Is childhood lying shaped by callous-unemotional traits or does lie-telling make children more callous-unemotional? A longitudinal between- and within-person perspective.

The current study aims to advance knowledge on the causal interrelationship between childhood CU traits and lying both at a between- and a within-person perspective across a significant developmental period of mid-childhood to mid-adolescence. Cross-lagged panel models and Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to investigate the prospective associations between lying and the distinct subcomponents of CU traits, including Callousness, Uncaring, and Unemotional in a sample of 719 children (T1; Mage = 10.73 years, SDage = 1.38, range = 7-15 years, 54.4% girls) across four assessment points. Results supported large vulnerability effects at the between-person level across time, indicating that CU traits predominantly influence the subsequent development of lying, with Callousness and Uncaring showing most profound effects on subsequent developmental processes of lying. At the within-person level, fluctuations in CU traits and lying were overall meaningfully related, but no causal relationship could be empirically determined. These findings provide a differentiated etiological viewpoint on the intertwinement of CU traits and lying at a young age, and underscore the importance of an early identification of children with callous and uncaring tendencies in order to prevent more persistent lying in adolescence.

A Longitudinal Network of Borderline-Related Trait Vulnerabilities from Childhood to Adolescence.

Early maladaptive traits are predictive of later borderline personality pathology (BPP), but little is known about their dynamic interplay over time. This is an important issue to address, however, as significant differences in the 'clinical weight' of various traits constituting the early BPP trait phenotype may inform the field on important target constructs from an early intervention perspective. Therefore, the current study aims to uncover the complex dependencies between BPP traits across the crucial developmental period of childhood and adolescence, by using longitudinal network analysis. Both between- and within-person networks were constructed to identify how early mother-reported borderline-related traits are connected across a timespan of six years (ntime 1 = 718, Mtime1 = 10.73 years, SDtime1 = 1.39, 55.1% girls). Overall, the temporal network suggested various trait interdependencies, with internalizing traits being particularly influential in the development of the BPP trait network structure. At the same time, externalizing traits likely inhibit the negative effects of these core traits. In addition, results also revealed that internalizing and externalizing clusters of early borderline-related traits are linked through emotional lability. Implications of these findings are discussed in view of the change mechanisms at play and potential targets for early intervention.

Age and sex differences of the PID-5-100 maladaptive personality traits throughout adulthood.

In this cross-sectional study including a heterogeneous Belgian community sample of adults (N = 1,930), two central questions were addressed pertaining to age differences of self-reported Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) maladaptive personality traits: (a) What kind of mean-level changes occur in the PID-5 traits from age 21 to 65? and (b) What kind of variance-level changes occur in the PID-5 traits from age 21 to 65? In exploring these research questions, we also aimed to examine potential sex differences. With regard to latent mean-level age differences of the PID-5 traits, changes across adulthood were overall small to moderate and included a mix of decreasing, flat, and increasing age trends. Regarding the decreasing trends, quadratic regressions showed that the initial downward trend often either stagnated at a certain age, or subtly started increasing again from a certain age onwards. In more than half of the PID-5 traits (15/25), small but significant sex differences were found in the latent mean-level changes across adulthood. In these cases, men tended to score overall higher, except for the negative affectivity facets, on which women tended to score higher. Furthermore, variance stability was found for the majority of the PID-5 personality traits (17/25), indicating that the magnitude of individual differences in PID-5 traits is relatively stable across adulthood. Implications for individual assessment and evaluation of PID-5 scores are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Capturing Between- and Within-Person Variability of Borderline Traits in Youth from a Developmentally Sensitive Situational Judgment Perspective.

The significance of early maladaptive traits for understanding the roots of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is increasingly endorsed. Given the interpersonal nature of BPD and fluctuations in phenotypic symptomatology, this study aims to test the assumption that a situation-contingent contextualized assessment of borderline traits is a viable avenue to more fully capture the way underlying traits are reflected in socioaffective behavior that occurs in age-relevant situations. We aimed to explore the extent to which the variability on these responses represents a meaningful construct for understanding the clinical richness of BPD. Toward this end, a contextualized measure of DSM-5 BPD traits was developed along a situational judgment test (SJT) format, allowing us to explore both between-person and within-person variability in a more economic format than repeated measurement does. Examination of the psychometric properties of the SJT revealed distinctive correlational patterns of the situation-based traits with symptom scales of a youth BPD measure, but also indicated that for certain traits consistency in trait level across different situations is more maladaptive, whereas for other traits a greater degree of variability in trait expression is more maladaptive. Overall, this work could set the stage for further research on the potential of SJTs for understanding personality vulnerabilities both at the dispositional and the dynamic level.

Bullying Perpetration and Victimization as Social Mechanisms in the Development of Borderline Personality Traits during Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study.

INTRODUCTION: Borderline personality features are often associated with toxic social relationships and problematic peer functioning. Less is known, however, about the extent to which bullying experiences may shape the development and maintenance of borderline-related traits during crucial periods of rapid normative developments in impulse and emotion regulation skills. Given the core interpersonal character of borderline personality pathology (BPP), such research focus may be relevant to better understand possible causal social mechanisms in the development of personality difficulties within the borderline trait spectrum. METHOD: The current longitudinal study examined whether experiences of both bullying perpetration and victimization in pre-adolescence mediated the developmental course of BPP traits between childhood and adolescence. To examine these associations, a sample of children (N = 242; 57% girls; Mage = 10.87 years) was recruited and followed up 1 and 4 years later. RESULTS: Mediation analysis indicated that the prospective link between child and adolescent BPP trait vulnerability was shaped by pre-adolescent experiences of bullying victimization, but not by bullying perpetration. DISCUSSION: These results indicate that the continuity between child and adolescent borderline trait features are partly explained by exposure to bullying victimization, indicating that the impact of environmental invalidation on BPP development also extends to the peer context.

The Development of Criterion A Personality Pathology: The Relevance of Childhood Social Functioning for Young Adult Daily Self-Functioning.

The DSM-5 alternative model for the diagnosis of personality disorders (AMPD) states that self- and interpersonal (Criterion A) dysfunction is necessary to diagnose a personality disorder, qualified by maladaptive personality trait profiles (Criterion B). This study tested whether childhood maladaptive personality traits predict interpersonal dysfunction during adolescence, which further predicts lower self-functioning in young adulthood. A mixed clinical-community sample of 157 10-year-olds participated for ten years. Social problems and personality traits were rated by parents at age 10 and 12. At age 20, young adults completed 14 daily ratings of self-functioning. Traits of emotional instability and disagreeableness predicted social problems and self-problems. Social problems predicted worse self-functioning in adulthood. An indirect effect of childhood narcissistic traits on higher levels of self-functioning via lower levels of social problems was found. Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to our understanding of the AMPD from a developmental perspective.

A brief version of the DIPSI maladaptive trait measure for children and adolescents.

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).

Unraveling Prospective Reciprocal Effects between Parental Invalidation and Pre-Adolescents' Borderline Traits: Between- and Within-Family Associations and Differences with Common Psychopathology-Parenting Transactions.

The etiology of borderline personality pathology has consistently been framed as an interactional process between child vulnerability (i.e. emotional sensitivity and reactivity; Linehan, 1993) and invalidating parenting strategies, which evolves into increased emotion dysregulation and disinhibited behavior of the child and in turn activates more parental invalidation. Despite the strong theoretical base in support of these high-risk parent-child transactions, invalidating parenting behaviors have mostly been explored as a cause of child dysregulation and disinhibition, rather than as a result of child-driven effects. Also, most transactional research in this regard focused at differences between families, thereby not addressing potential changes within families across time. The current study therefore examines bidirectional between- and within-family effects of childhood borderline-related traits and maternal invalidation in the sensitive developmental phase of pre-adolescence (n = 574; 54.4% girls) along three assessment points. Cross-Lagged Panel Models and Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models indicated detrimental parenting effects of invalidation on subsequent development in borderline-related traits of the child both between and within families, and additional child-driven effects for subsequent invalidating parenting strategies within families. Beyond these transactions between borderline-related traits and parenting, the current study also indicates significant differences in the direction of effects when exploring transactions between more common dimensions of child internalizing/externalizing symptomatology and parental invalidation, suggesting a more substantial parenting etiology in the developmental process of borderline traits throughout pre-adolescence. Future longitudinal research may explore to what extent the transactional nature of borderline personality traits during important developmental stages indeed holds unique aspects compared to more common manifestations of symptomatology at young age.

Positive and harmful effects of parental disciplinary tactics on dark trait development throughout childhood and adolescence.

Children with a constellation of dark traits may be particularly challenging to parents because these traits are associated with an increased chance for parents to lose a supportive attitude in dealing with the child's difficultness and to turn instead toward punishing strategies. The present study looks with more detail into the construct of parental punishment and examines differences and similarities in the effects of physical (harsh) versus nonphysical (corrective) discipline on the developmental course of childhood five-factor model-based dark traits across a 10-year time span. Data were drawn from an ongoing (masked for review) longitudinal study, including five assessment points across 10 years (Ntime 1 = 720, 54.4% girls, age range Time 1 = 8-14.78 years, M = 10.73, SD = 1.39). Latent growth modeling suggested significant differences between both kinds of parental discipline in terms of contrasting effects on subsequent growth in dark traits and also showed a number of age-and gender-specific effects of parental discipline on the developmental course of dark traits. These findings underscore the relevance of a more differentiated perspective on effects of parental punishment in understanding childhood maladaptive trait outcomes and may offer fruitful guidelines for the development of intervention programs targeting children that are difficult to manage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).