Personality Disorders as Emergent Interpersonal Syndromes: Psychopathic Personality as a Case Example

Abstract

Personality disorders have long been bedeviled by a host of conceptual and methodological quandaries. Starting from the assumption that personality disorders are inherently interpersonal conditions that reflect folk concepts of social impairment, the authors contend that a subset of personality disorders, rather than traditional syndromes, are emergent interpersonal syndromes (EISs): interpersonally malignant configurations (statistical interactions) of distinct personality dimensions that may be only modestly, weakly, or even negatively correlated. Preliminary support for this perspective derives from a surprising source, namely, largely forgotten research on the intercorrelations among the subscales of select MMPI/MMPI-2 clinical scales. Using psychopathic personality as a case example, the authors offer provisional evidence for the EIS hypothesis from four lines of research and delineate its implications for personality disorder theory, research, and classification. Conceptualizing some personality disorders as EISs elucidates long-standing quandaries and controversies in the psychopathology literature and affords fruitful avenues for future investigation.

Modeling Relations Between Triarchic Biobehavioral Traits and DSM Internalizing Disorder Dimensions

“…Given the documented positive (~.5) relationship between disinhibition and meanness, boldness might also be expected to attenuate any corresponding associations for meanness. These interactions were further undertaken to test, partially, the theorized compound nature of these orthogonal triarchic traits (Lilienfeld et al, 2012; Lilienfeld et al, 2019). Accordingly, we tested for moderating (interactive) effects of boldness on associations between disinhibition and internalizing symptomatology, and between meanness and internalizing symptomatology.…”

Extending the nomological network of sexual objectification to psychopathic and allied personality traits.

“…Differences in content coverage of active antagonism and entitlement, which are subsumed by meanness but not coldheartedness, may underlie this disparity. More specifically, given both the interpersonal nature of ISOP and theory that has described personality disorders as conditions of malignant interpersonal dysfunction (Lilienfeld et al, 2019;Wilson, Stroud, & Durbin, 2017), we venture that ISOP behaviors may be partial expressions of hostile interpersonal dominance (Lang, 2010; see also Bloom, 2018) rather than a sense of disbelief concerning victims' autonomy and personhood. It would follow that most perpetrators of sexual objectification are "sexual sadists" rather than "sexual solipsists.…”

We Need to Talk About Development and Victims

“…Do young children with certain trait combinations have the same impact in their social networks than adults with these trait combinations? At the moment we do not know, but the article by Lilienfeld et al (2019) will no doubt inspire new studies that address these questions.…”

“…The authors start with the premise that PDs are reflections of folk concepts that are not syndromes as we commonly conceptualise them in psychiatry (Lilienfeld et al, 2019). Not all PDs consist of symptoms that consistently co-vary across individuals, reflecting a latent, underlying construct (classical syndrome).…”

“…Lilienfeld et al (2019) have commendably put forward four testable, falsifiable hypotheses that should guide the evaluation of their model: i) some PDs are characterised by cooccurrence features that are typically independent in the general population; ii) features of certain PDs have different external correlates; iii) cooperative suppressor effects characterise associated features of certain PDs; and iv) traits of some PDs interact statistically when predicting relevant interpersonal outcomes. They then provide an overview on psychopathy research against the back drop of these hypotheses.…”