Work

Improving Assessment of Personality Disorder Traits Through Social Network Analysis

Year: 2007

Type: article

Abstract: When assessing personality disorder traits, not all judges make equally valid judgments of all targets. The present study uses social network analysis to investigate factors associated with reliability and validity in peer assessment. Participants were groups of military recruits (N=809) who acted as both targets and judges in a round-robin design. Participants completed self- and informant versions of the Multisource Assessment of Personality Pathology. Social network matrices were constructed based on reported acquaintance, and cohesive subgroups were identified. Judges who shared a mutual subgroup were more reliable and had higher self-peer agreement than those who did not. Partitioning networks into two subgroups achieved more consistent improvements than multiple subgroups. We discuss implications for multiple informant assessments.

Source: Journal of Personality

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00464.x

Authors: Allan Clifton, Eric Turkheimer, Thomas F. Oltmanns

Institutions: Vassar College, University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis

Language: English

Topic: Personality Disorders and Psychopathology

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute of Mental Health

Awards: G208573745, Peer Assessment of Personality Traits and Pathology