Is emotional impulsiveness (Urgency) a core feature of severe personality disorder?

Abstract

Recent literature has focused on severity of personality disorder (PD) and a trait-based assessment of PDs in preference to assessment by specific sets of diagnostic criteria. Evidence suggests that emotional impulsiveness, also known as Urgency (Whiteside SP, Lynam DR. The five factor model and impulsivity: using a structural model of personality to understand impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences,30, 669-689, 2001) might contribute to a broad spectrum of PDs and to overall PD severity. In a sample of 100 forensic psychiatric patients, all men with confirmed PD and a history of serious offending, two hypotheses were tested: first that high Urgency scores would be associated with a broad spectrum of PDs, and with PD severity; and second, that in regression analysis Urgency would uniquely predict measures of PD severity. Results confirmed these hypotheses and are consistent with the idea that emotional impulsiveness/Urgency contributes importantly to overall severity of PD, and in so doing may explain, at least in part, the well-documented link between PD and violence.

Childhood Emotional Trauma and Cyberbullying Perpetration Among Emerging Adults: A Multiple Mediation Model of the Role of Problematic Social Media Use and Psychopathology

“…Students with higher Cluster B personality disorder symptoms were more likely to demonstrate CBP. This result may be explained by the studies that have reported significant associations of different personality disorders with different negative factors that may lead to CBP such as violent behavior (Garofalo and Wright 2017;Howard 2015;Ostrowsky 2010), emotional impulsiveness (Howard and Khalifa 2016), neuroticism, disagreeableness (Watson 1998), antagonism, psychoticism (Hopwood et al 2013), aggression, anger, hostility (Velotti et al 2016), and higher risk of psychological violence (Ten Have et al 2014). Recent studies also demonstrate that cyberbullying is associated with psychopathological traits (Aboujaoude et al 2015;Floros et al 2013;Kokkinos et al 2014), and the dark triad (Baughman et al 2012;Goodboy and Martin 2015).…”

“…It has also been suggested that individuals with Cluster B traits are more violent (Garofalo and Wright 2017;Howard 2015;Ostrowsky 2010), emotionally impulsive (Howard and Khalifa 2016), antagonist, psychotic (Hopwood et al 2013), aggressive, angry, hostile (Velotti et al 2016), and have a higher risk of psychological violence (Ten Have et al 2014). Given that these emotional, psychological, and personality features are important predictors of CBP, it can be expected that individuals higher on Cluster B traits will more likely demonstrate CBP.…”

Aggression and Impulsitivity: Two of a kind ?

“…Third, we found a significant correlation between inadequate response inhibition and antisocial PD, which is in line with research showing antisocial PD is characterized by "increased rapid-response impulsivity" (Swann, Lijffijt, Lane, Steinberg, & Moeller, 2009, p. 1) and recent research showing a relationship between PD severity and urgency facet, which equals our response inhibition dimension (Howard & Khalifa, 2016).…”

The Link between Early Adolescent Alcohol Abuse and Adult Antisocial Behaviour: A Hypothesis Revisited

“…A recent study of personality disordered offenders [26] confirmed that severity of personality disorder measured either by combining externalizing and externalizing features or by aggregating across dimensional scores of individual personality disorders, was associated with a high level of negative Urgency. Of all the UPPS scales, only Urgency was able to predict severity of personality disorder.…”