The association of pathological and "normal-range" personality traits with psychotic-like experiences in a general population sample

Abstract

Transient expressions of positive psychotic symptoms, referred to as "psychotic-like experiences," can be measured in the general population. With an increase in attention to investigate underlying causes of psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), such as personality traits, we investigated pathological personality traits (i.e., using the Personality Inventory for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) in predicting PLEs, beyond normal-range personality traits. Study results suggest that pathological personality traits have unique prediction power and improve prediction of PLEs, beyond normal-range personality traits. Pathological personality traits significantly improved prediction of PLEs by 18.9% beyond normal-range traits in the general population. When we conducted a multivariate linear regression in reverse order, pathological personality traits explained 62.9% of the variance in predicting PLEs, with normal-range traits explaining ∼2% of the remaining variance. Specifically, pathological personality trait domains of Detachment and Psychoticism improved prediction power beyond normal-range traits in PLEs. The identification of associations between pathological personality traits and PLEs might contribute to "warning signs" for future psychotic-related disorders, beyond prediction power of normal-range personality traits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).