Atypical experiences of time in schizophrenia have long been clinically and empirically documented. The nature of and ways in which time experience anomalies emerge in nonpsychotic schizotypic individuals, however, are largely unknown. The current study investigates associations between well-established schizotypy indicators and a self-report measure of time experience, the Subjective Time Questionnaire, with a specific focus on the perceived speed of passing time. We also examine the differential relations between the subscales of the Subjective Time Questionnaire and schizotypal symptom domains (positive, negative, and disorganized). The present study included participants from a nonclinical university sample (N = 682) who completed a battery of time perception and schizotypy measures. Data collection occurred between September 22, 2023, and December 4, 2023. The results revealed associations between indicators of schizotypy, or schizophrenia liability, and aberrant time perception experiences, with particular correlational patterns depending on dimensions of schizotypic symptomology. Specifically, positive and disorganized schizotypal dimensions were more often associated with extreme reports of time experienced as sped up and slowed down, while negative symptomatology was associated with perception of time as expansive and slowed. The findings of the current study extend and bolster the literature on time perception abnormalities in the schizophrenia spectrum of psychopathology and highlight the importance of research within the subclinical schizotypic realm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Identity impairment is central to personality pathology generally, but less is known about how identity impairment appears differently across personality pathology. The AMPD lists a criterion for disorder-specific identity impairment for each personality disorder (PD), but these criteria have not been adequately empirically examined. N = 305 university students completed self-report measures of personality pathology (traditional DSM-5 and AMPD conceptualizations) and identity impairment (identity diffusion). We explored which identity diffusion items associated most strongly with each PD scale. Results were mixed. Predictions were partially supported in that at least one expected identity diffusion item emerged as most strongly associated with antisocial, avoidant, and borderline PDs. For narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, and schizotypal PDs, predictions were not supported. Results were somewhat consistent between DSM Section II and AMPD scales for most PDs, except avoidant and obsessive-compulsive PD. We emphasize the need for further empirical study on disorder-specific identity impairment across personality pathology.

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS:One facet of time experience is time perception, defined as the perception of duration and speed of passing time (distinguished from temporal processing, ie, the order of events in time). Time perception is known to be disordered across the schizophrenia spectrum and claims have been made about the differential relations between time perception abnormalities and schizophrenia symptom dimensions (eg, positive and negative), yet research has not elucidated how such dimensions relate to time perception task performance. This article systematically reviews studies of time perception in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, with a specific focus on methodologies used for symptom assessment, diagnosis, and time perception behavioral tasks. STUDY DESIGN:Following PRISMA guidelines, all publications on PubMed, PsycINFO, and Web of Science were searched. Of the 1017 records identified, 20 studies were included in the review. STUDY RESULTS:Findings were mixed, with half of studies reporting no correlation between time perception measures and any symptom dimension, and the other half reporting associations between time perception abnormalities and positive or negative symptoms. Significant methodological heterogeneity was found across studies, both in terms of how symptom dimensions were assessed and which behavioral time perception tasks were utilized. Studies varied in terms of quality. CONCLUSIONS:The current literature does not support a strong association between any specific schizophrenia spectrum symptom dimension (positive, negative, or disorganized) and aberrant time perception as measured by behavioral tasks. Future research must address methodological and diagnostic heterogeneity before drawing strong conclusions regarding schizophrenia spectrum symptomatology and time perception.

Though empathy is a critical component of adaptive psychosocial functioning, the relationship between schizotypy, conceived of as the latent liability for schizophrenia, and empathy is unclear. Given the centrality of psychosocial functioning impairments in schizophrenia-related psychopathology, along with the critical role of empathy in the social processes aspect of the Research Domain Criteria Matrix, the relation between empathy and schizotypy should be illuminated. The lack of clarity regarding empathy is in part due to both differences in defining empathy and the relations empathy measures have with different subcomponents of schizotypy. Furthermore, both empathy and schizotypy likely impact psychosocial functioning. The current study aims to better understand the relations between empathy, schizotypy, and psychosocial functioning. This report examines the self-report data drawn from emerging adults who completed a battery of empathy, schizotypy, and social functioning measures (n = 834). Findings demonstrate a complex relation between empathy and schizotypy but coalesce primarily around a negative (inverse) relation between negative features of schizotypy and empathy. Factor analytic results suggest a two-component latent structure for empathy consisting of cognitive and affective domains. Each factor of empathy appears to be negatively associated with negative schizotypal traits. Moderation analyses reveal that both cognitive and affective empathy moderate the relation between negative schizotypy and social functioning. Altogether, the present study demonstrates the interconnectedness of negative schizotypy, empathy, and social functioning. Findings are broadly consistent with previous research considering the relation between schizophrenia and empathy, highlighting the utility of studying schizophrenia liability (i.e., schizotypy). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Predicting the emergence of psychotic symptoms (e.g., hallucinations and delusions) and/or psychotic illness (e.g., schizophrenia) in persons with no prior history of psychosis has long been an aspirational aim of experimental psychopathology. The value of identifying a valid predictor has always been presumed to be useful both in illuminating the underlying pathological processes involved as well as holding out the clinical promises of intervention and prevention. The present study reports on the ability of two putative schizotypy endophenotypes, assessed in the same persons, to predict psychotic symptoms in adults in midlife (age 35), 17 years after their assessment in the laboratory at age 18 when all subjects were free of psychotic symptoms (Lenzenweger et al., 1991). In a sample of 70 individuals, both elevated scores on a measure of perceptual aberrations and lower scores on a measure of performance accuracy (d') on a measure of sustained attention, from the Continuous Performance Test-Identical Pairs version (Cornblatt et al., 1989), significantly predicted the presence of psychotic symptoms at age 35. The 17-year predictive associations remained significant even when considered jointly with mental state variables present at age 18. The results support the validity of endophenotypes, the psychometric high-risk method, and the general schizotypy model of schizophrenia. Finally, as long conjectured, the results provide support for a deficit in sustained attention as a predictor of psychotic symptoms over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Wright et al. (2022) argued that the core of personality disorder (PD) is interpersonal in nature; thus, reconceptualizing PD as interpersonal disorders allows more focused assessment, formulation, and treatment planning. Previous research has examined the interpersonal and affective processes relevant to borderline PD (BPD), yet no study to date has investigated how these dynamics may shift in response to psychodynamic psychotherapy. We present preliminary data examining the interpersonal and affective context of BPD over time in an evidence-based treatment. Forty-five patients diagnosed with BPD who participated in a clinical trial of 18 months of transference-focused psychotherapy completed ecological momentary assessment rating interpersonal events in daily life for 14 days for up to three timepoints (0, 9, and 18 months). Multilevel models examined ratings of self and other interpersonal dominance/warmth and affect valence/arousal in the interpersonal field. Patients rated on average 35 events per timepoint, with over 3,300 events total. Results suggest reduced volatility in affective dimensions and in identity confusion, and changes in patients experiencing themselves and others as more friendly, happy, and energized over time in treatment. Shifts in patterns among interpersonal variables over the course of treatment suggest that patients developed a warmer experience of agency and affect. These changes align with the putative mechanism of transference-focused psychotherapy-to shift the habitual, maladaptive ways that patients perceive themselves affectively relating to others. Our assessment of other's affect extends research on the interpersonal situation. We conclude with recommendations for future research integrating advances in ecological momentary assessment reporting with clinical practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Several studies have evaluated different versions of the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO) around the world and some shortened versions of the instrument have also been constructed. The aim of this study was to develop the first brief Greek-language version of the IPO (IPO-Brief-GR) to be used for clinical screening and research purposes regarding personality pathology defined according to Kernberg's object relations model of personality organization. Data were collected from a community sample of 543 Greek emerging adults aged 18-29 years (M = 21.45, SD = 2.51) with the 83-item IPO, from which a 30-item version was constructed, based on confirmatory factor analysis of the full measure. The psychometric properties of the IPO-Brief-GR were then examined. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a four-factor structure best fitted the data, that is, primitive defenses/identity diffusion, reality testing, aggression, and moral values. Criterion validity and internal consistency reliability were also supported. Measurement invariance across gender using an exact protocol approach (i.e., configural, metric, scalar) was found allowing latent mean comparisons. These preliminary findings support the reliability and validity of the IPO-Brief-GR for the assessment of borderline personality organization and indicate the need for further research into the psychometric properties and clinical utility of this measure.

The picture for the long-term prediction of schizotypic individual difference features in relation to schizotypy assessed earlier in life remains opaque. Whereas schizotypy assessed earlier in life, typically during the late teen years, has been shown to predict nonaffective psychotic illness as well as the presence of nonaffective psychotic features (Chapman et al., 1994; Lenzenweger, 2021), the presence in midlife (mid-30s) of nonpsychotic schizotypic features in those assessed for schizotypy earlier in life remains to be demonstrated. The current study, which reports on a 17-year follow-up study, addresses this void in the schizotypy literature. Seventeen years after an initial psychometric assessment for schizotypy, in a sample of emerging adults (age = 18) with no prior history of psychotic illness, Perceptual Aberration Scale scores predicted elevated schizotypal personality features, increased schizophrenia-related personality disorder features (particularly schizotypal and paranoid), and elevated schizophrenia proneness scores at age 35. This pattern of associations was maintained even after the removal of participants with a diagnosis of nonaffective psychosis. The associations also remained largely unchanged net of state anxiety levels at initial and later assessments. These results support the emergence or maintenance of schizotypic psychopathology features consistent with a model that views schizotypy as the underlying liability for schizotypic psychopathology phenotypes. The results also provide additional support for both the construct validity of the initial psychometric schizotypy measure (Perceptual Aberration Scale) as well as the validity of the psychometric high-risk paradigm. Longitudinal research remains an illuminating and informative approach to understanding the nature of schizophrenia-related psychopathology by utilizing time as an essential scientific lever.

An extensive theoretical literature links identity pathology with deficits in mentalization, which is the ability to understand the internal mental states of self and others. However, only a few investigations have attempted to bridge theory and data by empirically testing the relation between mentalization and identity pathology, and none have done so with mentalization measured using a laboratory task. The current study investigated the association between mentalization deficits and identity pathology in a large, nonclinical sample. Participants (N = 305) completed a self-report measure assessing identity pathology and a laboratory task assessing mentalization ability. Whereas the existing theoretical literature would argue for a robust association between identity pathology and mentalization impairment, our results revealed essentially no association between identity pathology and mentalization impairment. Moreover, we found essentially no association between identity pathology and any of a number of specific mentalization deficits in our sample. Our findings failed to provide empirical support for the clinical and theoretical literature linking mentalization and identity pathology. Given our adequate statistical power to detect even relatively small associations, we offer these findings to advance theoretical and methodological discussion in this important area. We discuss the implications of these null findings, particularly attuned to the possibility that a link between mentalization impairment and identity pathology may be more complicated than hypothesized. We also consider that these results might be related to methodological features of our study (e.g., self-report and laboratory measures; the range of mentalization impairment in our sample). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Previous research reveals that rejection sensitivity is associated with both sexual violence victimization and self-silencing behavior, yet the association among these variables has not been examined. As the foundation for this study, we propose a theoretical model that integrates these constructs. Using mediational analyses with bootstrapping, the results from a sample of 241 heterosexual college women revealed that consistent with the proposed model, self-silencing mediated the link between rejection sensitivity and reports of unwanted sexual contact and rape. The implications of the findings for the prevention of victimization/revictimization and interventions with victimized women are discussed.

BACKGROUND:The historical concept of borderline conditions refers to the pathology on the border between neurosis and psychosis. In DSM-III the conditions were divided into specific but also somewhat overlapping diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD). This phenomenological overlap, which results in co-occurrence of the two diagnoses, remains a clinical challenge to this day. METHODS:To address this issue we examined the co-occurrence of SPD and BPD according to the established DSM-IV/-5 diagnostic criteria. A literature search was conducted including studies that employed a structured interview with defined BPD and SPD criteria. RESULTS:Studies from 20 samples were included (i.e. 15 patients, 3 community and 2 forensic samples). For patients diagnosed primarily with BPD, 1-27% also met the criteria for SPD and for patients diagnosed primarily with SPD, 5 - 33% showed co-occurrence with BPD. In the forensic samples, co-occurrence for primary BPD was 10% and 67 - 82% for primary SPD. In the community samples, co-occurrence for primary BPD was 29% and 50% for primary SPD. The pattern of co-occurrence across community samples was particularly heterogeneous. CONCLUSION:The identified co-occurrences for BPD and SPD were considerably sample-dependent, and samples and measurements were generally too heterogeneous for a precise meta-analysis. Forensic and community samples generally showed higher co-occurrences, but these findings were characterized by potential methodological limitations.

Indirect assessment is a useful tool in forensic evaluation, especially in cases of threat assessment. To this end, we illustrated the ability to conceptualize a complicated case (i.e., Theodore John Kaczynski) using an indirect approach, with a particular emphasis upon dimensional frameworks of personality. Raters who were unrelated to Mr. Kaczynski's case and with expertise in relevant domains were asked to study information available in the public domain about Mr. Kaczynski and provide ratings using several assessment instruments. Our aim was not to provide a professional clinical opinion, but rather engage in scholarly discourse about the utility of instruments. Mr. Kaczynski was rated to demonstrate characteristics associated with lone actor terrorists. He showed an elevation on a measure of psychosis, and raters conceptualized trauma as an important aspect of his functioning. He demonstrated impairments in detachment and psychoticism (Criterion B of the AMPD) and interpersonal functioning (Criterion A of the AMPD). Clinical conceptualizations for Mr. Kaczynski emphasized schizotypal and paranoid personality disorders. This analysis of an infamous case about which considerable data are publicly available demonstrates the ease with which indirect and multimethod assessment can be applied and integrated in forensic assessment, using modern conceptualizations of personality pathology.

Objective: Otto F. Kernberg pioneered the description, understanding, and treatment of pathological narcissism. Narcissism has emerged as a clinical construct of considerable interest in clinical psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis and has often been featured in the literature on personality and social psychology. Considerable discussion in recent years has focused on whether levels of narcissism seen among young adults have been increasing. Nearly all of that discussion has been focused on changes in successive cohorts in normative (normal-range) expressions of narcissism. No direct prospective longitudinal study of the same individuals has assessed for pathological narcissism during college, the period that has been the specific focus of such lively debate. This study aimed to fill that gap in the literature. Methods: This multiwave, longitudinal study explored pathological narcissism during college by enrolling first-year undergraduate students (N=250) from the Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders and by using individual growth curve (IGC) analysis. Participants were assigned to either a possible personality disorder or no personality disorder group, according to results from the International Personality Disorder Examination. Results: By the third wave of assessments, 16% of the sample received a probable or definite diagnosis of at least one axis II personality disorder. IGC analysis revealed that pathological narcissism declined across the first 4 years of college. Personality predictors of this pattern of change are also discussed. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for a fine-grained prospective study of the same participants over time to illuminate patterns of change in narcissism.

INTRODUCTION:It is argued that all personality pathology represents the final emergent product of a complex interaction of underlying neurobehavioral systems, which are reflected in personality factors, in conjunction with environmental inputs. Neurobehavioral systems manifest themselves in dispositional temperament and personality processes. Environmental inputs include, obviously, interpersonal relationships (e.g., parenting, social, and mentoring relations) as well as other factors such as abuse, neglect, and/or environmental insults (e.g., economic hardship, deprivation). Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is hypothesized to reflect both dispositional and environmental inputs to its pathogenesis. Temperament and personality-based theorizing regarding NPD proposes high dispositional levels of anger and related temperament features that could shape early development and subsequent NPD. Many classic theorists (e.g., Freud, Kernberg, Kohut, Miller) have also proposed that profound parenting failures are implicated in the emergence of NPD, each suggesting some failure in proper engagement and responsivity with the developing child. Such a failure in parenting can be thought of as reflecting diminished proximal process engagement with the developing child.METHOD:Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders, the present study examines both proximal process and temperament factors in relation to clinically significant NPD features from a prospective perspective.RESULTS:Results suggest that both proximal process and temperament (notably anger) factors independently predict the level of NPD features over time.CONCLUSION:Both interpersonal relationships and temperament should be considered in models of etiology of NPD, it is not just one or the other.

Individuals with schizophrenia are at increased risk for suicide. However, much less is known about suicide risk among individuals with schizotypic features. To address this gap in the literature, the current report examines the relationship between positive schizotypy and suicide risk using five distinct samples. Each of these five studies addresses unique, but complementary, questions regarding the relationship between positive schizotypy and suicide risk. Studies 1 and 2 investigate the cross-sectional relationship between perceptual aberrations and suicidal ideation. Study 3 examines the relationship between suicidal ideation and multiple positive schizotypic features (perceptual aberrations, magical thinking, paranoia, and referential thinking). Study 4 investigates the long-term relationship between perceptual aberrations and suicide risk through a 17-year follow-up. Finally, Study 5 examines the specificity of our findings using a psychiatric control group. Results across all five studies support a relationship between suicide risk and positive schizotypy. Specifically, perceptual aberrations were associated with suicide risk both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Results also suggest that individuals with positive schizotypic features have rates of suicidal ideation that are comparable to those with high negative affect and are significantly greater than healthy controls. Taken together, these findings establish an empirical connection between positive schizotypy and suicide risk, thus expanding the purview of the suicide risk construct. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Scott O. Lilienfeld maintained an intense and probing interest in the interface of personality and psychopathology. He was especially intrigued by the personality systems subserving the clinical construct/disorder of psychopathy. Each of us knew Lilienfeld at various junctures in his academic career, and here we celebrate his scientific interest in this substantive area of clinical psychological science. We share our intellectual and theoretical forays in the challenging terrain of the personality–psychopathology interface through brief overviews of our respective contributions and models on this topic. We share our perspectives, which at times are overlapping and at times divergent, with reference to the corpus of published work that each of us has produced through our respective research programs. We invite the reader to sample our different perspectives, to engage with this fascinating area, and, in doing so, to implicitly embrace Lilienfeld’s scientific passion for this developing area of personality and psychopathology science.

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the concept of schizotypy and its relationship to schizotypic psychopathology as well as schizophrenia. The derivation of the schizotypy model is traced through early clinical observations of the biological relativity of schizophrenia patients as well as schizotypic patients presenting for treatment to modern biological, genetic, psychometric, neurocognitive, and longitudinal follow-up studies. The theoretical formulations of Rado, Meehl, and others are explicated and used as a framework to organize empirical research findings on schizotypic psychopathology. A wide array of results suggests that schizotypy can be defined as the latent liability for schizophrenia, one expressing itself variably from subtle indicators detectable with sensitive laboratory measures through a range of phenotypically discernible schizotypic pathologies. Considerable attention is given to the meaning of the term “schizotypy” and how it is used in psychopathology research, with particular importance placed on the centrality of the liability for schizophrenia concept. Areas in need of additional research are highlighted, and potentially fruitful avenues for such research are suggested.

Understanding resilience has expanded our knowledge of certain risk and protective factors regarding the development of different forms of psychopathology. Particularly, a focus on resilience can be used to implement interventions and to target specific behaviors in hopes of mitigating the onset of a disorder or to alleviate symptoms. Less research on resilience has been done with individuals with psychosis, particularly schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Only 1 previous study has targeted individuals assessed for schizotypy. The current study examined associations between resilience and schizotypy features, assessed using self-report measures. Specifically, we compared 3 different resilience measures, social and occupational functioning, and 3 schizotypy measures in 3 different samples: undergraduate students (n = 878), adult community members (n = 120), and an Amazon Mechanical Turk adult community members (n = 329). Data analyses consisted of correlation and regression analyses, including tests for statistical moderation. Specifically, this study found negative associations between schizotypy and both psychosocial functioning and resilience. Although we predicted resilience would moderate the relations between schizotypy and psychosocial functioning, our analyses did not provide support for a moderating role for resilience. We discuss our findings in terms of understanding the relations among schizotypy, resilience, and psychosocial outcome constructs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

a Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; b Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; c University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; d Department of Psychology, The State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, USA; e Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA Received: May 13, 2022 Accepted: May 13, 2022 Published online: May 31, 2022