Continuity of Personality Traits and Clinical Disorders in the Context of Childhood Exposure to Trauma Archana Basu,

1. Continuity of Personality Traits and Clinical Disorders in the Context of Childhood Exposure to Trauma Archana Basu, Alexander von Eye, Alytia A. Levendosky & G. Anne BogatMichigan State University STUDY GOAL This study sought to examine three theoretically proposed relationships between personality factors [Five Factor Model: neuroticism and (dis)agreeableness] and clinical disorders (depression and anxiety) in a sample of adult women exposed to domestic violence (defined as male violence towards a female partner) with a childhood history of interpersonal trauma exposure. BACKGROUND Early exposure to trauma has been shown to result in later mood and anxiety disorders (e.g., Garno et al. 2005), and personality disorders (e.g., Evran et al. 2006) Research examining the putative bases for making distinctions between clinical disorders and personality disorders has found that both disorders: tend to co-occur more often than expected by chance (e.g., Krueger, 2005) are relatively stable over time (e.g., Shea & Yen, 2003) have early age of onset and significant symptom overlap (Krueger, 2005) cannot be easily distinguished in terms of etiological genetic factors & are significantly heritable (e.g., Plomin & McGuffin, 2003). To explain the relationship between personality traits and clinical disorders four models have been proposed (Widiger, Verheul, van den Brink, 1999): Vulnerability model: posits that the presence of a set of maladaptive personality traits will increase an individual�s predisposition to develop a clinical disorder Pathoplasty model: suggests that clinical and personality disorders maybe etiologically independent but that they may have a synergistic relationship Spectrum model: suggests that clinical and personality disorders may have a common etiological basis and should be viewed dimensionally rather than categorically Scar model: posits that clinical disorders scar an individual�s personality resulting in long lasting changes in personality traits. This study examined Vulnerability, Pathoplasty and Spectrum models Hypothesis: Based on extant research Spectrum model is proposed to best represent the relationship between symptoms of clinical disorders and personality dimensions. METHODS N=195 women who were part of a larger longitudinal study on the effects of domestic violence called The Mother Infant Study (Levendosky, Bogat, Davidson, and von Eye). Monthly Income: Range $0 - $9500 Mean Age: 25 years (Range: 18-40 years) Racial Composition: 64.6% Caucasian, 24.6% African American, 4.1% Multiracial, 4.6%Latino, 2.0 % Others. Marital Status: 49.7% single, 40.5% married, 9.2% divorced/separated, <1% widowed