Betrayal Trauma and Histrionic Personality Pathology.

Histrionic personality disorder is among the most common forms of personality pathology, and recent research on it has focused on its associations with trauma. This research has focused primarily on the types of traumatic experiences people endure, highlighting the role of sexual trauma in particular. However, recent research on the association between traumatic events and histrionic personality characteristics has not taken into account the role of traumatic experiences characterized by interpersonal betrayal, which research suggests is associated with personality pathology in general. In this study, we examine this, evaluating the association between traumatic experiences with varying degrees of betrayal on histrionic personality characteristics in a sample of men and women recruited online (N = 364). Results suggested that interpersonal trauma without a high degree of betrayal as well as non-interpersonal trauma had positive associations with histrionic personality characteristics, but interpersonal trauma with a high degree of betrayal did not. Further analysis indicated that sexual trauma both with and without a component of betrayal was associated with histrionic personality characteristics for women but not men. Study findings add to the research on the potential traumatogenic origins of histrionic personality characteristics and provide numerous directions for future research.

Association Between Betrayal Trauma and the PAI Traumatic Stress Scale.

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is among the most commonly used broadband inventories of psychological functioning. For the purposes of assessing trauma specifically, the most relevant aspect of the PAI is the Traumatic Stress subscale of the Anxiety-Related Disorders scale (ARD-T), which measures the degree to which a person feels wounded by something in their past. Research suggests that ARD-T is associated with exposure to a variety of different traumatic stressors. However, there is little research on the degree to which traumatic stressors that entail a component of interpersonal betrayal (i.e. betrayal trauma) are associated with higher scores on ARD-T relative to other stressors. In this study, we evaluated the relative associations between traumas with varying degrees of betrayal and scores on ARD-T in a secondary analysis of two non-clinical samples (college sample N = 494; crowdsourced sample N = 364) using a Bayesian approach to multiple regression. In both samples, traumas with both high and medium (but not low) degrees of betrayal were associated with elevated ARD-T scores. Findings suggest that ARD-T scores are associated with interpersonal trauma regardless of betrayal, which has implications for interpretation of the ARD-T scale in practice.

Influence of Betrayal Trauma on Schizotypal Personality Pathology.

Schizotypal personality pathology (SZP) is a persistent and debilitating problem for a substantial number of people. Research on SZP has typically emphasized its biological and more specifically genetic origins. However, recent research has highlighted the potential influence of trauma on SZP. This research is promising, although it has thus far focused primarily on type of trauma (e.g., different types of abuse vs. neglect in childhood) rather than who perpetrated the trauma. Previous studies on both personality pathology in general and psychotic-spectrum experiences characteristic of SZP in particular have highlighted the influence of trauma perpetrated by someone with whom the trauma survivor was close (i.e., betrayal trauma), although this has not yet been examined with respect to SZP specifically. In this study we examined this, evaluating the influence of trauma with varying degrees of betrayal on SZP in a sample of adults (N = 364) using structural equation modeling. Results suggest that interpersonal trauma in general was associated with higher levels of SZP. Findings further indicate that for women but not men, trauma with a high degree of betrayal was uniquely associated with SZP. These results underscore the potential role of trauma in SZP and have implications for future research on and intervention with people with high levels of SZP.