Measuring Interpersonal Style and Level of Personality Functioning with the Picture Frustration Study’s Narrative Contents: A Pilot Study on the New Collaborative Scoring Method (COSMO) Coding System

The COllaborative Scoring MethOd (COSMO) is a promising new coding system applicable on the Picture Frustration Study, rooted in the Interpersonal perspective and collaborative assessment framework. The COSMO system includes two levels of coding. First, it allows the coding of interpersonal styles based on four quadrants resulting from the combination of Agency and Communion variables. Second, COSMO assesses the severity of personality pathology. This pilot study shows preliminary data on the reliability and validity of COSMO applied to Picture Frustration Study responses. Results in a mixed-sample design have shown the robustness of both COSMO levels of coding. Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 3 represent the most adaptive and the maladaptive interpersonal styles based on the comparison with other measures of personality assessment about severity, personality traits and interpersonal patterns. Also, results indicated COSMO good discriminant capacity when compared with the other well-established measures for assessing personality functioning and interpersonal issues. Finally, an Impaired Functioning Index has been created to account both for styles and severity of personality pathology. Applicability and utility are discussed, including its use in the Collaborative Assessment framework.