The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) is a classification system that seeks to organize psychopathology using quantitative evidence - yet the current model was established by narrative ...review. This meta-analysis provides a quantitative synthesis of literature on transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology to evaluate the validity of the HiTOP framework.
Published studies estimating factor-analytic models from
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diagnoses were screened. A total of 120,596 participants from 35 studies assessing 23
diagnoses were included in the meta-analytic models. Data were pooled into a meta-analytic correlation matrix using a random effects model. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted using the pooled correlation matrix. A hierarchical structure was estimated by extracting one to five factors representing levels of the HiTOP framework, then calculating congruence coefficients between factors at sequential levels.
Five transdiagnostic dimensions fit the
diagnoses well (comparative fit index = 0.92, root mean square error of approximation = 0.07, and standardized root-mean-square residual = 0.03). Most diagnoses had factor loadings >|0.30| on the expected factors, and congruence coefficients between factors indicated a hierarchical structure consistent with the HiTOP framework.
A model closely resembling the HiTOP framework fit the data well and placement of
diagnoses within transdiagnostic dimensions were largely confirmed, supporting it as valid structure for conceptualizing and organizing psychopathology. Results also suggest transdiagnostic research should (1) use traits, narrow symptoms, and dimensional measures of psychopathology instead of
diagnoses, (2) assess a broader array of constructs, and (3) increase focus on understudied pathologies.
Personality disorders (PDs) are among the most common and severe classes of psychopathology. From a clinical perspective, it is challenging to help individuals with personality disorders because ...treatment ruptures, discontinuation, reversals, and failures are relatively common. An additional clinical challenge is that the model used to diagnose personality disorders is demonstrably incorrect. Recent efforts to improve diagnosis of personality disorders apply two criteria: the first distinguishes personality disorders from other kinds of psychopathology and the second distinguishes different types of personality disorders. However, this approach has been problematic in that, as currently operationalized, it does not provide a clear demarcation for personality disorders, and it uses a framework for individual differences that is more apt as a model of variation in psychopathology in general. This article proposes that the core of personality disorders involves difficulties understanding and relating to self and others, and thus the personality disorders should be recast as the interpersonal disorders. Interpersonal dysfunction explains extreme social challenges and treatment difficulties that are characteristic of this class of psychopathology. This approach provides a clearer model for distinguishing these kinds of problems, as demonstrated by reformulating traditional personality disorder symptoms from an interpersonal perspective.
Public Significance Statement
Personality disorders are among the most common and severe classes of psychopathology. Research and intervention development for personality disorders is held back by an invalid diagnostic system. Replacing the personality disorders with the interpersonal disorders would provide a more valid, ethical, useful, and clinically compelling model.
Personality variability is an important individual difference construct that is the focus of major psychological theories and relates to socioemotional functioning. Although cross-situational ...personality variability has been studied extensively in adult populations, little is known about variability in children's personality. In this study, we aimed to address this gap in knowledge by evaluating whether cross-situational variability is a potentially meaningful individual difference in youth. We used a "thin slice" approach in which research assistants viewed videos of 324 children (Mage = 9.92) completing 15 standardized tasks and rated youth's Big Five personality states. Cross-situational variability in each personality state was estimated by calculating within-person standard deviations across tasks. Results showed that (a) there is substantial variability in children's personality states; (b) children who are variable in one personality domain tend to be variable in other domains; and (c) more variable children are described by their parents as being less competent, less agreeable, less conscientious, and more neurotic. However, associations with parent-rated external criterion were generally small in magnitude, and key psychometric properties of the thin slice personality variability index are not well-established. Our study adds tentative but promising evidence that individual differences in cross-situational personality variability are not only present in childhood but may be consequential.
Personality pathology is increasingly conceptualized within hierarchical, dimensional trait models. The Comprehensive Assessment of Traits Relevant to Personality Disorders (CAT-PD) is a ...pathological-trait measure with potential to improve on currently prevailing instruments because it has wider content coverage; however, its domain-level structure, which is of scientific and clinical interest, is not established. In this study, we investigated the structure and construct validity of the CAT-PD’s domain level to facilitate wider use of the measure. We estimated five- and six-factor models with exploratory factor analysis in a pooled sample of eight independent subsamples (N = 3,987) and found that both models fit the data well; each had interpretable factors that were invariant across gender, sample type, and Black/White racial groups; and the factors had good convergent validity with other measures of maladaptive traits, Big Five personality, and interpersonal problems. Our results support the validity of the CAT-PD for assessing multiple levels of the pathological trait hierarchy.
Background
A growing literature documents associations between lower trait empathy and heavier alcohol use and more alcohol problems in adolescent and young adult samples. Prior work linking empathy ...and alcohol use/problems in these populations has thus far focused on trait rather than state empathy, and researchers often do not differentiate between cognitive and affective empathy. Further, no prior studies have examined associations between daily fluctuations in state empathy and alcohol use. The goal of the current study is to advance knowledge about the associations between state (vs. trait) and cognitive (vs. affective) empathy and alcohol use.
Methods
Adult alcohol drinkers (n = 492; Mage = 22.89, SD = 5.53; 53.70% female) participated in ecological momentary assessment studies for 7 to 10 days (day n = 4683). Multilevel hurdle models were used to investigate associations between day‐level state empathy and daily alcohol use at the within‐person level, and associations between individual differences in trait empathy and alcohol use across days at the between‐person level.
Results
Higher day‐level state affective empathy was not associated with the likelihood of drinking on a particular day, but it was significantly associated with a greater number of drinks consumed on alcohol‐consuming days, with the latter associations remaining after controlling for day‐level positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). No associations were found for day‐level state cognitive empathy, or trait affective or cognitive empathy.
Conclusions
On drinking days, when individuals reported more affective empathy than is typical for them, they were more likely to consume a greater number of alcoholic drinks, results that remained when controlling for levels of PA and NA. Daily shifts in affective empathy may be important to consider in efforts to understand alcohol use.
This study examined the associations of state vs. trait vs. empathy with daily alcohol use. Higher day‐level state affective, but not cognitive, empathy was significantly associated with a greater number of drinks consumed on alcohol‐consuming days, and these associations remained even after controlling for day‐level state positive affect and negative affect. No associations were found for trait affective or cognitive empathy. Findings indicate that daily shifts in affective empathy may be important to consider in efforts to understand alcohol use.
The time between adolescence and adulthood is a transformative period of development. During these years, youth are exploring work, relationships, and worldviews while gaining the capacities needed ...to take on adult roles. These social and psychological processes are reflected in how personality develops across this period. Most youth personality development research has focused on the Big Five domains, ignoring the hierarchical structure of personality and missing broader, higher order processes and more specific, lower order processes. Toward a more comprehensive account, this study examines how personality develops from adolescence into the early years of adulthood at the metatrait (stability, plasticity), domain (Big Five), and facet levels. Data come from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth (N = 645) with few socioeconomic resources who were assessed 5 times from Ages 14 to 23. We used latent growth curve models to investigate mean-level change, rank-order consistency, and the maintenance of trajectories for self-reported personality metatraits, domains, and facets. We found distinct developmental processes unfolding at each level of the hierarchy, including (a) mean-level changes in the metatraits and domains indicating increases in exploratory tendencies (i.e., plasticity) and maturity (i.e., increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness, decreases in neuroticism), and divergent change patterns between facets within each domain indicating nuanced maturational processes; (b) comparable levels of rank-order consistency for metatraits, domains, and facets; and (c) evidence that deviations from youth's developmental trajectories did not persist over time. Our findings offer insights into personality development that would be impossible to glean from the domain-level alone and adds needed sociocultural diversity to the literature.
Empathy theoretically serves an affiliative interpersonal function by satisfying motives for intimacy and union with others. Accordingly, empathy is expected to vary depending on the situation. ...Inconsistent empirical support for empathy’s affiliative role may be because of methodology focused on individual differences in empathy or differences between controlled experimental conditions, which fail to capture its dynamic and interpersonal nature. To address these shortcomings, we used ecological momentary assessment to establish typical patterns of empathy across everyday interactions. Associations among empathy, affect, and interpersonal behaviour of self and interaction partner were examined in a student sample (N = 330), then replicated in a preregistered community sample (N = 279). Multilevel structural equation modelling was used to distinguish individual differences in empathy from interaction-level effects. Results show that people are more empathetic during positively valenced interactions with others perceived as warm and when expressing warmth. By confirming the typically affiliative role of empathy, existing research to the contrary can be best understood as exceptions to the norm.
Despite enthusiasm for using intensive longitudinal designs to measure day-to-day manifestations of personality underlying differences between people, the validity of personality state scales has yet ...to be established. In this study, we evaluated the psychometrics of 20-item and 10-item daily, Big Five personality state scales in three independent samples (N = 1,041). We used multilevel models to separately examine the validity of the scales for assessing personality variation at the between- and within-person levels. Results showed that a five-factor structure at both levels fits the data well, the scales had good convergent and discriminative associations with external variables, and personality states captured similar nomological nets as established global, self-report personality inventories. Limitations of the scales were identified (e.g., low reliability, low correlations with external criterion) that point to a need for more, systematic psychometric work. Our findings provide initial support for the use of personality state scales in intensive longitudinal designs to study between-person traits, within-person processes, and their interrelationship.
Interpersonal functioning involves an interplay of subjective perceptions and overt behavior. This study examines alignment between self and informant perceptions of momentary behavior to enrich the ...nomological networks for the domains of dominance and affiliation. We studied a sample of romantic couples (N = 210 individuals) who rated their own and their partner’s interpersonal behavior during a 21-day ambulatory assessment (AA) protocol. We used multi-level structural equation modeling to estimate self-informant agreement on averages and variability of dominance and affiliation (between-person level) and on situational shifts in behavior (within-person level). We also examined convergence between self- and informant reported behavior measured by AA with cross-sectional self-report trait dominance, affiliation, and interpersonal problems. Results showed no self-informant agreement on dominance measured by AA, but moderate to strong agreement on affiliation at the between- and within-person levels. Self- and informant reported average affiliation measured by AA correlated with self-reports of trait affiliation, but only AA self-reports correlated with affiliation problems. Both self- and informant report dominance variability, and informant report affiliation variability, correlated with self-report interpersonal distress. Evidence for (mis)alignment in how dominance and affiliation are perceived by self and others have important implications for the role of these behaviors in everyday interpersonal functioning.
Interpersonal theory organizes social behavior along dominant (vs. submissive) and warm (vs. cold) dimensions. There is a growing interest in assessing these behaviors in naturalistic settings to ...maximize ecological validity and to study dynamic social processes. Studies that have assessed interpersonal behavior in daily life have primarily relied on behavioral checklists. Although checklists have advantages, they are discrepant with techniques used to capture constructs typically assessed alongside warmth and dominance, such as affect, which typically rely on adjective descriptors. Further, these checklists are distinct from the methodologies used at the dispositional level, such as personality inventories, which rarely rely on behavioral checklists. The present study evaluates the psychometric performance of interpersonal adjectives presented on a visual analog scale in five different samples. Validity of the Visual Interpersonal Analog scale (VIAS) approach to momentary assessment was evaluated by comparing its performance with an interpersonal behavior checklist and by examining associations among the VIAS Warmth and Dominance scales and other momentary and dispositional constructs. Results were generally consistent with an existing interpersonal behavior checklist at the within-person level but diverged somewhat at the dispositional level. Across the five samples, the VIAS generally performed as hypothesized at both the within- and between-person levels.
Public Significance Statement
The present study reports on the development of a new method for measuring social behavior in ambulatory assessments. We find that the method performs as would be hypothesized based upon theory and existing empirical research on links between interpersonal behaviors and a variety of emotional and behavioral processes.
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