The Impact of Personality Pathology Across Three Generations: Evidence from the St. Louis Personality and Intergenerational Network Study

Abstract

Personality disorder (PD) symptoms in a parent generation may confer risk for problems in future generations, but intergenerational transmission has not been studied beyond parent-child effects. We examined the generational transfer of risk associated with PDs using structural models of grandparent personality pathology and grandchild psychopathology among 180 adults (M _age =66.9), 218 of their children (M _age =41.2), and 337 of their grandchildren (M _age =10.5). We found evidence for general and heterotypic domain-specific transmission. Specifically, broad grandparent personality pathology was associated with broad grandchild psychopathology (B=.15, 95% CI [-.01, .31]); at the domain level, grandparent internalizing personality pathology was associated with grandchild externalizing psychopathology (B =.06, 95% CI [.01, .12]). Neither association was significantly mediated by parental personality pathology. These findings indicate that personality pathology in one generation confers risk for psychopathology across subsequent generations. Such intergenerational transmission operates across broad, rather than specific (i.e., individual disorder) psychopathology domains.

Keywords: developmental psychopathology; grandchildren; intergenerational transmission; personality pathology; risk.

Figure 1

Relationship Between Single Factors and Internalizing and Externalizing Factors of G1 Personality Pathology and G3 Psychopathology and G2 Borderline Personality Pathology Note. FFI-BPD, Five Factor Index Borderline Personality Disorder scale. Solid lines indicate statistically significant effects. 95% confidence intervals are in brackets. G1 age, sex, race (White/Non-White), and socioeconomic status, and G3 age and sex, were included as covariates. G1 Internalizing was included as a covariate when using G1 Externalizing as a predictor and vice versa. In (b), G1 Internalizing was included as a covariate when using G1 Externalizing as a predictor and vice versa, and G3 Externalizing was included as a covariate when using G3 Internalizing as an outcome and vice versa. Scores were standardized before being entered in linear mixed-effect models, so B values can be interpreted in standard deviation units.

Figure 1

Relationship Between Single Factors and Internalizing and Externalizing Factors of G1 Personality Pathology and G3 Psychopathology and G2 Borderline Personality Pathology Note. FFI-BPD, Five Factor Index Borderline Personality Disorder scale. Solid lines indicate statistically significant effects. 95% confidence intervals are in brackets. G1 age, sex, race (White/Non-White), and socioeconomic status, and G3 age and sex, were included as covariates. G1 Internalizing was included as a covariate when using G1 Externalizing as a predictor and vice versa. In (b), G1 Internalizing was included as a covariate when using G1 Externalizing as a predictor and vice versa, and G3 Externalizing was included as a covariate when using G3 Internalizing as an outcome and vice versa. Scores were standardized before being entered in linear mixed-effect models, so B values can be interpreted in standard deviation units.

Figure 2

G2 Borderline Personality Pathology Does Not Indirectly Link G1 Personality Pathology and G3 Psychopathology at General or Domain Levels Note. Scores were standardized before being entered in multilevel mediation models, so B reflects the standardized estimate. 95% confidence intervals are in brackets. G1 age, sex, race (white vs. non-white), and socioeconomic status, G2 age and sex, and G3 age and sex were entered as fixed-effects covariates. In (b), G1 Externalizing and G3 Internalizing were additionally entered as fixed-effects covariates. b₁ reflects the b path estimate at the G2 level whereas b₂ reflects the b path estimate at the G1 level.