Personality Disorders Predicted by the Chinese Adjective Descriptors of Personality

Abstract

Both normal and disordered personality traits are influenced by culture, but might normal personality traits generally predict the disordered ones within the Chinese context? The Chinese Adjective Descriptors of Personality (CADP, see Chap. “ Personality Traits in Contemporary China: A Lexical Approach”) which measures normal Chinese personality traits, might show predictable relationships with personality disorder functioning styles in healthy individuals and in personality disorder patients. We therefore administered the CADP, Parker Personality Measure (PERM), and Plutchik-van Praag Depression Inventory (PVP) to 110 healthy volunteers and 55 personality disorder patients. Patients scored significantly higher on PVP and all 11 PERM personality disorder functioning styles, as well as CADP Emotional and Unsocial traits. The PVP was significantly correlated with some CADP traits and PERM styles in both groups. In healthy volunteers, the CADP Unsocial trait predicted nine PERM styles. In patients, the CADP Intelligent trait predicted the PERM Antisocial, Narcissistic, and Passive-Aggressive styles; CADP Conscientious the PERM Obsessive-Compulsive and Passive-Aggressive (−) styles; CADP Unsocial the PERM Schizotypal, Antisocial, Narcissistic, Avoidant, and Passive-Aggressive styles; CADP Emotional the PERM Paranoid, Borderline, Histrionic, and Dependent styles. The results demonstrated that, in personality disorder patients, four out five CADP traits (except for Agreeable) were specifically associated with 10 out 11 personality disorder functioning styles (except for Schizoid), indicating that CADP might be used as an aid to diagnose personality disorders in China. In next chapter, we will figure out whether the antisocial personality disorder has specific aspects of domains in Chinese context.