A Multi-Metric Examination of Self-Reported Personality Functioning and Personality Trait Development

Personality functioning, or Criterion A of the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders, captures deficits in intrapersonal and interpersonal capacities, is believed to be relatively malleable, and is associated with normal-range personality (e.g., Big Five traits). Questions about changes in personality functioning are of critical relevance for theory development and psychotherapeutic treatment of personality pathology, yet little is known about its longitudinal development. Using a sample of German-speaking young adults (N = 1,440; Mage = 25.57), we examined one-year unconditional and event-related development in self-reported personality functioning across four metrics of change, tested predictors of heterogeneity in event-related changes, and compared findings to self-reported Big Five traits. Generally, unconditional development of all personality constructs was very similar, but there were some trait- and metric-specific differences. Life events accounted for heterogeneity in unconditional development, but almost exclusively for personality functioning, suggesting it has a greater susceptibility to external influences than most Big Five traits. Event perceptions and initial personality levels sometimes predicted individual differences in event-related changes, mostly for mean-level effects, and initial personality functioning frequently moderated event-related changes in the Big Five whereas the reverse was less common. These findings provide further insight into the conceptual (dis)similarity of personality traits and personality functioning, inform joint theoretical frameworks, and may help advance personality disorder treatment by identifying conditions in which changes in personality pathology may be expected or best captured.