Reading focus
Syllabus: When Do Personality Patterns Become Disabling?
Ask what additional information a functioning scale is expected to provide, and whether the chosen outcomes give it a fair test.
Why you’re reading it. Compare an empirical criticism with the distinction supported by the preceding model.
A question to consider. Specify one outcome on which severity should add information beyond style, and one on which style should add information beyond severity. How would you measure both independently?
Why this reading
A proposed distinction matters scientifically only if its measures can be evaluated. Sleep and colleagues examine a self-report measure of personality impairment and ask what it adds to maladaptive traits. The paper provides a concrete dispute about factor structure, overlap and the choice of outcomes used to judge a diagnostic model.
Before you read
In the DSM-5 alternative model, Criterion A concerns self and interpersonal functioning, while Criterion B concerns maladaptive traits. Discriminant validity asks whether measures distinguish what they claim to distinguish. Incremental validity asks what one measure adds after another is considered. Statistical prediction here does not necessarily mean prediction into the future.
Read for
- Keep the theoretical criterion separate from the particular self-report instrument. What would a poor-fitting model establish about each?
- Inspect recruitment, response exclusions, item wording and the use of self-report outcomes. Could those choices influence apparent overlap?
- Compare the prediction of traditional personality-disorder scores with other possible outcomes. Does reproducing an older diagnostic description exhaust the purpose of a new framework?
Consider afterwards
- Suppose a functioning scale adds little to predicting another questionnaire but helps predict sustained employment. Would these findings conflict?
- Propose a comparison using different informants or an independently measured outcome that would clarify the dispute.
Editorial context
The study uses an online adult sample recruited to overrepresent experience of mental-health treatment. Shared reporting methods and the selected outcomes limit a general verdict on Criterion A. Morey’s accompanying commentary questions the suitability of the evaluative metrics, and the authors published a reply. These are competing interpretations, not an erratum or a demonstration that assessing impairment is unnecessary. The accessible OSF copy is an in-press author manuscript with different pagination from the journal article.