Exploring the complexity of the childhood trait–psychopathology association: Continuity, pathoplasty, and complication effects

Abstract

Four different models have been generally proposed as plausible etiological explanations for the relation between personality and psychopathology, namely, the vulnerability, complication, pathoplasty, and spectrum or continuity model. The current study entails a joint investigation of the continuity, pathoplasty, and complication models to explain the nature of the associations between early maladaptive traits and psychopathology over time in 717 referred and community children (54.4% girls), aged from 8 to 14 years. Across a 2-year time span, maladaptive traits and psychopathology were measured at three different time points, thereby relying on comprehensive and age-specific dimensional operationalizations of both personality symptoms and psychopathology. The results demonstrate overall compelling evidence for the continuity model, finding more focused support for pathoplasty and complication effects for particular combinations of personality symptoms and psychopathology dimensions. As expected, the continuity associations were found to be more robust for those personality-psychopathology associations that are conceptually closer, such as the emotional instability/introversion-internalizing problems association and the disagreeableness-externalizing problems association. Continuity associations were also stronger when personality was considered from a maladaptive rather than from a general trait perspective. The implication of the findings for the treatment of psychopathology and personality symptoms are briefly discussed.Although clinical disorders and personality pathology have been traditionally conceived as distinct groups of pathology (Clark, 2005), empirical evidence does generally not support this conceptual bifurcation. More specifically, there has been a historical belief that personality disorders, in contrast to clinical disorders, reflect enduring patterns that are relatively stable over time. Recent longitudinal studies, however, have demonstrated a natural plasticity of personality symptoms both in adulthood (Cohen, Crawford, Johnson, & Kasen, 2005;Lenzenweger, 1999;Livesley, 2005;Skodol et al., 2005;Zanarini, Frankenburg, Hennen, Reich, & Silk, 2005) & Verhulst, 2003). In addition, a mass of literature reports on the substantial overlap between personality and psychopathology in adults (Widiger, 2003) and children (Tackett, 2006), including shared genetic etiological factors (Bienvenu, Hettema, Neale, Prescott, & Kendler, 2007;Krueger, Markon, Patrick, & Iacono, 2005). These research findings all suggest that personality and psychopathology are closely interconnected, given their similar nature and developmental course over time. Much is to be studied, however, to unravel their complex longitudinal interrelations from childhood onward. Delineating these trait-psychopathology connections from the various etiological models makes it possible to map causally oriented pathways of maladjustment toward adulthood . The current study aims to explore the etiology of these associations between earl...

Neuroticism and extraversion mediate the relationship between having a sibling with developmental disabilities and anxiety and depression symptoms

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Prenatal influences on temperament development: The role of environmental epigenetics

“…Vulnerability explanations cast temperament as increasing the probability of symptom onset (e.g., Perez-Edgar et al, 2008). In contrast, temperament and psychopathology can have independent etiology in pathoplasty models, wherein temperament (or personality) is viewed as impacting the course and/or severity of disorders (e.g., De Bolle, De Clercq, De Caluwe, & Verbeke, 2016). Alternative differential susceptibility (Belsky & Pluess, 2009) and biological sensitivity to context (Boyce & Ellis, 2005) models are relevant primarily to negative emotionality, viewed as a plasticity, rather than a vulnerability factor.…”

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