggested three classes at the first level of the tree representing high, medium, and low PD-trait levels-thus spanning the range between normal and pathological personality. These classes were divided into subclasses lower in the hierarchy, which suggested subclinical variants of patterns that are often found in clinical samples, medium levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and differential profiles of thriving in the low-risk classes. The identified classes had promising initial criterion validity based on meaningful relations with self- and peer-reported measures of friendship and social functioning with peers. Our hierarchical PD tree typology may represent groups at differential risk for developing PDs and could therefore be useful for preventive purposes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of narrative identity and the emergence of personality disorders in adolescence.

Narrative identity is likely to be important in the development of personality disorder (PD) in adolescence. Adolescents' life narratives provide rich material that is near to their lived experiences and reveal individual differences in self and relatedness and in ways of constructing meaning. Narrative identity is linked with well-being and psychopathology and shapes coping with adversity. Preliminary research suggests that adolescents and adults with PD narrate their lives in ways that are more negative and express lower agency; narratives may also contain content reflecting PD symptoms. Youth's narrative identities may express personality disturbances in self and relationship processes and may affect the consolidation of or recovery from emerging PD in the transition to adulthood - all possibilities worthy of future investigation.

Linking narrative identity with schizotypal personality disorder features in adolescents.

Adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) features such as odd thinking and bizarre fantasies may have difficulty developing effective life narratives. Their autobiographical memories likely will include aberrant, stressful experiences that are difficult to integrate into a cohesive, healthy sense of self. Moreover, these adolescents are likely to face relationship difficulties with both family members and peers who typically play an important role in narrative identity formation. We examined the link between STPD features and narrative identity in adolescence. Dutch community-dwelling adolescents, 125 with high-STPD features and 1,417 with low-STPD features, wrote life narratives about a turning point in their lives. These narratives were coded for a variety of features including the theme of agency, self-event connections, redemption sequences, and Cluster A- and STPD-like symptom descriptions. We found that the turning point narratives of adolescents with high STPD trait levels were significantly less likely to be agentic and redemptive, but more likely to contain Cluster A- and STPD-like symptom descriptions than the narratives of adolescents with low STPD trait levels. However, there were no significant associations of STPD trait levels with self-event connections. All the findings were robust and consistent. The current study demonstrated that early emerging personality disturbances may manifest themselves in aspects of personality other than traits-specifically, in the narratives young people are developing about important experiences in their lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Network Structure of Personality Pathology in Adolescence With the 100-Item Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Short-Form (PID-5-SF).

There is currently a lack of understanding of the structure of personality disorder (PD) trait facets. The network approach may be useful in providing additional insights, uncovering the unique association of each PD trait facet with every other facet. A unique feature of network analysis is centrality, which indicates the importance of the role a trait facet plays in the context of other trait facets. Using data from 1,940 community Dutch adolescents, we applied network analysis to the 25 trait facets from the 100-item Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Short-Form (PID-5-SF) to explore their associations. We found that some trait facets only seem to be core indicators of their pre-ordained domains, whereas we observed that other trait facets were strongly associated with trait facets outside of their hypothesized domains. Importantly, anxiousness and callousness were identified as highly central facets, being uniquely associated with many other trait facets. Future longitudinal network studies could therefore further examine the possibility of anxiousness and callousness as risk marker trait facets among other PD trait facets.

Simulated cataract and low contrast stimuli impair cognitive performance in older adults: implications for neuropsychological assessment and everyday function.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate how age-related declines in vision (particularly contrast sensitivity), simulated using cataract-goggles and low-contrast stimuli, influence the accuracy and speed of cognitive test performance in older adults. An additional aim was to investigate whether declines in vision differentially affect secondary more than primary memory. METHOD: Using a fully within-subjects design, 50 older drivers aged 66-87 years completed two tests of cognitive performance--letter matching (perceptual speed) and symbol recall (short-term memory)--under different viewing conditions that degraded visual input (low-contrast stimuli, cataract-goggles, and low-contrast stimuli combined with cataract-goggles, compared with normal viewing). However, presentation time was also manipulated for letter matching. Visual function, as measured using standard charts, was taken into account in statistical analyses. RESULTS: Accuracy and speed for cognitive tasks were significantly impaired when visual input was degraded. Furthermore, cognitive performance was positively associated with contrast sensitivity. Presentation time did not influence cognitive performance, and visual gradation did not differentially influence primary and secondary memory. CONCLUSION: Age-related declines in visual function can impact on the accuracy and speed of cognitive performance, and therefore the cognitive abilities of older adults may be underestimated in neuropsychological testing. It is thus critical that visual function be assessed prior to testing, and that stimuli be adapted to older adults' sensory capabilities (e.g., by maximising stimuli contrast).