Validation of the pathological narcissistic inventory (PNI) and its brief form (B-PNI) in the Arabic language.

BACKGROUND: The Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) is a multidimensional measure developed to assess narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability. We aimed to validate the Arabic version of the original Pathological Narcissistic Inventory (PNI) and its brief form (B-PNI) in a community sample of Lebanese adults. METHODS: The English language PNI items were translated into Arabic following a rigorous translation, back-translation, and linguistic evaluation. A total of 401 participants were administered the translated PNI, as well as previously validated Arabic versions of the Big Five Inventory-2, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Impulsivity-8 Scale. RESULTS: Exploratory and confirmatory analyses supported the existence of seven first-order and two second-order factors of the PNI and B-PNI. Except for exploitativeness where females scored lower than males, no other significant differences by gender were observed for the remaining PNI subscale scores. Additionally, scores on all the subscales exhibited good reliability, while the associations with external measures supported the concurrent validity of the translated instrument. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that scores on the PNI and B-PNI are highly reliable with satisfactory concurrent and factorial validity, providing an assessment of broadly defined pathological narcissism among the Lebanese young adult population. The availability of the Arabic PNI and its brief form should facilitate improved understanding of pathological narcissism in Arabic cultures and the different factors that govern narcissistic personality pathology.

My problem or yours? Interpersonal problems and marital quality.

OBJECTIVE: Research has consistently illustrated the impact of personality on marital quality. Given the inherent dyadic nature of relationships, recent investigations have integrated spouse-rated personality to account for both spouses' perspectives. Grounded in Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory, we viewed personality through an interpersonal lens and conceptualized maladaptive interpersonal functioning as interpersonal problems. The present study examined the incremental validity of spouse-rated interpersonal problems beyond self-reported interpersonal problems to predict marital quality within an expanded actor-partner interdependence model (APIM). METHOD: Within a community sample of heterosexual, married couples (N = 110), we used expanded APIMs, integrating both self-report and spouse-rating, to test the incremental validity of spouse-perceived interpersonal problems over self-perceived interpersonal problems on marital quality through a model comparison approach. We tested for possible gender differences in effects. RESULTS: Spouse perception, notably spouse-rated partner effects, appears to be the most frequent predictor of marital quality, and self-perception had less impact. CONCLUSION: Given the implications marital quality has on health and well-being, intervention efforts capitalizing on acceptance of spouses' perspectives are likely to lead to greater improvements in quality and overall health.

Comparing English-Language and Chinese-Language Assessment of DSM-5 Personality Disorders and Interpersonal Problems in Chinese Bilingual Speakers.

A review of the literature on Chinese translations of Western self-report personality disorder assessment measures indicates the need to empirically evaluate the validity of assessing Western personality disorder constructs in Chinese language and culture. The current study presents a novel approach to examining this critical question in cross-cultural clinical assessment science and practice. One hundred and ninety-nine (199) Mandarin Chinese and English bilingual participants (92 males and 107 females) provided both English and Chinese self-report ratings on the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems - Short Circumplex (IIP-SC) and The Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire - 4+ (PDQ-4+). The similarities and differences in associations between Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5th edition (DSM-5) personality disorders and interpersonal problems assessed across languages were examined. The structural summary method (SSM) for circumplex data and a bootstrapping methodology were used to compute confidence intervals around SSM parameters to analyze and compare the interpersonal problems profiles for each personality disorder scale (e.g. narcissistic) derived from English-language and Chinese-language data. The current study found highly similar interpersonal profiles for personality disorder scales assessed in English and Chinese, suggesting Western DSM-5 personality disorder constructs generally emphasize the same interpersonal problems in Chinese language and culture. The method employed in this study also has implications for understanding whether translated measures capture the same personality constructs.

Examining the Influence of Gender, Child Abuse, and Narcissism on Four Forms of Interpersonal Violence Among Men and Women College Students.

This study examines the moderating effects of gender, child abuse, and pathological narcissism on self-reported stalking, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, and sexual aggression in undergraduate men and women. Child abuse was positively associated with engaging in all forms of interpersonal violence for both genders. For women, pathological narcissism moderated this association such that higher levels of pathological narcissism reduced the association between child abuse and engaging in stalking, sexual harassment, sexual aggression. For men. pathological narcissism exhibited independent positive associations with engagement in sexual harassment and sexual aggression and a negative association with engagement in intimate partner violence, but no moderating effects. These gender differences have important implications for the assessment of women's violence, and university violence prevention and advocacy programs.

Five-factor model trait profiles of narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability in Iranian university students.

This study examined the relationship between pathological narcissism, narcissistic grandiosity, narcissistic vulnerability and the five-factor model of personality. Participants consisted of 290 undergraduate students from four universities in three different cities in Iran, recruited by available sampling, Instruments, including, Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) were also completed for the participants. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that narcissistic grandiosity was positively associated with extraversion and openness, while narcissistic vulnerability and overall pathological narcissism were positively associated with neuroticism and negatively related to agreeableness and openness (only for narcissistic vulnerability). The results are consistent with prior research in Western cultures (e.g., United States, Germany) and revealed that neuroticism is a common factor in narcissistic vulnerability and pathological narcissism which suggested pathological narcissism may be a distinct dimension from normal narcissism. Also, there were various contributors of personality traits for narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability which can be considered as a support for the distinction of two phenotypes of pathological narcissism.

Les progrès dans la réalisation de la classification quantitative de la psychopathologie.

Shortcomings of approaches to classifying psychopathology based on expert consensus have given rise to contemporary efforts to classify psychopathology quantitatively. In this paper, we review progress in achieving a quantitative and empirical classification of psychopathology. A substantial empirical literature indicates that psychopathology is generally more dimensional than categorical. When the discreteness versus continuity of psychopathology is treated as a research question, as opposed to being decided as a matter of tradition, the evidence clearly supports the hypothesis of continuity. In addition, a related body of literature shows how psychopathology dimensions can be arranged in a hierarchy, ranging from very broad "spectrum level" dimensions, to specific and narrow clusters of symptoms. In this way, a quantitative approach solves the "problem of comorbidity" by explicitly modeling patterns of co-occurrence among signs and symptoms within a detailed and variegated hierarchy of dimensional concepts with direct clinical utility. Indeed, extensive evidence pertaining to the dimensional and hierarchical structure of psychopathology has led to the formation of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) Consortium. This is a group of 70 investigators working together to study empirical classification of psychopathology. In this paper, we describe the aims and current foci of the HiTOP Consortium. These aims pertain to continued research on the empirical organization of psychopathology; the connection between personality and psychopathology; the utility of empirically based psychopathology constructs in both research and the clinic; and the development of novel and comprehensive models and corresponding assessment instruments for psychopathology constructs derived from an empirical approach.

Pathological Narcissism and Symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder Among Psychiatric Outpatients: The Mediating Role of Impaired Emotional Processing.

Research is scarce regarding the mechanisms by which pathological narcissism--consisting of narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability--is linked with depression. The present study examined whether impaired emotional processing would mediate relations between pathological narcissism domains and depressive symptoms in a sample of 99 psychiatric outpatients. A significant indirect effect was found for narcissistic vulnerability on depressive symptoms, through unprocessed emotion as a mediator. Findings suggest that narcissistic vulnerability contributes to persistent and intrusive negative feelings, which in turn contribute to depressive symptom severity.

Importance of Self and Other in Defining Personality Pathology.

Criteria A of the DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) defines personality pathology in terms of impairments in "self" (identity, self-direction) and "interpersonal" (empathy, intimacy) functioning. Articulated as a set of dynamic regulatory and relational processes that are stratified in the Level of Personality Functioning Scale, these impairments involve how individuals think and feel about themselves and others and how they relate to others. Defining personality pathology in terms of regulatory and relational processes involving self and other, and distinguishing severity of personality pathology from individual differences in its expression (Criteria B), offers the AMPD several advantages. First, it distinguishes the nature and severity of personality pathology from other forms of psychopathology. Second, it allows the AMPD to integrate personality structure and personality processes. Third, it is highly suitable for synthesis with the Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory of personality. Finally, beyond the interpersonal perspective, it facilitates even broader theoretical and treatment integration.

Criterion A of the AMPD in HiTOP.

The categorical model of personality disorder classification in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM-5]; American Psychiatric Association, 2013 ) is highly and fundamentally problematic. Proposed for DSM-5 and provided within Section III (for Emerging Measures and Models) was the Alternative Model of Personality Disorder (AMPD) classification, consisting of Criterion A (self-interpersonal deficits) and Criterion B (maladaptive personality traits). A proposed alternative to the DSM-5 more generally is an empirically based dimensional organization of psychopathology identified as the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP; Kotov et al., 2017 ). HiTOP currently includes, at the highest level, a general factor of psychopathology. Further down are the five domains of detachment, antagonistic externalizing, disinhibited externalizing, thought disorder, and internalizing (along with a provisional sixth somatoform dimension) that align with Criterion B. The purpose of this article is to discuss the potential inclusion and placement of the self-interpersonal deficits of the DSM-5 Section III Criterion A within HiTOP.

Examining the Interpersonal Nature of Criterion A of the DSM-5 Section III Alternative Model for Personality Disorders Using Bootstrapped Confidence Intervals for the Interpersonal Circumplex.

Criterion A of the alternative model of personality disorders (AMPD) involves the assessment of impairments in self and self in relation to other functioning and can be assessed using the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS). This study uses responses to a self-report version of the LPFS (AMPD-CAS) from 248 college students to examine the interpersonal implications of AMPD personality impairments using the interpersonal circumplex (IPC) as a nomological net. Results suggest that AMPD-CAS self-impairments are related to problems of low communion and interpersonal distress and do not appear to tap expected interpersonal problems of low agency. Additionally, AMPD-CAS identity is specifically associated with sensitivity to control, suggesting that individuals with diffuse identity find it aversive and intrusive when others take the lead. AMPD-CAS self in relation to other impairments are related to being too argumentative and suspicious of others, having difficulty connecting and caring for others, and finding others' affection and reliance aversive. Both self and self in relation to other AMPD-CAS impairments are related to interpersonal distress and misanthropy, suggesting they tap pathological aspects of personality functioning. These findings represent a first step toward fully examining the interpersonal nature of Criterion A impairments and provides preliminary evidence for the construct validity of AMPD-CAS scores.

Momentary Associations Between Reported Craving and Valuing Health in Daily Smokers.

INTRODUCTION: Research suggests that a blunted response to nondrug rewards, especially under conditions associated with strong cigarette cravings, is associated with reduced abstinence motivation in daily smokers. One limitation of previous studies is that they have largely focused on monetary rewards as broad representative of nondrug rewards. It remains unclear whether craving dampens responses to more abstract nondrug rewards, such as personal values. Personal values often have a positive valence and are frequently assumed to remain stable across time and situations. However, there may be time-varying and contextual influences on smokers' appraisal of values in daily life. Characterizing fluctuations in value importance in relation to relapse precipitants (eg, craving) may inform interventions that leverage personal values as motivation for cessation. METHODS: Daily smokers (n = 18) completed ecological momentary assessment surveys measuring the importance of specific personal values and smoking-related variables during 8 days of monetarily reinforced cigarette abstinence. We hypothesized that value ratings would demonstrate adequate within-person heterogeneity for multilevel modeling and that within-person fluctuations in craving would be negatively related to valuing personal health. RESULTS: All values demonstrated adequate within-person variability for multilevel modeling. Within-person craving was negatively related to health valuation (p = .012) and a cross-level interaction (p > .0001) suggested this effect is stronger for individuals who report greater overall craving. CONCLUSIONS: Greater craving is associated with decreased importance of personal health in the moment, particularly for those with high average levels of craving. Timely interventions that bolster importance of health during moments of elevated craving can potentially improve cessation outcomes. IMPLICATIONS: This study builds on research highlighting the positive influence of personal values in motivating behavior change. Values are an often used, but poorly studied, construct that has considerable utility in smoking cessation. Valuing personal health is frequently reported as a primary motivator for a quit attempt. Inasmuch as personal health is a distal nondrug reward used to motivate smoking abstinence, naturalistic evaluation of health importance, and motivators for continued smoking (ie, craving) could inform the timing and content of smoking treatment. This study is among the first to evaluate momentary assessment of personal values and craving within daily life.

How are you feeling?: A personalized methodology for predicting mental states from temporally observable physical and behavioral information.

It is believed that anomalous mental states such as stress and anxiety not only cause suffering for the individuals, but also lead to tragedies in some extreme cases. The ability to predict the mental state of an individual at both current and future time periods could prove critical to healthcare practitioners. Currently, the practical way to predict an individual's mental state is through mental examinations that involve psychological experts performing the evaluations. However, such methods can be time and resource consuming, mitigating their broad applicability to a wide population. Furthermore, some individuals may also be unaware of their mental states or may feel uncomfortable to express themselves during the evaluations. Hence, their anomalous mental states could remain undetected for a prolonged period of time. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the ability of using advanced machine learning based approaches to generate mathematical models that predict current and future mental states of an individual. The problem of mental state prediction is transformed into the time series forecasting problem, where an individual is represented as a multivariate time series stream of monitored physical and behavioral attributes. A personalized mathematical model is then automatically generated to capture the dependencies among these attributes, which is used for prediction of mental states for each individual. In particular, we first illustrate the drawbacks of traditional multivariate time series forecasting methodologies such as vector autoregression. Then, we show that such issues could be mitigated by using machine learning regression techniques which are modified for capturing temporal dependencies in time series data. A case study using the data from 150 human participants illustrates that the proposed machine learning based forecasting methods are more suitable for high-dimensional psychological data than the traditional vector autoregressive model in terms of both magnitude of error and directional accuracy. These results not only present a successful usage of machine learning techniques in psychological studies, but also serve as a building block for multiple medical applications that could rely on an automated system to gauge individuals' mental states.

Psychological Assessment with the DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders: Tradition and Innovation.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) Section III Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD; APA, 2013) represents an innovative system for simultaneous psychiatric classification and psychological assessment of personality disorders (PD). The AMPD combines major paradigms of personality assessment and provides an original, heuristic, flexible, and practical framework that enriches clinical thinking and practice. Origins, emerging research, and clinical application of the AMPD for diagnosis and psychological assessment are reviewed. The AMPD integrates assessment and research traditions, facilitates case conceptualization, is easy to learn and use, and assists in providing patient feedback. New as well as existing tests and psychometric methods may be used to operationalize the AMPD for clinical assessments.

Multisurface Interpersonal Assessment in a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Context.

The interpersonal paradigm of personality assessment provides a rich nomological net for describing and assessing constructs of interpersonal functioning. The aim of this article is to demonstrate for clinicians how the use of a multisurface interpersonal assessment (MSIA) battery can augment psychotherapy (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy). We present 2 clinical case examples and specify interpretative guidelines for MSIA that integrate multiple circumplex profiles (e.g., problems, traits, sensitivities, strengths, values, and efficacies) for each patient. Subsequently, we demonstrate how this approach provides a context to better understand patient symptoms and difficulties, and discuss how it can inform case conceptualization, treatment planning, and intervention.

DSM-5 Pathological Personality Traits and Intimate Partner Violence Among Male and Female College Students.

The purpose of this study was to examine associations between pathological personality traits identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., DSM-5) Section III alternative model of personality disorder (using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5; PID-5) and intimate partner violence (IPV; using the Conflict Tactics Scale [CTS]) in a sample of male (N = 1,106) and female (N = 1,338) college students. In this sample, self and partner perpetration of CTS Relationship Violence and CTS Negotiation tactics loaded onto 2 separate factors. The PID-5 facets and domains were differentially associated with these factors for both men and women. Facets and domains explained 10.1%-16.1% and 5.8%-10.6% of the variance in CTS Relationship Violence tactics, respectively. For both genders, detachment was positively associated with relationship violence. Antagonism was uniquely associated with relationship violence for women, whereas disinhibition was uniquely associated with relationship violence for men. Associations with lower level pathological personality facets were also examined. Overall, results indicate that DSM-5 pathological personality traits are associated with IPV reported by both men and women.

Negative affect, interpersonal perception, and binge eating behavior: An experience sampling study.

OBJECTIVE: Etiological and maintenance models for disordered eating highlight the salience of negative affect and interpersonal dysfunction. This study employed a 14-day experience sampling procedure to assess the impact of negative affect and interpersonal perceptions on binge eating behavior. METHOD: Young adult women (N = 40) with recurrent binge eating and significant clinical impairment recorded their mood, interpersonal behavior, and eating behaviors at six stratified semirandom intervals daily through the use of personal digital assistants. RESULTS: Although momentary negative affect was associated with binge eating behavior, average levels of negative affect over the experience sampling period were not, and interpersonal problems moderated the relationship between negative affect and binge eating. Interpersonal problems also intensified the association between momentary interpersonal perceptions and binge eating behavior. Lagged analyses indicated that previous levels of negative affect and interpersonal style also influence binge eating. DISCUSSION: The study findings suggest there may be important differences in how dispositional versus momentary experiences of negative affect are associated with binge eating. Results also highlight the importance of interpersonal problems for understanding relationships among negative affect, interpersonal perception, and binge eating behavior. These results offer several possibilities for attending to affective and interpersonal functioning in clinical practice.

Theodore Millon's Contributions to Conceptualizing Personality Disorders.

We review Theodore Millon's contributions to conceptualizing personality disorders in contemporary clinical science and practice. Millon worked tirelessly across professional domains and theoretical orientations, developing a rich integrative theory of personality and its pathology, directly and indirectly impacting the evolving iterations of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III through DSM-5), and advocating for the personality disorders through his contributions to cofounding the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders and the Journal of Personality Disorders. We conclude with a closer look at Millon's final major contributions to conceptualizing personality disorders as well as the strengths and limitations of his approach.

A Chinese translation of the inventory of interpersonal problems-short circumplex.

The Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-Short Circumplex (IIP-SC) is a self-report measure of subjective distress linked to behavioral excesses and inhibitions in social relationships. The IIP-SC exhibits circumplex structure reflecting the underlying dimensions of dominance-submissiveness and warmth-coldness. We translated the IIP-SC into Mandarin Chinese using rigorous translation and back-translation methods with independent native speakers. University students in the People's Republic of China (N = 401) completed the translated IIP-SC and the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI-2), an omnibus measure of indigenous personality trait dimensions and symptoms of psychopathology. The circumplex structure of the Chinese IIP-SC was confirmed using principal components analysis, a randomization test for hypothesized order relations, and confirmatory circumplex analysis. The validity of the Chinese IIP-SC was evaluated by examining its associations with the CPAI-2 scales. Validity evidence for Chinese translation of the IIP-SC extends its use for clinical assessment to native Chinese speakers, although ongoing work to improve its reliability is needed.

Practice research network in a psychology training clinic: building an infrastructure to foster early attachment to the scientific-practitioner model.

Learning how to conduct clinically meaningful and actionable research while simultaneously training to be a competent clinician may be an optimal way to develop an early attachment to the scientific-practitioner model. In this paper, the transformation of a training clinic into a practice research network (PRN) is presented as a strategy to foster a seamless integration of clinical, training, and research facets of graduate training in psychology. With the hope of providing helpful guidance to trainers and trainees interested in building such an infrastructure, the authors describe the context in which they developed their training clinic PRN, its major components, and some of the studies that have been conducted in this network. Benefits earned and lessons learned (in terms of obstacles faced and strategies implemented to deal with them) are described, as well as general recommendations and future directions regarding the implementation and impact of training clinic PRNs.

Child maltreatment, personality pathology, and stalking victimization among male and female college students.

Self-report college student surveys on childhood maltreatment, and borderline and narcissistic personality features are examined to determine their influence on stalking victimization vulnerability. Stalking victimization was measured using Spitzberg and Cupach's (2008) Obsessive Relational Intrusion scale. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models were run separately for men (N = 677) and women (N = 1,017). Results indicated childhood sexual maltreatment and borderline traits were associated with stalking victimization among both men and women. These were the only significant relationships for men (R2 = .10). For women, stalking victimization was also associated with narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability and with a child sexual abuse by borderline features interaction (R2 = .13), demonstrating women reporting prior sexual abuse and borderline personality pathology are especially vulnerable. Methodological and policy implications are discussed.