Self-defining memories-Narrative features in relation to adaptive and maladaptive personality traits (replication and extension of Blagov & Singer, 2004).

OBJECTIVE: Self-defining memories (SDMs) are units of life-story analysis, whose features resemble elements from narrative identity's factorial structure. To bridge narrative-identity and personality-trait domains, we conducted a replication and extension of prior research. METHOD: We linked four SDM features - affect, specificity, meaning making, and content - to the Big Three trait domains of personality and psychopathology in a small sample that was well-powered for multilevel modeling (133 participants, 1330 SDMs). RESULTS: Affect SDM affect correlated with indices of Positive Emotionality and Negative Emotionality, and narrative themes of contamination were associated with Negative Emotionality. Specificity SDM specificity vs. overgenerality related to Constraint and Negative Emotionality indices, lending support to the executive dysfunction and emotional disorder theories of overgeneral autobiographical memory. (Tests of the avoidance thesis of overgeneral memory were inconclusive.) Meaning making Explicit meaning making in SDMs reflected adaptive personality. It moderated (or buffered) the link between SDMs' affect and chronic emotional distress. Content The links between SDM content and traits suggest that SDMs reflect personal goals, whose fulfillment or frustration relate to psychological health. CONCLUSIONS: This research serves replication purposes as well as the purpose of connecting two major domains of personality: narrative identity and adaptive and maladaptive traits.

Adaptive and Dark Personality in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Predicting Health-Behavior Endorsement and the Appeal of Public-Health Messages.

Who embraces directions to socially distance, boost hygiene, and protect others during a pandemic of contagious respiratory disease? Do differently phrased public-health messages appeal to different people? I based predictions on the five-factor, triarchic psychopathy, and Dark Triad models of normal-range and dark traits; the extended parallel process model (EPPM); and schema-congruence theory. In a survey of 502 online participants, normal-range traits (esp agreeableness and conscientiousness) predicted endorsement of social distancing and hygiene, as well as the appeal of health messages in general. Consistent with the EPPM, conscientiousness and neuroticism had an interaction. Dark traits (esp psychopathy, meanness, and disinhibition) predicted low endorsement of health behaviors and the intent to knowingly expose others to risk. Most participants preferred a message appealing to compassion ("Help protect the vulnerable…"), but dark traits predicted lower appeal of that message. Personality appears relevant to epidemiology and public-health communication in a contagious-disease context.

Triarchic Psychopathy Measure: Validity in Relation to Normal-Range Traits, Personality Pathology, and Psychological Adjustment.

The triarchic model of psychopathy replaces a syndromal view of this pathological personality condition with a tripartite trait-based conception, positing three distinct phenotypic dispositions as building blocks for what theorists have traditionally termed psychopathy. The Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) offers an efficient means for measuring the three dimensions to facilitate research on the model's validity. We tested the reliability of the TriPM as well as its convergent and discriminant validity with respect to differing models of personality and other criterion variables reflecting social-emotional adjustment and mental health in an undergraduate participant sample (n = 120). The TriPM evidenced excellent internal consistencies, good test-retest reliability, and strong validity consistent with the triarchic model. We discuss the results with respect to prior research and offer suggestions for future research on the validity of the TriPM and the triarchic model.

Triarchic Psychopathy Measure: Validity in Relation to Normal-Range Traits, Personality Pathology, and Psychological Adjustment.

The triarchic model of psychopathy replaces a syndromal view of this pathological personality condition with a tripartite trait-based conception, positing three distinct phenotypic dispositions as building blocks for what theorists have traditionally termed psychopathy. The Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) offers an efficient means for measuring the three dimensions to facilitate research on the model's validity. We tested the reliability of the TriPM as well as its convergent and discriminant validity with respect to differing models of personality and other criterion variables reflecting social-emotional adjustment and mental health in an undergraduate participant sample (n = 120). The TriPM evidenced excellent internal consistencies, good test-retest reliability, and strong validity consistent with the triarchic model. We discuss the results with respect to prior research and offer suggestions for future research on the validity of the TriPM and the triarchic model.

Dimensions of personality and personality pathology: factor structure of the Shedler-Westen assessment procedure-II (SWAP-II).

Researchers have proposed replacing the current system for diagnosing personality disorders with a dimensional trait model. Proposed trait models have been derived primarily from data provided by untrained lay informants (often via self-report questionnaires) using item sets derived from lay conceptions of personality. An alternative is to derive personality trait dimensions from data provided by clinically expert informants using an instrument that includes personality features salient to clinicians who treat personality dysfunction. The authors report the factor structure of the latest edition of the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-II) using a normative clinical sample of 1,201 North American patients assessed by experienced psychologists and psychiatrists. Factor analysis identified 14 clinically and empirically coherent factors. The findings highlight dimensions of personality and personality pathology that have not emerged in personality item sets designed for lay personality description.

The Shedler-Westen assessment procedure (SWAP): evaluating psychometric questions about its reliability, validity, and impact of its fixed score distribution.

The Shedler-Westen assessment procedure (SWAP) is a personality assessment instrument designed for use by expert clinical assessors. Critics have raised questions about its psychometrics, most notably its validity across observers and situations, the impact of its fixed score distribution on research findings, and its test-retest reliability. We review empirical data addressing its validity, emphasizing the multitrait-multimethod approach to evaluating test validity. To evaluate the hypothesis that the fixed, asymmetric score distribution artifactually inflates correlations between SWAP profiles, we conducted Monte Carlo simulations and also presented empirical data from a large patient sample. We observed a mean correlation of zero between simulated SWAP profiles, indicating that the score distribution does not impact the correlation coefficients. Empirical correlations between SWAP profiles of actual patients were small and similar to those obtained using Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) personality disorder scales that had no fixed score distributions, suggesting that the correlations were not a methodological artifact of the SWAP. We report new test-retest reliability data (median coefficient > .85) for the SWAP's trait and personality disorder dimensions. The SWAP appears to be reliable and valid. The data do not support its primary psychometric critiques.

Personality constellations in incarcerated psychopathic men.

Advances in the operationalization of psychopathy have led to an increased understanding of the boundaries, structure, and nomological network of this construct, although significant questions remain. The empirical identification of replicable and theoretically meaningful psychopathy subtypes may help to improve the classification and diagnosis of this condition. We conducted a classification study of 91 incarcerated men who met conventional criteria for high levels of psychopathy using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. We expanded on the methodology of previous research on psychopathy subtypes by utilizing a comprehensive personality assessment instrument and a prototype matching approach to classification. The analyses revealed a primary (narcissistic) subtype and a secondary (hostile and dysregulated) subtype that were broadly consistent with the previous literature. External validation analyses, statistical controls, and incremental validity analyses provided substantial support for the primary and secondary subtypes.

Questioning the coherence of histrionic personality disorder: borderline and hysterical personality subtypes in adults and adolescents.

After the introduction of histrionic personality disorder (HPD), nosologists struggled to reduce its overlap with borderline personality disorder and other PDs. We studied the coherence of HPD in adults and adolescents as part of 2 larger studies. Clinicians described a random patient with personality pathology using rigorous psychometrics, including the SWAP-II (a Q-sort that captures personality and its pathology in adults) in study 1 and the SWAP-II-A (the adolescent version) in study 2. Using DSM-IV-based measures, we identified patients who met HPD criteria with varying degrees of diagnostic confidence. Central tendencies in the SWAP-II and SWAP-II-A profiles revealed that both the most descriptive and most distinctive features of the patients included some features of HPD but also many features of borderline personality disorder. Q-factor analyses of the SWAP data yielded 3 types of patients in each of the 2 samples. The HPD diagnosis may not be sufficiently coherent or valid.

Under the axis II radar: clinically relevant personality constellations that escape DSM-IV diagnosis.

Research suggests that personality pathology lies on a continuum from relatively severe to less severe and that subthreshold variants may not be adequately captured by axis II of DSM-IV. In this study, we used a measure of personality and psychopathology designed for experienced clinical observers (the SWAP-200) to derive subthreshold personality constellations in a sample of 159 psychotherapy patients who were high functioning but nevertheless suffered from maladaptive personality patterns. Using Q-factor analysis (an empirical clustering procedure), we identified 4 diagnostic groupings or SPC, which resembled the clinical concept of "neurotic styles": depressive, hostile-competitive, obsessive, and hysterical. The results of this study should stimulate further research on subthreshold personality configurations.

Neural bases of motivated reasoning: an FMRI study of emotional constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election.

Research on political judgment and decision-making has converged with decades of research in clinical and social psychology suggesting the ubiquity of emotion-biased motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning is a form of implicit emotion regulation in which the brain converges on judgments that minimize negative and maximize positive affect states associated with threat to or attainment of motives. To what extent motivated reasoning engages neural circuits involved in "cold" reasoning and conscious emotion regulation (e.g., suppression) is, however, unknown. We used functional neuroimaging to study the neural responses of 30 committed partisans during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. We presented subjects with reasoning tasks involving judgments about information threatening to their own candidate, the opposing candidate, or neutral control targets. Motivated reasoning was associated with activations of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex, and lateral orbital cortex. As predicted, motivated reasoning was not associated with neural activity in regions previously linked to cold reasoning tasks and conscious (explicit) emotion regulation. The findings provide the first neuroimaging evidence for phenomena variously described as motivated reasoning, implicit emotion regulation, and psychological defense. They suggest that motivated reasoning is qualitatively distinct from reasoning when people do not have a strong emotional stake in the conclusions reached.

Four dimensions of self-defining memories (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationships to self-restraint, distress, and repressive defensiveness.

This study examines four dimensions of self-defining memory (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationship to self-restraint, distress, and defensiveness. The development and validation of a protocol for measuring specificity, meaning, and affect in self-defining memories is discussed. Specificity is operationalized as the temporal and detailed specificity of the narrative. Meaning refers to the participant's stepping back from the narrative to derive higher personal meaning or a life lesson. Affect reflects subjective emotion upon recall. Agreement between two raters scoring 1040 memories was kappa=.83 for specificity and kappa=.72 for meaning. The protocol is compatible with Thorne and McLean's scoring system for content (the types of events in memories). The current study compared individual differences in the four dimensions of 10 self-defining memories collected from 103 undergraduates to scores of self-restraint, distress, and repressive defensiveness, as measured by the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory. Memory specificity was inversely related to repressive defensiveness, while greater memory meaning was linked to moderate and high levels of self-restraint. Memory content and affect predicted individuals' degree of subjective distress. Based on these findings, the authors discuss the place of self-defining memories in Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's Self-Memory System model of autobiographical memory and personality, more generally.