This post describes the results of an empirical study I did on the when I was working in A. T. Beck’s lab back in 2002. We presented it as a poster at the APA convention that year. I always thought it was a pretty fascinating study that made a number of interesting points; however, I never tried to publish it because the methodology was so atypical that I figured it would be a peer review nightmare. I was cleaning out my office the other day and found the slides, and I realized that my blog is an excellent place to share this work.

The study demonstrates key relationships between three major domains: 2) the Interpersonal Circumplex; 2) Beck’s conception of Sociotropy and Autonomy; and 3) the position of the disorders in conceptual space. Here is the introductory slide, which makes a point that I have been making for quite some time, namely that we need to cut look across different visions and for ways of assimilating and integrating them.

Source: Gregg Henriques

Leary’s Interpersonal Circumplex

In the popular press, Timothy Leary was best known for advocating the use of to free one’s spirit in the 1960s. However, prior to this period, he was a very serious personality theorist and researcher at Harvard University is best known for his work on the Interpersonal Circumplex. The Circumplex combines a number of previous works and places human personality and social tendencies on two axes, one of -control (or dominance-submission) and the other (or affiliation-hostility).

Source: Gregg Henriques

Beck’s Sociotropy-Autonomy

In one of his few direct contributions to personality trait theory, Tim Beck argued that there were two major personality trait-like styles that related to developing . One style was “sociotropic,” by which Beck meant individuals who were highly dependent on others, feared being rejected or abandoned, and would submit to the needs of others to maintain proximity and being accepted. The other style was “autonomous”. These individuals were more self-focused, invested in being independent or separate from others and were very sensitive to being controlled. (As a point of congruence, these two styles were also noted by the theorist Sydney Blatt).

Source: Gregg Henriques

Beck and colleagues had developed the Sociotropy-Autonomy scale to measure these two styles. Factor analysis found that each had two underlying factors. The two factors underlying Autonomy were: 1) Independent goal attainment and 2) Sensitivity to others control. The two-factor underlying Sociotropy were 1) Preference for affiliation and 2) of criticism and rejection.

Source: Gregg Henriques

The Influence Matrix

Readers of this blog know that my integrative formulation for understanding the human relationship system is the Influence Matrix. The Influence Matrix is a direct derivative of the Circumplex and it has clear “self and other” quadrants. It was the lens of the Matrix that allowed me to see that the Interpersonal Circumplex and Beck’s concepts could clearly be mapped onto one another.

Source: Gregg Henriques

The Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are defined by long-standing difficulties with and relationships. They are often marked by rigid, extreme or dysregulated emotions or thought patterns. One can think of personality disorders on a continuum of functioning, as discussed in this blog. In addition, one can see that there are specific clusters of personality disordered patterns that give rise to the view that there are different personality disorder types. Currently, the takes this view highlighting the existence of 10 different types (see here for a popular Psychology Today blog describing these types).

When the Personality Disorders are viewed through the lens of the Matrix, an interesting arrangement emerges. Specifically, the Matrix highlights three “process dimensions” of relating; 1) dominance-submission; 2) affiliation-hostility; 3) autonomous-dependency. These three process dimensions overlap directly with Karen Horney’s insights that in their attempts to deal with relational , some individuals develop excessive, rigid interpersonal styles namely they tend to excessively 1) move against (being excessively dominant); move toward (being excessively affiliative and submissive) and move away (being excessively autonomous, AKA counter-dependent). This analysis gives rise to the Personality Disorder Star formulation, which uses the process dimensions of the Matrix to map how some of the personality disorders represent polar opposites in terms of relational style.

Source: Gregg Henriques

The dismissive, hostile anti-social personality is the opposite of the deferential, submissive dependent. The distancing, isolating is the opposite of the histrionic who always needs to be in the center of the attentional spotlight. The scared, low avoidant is the opposite of the hypercompetitive, self-aggrandizing narcissist.

The Study

Beck’s lab was renown in part because it was a data warehouse. He did an excellent job setting up a lab that collected an enormous amount of data on clinical populations. A large group of individuals who were seen as outpatients at the Center for Cognitive had both been given the Sociotropy-Autonomy measure and had been evaluated for the presence of a personality disorder using a Structured Clinical Interview. And all this data had been entered into a database.

Method

Source: Gregg Henriques

Here are the numbers I had access to of individuals who were diagnosed with particular personality disorders. These data are interesting in and of themselves, as they provide a glimpse into the numbers of individuals in the center diagnosed with Personality Disorders (about 30 to 40 percent, the relative frequencies (high numbers of Avoidant, Dependent, and OCPDs), and the relative frequencies.

Source: Gregg Henriques

Procedure

My insight was that I realized that I could use the factor structure of the Sociotropy Autonomy Scale to create grid that would be similar to the Personality Disorder Star. Here is how I accomplished that:

Source: Gregg Henriques

Results

What I was engaged in here was a “predicted pattern match”. What I meant by this was that I could envision were on the grid I generated the various Personality Disorders should fall based on their Sociotropy Autonomy scores. Before I ran the results, here is the grid I generated (is it signed by my colleague, Dr. Gregory Brown, because I made the predictions before I ran the results):

Source: Gregg Henriques

Here are the actual results we obtained:

Source: Gregg Henriques

One can immediately notice the visual correspondence. Indeed, there are really only two noticeable differences between the two pictures. One is that the PDs were lower in the vertical dimension. The other was the general pattern was more “truncated” around the horizontal axis; that is there was not as much variation on the horizontal line as my original prediction.

But, the overall pattern is quite strikingly similar. It offers an excellent, pictorial, graphic of how the various personality disorders can be thought of as existing in conceptual space.