title: Level of agreement between self and spouse in the assessment of personality pathology.
abstract: Informant reports can provide important information regarding the presence of pathological personality traits, and they can serve as useful supplements to self-report instruments. Ratings from a spouse may be a particularly valuable source of personality assessment because spouses are very well acquainted with the target person, have typically known the person for a long time, and witness behaviors across a variety of situations. In the current study, self- and spouse report measures based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) personality disorder criteria were collected from a nonclinical sample of 82 couples (N = 164). Agreement between self- and spouse report for several pathological personality factors was significant and somewhat higher than has been found for self and peer agreement. Nevertheless, the magnitude of self-spouse agreement was still moderate in size (mean r = .36). Findings are discussed with regard to using spouse report in the assessment of personality pathology.
authors.affiliation: Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. ssouth@purdue.edu
authors.forename: Susan C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: South
authors.forename: Thomas F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Oltmanns
authors.forename: Jarrod
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Turkheimer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010551:Personality; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology; D010556:Personality Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult