Archives of Mental Health · Published 2025-07-01 · DOI 10.4103/amh.amh_282_24
Background: Since personality and psychopathology are dynamic psychological structures, the widely used linear models are unable to assess the network of complex dynamic pathways between them properly. The present study aimed to evaluate the pathoplastic relationships between personality and psychopathology through network analysis models. Methods: The sample of this cross-sectional study was 952 adults (with an average age of 34 years, 66% female) from the west of Iran. Temperament and Character Inventory was used to measure personality constructs. In contrast, the Diagnostic Personality Questionnaire for Fourth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-4) and the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 were used to evaluate personality pathology, and the Revised Version of the Symptom Checklist-90 and the Short Health Anxiety Inventory were used to measure symptoms of 11 psychopathological syndromes. The Extended Bayesian Information Criterion estimator for the classic network analysis models was used to analyze the data. Centrality and clustering measures were reported and the accuracy of the edge weights was analyzed using the Bootstrapping method. Results: The network analysis models showed that internalizing features of personality (harm avoidance) and dysfunctional character traits (low self-directedness and cooperativeness) play a key role in pathoplasticity. Conversely, both internalizing (e.g., anxiety symptoms and anxiousness trait) and externalizing (e.g., grandiosity, callousness, and narcissistic personality disorder) domains of psychopathology contribute meaningfully to pathoplasticity. Conclusion: The results supported the pathoplastic relationships between personality and psychopathology. Clinicians can find a deeper understanding of the mental structure of psychiatric patients if they draw the personality profile and phenotypic aspects of psychopathology at the same time.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
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