Abstract
For a long time, clinicians and researchers have opposed giving children and adolescents a personality disorder diagnosis. However, a burgeoning number of empirical evidence made it clear that personality disorders occurred in childhood and adolescence. There are a large body of research supporting the important role of family influences on the development of particular type of personality disorder, especially the relationships between family emotional environment and borderline personality disorders. But it is inappropriate to evaluate adolescents’ personality from the perspective of categorical model of personality disorders, which may increase the stigmatization and impede the development of personality. Dimensional perspective of personality disorders in DSM-5 Section III (Negative Affectivity, Detachment, Antagonism, Disinhibition, and Psychoticism) is considered a better approach to define personality disorders in childhood and adolescence. Because it helps us understand adolescents’ maladaptive personality traits from a developmental psychopathology perspective and connects personality development during childhood and adolescence with adult personality disorders, other than labeling them personality disorder categories.
Thus, the present study seeks to evaluate adolescents’ pathological personality traits from the perspective of dimensional model of personality disorders. We aimed to explore the profiles of adolescents’ pathological personality traits and its associations with parents' responses to negative emotions. First, we identified maladaptive personality profiles of adolescents based on 25 pathological personality traits in the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5). Then we further tested the group differences of parental responses to negative emotions on adolescents’ maladaptive personality profiles. Last, we examined the interactions between parental non-supportive and supportive reactions to negative emotions on the development of adolescents’ pathological personality traits.
The study was conducted in six middle schools in mainland China. Seven hundred and one adolescents were recruited in this sample. Due to a large number of missing data (> 10%) or suspected random responding, 59 participants were excluded from analyses. The final sample (642 adolescents) comprised the following distribution: 53.6% male, 46.4% female; grade 7 (41%), grade 8 (46%), and grade 10 (13%). The school principals and head teachers coordinated the assessment procedure. All the participants were informed that participation in this study was voluntary and their answers were confidential. Researchers went to each classroom to make the instructions consistent and clear. The Personality Inventory for DSM-5 and Parental Responses to Adolescents’ Negative Emotions Scale were conducted by paper and pencil during regular daily classes in each classroom with 40-60 students. It took about 35-50 minutes to finish the whole questionnaires. We provided free lectures about personality development in adolescence as a reward.
The results demonstrated that: (1) three profiles of adolescents’ pathological personality traits were identified: low-risk (25%; low scores across the 25 low-order pathological traits), median-risk (49.1%; median scores across the 23 low-order pathological traits, with the exception of Impulsivity and Rigid Perfectionism), and high-risk (24.9%; high scores across the 25 low-order pathological traits). (2) Adolescents in the three personality disorder risk profiles demonstrated significantly different on all the parental reactions to negative emotions. Specifically, parental warmth/responsiveness and punishment to negative emotions showed significantly different across the three profiles. However, parental expressive encouragement showed non-significant between low-risk and median-risk profiles, whereas parental minimization showed non-significant between median-risk and high-risk profiles. (3) The moderating effect of parental supportive reactions on the relationship between parental non-supportive reactions and adolescents’ pathological personality traits was significant. When parents' supportive response modes were relatively high, the negative path effects were weakened.
Key words
negative emotions /
parental reactions /
pathological personality traits /
latent profile analysis /
adolescents
Cite this article
Download Citations
Wenjuan Zhang.
Parental Responses to Negative Emotions and the Potential Risk of Personality Disorder in Adolescence[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2023, 46(3): 586-593
{{custom_sec.title}}
{{custom_sec.title}}
{{custom_sec.content}}