Abstract
The experience of a mental disorder may affect the development of personality in multiple ways, but empirical evidence regarding psychopathology effects on personality development that persist after remission of the disorder is limited and inconsistent. In the longitudinal cohort TRacking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS), mental disorders during adolescence were assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and parent-reported effortful control, fearfulness, and frustration at age 11 and age 19 through the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire. We found that adolescent mental disorders had small effects on personality change. Internalizing disorders predicted increases of fearfulness and frustration but hardly affected effortful control; externalizing disorders were unrelated to frustration and fearfulness but predicted a decrease of effortful control. Whereas fearfulness and frustration partially caught up after disorder remission, virtually all delay in effortful control was still present 2.9 years later, suggesting scarring effects.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 395-411 |
Journal | Clinical Psychological Science |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 May 2020 |
Funding
This research is part of the longitudinal TRacking Adolescents? Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS). Participating centers of TRAILS include various departments of the University Medical Center and University of Groningen, the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, the University of Utrecht, the Radboud Medical Center Nijmegen, and the Parnassia Bavo group, all in the Netherlands. We are grateful to all the adolescents and their parents and teachers who participated in this research and to the funders who made it possible.
Keywords
- adolescence
- mental disorder
- neuroticism
- personality development
- personality-psychopathology models
- psychopathology
- self-control