Standardized Personality Questionnaires Research Articles

Controlled Future as a Factor of Human Behavior Intentionality

This theoretical and empirical study verifies the hypothesis that the desire to control one’s own future is a significant behavioral factor. A controlled future is a phenomenon at the intersection of internality and emotional response. The relationship between the level of internality and emotional response was analyzed at two levels. The first level featured stable personality traits. They were identified using standard personality questionnaires, namely the Standard Personality Traits Questionnaire modified by E. G. Ksenofontov and C. Izard’s Differential Emotions Scale adapted by A. V. Leonov and M. S. Kapitsa. The second level featured situational personal traits manifested in particular situations as a general state of emotional comfort or discomfort. The authors developed a questionnaire that included six types of situations, each of which had three response options. The first option presupposed a passive (external) position, i.e., waiting for help from others. The second option described an active (internal) position. The third option was intermediate (50/50). Each behavioral option required an assessment of emotional comfort. At the level of subjective-personal traits, the general level of personal internality determined the readiness for action and overcoming difficulties, often associated with negative emotional experiences. A lower readiness for action and transformation triggered stronger negative emotions. The level of situational behavior demonstrated a similar trend: a lower control over the situation was associated with a greater emotional discomfort. However, the relationship between control and emotional comfort was not linear. The level of emotional discomfort increased following the rise in the control level.

Psychometric of the Dark Personality (Dark Triad) Instrument in Iranian Students

This study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of the dark personality instrument in students of general physical education units of Mashhad universities. The participants include all students of Ferdowsi, Imam Reza, Islamic Azad, and Payame Noor universities who had chosen the units of general physical education and sport in the academic year of 2021-22, using the Morgan table, 196 people were randomly selected as a sample. A standard dark personality questionnaire (Jonason & Webster, 2010) was used to collect data. Cronbach's alpha test was used to confirm the reliability of the questionnaire. To confirm the instrument's validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used. Data analysis showed that the factor load of all items is higher than the baseline value (0.4) and the research model has a significant fit. Also, the model fit indices had acceptable values. Finally, it is recommended to sports coaches and teachers of physical education classes and leisure time to use this scale at the beginning of each semester to get to know more about the personality characteristics of students in their class and to measure these people, this can help them a lot in how to manage their classes.

Psychological factors of anti-vaccination behavior of Belarusians in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

The article presents the results of a theoretical and empirical study of the psychological factors of refusal from preventive vaccinations against COVID-19 during an active campaign for mass vaccination of the population of Belarus. Among these factors, the individual characteristics of the subjective perception of the likelihood of infection, the severity of the course and consequences of coronavirus infection, as well as the effectiveness and safety of anticovid vaccination were considered; general attitudes in the field of vaccination and health care; and value attitudes towards health and life. The prevalence of the main categories of vaccination behavior — pro- and antivaccinational — was determined in the Belarusian population sample; the peculiarities of the cognitive assessment of COVID-19 and anticovid vaccination inherent in Belarusians, as well as their meaning-related determinants, were revealed; psychological differences between people with different directions of vaccination behavior are revealed; identified psychological predictors of antivaccination behavior. The empirical study was conducted on a representative population sample of residents of the Republic of Belarus (N=582, aged from 18 to 49 years, 178 men and 404 women), using questionnaire methods, as well as standardized personality questionnaires: “Scale of Basic Value”, “Scale of Healthcare Attitudes”, “Scale of Antivaccination Attitudes”. The results of the study indicate that generalized and nonspecific factors prevail in the regulation of the antivaccination behavior of Belarusians in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which are associated with personal comprehension and cognitive assessment not so much of a new type of coronavirus infection and anti-vaccines offered to the population, but of the national healthcare system in general and vaccination as such. In this case, the leading factors and predictors of anti-vaccination behavior of Belarusians are general negative attitudes — anti-vaccination, anti-drug and anti-bureaucratic attitudes. In the course of the study, psychometrically developed and validated the original Russian-language “Scale of Antivaccination Attitudes”, designed to change the generalized negative-evaluative (skeptical-distrustful) attitude of the subject to vaccines and vaccination in general. The results obtained indicate the compliance of its measuring properties with conventional psychometric standards.

The Meaning-Based Assessment of Personality Tendencies

The paper presents a new approach to the assessment of personality traits based on the theory and methodology of meaning. Meaning consists of contents and processes involved in the psychological domains of cognition, emotions, personality, behavior and physiology. On the basis of a large body of empirical data, it is defined as a referent-centered pattern of meaning values, whereby the referent is the carrier of meaning and the meaning values are the assigned meanings. Meaning assessment is done in terms of five sets of meaning variables characterizing the contents, relations, structure and mode of expression of the meaning. Any communication or statement can be analyzed in terms of the five sets of meaning variables. The meaning variables characterizing the meaning communications of an individual in response to the stimuli used in the Meaning Test constitute the individual’s meaning profile. The correspondences between the individuals’ meaning profiles and the scores on standard personality questionnaires enable defining the meaning profiles of the personality traits. Each trait corresponds to a unique pattern of meaning variables. Matching the meaning profiles of the individual and of the specific trait provides the individual’s score of the trait even without administering the actual trait questionnaire to the individual. The methodologies of defining the meaning profiles are done on a computer program (Kreitlermeaningsystem.tau.ac.il). The following are the main advantages of the meaning-based trait scores: they are valid; they are correlated significantly with the scores based on standard questionnaires; they are not based on self-report; they provide cheap and easily applied means of scoring; they include a lot of information about the trait beyond the score itself; they provide insight into the manner in which the trait functions; they enable comparing traits, and they provide means for identifying traits and differentiating between traits and other personality tendencies. Future research will focus on improving the precision and range of application of the methodology.

Personality Trait Analysis in Social Networks Based on Weakly Supervised Learning of Shared Images

Social networks have attracted the attention of psychologists, as the behavior of users can be used to assess personality traits, and to detect sentiments and critical mental situations such as depression or suicidal tendencies. Recently, the increasing amount of image uploads to social networks has shifted the focus from text to image-based personality assessment. However, obtaining the ground-truth requires giving personality questionnaires to the users, making the process very costly and slow, and hindering research on large populations. In this paper, we demonstrate that it is possible to predict which images are most associated with each personality trait of the OCEAN personality model, without requiring ground-truth personality labels. Namely, we present a weakly supervised framework which shows that the personality scores obtained using specific images textually associated with particular personality traits are highly correlated with scores obtained using standard text-based personality questionnaires. We trained an OCEAN trait model based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), learned from 120K pictures posted with specific textual hashtags, to infer whether the personality scores from the images uploaded by users are consistent with those scores obtained from text. In order to validate our claims, we performed a personality test on a heterogeneous group of 280 human subjects, showing that our model successfully predicts which kind of image will match a person with a given level of a trait. Looking at the results, we obtained evidence that personality is not only correlated with text, but with image content too. Interestingly, different visual patterns emerged from those images most liked by persons with a particular personality trait: for instance, pictures most associated with high conscientiousness usually contained healthy food, while low conscientiousness pictures contained injuries, guns, and alcohol. These findings could pave the way to complement text-based personality questionnaires with image-based questions.

Get a second opinion: Comment on Bleidorn et al. (2019).

Bleidorn et al. (2019) argued that personality traits, as important determinants of life outcomes, should be the object of treatment interventions. They suggested that self-reports on standard personality questionnaires provide necessary and sufficient evidence of trait change. However, the self-concept-on which self-reports are based-may change without any alteration in the underlying trait. Additional evidence, such as that provided by independent informant ratings, is needed, and multimethod assessments should be a feature of all studies of trait change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Positive Schizotypy Increases the Acceptance of Unpresented Materials in False Memory Tasks in Non-clinical Individuals.

Enhanced spreading of semantic activation has been hypothesized to underlie some of the most significant symptoms of schizotypal personality, like thought disorder, odd speech, delusion, or magical thinking. We applied the Deese/Roediger-McDermott false memory task to the study of semantic activation in a group of 123 non-clinical individuals varying in the three dimensions of schizotypal personality: positive, negative and disorganized schizotypy. In the study phase, we presented them with lists composed of words semantically associated to unpresented critical words. Then, they responded to a recognition questionnaire including previously presented words and critical unpresented lures, as well as weakly related and unrelated unpresented lures. Participants rated their confidence in recognizing each word. They also filled in a standardized schizotypal personality questionnaire. Confirming the false memory effect, recognition ratings provided in response to critical words were higher than those produced for both weakly related and unrelated items. Crucially, scores in the positive dimension increased recognition percentages and confidence ratings for weakly related and unrelated lures. This study indicates that high levels of positive schizotypy might influence the tendency to accept false memories of unrelated unpresented material.

Empathic perspective taking promotes interpersonal coordination through music

Coordinated behavior promotes collaboration among humans. To shed light upon this relationship, we investigated whether and how interpersonal coordination is promoted by empathic perspective taking (EPT). In a joint music-making task, pairs of participants rotated electronic music-boxes, producing two streams of musical sounds that were meant to be played synchronously. Participants – who were not musically trained – were assigned to high and low EPT groups based on pre-experimental assessments using a standardized personality questionnaire. Results indicated that high EPT pairs were generally more accurate in synchronizing their actions. When instructed to lead the interaction, high and low EPT leaders were equally cooperative with followers, making their performance tempo more regular, presumably in order to increase their predictability and help followers to synchronize. Crucially, however, high EPT followers were better able to use this information to predict leaders’ behavior and thus improve interpersonal synchronization. Thus, empathic perspective taking promotes interpersonal coordination by enhancing accuracy in predicting others’ behavior while leaving the aptitude for cooperation unaltered. We argue that such predictive capacity relies on a sensorimotor mechanism responsible for simulating others’ actions in an anticipatory manner, leading to behavioral advantages that may impact social cognition on a broad scale.

Borderline Personality Features in Inpatients with Bipolar Disorder: Impact on Course and Machine Learning Model Use to Predict Rapid Readmission.

Earlier research indicated that nearly 20% of patients diagnosed with either bipolar disorder (BD) or borderline personality disorder (BPD) also met criteria for the other diagnosis. Yet limited data are available concerning the potential impact of co-occurring BPD and/or BPD features on the course or outcome in patients with BD. Therefore, this study examined this comorbidity utilizing the standardized Borderline Personality Questionnaire (BPQ). This study involved 714 adult patients with a primary diagnosis of BD per DSM-IV criteria who were admitted to the psychiatric unit at an academic hospital in Houston, TX between July 2013 and July 2018. All patients completed the BPQ within 72 hours of admission. Statistical analysis was used to detect correlations between severity of BD, length of stay (LOS), and scores on the BPQ. A machine learning model was constructed to predict the parameters affecting patients' readmission rates within 30 days. Analysis revealed that the severity of certain BPD traits at baseline was associated with mood state and outcome measured by LOS. Inpatients with BD who were admitted during acute depressive episodes had significantly higher mean scores on 7 of the 9 BPQ subscales (P<0.05) compared with those admitted during acute manic episodes. Inpatients with BD with greater BPQ scores on 4 of the 9 BPQ subscales had significantly shorter LOS than those with lower BPQ scores (P<0.05). The machine learning model identified 6 variables as predictors for likelihood of 30-day readmission with a high sensitivity (83%), specificity (77%), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 86%. Although preliminary, these results suggest that inpatients with BD who have higher levels of BPD features were more likely to have depressive rather than manic symptoms, fewer psychotic symptoms, and a shorter LOS. Moreover, machine learning models may be particularly valuable in identifying patients with BD who are at the highest risk for adverse consequences including rapid readmission.

The body image and psychopathology in children

IntroductionThe body image development begins at an early age. Children with psychopathology may have body image disturbances. It is important to determine nosological specificity of body image disturbances in children.ObjectivesTo reveal body image disturbances in: 20 people (12 boys, 8 girls) having schizophrenia; 18 people (8 boys, 10 girls) with detected fact of sexual abuse (catamnesis study over a 5-year period); control group – 5 boys, 5 girls with normal psycho-physical development.AimsTo reveal body image disturbance in children in case of psychopathology.MethodsAll the children were examined clinically and paraclinically by psychiatrist and clinical psychologist (projective techniques; standardized personality questionnaires and semantic method [analysis of statements]).Results and conclusionsIn children having schizophrenia specific disturbances of proprioceptive self-awareness in the form of senestopathy (feelings of compression, deformation, size loss or size gain of the body) and the idea of physical defect, are considered as the early symptoms of the body dysmorphic disorder. In this group of children disturbances of body scheme, difficulties in right/left orientation were detected. In the group of children with detected fact of sexual abuse the following disturbances took place: the body dysmorphic disorder (self-disgust, considering body to be tainted by the abuser, feeling dirty, compulsive body washing, sensitivity to touch) and senestopathy below one's waist, in the area of genitals, feeling dirtiness of the skin and clothes. In the pictures drawn by the children, they represented themselves older, grotesquely painted their faces, pictured strange haircuts, preferring bright and extravagant clothes.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Long-term Mental Health Consequences of Child Sexual Abuse

Introduction One of the most serious forms of abuse is sexual abuse (SA), especially when the victims are children. Questions still remain: what actual long-term consequences of child sexual abuse effect the mental health of children. Objectives Examined-68 people (22 boys, 46 girls) having detected by physicians fact of SA, and recognized as victims in legal status. The group was split by age (3-6 years), and by the type of SA: family abuse and extrafamilial abuse. Group of 38 children – catamnesis study over a 5-year period. Aims To reveal long-term mental health consequences of child SA taking into accountd the type (family and extrafamilial). Methods All the children were examined repeatedly during the follow-up period, clinically and paraclinically by psychiatrist (clinical observation, dialog with the child and parents), by neurologist and clinical psychologist (projective techniques and standardized personality questionnaires). Results and Conclusions Psychopathologic consequences of SA are divided into acute (reaction to stress), subacute (6 months after the trauma) and remote (observation during 5 years). In acute and subacute period the disorders are qualified as acute reaction to stress and PTSD. In long-term period clinical characteristics were defined as conduct disorder (personality development disorder), primarily of mixed type. In the structure of remote psychopathologic presentations, especially as the consequences of family SA are – hyperemotivity, neuroticism (trichologia, onychophagia, enuresis and encopresis, asthenic syndrome and subdepressive syndrome, obsessive fears, dysmorphophobia and others). In prepubertal period-runaways, promiscuity, early alcoholization, taking drugs, behavior as a victim, sex-role identification disorder.

Neural Correlates of Emotional Personality: A Structural and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Studies addressing brain correlates of emotional personality have remained sparse, despite the involvement of emotional personality in health and well-being. This study investigates structural and functional brain correlates of psychological and physiological measures related to emotional personality. Psychological measures included neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness scores, as assessed using a standard personality questionnaire. As a physiological measure we used a cardiac amplitude signature, the so-called E κ value (computed from the electrocardiogram) which has previously been related to tender emotionality. Questionnaire scores and E κ values were related to both functional (eigenvector centrality mapping, ECM) and structural (voxel-based morphometry, VBM) neuroimaging data. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were obtained from 22 individuals (12 females) while listening to music (joy, fear, or neutral music). ECM results showed that agreeableness scores correlated with centrality values in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the ventral striatum (nucleus accumbens). Individuals with higher E κ values (indexing higher tender emotionality) showed higher centrality values in the subiculum of the right hippocampal formation. Structural MRI data from an independent sample of 59 individuals (34 females) showed that neuroticism scores correlated with volume of the left amygdaloid complex. In addition, individuals with higher E κ showed larger gray matter volume in the same portion of the subiculum in which individuals with higher E κ showed higher centrality values. Our results highlight a role of the amygdala in neuroticism. Moreover, they indicate that a cardiac signature related to emotionality (E κ) correlates with both function (increased network centrality) and structure (grey matter volume) of the subiculum of the hippocampal formation, suggesting a role of the hippocampal formation for emotional personality. Results are the first to show personality-related differences using eigenvector centrality mapping, and the first to show structural brain differences for a physiological measure associated with personality.

Increased Prevalence of Anxiety-Associated Personality Traits in Patients with Cushing's Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background/Aims: Chronic hypercortisolism in Cushing's disease (CD) has been suggested to contribute to an altered personality profile in these patients. We aimed to test this hypothesis and attempted to determine the effects of disease- and treatment-related factors that might moderate an altered personality in CD. Methods: We assessed 50 patients with CD (74% biochemically controlled) and compared them to 60 patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA) and 100 age- and gender-matched mentally healthy controls. Personality was measured by two standardized personality questionnaires, TPQ (Cloninger Personality Questionnaire) and EPQ-RK (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-RK). Results: Compared to mentally healthy controls, CD patients reported significantly less novelty-seeking behaviour, including less exploratory excitability and less extravagance. On harm avoidant subscales, they presented with more anticipatory worries and pessimism, higher fear of uncertainty, shyness with strangers, fatigability and asthenia. Moreover, CD patients appeared to be less extraverted, more neurotic and socially desirable. CD patients differed from NFPA patients in terms of higher neuroticism scores, and NFPA patients did not show altered novelty-seeking behaviour or extraversion. In the subgroup analysis, CD patients with persistent hypercortisolism displayed significantly higher fear of uncertainty, fatigability and asthenia, indicating high harm avoidance in total, than those in biochemical remission. Conclusion: Patients with CD showed a distinct pattern of personality traits associated with high anxiety in combination with traits of low externalizing behaviour. Such personality changes should be taken into account in the diagnosis and treatment of CD patients, as they might interfere with the patient-physician communication and/or challenge the patients' social and psychological functioning.

Distinct Dopaminergic Personality Patterns in Patients with Prolactinomas: A Comparison with Nonfunctioning Pituitary Adenoma Patients and Age- and Gender-Matched Controls

Introduction: Personality patterns such as extraversion and novelty seeking have been associated with an altered dopaminergic activity in healthy subjects. Patients with prolactinomas have been described as exhibiting an altered dopaminergic tone and are often treated with dopamine agonists. Little is known about the personality traits of this patient group. Hence, we aimed at examining whether patients with prolactinomas exhibit modified personality patterns compared to patients with nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas and healthy controls. Subjects/Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 86 patients with prolactinomas and 58 patients with nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA) were compared with 172 mentally healthy age- and gender-matched controls. To assess personality traits, standardized personality questionnaires (Eysenck personality questionnaire-EPQ-RK and Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire devised by Cloninger-TPQ) were administered. Results: Patients with either prolactinomas or NFPA showed a distinct personality profile compared to the normal population, characterized by increased neuroticism and they also answered in a socially desirable mode. On harm-avoidant total and subscales, they presented with a higher fear of uncertainty and also increased fatigability and asthenia. The prolactinoma patients, when contrasted with the ‘clinical’ control group of patients with NFPA and after post hoc tests for multiple comparisons following the Bonferroni-Holm procedure showed significantly reduced extraversion (p = 0.044) and increased shyness with strangers (p = 0.044), tending to be more neurotic and present lower scores in the novelty seeking subscale impulsiveness. Conclusion: This is, to our knowledge, the first study providing new evidence of an altered personality profile of prolactinoma patients which might affect the patient-doctor relationship, treatment and patient’s quality of life.

Impulsivity-related traits are associated with higher white blood cell counts

A chronically elevated white blood cell (WBC) count is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality. The present research tests whether facets of impulsivity-impulsiveness, excitement-seeking, self-discipline, and deliberation-are associated with chronically elevated WBC counts. Community-dwelling participants (N=5,652) from Sardinia, Italy, completed a standard personality questionnaire and provided blood samples concurrently and again 3years later. Higher scores on impulsivity, in particular impulsiveness and excitement-seeking, were related to higher total WBC counts and higher lymphocyte counts at both time points. Impulsiveness was a predictor of chronic inflammation: for every standard deviation difference in this trait, there was an almost 25% higher risk of elevated WBC counts at both time points (OR=1.23, 95% CI=1.10-1.38). These associations were mediated, in part, by smoking and body mass index. The findings demonstrate that links between psychological processes and immunity are not limited to acute stressors; stable personality dispositions are associated with a chronic inflammatory state.

Modeling Effects of Faking on an Objective Personality Test

The article investigated the effect of faking on the dimensionality and mean scores of an objective personality test measuring subjectively accepted level of risk. Various studies conducted with standardized personality questionnaires have demonstrated that faking may distort both the dimensionality and mean scores. In contrast, the empirical evidence on the effect of faking on the dimensionality and mean scores obtained with objective personality tests is still sparse. In the first study, we evaluated the effect of naturally occurring faking on the dimensionality and mean scores using a between-subject design that compared professional driver applicants to volunteers matched according to relevant sociodemographic characteristics. The results indicated that the objective personality test measures the same latent trait in both samples. Furthermore, we failed to observe a significant mean difference between volunteers and professional driver applicants. Furthermore, we failed to observe any mean score differences between both samples. The second study experimentally evaluated the effect of individual differences in respondents’ ability to infer the ideal level of the latent trait on the dimensionality and mean scores using a combined between- and within-subject design. Using modern item response theory techniques we found that a less clear description of the ideal level of the latent trait prevented a successful faking attempt. In contrast, a more clear and less difficult to implement a description of the ideal level of the latent trait allowed respondents to successfully increase their test scores. The results are discussed in light of current models of applicants response processes when working personality tests.

Personality differences between patients with lichen simplex chronicus and normal population: A study of pruritus

Itching is common to many skin disorders. The relationship between skin disease and psychological variables has been widely documented in the literature. The association between the exacerbation of skin lesions and increased levels of psychopathological conditions in response to stressful events has also been described. Lichen Simplex Chronicus (LSC) is a skin disorder characterized by itching, which seems to have a marked psychological component. However, examples of empirical evidence linking this skin disorder to personality variables, as measured by standardized personality questionnaires, are relatively few so far. The objective of this research was to investigate the involvement of certain personality variables in the development of LSC. The personality profiles of 60 patients with LSC were compared to a normative sample of the normal Spanish population, who were free of any kind of skin disease. The personality variables for the LSC group were obtained by administering the Millon Index of Personality Styles (MIPS). Participants with LSC presented personality characteristics that differed from the control group. The most significant variables were as follows: greater tendency to pain-avoidance, greater dependency on other peoples' desires, and more conforming and dutiful compared to the control group. Results are discussed in the light of other dermatological pathologies that might share some characteristics with LSC subjects. Lichen simplex chronicus patients may present differential personality characteristics that could be related to triggering and exacerbating skin lesions. Therefore, it is relevant to evaluate the personality profiles of these people to increase treatment efficiency.

Personality in patients with pituitary adenomas is characterized by increased anxiety-related traits: comparison of 70 acromegalic patients with patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas and age- and gender-matched controls

Although neuropsychiatric and morphological brain alterations in acromegalic patients have been described and a distinct disease personality is clinically suspected, this has never been systematically investigated. We examined whether patients with acromegaly showed an altered personality profile compared with patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas and healthy controls. In this cross-sectional study, 70 acromegalic patients and 58 patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas were compared with 140 mentally healthy population controls, matched for age and gender. Personality traits were measured by standardized personality questionnaires (Eysenck personality questionnaire-RK and tridimensional personality questionnaire). Compared with healthy controls, acromegalic patients described themselves as distinctly more harm avoidant and neurotic and presented themselves with high social conformity. On harm avoidant subscales, they reported more anticipatory worries and pessimism, higher fear of uncertainty, higher fatigability and asthenia. This personality pattern was not specific for acromegaly, but could similarly be observed in patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas. However, specific for patients with GH-producing adenomas was an even more reduced novelty-seeking behaviour, especially in terms of lower impulsiveness, compared with patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas. Patients with pituitary adenomas show a distinct pattern of increased anxiety-related personality traits compared with the general population, potentially as a result of the pituitary lesion and/or associated hormonal dysregulations and comorbidities. Acromegaly is additionally associated with reduced impulsivity and novelty-seeking behaviour, which might affect patients' management and their quality of life.

Frontolimbic Serotonin 2A Receptor Binding in Healthy Subjects Is Associated with Personality Risk Factors for Affective Disorder

Serotonergic dysfunction has been associated with affective disorders. High trait neuroticism, as measured on personality inventories, is a risk factor for major depression. In this study we investigated whether neuroticism is associated with serotonin 2A receptor binding in brain regions of relevance for affective disorders. Eighty-three healthy volunteers completed the standardized personality questionnaire NEO-PI-R (Revised NEO Personality Inventory) and underwent [(18)F]altanserin positron emission tomography imaging for assessment of serotonin 2A receptor binding. The correlation between the neuroticism score and frontolimbic serotonin 2A receptor binding was evaluated by multiple linear regression analysis with adjustment for age and gender. Neuroticism correlated positively with frontolimbic serotonin 2A receptor binding [r(79) = .24, p = .028]. Post hoc analysis of the contributions from the six constituent traits of neuroticism showed that the correlation was primarily driven by two of them: vulnerability and anxiety. Indeed, vulnerability, defined as a person's difficulties in coping with stress, displayed the strongest positive correlation, which remained significant after correction for multiple comparisons (r = .35, p = .009). In healthy subjects the personality dimension neuroticism and particularly its constituent trait, vulnerability, are positively associated with frontolimbic serotonin 2A binding. Our findings point to a neurobiological link between personality risk factors for affective disorder and the serotonergic transmitter system and identify the serotonin 2A receptor as a biomarker for vulnerability to affective disorder.

Narcissism and emergent leadership in military cadets

Some 200 military cadets rated themselves and other members of their platoons on a variety of variables, including the quality of their leadership behaviors. They also completed standardized personality questionnaires measuring the positive and negative aspects of narcissism. Strong predictions were found for variables related to the two sides of that construct. The best rated leaders exemplified the bright side of narcissism while suppressing the dark side-emergent leaders were measured to be high in egotism and self-esteem but low in manipulativeness and impression management. Big Five personality factors were only marginally successful in predicting emergent leadership in this study. The data are discussed in terms of their relevance to identifying potentially destructive leaders in a group.