Journal of personality assessment最新文献

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) refers to perceived positive psychological changes following highly distressing or traumatic events. Although PTG has garnered significant attention from both researchers and the broader public, its assessment has largely depended on retrospective measures such as the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). These measures presume that respondents engage in a complex psychological process (e.g., recalling pre- and post-trauma functioning) to accurately report veridical growth. However, the extent to which people follow this process has not been directly examined. In the present study, we assessed the PTGI's response process validity by conducting 21 cognitive interviews to determine whether participants engaged in the theoretically required steps using five items from the PTGI. None of the participants fully completed this process for every item. Instead, thematic analysis showed that they drew on themes related to preserving continuity in their life narratives, using reappraisal coping, and adhering to cultural scripts favoring positive transformation. In other words, participants reported positive change even when their narratives pointed to negative, neutral, or resilient experiences. These findings add to concerns about the PTGI's construct validity as a measure of genuine growth following adversity.

Defenses or unconscious strategies used to manage anxiety and preserve self-concept are useful for understanding personality functioning and the quality of interpersonal relationships. Despite defenses' clinical and interpersonal relevance, psychometrically sound self-report measures of defenses are limited. The Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales-Self-Report-30 (DMRS-SR-30), a newly developed self-report measure, provides scores for overall defensive functioning and mature, neurotic, and immature defenses. Given defenses' interpersonal nature, the interpersonal circumplex (IPC) can be used to examine the DMRS-SR-30's construct validity. The current study uses self-report data from 361 participants recruited from Amazon's MTurk to examine the interpersonal characteristics of overall defensive functioning and defensive categories. Results from structural summary method analyses align with theoretical expectations for each category, supporting the use of the measure. The mature defensive category was associated with submissive problems, submissive warm efficacies, and sensitivity to antagonism and had the lowest levels of interpersonal distress and misanthropy and the highest levels of interpersonal efficacy. The neurotic defensive category was associated with submissive problems, cold efficacies, and the second highest level of interpersonal distress. The immature category was associated with dominant problems, dominant cold efficacies, and sensitivity to dependence and had the highest levels of interpersonal distress and misanthropy.

The 120-item International Personality Item Pool-NEO questionnaire (IPIP-NEO-120) was recently developed to measure the same Big Five global domain and nested facet constructs included in the 240-item Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) but more efficiently and at no cost to users. We summarize evidence of reliability and validity for IPIP-NEO-120 scores reported in previous research and further evaluate the psychometric properties of those scores using multivariate generalizability theory (MGT) procedures based on data collected from 447,500 respondents. We used MGT techniques to derive indices of score accuracy for both norm- and criterion-referencing purposes, produce more appropriate indices of accuracy for domain composite scores, estimate correlations between facet scores within each domain corrected for measurement error, and determine value gained when reporting facet in addition to domain scores. Results revealed that indices of score accuracy for domains generally exceeded those for facets, that facet score constructs were more strongly intercorrelated than would otherwise be inferred, and that 28 out of the 30 facet subscales provided added value beyond associated domain scales. We identify facet subscales most in need of improvement and provide code in R to enable readers to apply all demonstrated techniques to their own data.

The STIPO-R (Structured Interview of Personality Organization - Revised) is an interview assessing personality organization across five major functional domains (identity, object relations, defenses, aggression, moral values). In contrast to a-theoretical models, the STIPO-R offers a theoretically grounded conceptualization of personality pathology based on object-relations theory. This study tests psychometric properties of the interview across mixed psychiatric patients (N = 180) and community individuals (N = 170) in Italy. Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicated that a bifactor model with five specific factors and a general factor had good fit. The latent scores discriminated between patients and controls, while some specific dimensions differentiated those with PDs from other psychiatric patients. The STIPO-R had sensible correlations with criterion measures, including maladaptive personality traits and symptom distress. Finally, a network analysis on the mean scores of the STIPO-R suggested no major difference in the network structure between patients and controls, indicating that the dimensions of defenses, aggression, and identity were the most interconnected in the networks. The STIPO-R appears to be a valid tool to assess personality impairment, and a good operationalization of the psychodynamic theory of personality pathology upon which it is built.

The dimensional approach to psychiatric symptoms, including the general psychopathology factor (p-factor), has gained increasing attention for its potential to elucidate pathophysiology and inform treatment. However, comprehensive assessment of transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms remains particularly challenging, especially in Japan. The DSM-5 Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure (DSM-XC) was developed to capture a broad spectrum of symptoms across disorders, yet its validity in assessing both specific symptoms and the p-factor remains underexplored. This study examined the reliability and validity of the DSM-XC in a general population sample in Japan. The results demonstrated that the total DSM-XC score exhibited high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity with self-reported psychiatric measures. However, item-level analysis revealed that several items had low test-retest reliability. Moreover, factor analysis indicated that the DSM-XC primarily captures internalizing symptoms rather than general psychopathology. These findings suggest that while the DSM-XC may serve as an indirect indicator of the p-factor, its ability to directly measure the p-factor itself and assess specific symptoms requires further scrutiny. Although the DSM-XC provides a convenient tool for partly evaluating general and specific symptoms, its limitations underscore the need for further refinement to achieve a more comprehensive assessment of psychopathology.

Suicide among post-9/11 U.S. military veterans has increased dramatically, with effective identification of veteran suicide risk remaining a national priority. We investigated the utility of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3 (MMPI-3) in assessing suicide risk within this population. Participants were 189 post-9/11 veterans, predominantly male (75.1%) and White/Caucasian (77.8%), who completed the MMPI-3 and self-report measures of suicidality. In this cross-sectional study, we compared MMPI-3 profiles of veterans reporting a lifetime history of suicidal ideation only or suicide attempts to those who did not, with a focus on the Suicidal/Death Ideation (SUI) scale and markers of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. One-way ANOVAs revealed large effect sizes for SUI in differentiating veterans who reported no suicidal ideation from those with suicide attempts (d = 3.33) and those with suicidal ideation only (d = 1.81), as well as veterans who reported suicidal ideation only from those who also reported past suicide attempts (d = .88). With a few exceptions, markers of internalizing (e.g., Demoralization [RCd]) significantly differentiated the no suicidal ideation group from the suicidal ideation only (ds = .52-1.12) and suicide attempt groups (ds = .48-1.59), while markers of externalizing (e.g., DISC) differentiated the suicidal ideation only and suicide attempt groups (ds = .50-.60). Analyses also revealed very large correlations between SUI and the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms-II (IDAS-II) Suicidality scale (r = .74), and Self-Harm Inventory (r = .51). The SUI scale incremented the RC scales and other SP scales in predicting IDAS-II Suicidality scores (11%-16% additional variance) and SHI scores (2%-4% additional variance). These findings underscore the clinical utility of the MMPI-3, particularly the SUI scale, in comprehensive suicide risk assessments.

Using data from three Chinese samples (Ns = 611, 403, 299) collected using both monolingual and bilingual designs, we evaluated the psychometric properties and factor structure of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory 3 (FFI-3), the short form of the NEO Personality Inventory 3 (PI-3), for use in Chinese communities. Although the FFI-3 contains only a quarter of the 240 items of the PI-3, exploratory structural equation modeling revealed that it maintained the five-factor structure of the long form and achieved acceptable levels of internal consistency, cross-language validity, and test-retest reliability. The correlation coefficients between the short-form factors and the corresponding long-form factors were all above .86, indicating a strong association between the short and long versions of the scale. Taken together, our findings suggest that the FFI-3 is a viable tool for mapping personality in Chinese communities.

Charles Manson, notorious for his involvement in the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969, remains a polarizing figure. His case has divided not only the public but also clinicians and researchers, resulting in a wide array of diagnoses from personality disorders to schizophrenia. To shed light on this longstanding debate, this study employs a novel approach to systematically assess moment-to-moment dyadic interpersonal exchanges between Manson and several interviewers over a 21-year span. Utilizing Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID), we analyzed seven video-recorded interviews of Manson from 1972 to 1993. Unified Structural Equation Modeling revealed a consistent pattern of dominant and cold interpersonal behavior. Manson demonstrated high agency (dominance) and low communion (warmth) across all interactions but also the capacity for strategic interpersonal behaviors and goal-directed communication, contrasting with disorganized patterns typically associated with schizophrenia. Simulation Modeling Analysis revealed a progressive intensification and rigidity of dominant-cold interpersonal patterns over time. Our findings suggest that Manson's interpersonal style aligns more with severe personality pathology, particularly features of malignant narcissism, rather than a primary psychotic disorder. The study offers a new methodology to investigate complex cases of severe psychopathology and highlights the potential of assessing momentary interpersonal processes in forensic and clinical settings.

Multivariate base rates (MBR) of elevations are an emerging psychometric paradigm for enhanced interpretation of multiscale self-report data. The aims of this study were to calculate and compare MBR of scale/subscale elevations on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and determine the ability of MBR to differentiate between mood disorders (n = 524, k = 3), military-based posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; n = 252, k = 2), and coached PTSD-simulator (n = 160, k = 1) groups. Overall, having at least one standard (T ≥ 70) and skyline elevation on clinical scales and clinical subscales was common across the groups. However, differential abnormal elevation thresholds emerged for each group. For instance, it was unusual (i.e., MBR < 10%) for the mood disorders group to have ≥ 1 (9.7%) and for the genuine PTSD group to have ≥ 3 (9.1%) skyline-elevated clinical scales. For subscales, it was unusual for the mood and PTSD groups to have ≥ 3 (7.6%) and ≥ 7 (8.3%) skyline-elevated clinical subscales, respectively. Conversely, PTSD simulators commonly yielded profiles with standard- and skyline elevations on nearly all clinical scales and subscales. MBR cutoffs identified from receiver-operating characteristic curve analyses yielded robust sensitivity (.650-.806) and specificity (.833-.984) in differentiating genuine PTSD and mood disorder groups from PTSD simulators. MBR are useful in differentiating genuine from simulated psychopathology, consistent with broader scale-based infrequency approaches.