Search

The present study addresses the need for short and accessible maladaptive trait measures that cover all relevant aspects of developmental trait pathology, in order to comprehensively assess potential antecedents of personality pathology. From this perspective, we present a 98-item version of the well-established Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI) measure (DIPSI-B), that is fully age-neutral across the developmental stages of childhood and adolescence, and further includes those items from the original measure with the most optimal coverage of the latent traits. Relying on a large community-based sample of Flemish children and adolescents ( N = 1873) randomly split and balanced in terms of age and gender, a precise selection of items was performed followed by an inspection of psychometric properties. The final item-set appears to be reliable, structurally stable, and invariant across both gender and age. We hope that its feasibility stimulates the integration of the DIPSI-B in ongoing prospective designs examining developmental antecedents of personality disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

In the present article, we discuss the potential of ambulatory assessment for an idiographic study of the structure and process of personality. To this end, we first review important methodological issues related to the design and implementation of an ambulatory assessment study in the personality domain, including methods of ambulatory assessment, frequency of measurement and duration of the study, ambulatory assessment scales and questionnaires, participant selection, training and motivation, and ambulatory assessment hard- and software. Next, we provide a detailed outline of available analytical approaches that can be used to analyze the intensive longitudinal data generated by an ambulatory assessment study. By doing this, we hope to familiarize personality scholars with these methods and to provide guidance for their use in the field of personality psychology and beyond. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality and its assessment are growth areas in the psychological literature and are important in applied practice. In the decades since personality reemerged as a viable scientific construct following the person-situation debate, we have learned much about the nature and full breadth of personality traits as well as refined methods for the assessment of personality characteristics. Indeed, the personality assessment literature currently is vibrant and now intersects with numerous other disciplines, including traditional psychometrics, developmental psychology and psychopathology, clinical psychology, neuroscience, industrial-organizational psychology, and educational and social psychology. This growth in the personality assessment literature inspired us to organize an expert meeting on personality assessment. This 2-day event-which was held in Oostduinkerke (Belgium) in September 2016-brought together junior and senior personality assessment researchers as well as a number of methodologists from around the world and focused on sharing modern viewpoints on personality assessment from a wide diversity of perspectives. Following the meeting, we envisioned this special issue, including papers from meeting attendees addressing topics that emerged from the discussion sessions and are the result of fruitful and often new collaborations. Although the papers were invited, all were subjected to critical peer review and underwent revisions prior to their publication here. In what follows, the overall rationale for the present special issue and the connection between the different papers will be outlined from an integrative perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The dark triad of personality has traditionally been defined by 3 interrelated constructs, defined as Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy. Although the content of each of these constructs is clearly represented in childhood maladaptive trait measures, no studies have jointly addressed the prospective developmental course of this core set of maladaptive characteristics throughout childhood and adolescence. The current study uses latent growth modeling to explore how early dark traits develop over time, relying on a selected set of 6 childhood maladaptive traits that conceptually cover the adult dark triad. Across a 5-wave multi-informant design spanning 10 years of childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood (Nwave 1 = 717, 54.4% girls, age range T1 = 8-14.7 years, mean age = 10.73), results indicate that childhood dark traits show to some extent shared growth across time, although notable unique growth variance was also observed. Early dark traits further demonstrate significant association patterns with an adult dark triad measure across informants and are increasingly able to discriminate among more and less prototypical profiles of adult dark triad scores. Findings are discussed from a developmental psychopathology framework, underscoring that the proposed set of childhood dark traits represents a meaningful developmental precursor of the adult dark triad. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Current dimensional measures of early personality pathology (e.g., the Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool, DIPSI; De Clercq, De Fruyt, Van Leeuwen, & Mervielde, 2006) describe personality difficulties within a 4-dimensional framework. The present study corroborates recent evidence on the relevance of including a 5th Oddity-related domain for a more comprehensive description of personality pathology, and presents the construction of an empirically based taxonomy of early Oddity features. Psychometric and factor analytic procedures were conducted on self- and maternal ratings of adolescents (N = 434), resulting in 4 internally consistent facets that empirically collapse in 1 higher-order "Oddity" factor. From a structural perspective, this Oddity factor emerged as a clear 5th factor beyond the earlier proposed 4-dimensional structure of child and adolescent personality pathology. Significant associations of Oddity with both general and maladaptive trait equivalents support the construct validity of this 5th factor, and challenge current hypotheses on the applicability of the continuity hypothesis on general and maladaptive trait variance within the openness field. The results further suggest that Oddity traits are meaningfully associated with general psychopathology at a young age. These findings are discussed in terms of the importance of including a 5th Oddity-related factor in dimensional models of developmental personality pathology in order to acquire a more comprehensive description of the building blocks that underlie early personality difficulties., ((c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.)

This study investigated the continuity, pathoplasty, and complication models as plausible explanations for personality-psychopathology relations in a combined sample of community (n = 571) and referred (n = 146) children and adolescents. Multivariate structural equation modeling was used to examine the structural relations between latent personality and psychopathology change across a 2-year period. Item response theory models were fitted as an additional test of the continuity hypothesis. Even after correcting for item overlap, the results provided strong support for the continuity model, demonstrating that personality and psychopathology displayed dynamic change patterns across time. Item response theory models further supported the continuity conceptualization for understanding the association between internalizing problems and emotional stability and extraversion as well as between externalizing problems and benevolence and conscientiousness. In addition to the continuity model, particular personality and psychopathology combinations provided evidence for the pathoplasty and complication models. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).)

The present study describes the construction of a taxonomy of trait-related symptoms in childhood, the Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI), and examines the replicability of the taxonomy's higher order structure across maternal ratings of referred (N = 205) and nonreferred (N = 242) children and self-ratings of adolescents (N = 453). The DIPSI's 4 higher order factors--that is, Emotional Instability, Disagreeableness, Introversion, and Compulsivity--showed clear correspondence with the dimensions of personality pathology found in adulthood (Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire; W. J. Livesley, 1990; Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; L. A. Clark, 1993). These 4 factors can be further organized into 2 superfactors, representing Internalizing and Externalizing Traits, demonstrating empirical and conceptual relationships with psychopathology models in childhood and adulthood. The implications for the assessment and conceptualization of early trait pathology are discussed in the context of an integrative developmental perspective on the construction of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition., ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved.)

This study examines 5 types of personality continuity--structural, mean-level, individual-level, differential, and ipsative--in a representative population (N=498) and a twin and sibling sample (N=548) of children and adolescents. Parents described their children on 2 successive occasions with a 36-month interval using the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (I. Mervielde & F. De Fruyt, 1999). There was evidence for structural continuity in the 2 samples, and personality was shown to be largely differentially stable. A large percentage had a stable trait profile indicative of ipsative stability, and mean-level personality changes were generally small in magnitude. Continuity findings were explained mainly by genetic and nonshared environmental factors., (((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).)