Perceptual Dysregulation Research Articles

The Pathology of Imagination: Picturing the Worst

ABSTRACT Imagination, often celebrated for its role in creativity and development, also may be a feature in a range of personality pathology and psychopathology. This pre-registered study evaluates the relationship between imagination and maladaptive personality traits using the Four-Factor Imagination Scale and Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Large-scale, multinational, cross-sectional data (N = 114,559) were collected from the SAPA-Project using a planned-missingness design. Functional sample size (pairwise-n = 600) was derived from the mean number of pairwise-complete administrations of all items. Significant associations were found between imagination and PID-5 facets saturated with negative affect and psychoticism. Extreme groups analysis demonstrated participants with non-normative levels of PID-5 Depressivity and Anxiousness had elevated levels of emotionally negative imagination (mean d = 1.14, p < .001); non-normative Perceptual Dysregulation and Emotional Lability featured greater overall imaginative activity (mean d = 1.00, p < .001). Item-level analyses using machine learning revealed the content of PID-5 items predicted facet-level imagination scores, suggesting imagination features in some pathological traits. All statistical analyses are reproducible and publicly available in the Supplemental Materials file.

Gaslighting Exposure During Emerging Adulthood: Personality Traits and Vulnerability Paths.

Among the many forms of psychological violence, gaslighting is a particularly insidious manipulative behaviour that includes acts aimed at controlling and altering one's own partner's sensations, thoughts, actions, affective state, self-perception, and reality-testing. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between the experience of gaslighting and dysfunctional aspects of the partner's personality. Gaslighter personality facets were assessed using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Informant Form-Adult (PID-5-IRF), while gaslighting behaviours were assessed using a 25-item questionnaire, based on the three categories of glamour, good-guy, and intimidator (Stern, 2007). The sample was made up of a group of 177 Italian emerging adults aged between 19 and 26 (49.2% male, 50.8% female; M = 21.88, SD = 1.75), enrolled at University, who participated voluntarily in the research. In fact, none of them received any form of direct or indirect incentive. In our study, we applied a beta regression model mapping the Likert scale into the open interval (0,1). The main results show (a) good-guy gaslighting is positively associated with manipulativeness and negatively associated with deceitfulness; (b) glamour gaslighting has a negative association with separation insecurity and manipulativeness, but it is positively associated with irresponsibility; (c) intimidator gaslighting has a positive association with separation insecurity and distractibility and a negative association with eccentricity and perceptual dysregulation; (d) all three gaslighting categories are negatively associated with anhedonia and impulsivity. Based on what emerged from the data, aspects such as separation insecurity, irresponsibility, and distractibility can be seen as serious risk factors for gaslighting. For this reason, with regard to clinical implications, an early recognition of dysfunctional traits in potential abusers should be fostered in order to protect both potential abusers and their partner from aggressive conduct within an intimate relationship.

Experimental evidence for a robust, transdiagnostic marker in functional disorders: Erroneous sensorimotor processing in functional dizziness and functional movement disorder

ObjectiveRecent neuroscientific models suggest that functional bodily symptoms can be attributed to perceptual dysregulation in the central nervous system. Evidence for this hypothesis comes from patients with functional dizziness, who exhibit marked sensorimotor processing deficits during eye-head movement planning and execution. Similar findings in eye-head movement planning in patients with irritable bowel syndrome confirmed that these sensorimotor processing deficits represent a shared, transdiagnostic mechanism. We now examine whether erroneous sensorimotor processing is also at play in functional movement disorder. MethodsWe measured head movements of 10 patients with functional movement disorder (F44.4, ICD-10), 10 patients with functional dizziness (F45.8, ICD-10), and (respectively) 10 healthy controls during an eye-head experiment, where participants performed large gaze shifts under normal, increased, and again normal head moment of inertia. Head oscillations at the end of the gaze shift served as a well-established marker for sensorimotor processing problems. We calculated Bayesian statistics for comparison. ResultsPatients with functional movement disorder (Bayes Factor (BF)10 = 5.36, BFincl = 11.16; substantial to strong evidence) as well as patients with functional dizziness (BF10 = 2.27, BFincl = 3.56; anecdotal to substantial evidence) showed increased head oscillations compared to healthy controls, indicating marked deficits in planning and executing movement. ConclusionWe replicate earlier experimental findings on erroneous sensorimotor processing in patients with functional dizziness, and show that patients with functional movement disorder show a similar impairment of sensorimotor processing during large gaze shifts. This provides an objectively measurable, transdiagnostic marker for functional disorders, highlighting important implications for diagnosis, treatment, and de-stigmatization.

How are poor sleepers with other clinical conditions affected by maladaptive personality traits? A neural network-based analysis.

Psychopathology research mainly focused on the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between personality and psychiatric disorders without considering the moment-to-moment dynamics of personality in response to environmental situations. The present study aimed to both cluster a young sample according to three mixed clinical conditions (poor sleep quality, depression, and somatization) and to predict the derived clusters by maladaptive personality traits and sex differences using a deep machine learning approach. A sample of 839 adults aged 18-40 years (64% female) from the west of Iran were clustered according to the mixed clinical conditions using the cluster analysis techniques. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) modeling is used to predict the derived clusters by maladaptive personality traits and biological gender. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to identify independent variables with high sensitivity specific to the derived clusters. The cluster analysis techniques suggested a fully stable and acceptable four-cluster solution for Depressed Poor Sleepers, Nonclinical Good Sleepers, Subclinical Poor Sleepers, and Clinical Poor Sleepers. The ANN model led to the identification of one hidden layer with two hidden units. The results of Area under the ROC Curve were relatively to completely acceptable, ranging from.726 to.855. Anhedonia, perceptual dysregulation, depressivity, anxiousness, and unusual beliefs are the most valuable traits with importance higher than 70%. The machine learning approach can be well used to predict mixed clinical conditions by maladaptive personality traits. Future research can test the complexity of normal personality traits connected to mixed clinical conditions.

Psychotic spectrum features in borderline and bipolar disorders within the scope of the DSM-5 section III personality traits: a case control study

BackgroundPsychotic spectrum features in borderline personality disorder (PD) are a long-standing phenomenon, but remarkably, to date, they have not been the focus of many empirical studies. Moreover, the comparative studies that acknowledge their links to affective psychoses are even more scarce. Likewise, the contributions of empirical research on the DSM-5 dimensional approach to this topic are also uncommon. This study seeks to identify the best set of pathological personality traits and/or symptoms that are predictors of psychotic features (psychoticism and ideation paranoid symptoms) in borderline PD and in bipolar disorder, based on the framework of the DSM-5 section III personality traits.MethodsA cross-sectional study of two clinical samples: 1) Borderline PD group of 63 participants; 2) Bipolar disorder group of 65 participants. Self-reported assessment: Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5); Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). A series of linear and logistic regression analyses were computed.ResultsOverall, the data emerging as common predictors are detachment, negative affectivity, psychoticism, depressivity, grandiosity, suspiciousness and interpersonal sensitivity symptoms. Borderline PD has the highest score in BSI paranoid ideation which emerges as its discriminating trait (Nagelkerke R2 = .58): cognitive and perceptual dysregulation (OR: 13.02), restricted affectivity (OR: 12.09), withdrawal (OR: 11.70), anhedonia (OR: 10.98) and emotional lability (OR: 6.69).ConclusionsBesides the commonality that appears to overlap both disorders with a psychosis superspectrum, the patterns of the pathological personality-symptoms underlying the psychotic features appear to reinforce a position between schizophrenia and bipolar disorders that borderline PD may occupy, highlighting the possibility of its intersection with schizoaffective/psychosis spectra. The pathological personality nature of the psychotic features emerges as a potential comprehensive trait of the phenomenological dimensions.

Pathological personality traits of maladaptive daydreamers measured by the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 in a psychiatric sample.

This study aimed to estimate the frequency of maladaptive daydreaming and to explore the pathological personality traits of probable maladaptive daydreamers. Our sample consisted of 239 psychiatric patients. After screening, 42 persons were probable maladaptive, while 197 participants prove to be normal daydreamers. Two pathological domains and three facets measured by the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 showed a moderate significant correlation with the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale. The score of nearly every domain and facet was slightly higher among probable maladaptive daydreamers. To quantify the difference between the groups, effect sizes were calculated: Significant difference was found on the domain level in Antagonism, while on the facet level in Hostility, Grandiosity, Attention Seeking, Unusual Beliefs and Experiences, Cognitive and Perceptual Dysregulation. The group of probable maladaptive daydreamers was further examined to identify potential subgroups. Cluster analysis revealed heterogeneity in the severeness and patterns of pathological personality domains. Cluster 1 showed higher mean scores on the PID domains and on the MDS compared to Cluster 2. Clusters 1 and 2 broke further down into two subclusters: Cluster 1a and Cluster 1b differed in their mean scores on the domains of Antagonism and Detachment; the mean scores of Cluster 2a were uniformly low on each domain, while the mean values of Cluster 2b were scattered in a mixed way on the domains. Our results suggest that maladaptive daydreaming might manifest with differently pathological personality profiles in the background. This aspect might worth considering in planning treatment.

Deafness-Infertility Syndrome and Auditory Hallucinations

Deafness-Infertility Syndrome and Auditory Hallucinations

Maladaptive personality traits may link childhood trauma history to current internalizing symptoms.

Research supports a strong relationship between childhood maltreatment and internalizing psychopathology (e.g., anxiety and depression), and features of personality are assumed to explain some of this relationship. In this study, we proposed a model in which maladaptive traits mediate the effect of childhood trauma history on internalizing symptoms in adult individuals. A mixed sample (N = 462) composed of 142 psychiatric patients and 320 community-dwelling individuals completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), and the Symptom Checklist (SCL-27) for internalizing psychopathology. The effect of childhood traumas explained 34% of the variance in internalizing symptoms while controlling for the influence of age and gender. The traits accounted for 78% of this effect, which was predominantly exerted through the domains of Negative Affectivity, Detachment, and Psychoticism, and specifically through the facets of Depressivity, Suspiciousness, Anxiousness, Perceptual Dysregulation, and Distractibility. This finding provides preliminary support for the proposed model indicating that the aforementioned maladaptive trait domains potentially function as mediating links by which childhood traumas are translated into internalizing symptoms in adulthood. However, these findings must be interpreted with caution due to the cross-sectional and retrospective mono-method design of this study. Clinical implications are discussed in relation to transdiagnostic treatment and the potential value of specifying trait domain specifiers in ICD-11 and DSM-5 models of personality disorders.

Unstable Gaze in Functional Dizziness: A Contribution to Understanding the Pathophysiology of Functional Disorders.

Objective: We are still lacking a pathophysiological mechanism for functional disorders explaining the emergence and manifestation of characteristic, severely impairing bodily symptoms like chest pain or dizziness. A recent hypothesis based on the predictive coding theory of brain function suggests that in functional disorders, internal expectations do not match the actual sensory body states, leading to perceptual dysregulation and symptom perception. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the account of internal expectations and sensory input on gaze stabilization, a physiologically relevant parameter of gaze shifts, in functional dizziness.Methods: We assessed gaze stabilization in eight functional dizziness patients and 11 healthy controls during two distinct epochs of large gaze shifts: during a counter-rotation epoch (CR epoch), where the brain can use internal models, motor planning, and resulting internal expectations to achieve internally driven gaze stabilization; and during an oscillation epoch (OSC epoch), where, due to terminated motor planning, no movement expectations are present, and gaze is stabilized by sensory input alone.Results: Gaze stabilization differed between functional patients and healthy controls only when internal movement expectations were involved [F(1,17) = 14.63, p = 0.001, and partial η2 = 0.463]: functional dizziness patients showed reduced gaze stabilization during the CR (p = 0.036) but not OSC epoch (p = 0.26).Conclusion: While sensory-driven gaze stabilization is intact, there are marked, well-measurable deficits in internally-driven gaze stabilization in functional dizziness pointing at internal expectations that do not match actual body states. This experimental evidence supports the perceptual dysregulation hypothesis of functional disorders and is an important step toward understanding the underlying pathophysiology.

Predicting dropout using DSM-5 Section II personality disorders, and DSM-5 Section III personality traits, in a (day)clinical sample of personality disorders.

Despite the availability of structured treatments for personality disorders (PDs), still 1 in 4 patients drop out of treatment. Knowledge of whether maladaptive personality traits can lead to dropout in psychotherapeutic treatment programs of PDs is important for the purpose of a suitable indication for such treatments, especially in the light of the new alternative model of personality disorders (AMPD), which is used more and more in clinical practice. The current study investigated whether pathological personality traits of the alternative model of personality disorders, as operationalized with the Personality Inventory for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (PID-5), and dimensional scores of PDs on the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+, could serve as predictors for dropout in an intensive (day)clinical setting for the treatment of mainly Cluster C and mild Cluster B PDs. The main finding of this study was that high scores on the PID-5 trait scales Perceptual Dysregulation, Unusual Belief and Experiences, Suspiciousness, and Rigid Perfectionism, and low scores on Restricted Affectivity and the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+ avoidant PD dimensional score, were significantly predictive for dropout from treatment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Sensory Gating Inventory-Brief.

The Sensory Gating Inventory (SGI) is a 36-item measure used to assess an individual’s subjective ability to modulate, filter, over-include, discriminate, attend to, and tolerate sensory stimuli. Due to its theoretical and empirical link with sensory processing deficits, this measure has been used extensively in studies of psychosis and other psychopathology. The current work fills a need within the field for a briefer measure of sensory gating aberrations that maintains the original measure’s utility. For this purpose, large samples (total n = 1552) were recruited from 2 independent sites for item reduction/selection and brief measure validation, respectively. These samples reflected subgroups of individuals with a psychosis-spectrum disorder, at high risk for a psychosis-spectrum disorder, nonpsychiatric controls, and nonpsychosis psychiatric controls. Factor analyses and item-response models were used to create the SGI-Brief (SGI-B; 10 Likert-rated items), a unidimensional self-report measure that retains the original SGI’s transdiagnostic (ie, present across disorders) utility and content breadth. Findings show that the SGI-B has excellent psychometric properties (alpha = 0.92) and demonstrates external validity through strong associations with measures of psychotic symptomatology, theoretically linked measures of personality (eg, perceptual dysregulation), and modest associations with laboratory-based sensory processing tasks in the auditory and visual domains on par with the original version. Accordingly, the SGI-B will be a valuable tool for dimensional and transdiagnostic examination of sensory gating abnormalities within clinical science research, while reducing administrator and participant burden.

Personological vulnerability in the artistic profession The assessment of personality traits through DECAS and PID-5 scales

The connection between creativity and psychopathology is belatedly highlighted in the specialized literature, but the interest for this subject has increased over the last few years. This study will analyze particularly artists from Romania, who come from a different social, historical, cultural and economic context. They are often marginalized, perceived as “strange” or stigmatized. This is due to their way of being more nonconformist, more relaxed or of their original outfit. Objective. We wish to assess those facets of the personality dimensions that motivate and maintain artistic talent, which can influence the chances of success, highlighting those dimensions that facilitate the professional options developed, according to personal talent and skills. Materials and method. We have included in our study a batch of 24 artists from various fields of activity, who filled out the Personality Inventory for Diagnostic and Statistical Classification Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition (PID-5) form, and the Openness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability (DECAS) form. Results. The correlations between increased openness, eccentricity and grandiosity can be advantageous factors in the artist profession. The increased values of conscientiousness can lead to the development of certain obsessive-compulsive type personality traits that can be beneficial under certain circumstances and can lead to perfectionism and perseveration. The unusual beliefs, suspiciousness and perceptual dysregulation are disadvantageous traits that can be the starting point for psychotic pathological manifestations. Conclusions. There are dimensions that predispose to an increased aesthetic sense, creativity and fantasy, which can be important factors in choosing one’s profession, but can also create a vulnerability to forays into psychopathology.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder in the Perspective of the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorder: A Study on Italian Community-Dwelling Women.

To evaluate the relationships between body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorder (AMPD) criterion A and dysfunctional personality trait (i.e., criterion B) measures, 420 Italian community-dwelling women were administered three measures of BDD (i.e., the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Questionnaire, the Body Dysmorphic Disorder-Dimensional Scale, and the Appearance Anxiety Inventory), as well as the Level of Personality Functioning Scale-Brief Form (LPFS-BF) and the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Short Form (PID-5-SF). The three BDD measures showed substantial convergent validity correlations and could be reliably cumulated to obtain the BDD Cumulative Index (BDDCI). Several significant, nonnegligible correlations were observed between the BDDCI as well as the LPFS-BF scale scores and PID-5-SF personality trait scale scores. Relative importance weight analysis results showed that LPFS-BF scale scores and PID-5-SF trait scale scores were substantial predictors of the BDDCI scores (R = 0.42, f = 0.72). In particular, AMPD criterion A impairment in self-functioning and AMPD criterion B depressivity, anhedonia, perseveration, separation insecurity, and cognitive and perceptual dysregulation were core components of the dysfunctional personality profile associated with BDD.

Medically Unexplained Symptoms and Bodily Distress

Medically Unexplained Symptoms and Bodily Distress

Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders Through the Lens of an Empirical Network Model.

The Alternative Model for Personality Disorders defined in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth edition (DSM-5) has recently attracted considerable interest in empirical research, with different hypotheses being proposed to explain the discordant results shown in previous research. Empirical network analysis has begun to be applied for complementing the study of psychopathological phenomena according to a new perspective. This article applies this analysis to personality facets measured in a sample of 626 patients with mental disorders and a 1,034 normative sample, using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. The results reveal five substructures partially equivalent to domains defined in the DSM-5. Discordant facets (suspiciousness, hostility, rigid perfectionism, attention seeking, and restricted affectivity) play the role of connectors between substructures. Invariance between clinical and community networks was found except for the connection between unusual beliefs and perceptual dysregulation (stronger in the clinical sample). Considering the strength centrality index, anxiousness, emotional lability, and depressivity can be highlighted for their relative importance within both clinical and normative networks.

Schizotypy from the Perspective of the DSM-5 Alternative Model of Personality Traits: a Study on a Sample of 1056 Italian Adult University Students

To assess the relationships between schizotypy measures and DSM-5 Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) traits, 1056 (69.4% female; mean age = 23.30 years) University students, were administered the Italian translation of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ), Schizotypal Personality Scale (STA), Schizotypy Scale (SS), and Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5). Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) suggested that the SPQ, STA, and SS Schizofrenism scale total scores may represent primary measures of schizotypy/Schizotypal personality disorder (PD), whereas the SS anhedonia (AH) total score represent an index of the general anhedonia level. MAMBAC, MAXCOV, and LMode taxometric analyses showed that both schizotypy and anhedonia constructs had a dimensional distribution (all comparison curve fit index values<.40). Bayesian confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported a two-factor model of SPQ, STA, SS SZ and SS AH scale total scores. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that DSM-5 AMPD traits that were hypothesized to define the Schizotypal PD profile (i.e., Cognitive and Perceptual Dysregulation, Unusual Beliefs and Experiences, Eccentricity, Restricted Affectivity, Withdrawal, and Suspiciousness), as well as the additional specifiers (i.e., Anxiousness, and Depressivity) explained 66.0% of the systematic variance in the schizotypy factor scale scores. Our findings suggested that schizotypy could be represented as a continuously-distributed latent variable which may be effectively described in terms of a coherent system of dysfunctional personality traits.

Persistent Physical Symptoms as Perceptual Dysregulation: A Neuropsychobehavioral Model and Its Clinical Implications.

The mechanisms underlying the perception and experience of persistent physical symptoms are not well understood, and in the models, the specific relevance of peripheral input versus central processing, or of neurobiological versus psychosocial factors in general, is not clear. In this article, we proposed a model for this clinical phenomenon that is designed to be coherent with an underlying, relatively new model of the normal brain functions involved in the experience of bodily signals. Based on a review of recent literature, we describe central elements of this model and its clinical implications. In the model, the brain is seen as an active predictive processing or inferential device rather than one that is passively waiting for sensory input. A central aspect of the model is the attempt of the brain to minimize prediction errors that result from constant comparisons of predictions and sensory input. Two possibilities exist: adaptation of the generative model underlying the predictions or alteration of the sensory input via autonomic nervous activation (in the case of interoception). Following this model, persistent physical symptoms can be described as "failures of inference" and clinically well-known factors such as expectation are assigned a role, not only in the later amplification of bodily signals but also in the very basis of symptom perception. We discuss therapeutic implications of such a model including new interpretations for established treatments as well as new options such as virtual reality techniques combining exteroceptive and interoceptive information.

Assessing inter-model continuity between the Section II and Section III conceptualizations of borderline personality disorder in DSM-5.

DSM-5 includes 2 competing models of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in Sections II and III. Empirical comparisons between these models are required to understand and improve intermodel continuity. We compared Section III BPD traits to Section II BPD criteria assessed via semistructured interviews in 455 current/recent psychiatric patients using correlation and regression analyses, and also evaluated the incremental predictive power of other Section III traits. In addition, we tested the hypothesis that self-harm would incrementally predict BPD Criterion 5 over the Section III traits. Results supported Section III BPD traits as an adequate representation of traditional BPD symptomatology, although modifications that would increase intermodel continuity were identified. Finally, we found support for the incremental validity of suspiciousness, anhedonia, perceptual dysregulation, and self-harm, suggesting possible gaps in the Section III PD trait definitions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Maladaptive Personality Traits and 10-Year Course of Psychiatric and Medical Symptoms and Functional Impairment Following Trauma.

Personality is a major predictor of many mental and physical disorders, but its contributions to illness course are understudied. The current study aimed to explore whether personality is associated with a course of psychiatric and medical illness over 10 years following trauma. World Trade Center (WTC) responders (N = 532) completed the personality inventory for DSM-5, which measures both broad domains and narrow facets. Responders' mental and physical health was assessed in the decade following the WTC disaster during annual monitoring visits at a WTC Health Program clinic. Multilevel modeling was used in an exploratory manner to chart the course of health and functioning, and examine associations of maladaptive personality domains and facets with intercepts (initial illness) and slopes (course) of illness trajectories. Three maladaptive personality domains-negative affectivity, detachment and psychoticism-were uniquely associated with initial posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); detachment and psychoticism were also associated with initial functional impairment. Five facets-emotional lability, anhedonia, callousness, distractibility and perceptual dysregulation-were uniquely associated with initial mental and physical health and functional impairment. Anxiousness and depressivity facets were associated with worse initial levels of psychiatric outcomes only. With regard to illness trajectory, callousness and perceptual dysregulation were associated with the increase in PTSD symptoms. Anxiousness was associated with greater persistence of respiratory symptoms. Several personality domains and facets were associated with initial levels and long-term course of illness and functional impairment in a traumatized population. Results inform the role of maladaptive personality in the development and maintenance of chronic mental-physical comorbidity. Personality might constitute a transdiagnostic prognostic and treatment target.

Stigma of psychosis: Do diagnostic label, symptom manifestation, and gender matter?

The present study examined the effects of psychiatric label (thought and perceptual dysregulation vs. schizophrenia), symptom manifestation (positive vs. negative symptoms), and gender (male vs. female) of a vignette character with psychosis on the general public's cognitive attributions, affective reactions, and behavioral responses. A 2 × 2 × 2 vignette-based telephone survey was conducted based on 533 Chinese adults from 18 to 60 years of age. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that compared with the label of thought and perceptual dysregulation, the public accorded the label of schizophrenia with greater levels of intentionality and controllability. A male character predicted greater intentionality, controllability, and social rejection than did a female character. Positive symptoms predicted greater controllability, contempt, and social rejection than did negative symptoms. Theoretical and practical implications on the findings were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record