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Background: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with behavioral traits that predate the onset of AN and persist after recovery. We identified patterns of behavioral traits in AN trios (proband plus two biological parents)., Method: A total of 433 complete trios were collected in the Price Foundation Genetic Study of AN using standardized instruments for eating disorder (ED) symptoms, anxiety, perfectionism, and temperament. We used latent profile analysis and ANOVA to identify and validate patterns of behavioral traits., Results: We distinguished three classes with medium to large effect sizes by mothers' and probands' drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, neuroticism, trait anxiety, and harm avoidance. Fathers did not differ significantly across classes. Classes were distinguished by degree of symptomatology rather than qualitative differences. Class 1 (approximately 33%) comprised low symptom probands and mothers with scores in the healthy range. Class 2 ( approximately 43%) included probands with marked elevations in drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, neuroticism, trait anxiety, and harm avoidance and mothers with mild anxious/perfectionistic traits. Class 3 (approximately 24%) included probands and mothers with elevations on ED and anxious/perfectionistic traits. Mother-daughter symptom severity was related in classes 1 and 3 only. Trio profiles did not differ significantly by proband clinical status or subtype., Conclusions: A key finding is the importance of mother and daughter traits in the identification of temperament and personality patterns in families affected by AN. Mother-daughter pairs with severe ED and anxious/perfectionistic traits may represent a more homogeneous and familial variant of AN that could be of value in genetic studies.

A group of 164 children from different infant temperament categories were seen at 7 years of age for a laboratory battery that included behavioral and physiological measurements. The major results indicated that children who had been classified as high reactive infants at 4 months of age, compared with infants classified as low reactive, (a) were more vulnerable to the development of anxious symptoms at age 7 years, (b) were more subdued in their interactions with a female examiner, (c) made fewer errors on a task requiring inhibition of a reflex, and (d) were more reflective. Further, the high reactives who developed anxious symptoms differed from the high reactives without anxious symptoms with respect to fearful behavior in the second year and, at age 7 years, higher diastolic blood pressure, a narrower facial skeleton, and greater magnitude of cooling of the temperature of the fingertips to cognitive challenge. Finally, variation in magnitude of interference to fearful or aggressive pictures on a modified Stroop procedure failed to differentiate anxious from nonanxious or high from low reactive children.

Background: Previous research has suggested that behavioural problems displayed during the pre-school years are best understood as undifferentiated difficulties in manageability. The present study explored this issue, by examining the structure of British parents' ratings of their pre-school children's behavioural problems., Method: The 19-item Behavioural Checklist (BCL; Richman, 1977) was completed by 1047 parents of 3-year-old children taking part in an epidemiological survey of child development., Results: Factor analysis revealed six factors representing poor social adjustment, poor emotional adjustment, sleep problems, over-activity/inattention, eating problems and soiling. When these scores were used as a basis for cluster analysis, problem types clustered around six centres. The first, and largest, grouping was of children with no problems. Three further large groupings displayed specific but moderate problems (over-active, timid, and naughty children). The final two groupings displayed more extreme problems including anti-social behaviour. In one group these were accompanied by severe emotional problems and in the other by signs of hyperactivity. The reliability and validity of these clusters was supported. Parental ratings of behaviour problems taken when the children were 8-years-old suggested that the children in the hyperactive/conduct group were likely to have continued difficulties., Conclusion: This paper argues against the homogeneity of pre-school behaviour problems but supports the idea that problems of a clinically significant level are likely to be co-morbid, with either problems of emotional regulation (neurotic) or those of behavioural regulation (hyperactive) accompanied by problems of conduct.

This paper attempts to construct a simplified system for the classification of personality disorders, and relates this system to normally distributed human personality characteristics. One hundred and forty-eight subjects with a variety of psychiatric diagnoses were evaluated using the SCID-II structured clinical interview for personality disorders. A four-factor solution of personality disorder symptoms was obtained and we labelled these factors 'the four As': antisocial, asocial, asthenic and anankastic. The factors related to the four temperament dimensions of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), but less closely to Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) dimensions. The four factors were similar to those identified in a number of studies using a variety of assessment methods and this lends some credibility to our findings. It suggests that a more parsimonious set of trait descriptors could be used to provide simpler, less overlapping categories that retain links with current clinical practice. In addition, these factors can be seen as extremes of normally distributed behaviours obtained using the TPQ questionnaire.