Personality metatraits and Young's early maladaptive schemas

Abstract

Introduction: Early maladaptive schemas, as defined by Young, refer to dysfunctional patterns, consisting of memories, emotions, thoughts and bodily sensations, which are the results of the interaction of innate vulnerability and intense and permanent deprivation of basic psychological needs during childhood. The objective of the research presented here was an attempt to identify, represented in metatraits, personality-based determinants for early maladaptive schemas in Young's concept. The basic assumption was that metatraits understood as biologically conditioned, basic forces shaping a person's style of functioning in the sphere of thoughts, feelings and behaviour, explain to a significant extent the intensity of the maladaptive cognitive-emotional schemas. Method: A group of 404 subjects (221 women and 183 men) aged between 18 and 78 years (M = 37; SD = 10.78). Respondents completed the CPM-Q-SF Personality Questionnaire and the YSQ-S3 Young's Schema Questionnaire. Results: The results from the advanced statistical analyses confirmed the assumption that personality metatraits play a sigfnificant role in terms of predicting early maladaptive schemas. It turned out that the metatraits alpha-minus disinhibition and gamma-minus disharmony underlie all five schema areas in Young's approach. Conclusions: By verifying the relationships discussed, it is possible to conclude that metatraits denoting emotional instability, low frustration tolerance, aggressiveness as well as depressiveness, distrust and generally poor psycho-physical condition may represent a biologically determined personality basis for the organisation and development of dysfunctional mental codes that function as information processing mechanisms and motives for maladaptive behavioural reactions. In practical terms, the above-mentioned means that in case of certain personality disorders, working on schemas, referring to childhood experiences, may be the main approach due to the inability to change the biologically determined personality.