Abstract
Functional aspects of personality are crucial for experiencing and handling emotional distress. With the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus and the subsequent installation of mitigation rules of social distancing, severe psycho-social challenges were posed upon people. Research has shown that individuals react differently to these challenges. This study aimed to investigate the role of dimensional aspects of personality during the Covid-19 pandemic. Specifically, we examined how personality functioning, defense mechanisms, and narcissism were related to psychological distress and cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing. In a non-clinical sample (N = 254), Level of Personality Functioning Scale, Inventory of Personality Organization, Defense Style Questionnaire, Pathological Narcissism Inventory, and three single questions regarding emotional distress and behavioral attitudes towards the pandemic were used. Structural equation models with reference and residual factors were calculated. Impairments in personality functioning and vulnerable narcissism showed significant positive relationships, adaptive defense mechanisms significant negative relationships with psychological distress during the pandemic. Residual factors for aggression and low moral values showed distinct negative relationships with psychological distress related to social distancing. Among individuals who chose to ignore the rules of social distancing, greater impairment in personality organization was found. Personality functioning may elucidate individual differences in psychological distress and compliance with the mitigation rules during the pandemic. Limitations of measures are carefully considered in all interpretations.
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Introduction
How individuals deal with stressful situations depends on different aspects of their personality [1,2,3,4]. With the outbreak of Covid-19, a global health threat posed many challenges to the public: Not only did the unpredictable health threat itself cause existential anxieties and emotional distress, but the resulting installation of the restricting measures of social distancing also led to severe psycho-social consequences [5,6,7,8,9,10]. By now, many studies have demonstrated the immense impact of the pandemic and the mitigation measures on people’s mental states [5, 11,12,13,14,15]. However, psychological adaptation to the pandemic and willingness to comply with the restricting measures do not merely depend on external factors [16,17,18]: For example, studies demonstrated that openness and extraversion acted as resilience factors [1, 2, 19, 20] whereas neuroticism could be seen as a vulnerability factor for experiencing emotional distress during the pandemic [3, 21,22,23,24,25,26]. Targeting the important question of protective factors in these challenging times [27, 28], further studies have found that defense mechanisms [21, 29,30,31], coping strategies, and resilience [32,33,34,35,36,37,38] were significantly related to distress during the pandemic. Regarding behavioral aspects such as compliance with the rules of social distancing, studies have focused on how different reactions and attitudes are related to egocentric, unempathetic, and antisocial traits, but come to dissenting conclusions [39,40,41,42].
Consequently, different aspects of personality have shown to be relevant for understanding an individual’s emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions towards the pandemic and the related mitigation rules [43]. For that reason, we aimed to investigate further personality aspects, specifically dimensions of personality functioning, and their relationships with reactions towards the pandemic.
Personality functioning
With the introduction of the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS; Criterion A) [44] of the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) in DSM-5 [45] and the dimensional approach to diagnosing personality disorders in ICD-11 [46], functional aspects of personality have received interest for understanding and diagnosing personality pathology. Extensive empirical research on the LPFS [47] has shown that more impairment in personality functioning (PF) is related to lower abilities of coping with stress, more need for psychiatric hospitalization, and overall more problems with mental health [48,49,50]. Furthermore, impairment in PF is related to antisocial behavior [51, 52], which is associated with less compliance with the mitigation rules during the pandemic [53]. It can be assumed that a lack of compliance can also be understood as a consequence of reduced internal capacities to regulate personal drives and egocentric wishes, as well as considering other people’s needs in reciprocal relationships. To date there are only few studies focusing on the question if psychological distress during the Covid-19 pandemic and certain cognitive and behavioral reactions regarding the rules of social distancing are related to dimensions of PF [54].
For that reason, the first aim of our study was to investigate how impairments of personality capacities are related to emotional distress and cognitive and behavioral attitudes during the pandemic. For the assessment of personality impairment, we chose two different dimensional measures which were (a) based on the recently introduced framework of the AMPD in DSM-5, operationalized by the LPFS, and (b) based on the psychodynamic concept of personality organization (PO; [55]). The model of PO also assesses personality impairment through a dimensional model but derives its dimensions from the psychodynamic background of object relations theory. The domains are identity, quality of object relations, defense mechanisms, aggression, moral values, and reality testing. Although the two approaches differ to some extent, they show a large conceptual overlap [48, 49]. There is increasing consensus that functional impairments in personality represent a general factor of psychopathology [56]. Our interest lays in how PF in general and its dimensions are related to dealing with the pandemic and the restrictions of social distancing. Among other questions we were specifically interested if impairments in the integration of moral values are related to less compliance with the rules of social distancing.
Defense mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are defined as automatized psychological reactions to keep unpleasant affects, conflicts or fears out of awareness. Defense mechanisms can be spanned on a continuum from adaptive, neurotic, to maladaptive mechanisms [57]. Studies have shown that the dominant use of adaptive defense mechanisms is linked to mental health, especially during emotional distress [58,59,60,61]. It has also become apparent that less adaptive mechanisms are related to more impairment in PF and personality disorders in general [62, 63]. Some studies set the stage for investigating the role of defense mechanisms during the pandemic, but mainly focused on their relationship with emotional coping [29, 31, 64, 65]. With our study, we aimed to further study the role of defense mechanisms and the experience of emotional distress specifically related to the challenges of the pandemic, and furthermore wanted to investigate their relationship with cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing.
Narcissism
Our third aim was to explore the character trait of narcissism and how it is related to emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to the pandemic. The concept of narcissism has been under discussion, leading to the conclusion that narcissism is a construct with many facets [66, 67]: Studies have shown that there is a grandiose facet of narcissism, and a vulnerable side to it [68,69,70,71,72]. Grandiose narcissism describes the facet of arrogant behavior, sense of entitlement, a derogating attitude towards others, and an inflated self-esteem. Vulnerable narcissism is understood as an underlying facet of insecurity with low self-esteem, high sensitivity, and entitlement rage [73]. While grandiose narcissism is related to better coping in emotional distress and overall better psycho-social functioning, including the use of more adaptive defense mechanisms, vulnerable narcissism is related to psychopathology, low abilities of stress coping, and a dominant use of maladaptive defense mechanisms [59, 70, 74,75,76,77,78]. Furthermore, grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are differently related to pro-social behavior and antisocial tendencies [53, 79, 80].
Consequently, the two facets of narcissism are ambiguously related to emotional coping abilities and behavioral attitudes towards other people. For that reason, we wanted to explore how dimensional expressions of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are related to emotional and behavioral reactions during the pandemic and the rules of social distancing. In dealing with the restrictions, it could be that individuals with high levels of narcissism experienced them as an insult, hindering them in fulfilling their narcissistic needs and therefore reacted strongly.
Research questions and hypotheses
Our study aimed to investigate the relationship between dimensional aspects of personality (PF, PO, defense mechanisms, and narcissism) and emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions during the Covid-19 pandemic and the related rules of social distancing. We differentiated our research questions accordingly into three different areas: (a) the overall reactions towards the health threat of the pandemic, (b) the reactions specifically towards the consequences of social isolation, and (c) the willingness to comply with the rules of social distancing. From our point of view, a differentiation between these three areas is of interest because they each address different aspects of PF such as emotion regulation abilities, capacity for being alone and independent, as well as interpersonal abilities such as empathy and the ability to consider other people’s needs as equally important as one’s own desires. Our three main hypotheses derived from the theorizing outlined above were preregistered at Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/9tuqd) prior to the data analysis.Footnote 1 Our fourth research question was explorative and had not been preregistered:
Hypothesis 1.
Higher levels of PF (less impairment in PF and PO) relate negatively to the experience of psychological distress caused by the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hypothesis 2.
The use of adaptive defense mechanisms (DSQ-40) relates negatively to the experience of psychological distress caused by the restrictions of the Covid19 pandemic.
Hypothesis 3.
Higher levels of impairment in Moral Values (IPO-30) relate negatively to compliance with the rules of social distancing.
Exploratory research question (H4).
How are grandiose and vulnerable aspects of narcissism related to emotional distress and cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing?
Materials and methods
The study procedure was preregistered in full detail at Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/9tuqd/) and was administered through an online survey as part of a larger study. IRB approval was obtained from the IRB committee of Psychologische Hochschule Berlin prior to data collection. Data collection took place between September and November 2020 in Germany.Footnote 2 A non-clinical sample of N = 254Footnote 3 [192 females, 59 males, and 3 diverse]Footnote 4 was recruited via mailing lists. Inclusion criteria were a minimum age of 18 years and sufficient German language skills.
Measures
We assessed emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to the pandemic by the following three items specifically designed to address the unprecedented situation of the pandemic and restrictions:
Psychological distress due to the challenges of the pandemic in general: “Please rate your subjective psychological distress due to the circumstances and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic from approximately March 2020 until today” on a rating scale from 1 (no distress) to 5 (severe distress).
Psychological distress due to the rules of social distancing: “Please estimate your subjective psychological distress due to the rules of social distancing since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of the restrictive measures” on a rating scale from 1 (no distress) to 3 (constant distress).
Cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing: “Please describe how consistently you have been following the regulations and rules regarding social distancing since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the start of the restrictions (approx. March 2020—today) and what your attitude has been towards them” on a rating scale from 1 (highly compliant) to 4 (ignoring the rules). With this item, we tried to carefully differentiate between a critical attitude towards the rules of social distancing and the choice to completely ignore them. Therefore, the rating scale of this item was not strictly ordinal, all four answer options are displayed in Fig. 1 and in the Appendix. Since the different response categories cannot be placed in a clear order, this item was treated as a nominally scaled variable in all analyses.
Psychological Distress. To test the validity of our items on psychological distress during the pandemic, we assessed general psychological distress with the Brief Symptom Inventory [81]. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). To obtain an overall score for psychological distress, the Global Severity Index (GSI, Cronbach’s α = 0.93 in this data set) is calculated from the three subscales.
Personality Functioning. PF was assessed with the German 12-item version [82] of the DSM-5 LPFS-BF [83], capturing the four LPFS domains identity, self-direction, empathy and intimacy [45]. The items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (totally false) to 3 (very true). Higher scores display greater impairment in PF. The LPFS-BF showed good psychometric properties with α = 0.86 in this data set.
Personality Organization. The 30-item version of the Inventory of Personality Organization [84] was employed to assess PO [85]. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (never true) to 5 (always true). The IPO-30 scores follow a bifactor model with one general factor (PO) and three specific factors (aggression, moral values, reality testing). Higher scores display greater impairment in PO. The IPO-30 showed acceptable psychometric properties with α = 0.79 for the general factor, α = 0.79 for the specific factor of aggression, α = 0.76 for the specific factor of moral values, and α = 0.80 for the specific factor of reality testing in this data set.
Defense Mechanisms. We used the German 40-item version of the Defense Style Questionnaire [86, 87]. The DSQ-40 measures 20 defense mechanisms with two items each, rated on a 9-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 9 (absolutely). For the assignment of the items to the scales adaptive, neurotic and maladaptive mechanisms see [59]. While the psychometric properties were good for the maladaptive mechanisms (α = 0.88), they were only questionable for the adaptive mechanisms (α = 0.65), and only poor for the intermediate mechanisms (α = 0.56) in this sample.
Narcissism. We used the German version of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory [69, 72, 88]. The PNI is a measure for grandiose and vulnerable features of narcissism and contains 54 items, scaled across the seven subscales: exploitativeness, grandiose fantasy, self-sacrificing self-enhancement, entitlement rage, devaluing, contingent self-esteem, and hiding the self. Items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all like me) to 5 (very much like me). Our analysis is based on a bifactor solution (for the assignments of the scales see [59]). The psychometric properties were good for grandiose narcissism (α = 0.89) and even better for vulnerable narcissism (α = 0.94).
Statistical analyses
To examine how PF, PO, defense mechanisms, and narcissism were related to psychological distress due to the pandemic, we used a total of six structural equation models. Structural equation models allow to reduce the influence of measurement error on the results. In each model, the corresponding factor (with indicators comprised of parcels) served as predictor of the two questions on distress (both of which were categorical variables).
In case of the models on narcissism and PO, S-1 models were used [89] to capture the bifactor structure. In these models, one facet was used as a reference, and the other facet (of narcissism or PO) was included in the model as residual factor, respectively. The residual factor then described the extent to which the values on this facet deviated from the reference facet. The reference and the residual factor were uncorrelated because the residual factor comprised those parts in the measurement error free variance of the residual facet that could not be predicted by the reference factor. In case of narcissism, grandiose narcissism was used as reference factor. Therefore, the residual factor for vulnerable narcissism represented those elements of vulnerable narcissism that were not predicted by grandiose narcissism. In case of PO, general impairment of PO was used as the reference factor. The different residual factors represented those parts within the specific facets that were not represented by general PO.
In the analyses of narcissism and PO, the factors of the S-1 model were used to predict distress due to the pandemic. According to this design, the coefficient for the regression of distress on the residual factors represented the influence of the residual factor on distress beyond the influence of the reference factor. Similar designs were already used in studies of narcissism [59] and other multi-facet constructs (e.g., [90,91,92]).
In the models for PF and defense mechanisms, there was only one factor predicting distress. We had no clear hypothesis regarding the direction of the relationships between general psychological distress and Covid-19 related psychological distress. Therefore, the associations between the different kinds of distress were examined in another structural equation model with undirected associations.
All structural models were estimated with MPlus 8.6 [93] using the weighted least square mean and variance adjusted estimator. We used the χ2-test, the CFI and the RMSEA to examine the goodness-of-fit. A non-significant χ2-test (or at least a value of χ2 < 2 * df), a CFI > 0.97, and a RMSEA < 0.05 are signs of a good model fit, values of χ2 < 3 * df, CFI > 0.95, and RMSEA < 0.08 are signs of an acceptable model fit [94].
To explore how different dimensional aspects of personality are related to cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing, we took a different approach: As this item was not measured on an ordinal but a nominal scale, individuals were assigned to a group based on their response category (1, 2, 3, 4). Means and confidence intervals of each group’s expressions on the personality dimensions were calculated. Since this analysis was based merely on manifest variables, only the values of the reference facet were included in the analysis for PO and narcissism. ANOVAs were used to test for differences between the groups.
Given that testing H3 required a different model, the results related to H1 and H2 and the exploratory research question H4 are presented first, followed by those of the H3.
Results
Emotional distress during the pandemic
Initial Analyses. The model fit of all models was good in most cases and acceptable in some (see Table 3 in the Appendix). The means and standard deviations for all scales are displayed in Table 4 in the Appendix, no detectable gender differences were found. We first tested the validity of our distress questions by calculating correlations between psychological distress related to the challenges of the pandemic in general and distress related to social distancing, and the BSI. We found correlations ranging from r = 0.319 to r = 0.422, indicating a clear, yet medium association. The standardized regression coefficients of all models are displayed in Table 1.
Personality Functioning. We found significant correlations between impairments in PF and psychological distress related to both, the pandemic in general and to social isolation: the stronger the impairment in PF, the more distress was reported.
Personality Organization. We found significant correlations between impairments in PO and psychological distress related to the pandemic in general and to social isolation. Together with the results on impairments in PF, this confirms H1. Furthermore, we found that the residual factor aggression showed significant negative correlations with both items of psychological distress: subjects with higher levels of aggression than expected based on the general level of PO reported lower psychological distress related to the challenges of the pandemic in general and to social distancing. A similar association was found for the residual factor moral values: subjects with higher impairment in moral values reported lower psychological distress related to the challenges of the pandemic in general and to social distancing.
Defense mechanisms. Higher usage of adaptive defense mechanisms was significantly negatively related to psychological distress due to the challenges of the pandemic in general, but not to psychological distress related to the rules of social distancing. Consequently, H2 was confirmed.
Narcissism. Grandiose narcissism was not significantly related to psychological distress during the pandemic. However, vulnerable narcissism showed a significant positive relationship with psychological distress related to both, the pandemic in general and social isolation. This answers our explorative research question (H4).
Cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing
The results for the different cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing are displayed in Fig. 1 and in Table 5 in the Appendix. While there is a large overlap in the confidence intervals, there is a significant difference between the groups regarding the general factor of the PO with F(3,247) = 4.02, p = 0.008: People who reported to bypass the mitigation measures showed significant impairments in PO. The ANOVAs for all other variables (including the specific factor of moral values in the PO) were not significant. Consequently, H3 was not confirmed.
Discussion
In this study, our goal was to investigate how dimensional aspects of personality were related to emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic. As many studies have examined the psychological burden and increase in mental disorders during the pandemic [7,8,9, 27,28,29, 95,96,97,98,99], we specifically aimed to study how core dimensions of personality are related to how individuals dealt with the pandemic. Our study has three main findings:
First, more impairment in PF was related to the experience of emotional distress during the pandemic and due to the rules of social distancing (H1). Along these lines, previous studies have shown that individuals with personality disorders were especially affected by the pandemic and the social isolation rules [98, 100]. By using the dimensional approach of measuring personality impairment according to current diagnostic models ICD-11 or DSM-5 AMPD, our study extends previous research and highlights the importance of basic capacities for understanding individual differences in how the pandemic affected well-being and psychological health. Functional aspects of personality have not only shown to be of predictive value for mental health [49] but also to provide specific implications for psychotherapy [56].
Paradoxically, the residual factors for impairments in the regulation of aggression and integration of moral values were significantly related to lower experience of emotional distress due to the rules of social distancing. One explanation could be that these dimensions are especially impaired in pathological narcissism [74, 76, 77, 101, 102], which is associated with tendencies to project fears onto other people or use denial and omnipotence [103] and thus functions as psychological defense. This also matches our findings of grandiose narcissism not being related to emotional distress during the pandemic (H4). Another explanation might be that high expressions of these traits have been found to be linked with a lack of compliance with the rules of social distancing [41] and therefore not related to emotional distress. This conclusion matches other studies showing that certain personality traits like boldness or neuroticism were associated with “dysfunctional” behavior during the pandemic [104, 105].
Even though causal conclusions should not be drawn from the current findings, a tentative interpretation could be that individuals who are less concerned about others and who show a more pronounced self-orientation experienced lower levels of distress during the pandemic, which is in line with previous findings on the defensive function of narcissistic traits [59]. This would support general considerations of trait-like factors such as narcissism as defensive operations, which should gain further consideration in research and theoretical understanding. In interpersonal personality models for example, personality is conceptualized as the result of dynamic processes [106].
Our second main finding shows that the adaptiveness of defense mechanisms was associated with less distress due to the pandemic and restrictions (H2). Hence, a more flexible way of regulating stressors may have been helpful in dealing with strains of the pandemic, which is in line with prior studies on the protective function of defense mechanisms during the pandemic [31]. This matches our findings of vulnerable narcissism being strongly related to the experience of emotional distress due to the pandemic (H4). As demonstrated in prior studies, unlike grandiose narcissism, people with vulnerable narcissism use less adaptive emotion regulation strategies [59]. Altogether, these findings furthermore strengthen the suggestion of taking underlying regulatory abilities more into account in diagnostic and psychotherapeutic settings [30].
Our third finding was that people who explicitly reported to bypass the rules of social distancing showed higher levels of impairment in PO. This relationship was found on the overall level of PO, but not on the level of less integrated moral values, where we had expected an association with less compliance (H3). Two possible explanations are the non-clinical composition of our sample as well as the limitations of the construction of our compliance measure. Thus, this question should be re-examined with clinical samples. Although the established association points toward the conclusion of reduced compliance being related to personality impairment, this finding needs to be interpreted carefully due to the single item construction and its two-fold meaning, including a question related to both, behavior and to a cognitive attitude. Here, validity and reliability problems are to be noted as well as limitations due to the self-report nature of the measures in general. Future studies may be well advised to use behavioral indicators to more thoroughly track how people’s actions relate to personality dimensions in situations of high stress. Overall, the current findings add to the results on less adherence to the rules of social distancing associated with certain personality traits like boldness, narcissistic rivalry, dark triad traits [39, 104, 107,108,109,110] or attachment styles. However, it is important to highlight that this study does not imply that a critical attitude towards the mitigation rules equals personality impairment, but amongst those who chose to ignore the rules, elevated personality impairment was found.
Practical conclusions. Taken together, our results are in line and extend previous research [3, 6, 21, 39, 111,112,113] on increased symptom load and the role of personality traits by tentatively shedding light on how individual differences in basic capacities of regulating the self and the relationship with others may explain both the experience of distress and also the way people think about and behave toward the rules that were initiated during to the pandemic [114]. A deeper understanding of these aspects could prospectively help to prevent risk groups from emotional decompensation [115], and to understand and address behavioral resistance towards the mitigation rules. Furthermore, if researchers and representatives of the public health field aim to change people’s attitudes and behaviors (e.g., compliance to mitigation rules), our results demonstrate that it is necessary to understand why people think and act the way they do. Our findings tentatively suggest that the latter may be associated with underlying regulatory capacities of personality, especially in situations of collective fear and global health threats. For example, a tendency toward grandiose narcissism may protect the individual from experiencing emotional distress (acting as a defense mechanism by providing a strong and potent self-representation) but may on the other hand lead to problematic behaviors and attitudes. Thus, an exploration of the underlying psychological mechanisms is important if one seeks to a) help people reduce emotional and psychological distress, and b) change attitudes and problematic behaviors.
Limitations. The conclusion of our findings should be interpreted carefully due to some considerable limitations: 1) Our question regarding cognitive and behavioral attitudes towards the rules of social distancing is restricted by some methodological limitations: 1) as a single item measure, this item was developed specifically for the unprecedented pandemic and has not been tested for validity. Also, its lack of psychometric scaling only allows qualitative interpretations of the groups. 2) Our two items on psychological distress are also single item measures. While these items have a clearly interpretable response scale, they are still newly designed and not established items. 3) This study consists of a non-clinical sample and needs to be replicated with a clinical sample, and 4) it does not provide longitudinal data to allow causal interpretations.
Future research. Future studies should use more robust scales to differentiate experienced distress from emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects regarding how people deal with distress, than realized in our study. In addition, experience sampling methods directly tapping into people’s daily life would help to investigate how dynamic processes of stress reaction and subsequent attitude formation and behavioral consequences depend on individual differences in PF [116]. Furthermore, future research should realize a broader assessment of maladaptive personality traits and psychopathological symptoms to follow up on emerging comprehensive models of psychopathology such as HiTOP [117]. The latter may elucidate the position that impairment in PF takes up in an empirically based and hierarchically organized model of psychopathology [118]. If PF was the strongest predictor of distress and dysfunctional attitudes and behavior, this would align with psychodynamic accounts where PF forms one of the core etiological concepts [119], herein called structural integration [120]. From a practical perspective, Bach and Simonsen [56] have recently outlined how impairment in PF may have important clinical implications. The latter should be considered in intervention programs for people who suffer severely and long-term from stressors such as the pandemic.
Our study bolsters the idea that PF may play a central role in understanding individual differences in emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions towards challenging situations. Although this study is a cross-sectional design with clear methodological shortcomings, our results may motivate further research on the role of strengthening regulatory abilities of personality as potential central factors for prevention of mental illness.
Data availability
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors upon request.
Notes
As this study was part of a larger research project with multiple research questions, we changed order and numbering of hypotheses consecutively to increase the readability of the paper: H1 in this paper corresponds to H6b in the pre-registration; H2 in this paper corresponds to H6a in the pre-registration; H3 in this paper corresponds to H6c in the pre-registration. H4 in this paper is a non-preregistered exploratory research question that we added to our analysis after the pre-registration but prior to data analysis. We did not investigate on hypothesis 6d from the pre-registration as this research question is part of a collaborative data analysis independent from our current evaluation.
Germany had faced its first peak of the pandemic in April 2020 and been put under complete lockdown from March to May 2020. During the time of the study’s data collection, the lockdown was overcome, stores and restaurants had re-opened and the mandatory application of clinical face masks had just been introduced. Schools and universities were still closed, and a second wave of increasing infections and a second lockdown was expected to come. Vaccines had not been developed at this point.
Three individuals indicated that they completely ignored the restrictions and therefore were not experiencing any restrictions nor related emotional distress. These three individuals were excluded from further analyses.
Socio-demographic information on the sample is displayed in Table 2 in the Appendix.
References
Lassen ER, Hagen K, Kvale G, Eid J, Le Hellard S, Solem S (2022) Personality traits and hardiness as risk-and protective factors for mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic: a Norwegian two-wave study. BMC Psychiatry 22(1):610
Liu T-H, Xia Y, Ma Z (2022) Multifarious linkages between personality traits and psychological distress during and after COVID-19 campus lockdown: a psychological network analysis. Front Psych 13:816298
Nikčević AV, Marino C, Kolubinski DC, Leach D, Spada MM (2021) Modelling the contribution of the Big Five personality traits, health anxiety, and COVID-19 psychological distress to generalised anxiety and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Affect Disord 279:578–584
Besser A, Flett GL, Nepon T, Zeigler-Hill V. Personality, cognition, and adaptability to the covid-19 pandemic: associations with loneliness, distress, and positive and negative mood states. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. 2020:1–25.
Geirdal AØ, Ruffolo M, Leung J, Thygesen H, Price D, Bonsaksen T et al (2021) Mental health, quality of life, wellbeing, loneliness and use of social media in a time of social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak A cross-country comparative study. J Mental Health 30(2):148–55
Zacher H, Rudolph CW (2021) Big Five traits as predictors of perceived stressfulness of the COVID-19 pandemic. Person Individ Differ 175:110694
Park J, Jang Y, Oh H, Chi I (2023) Loneliness as a mediator in the association between social isolation and psychological distress: a cross-sectional study with older korean immigrants in the united states. Res Aging 45(5–6):438–447
Abdelrahman R, Ismail ME. (2022) The psychological distress and COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown: A cross-sectional study from United Arab Emirates (UAE). Heliyon 8 (5).
Patel K, Robertson E, Kwong AS, Griffith GJ, Willan K, Green MJ, et al. (2022) Psychological distress before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among adults in the United Kingdom based on coordinated analyses of 11 longitudinal studies. JAMA Network open. 5 (4) e227629-e.
Dale R, Jesser A, Pieh C, O’Rourke T, Probst T, Humer E (2023) Mental health burden of high school students, and suggestions for psychosocial support, 1.5 years into the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria. Europ Child Adolescent Psych. 32(6):1015–24
Khan AG, Kamruzzaman M, Rahman MN, Mahmood M, Uddin MA (2021) Quality of life in the COVID-19 outbreak: influence of psychological distress, government strategies, social distancing, and emotional recovery. Heliyon 7(3):e06407
Cassidy-Bushrow AE, Baseer M, Kippen K, Levin AM, Li J, Loveless I et al (2021) Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic: quantifying the practice in Michigan – a “hotspot state” early in the pandemic – using a volunteer-based online survey. BMC Public Health 21(1):245
Benke C, Autenrieth LK, Asselmann E, Pané-Farré CA (2020) Lockdown, quarantine measures, and social distancing: associations with depression, anxiety and distress at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic among adults from Germany. Psychiatry Res 293:113462
Longobardi C, Morese R, Fabris MA. (2020) COVID-19 emergency: social distancing and social exclusion as risks for suicide ideation and attempts in adolescents. Frontiers in psychology11.
Faustino B, Vasco AB, Delgado J, Farinha-Fernandes A, Guerreiro JC (2020) Exploring the impacts of COVID-19 related social distancing on loneliness, psychological needs and symptomatology. Res Psy: Psychopath, Process Outcome 23(3):1
Breslau J, Finucane ML, Locker AR, Baird MD, Roth EA, Collins RL (2021) A longitudinal study of psychological distress in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prev Med 143:106362
Kanazawa S (2022) Personality and early susceptibility to COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. J Community Appl Social Psycho 32(4):786–795
Peters H, Götz FM, Ebert T, Müller SR, Rentfrow PJ, Gosling SD, et al. (2022) Regional personality differences predict variation in early COVID-19 infections and mobility patterns indicative of social distancing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Eid SMT, Del Mundo E, El-Monshed AH (2022) Personality traits, perceived stress and perception of COVID-19 among Arab population: a cross-sectional survey. Int J Africa Nurs Scie 17:100502
Entringer TM, Gosling SD (2022) Loneliness during a nationwide lockdown and the moderating effect of extroversion. Social Psycho Personality Sci 13(3):769–780
Gori A, Topino E, Palazzeschi L, Di Fabio A (2021) Which personality traits can mitigate the impact of the pandemic? assessment of the relationship between personality traits and traumatic events in the COVID-19 pandemic as mediated by defense mechanisms. PLoS ONE 16(5):e0251984
Modersitzki N, Phan LV, Kuper N, Rauthmann JF. (2020) Who is impacted? Personality predicts individual differences in psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1948550620952576.
Sadiković S, Branovački B, Oljača M, Mitrović D, Pajić D, Smederevac S (2020) Daily monitoring of emotional responses to the coronavirus pandemic in Serbia: A citizen science approach. Front Psychol 11:2133
Somma A, Gialdi G, Krueger RF, Markon KE, Frau C, Lovallo S et al (2020) Dysfunctional personality features, non-scientifically supported causal beliefs, and emotional problems during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Personality Individ Differ 165:110139
Ikizer G, Kowal M, Aldemir İD, Jeftić A, Memisoglu-Sanli A, Najmussaqib A et al (2022) Big Five traits predict stress and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence for the role of neuroticism. Personality Individ Differ 190:111531
Długosz P (2023) Predictors of psychological stress occurring after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland: a cross-sectional study. Front Psych 13:1102728
Kavanagh BE, O’Donohue JS, Ashton MM, Lotfaliany M, McCallum M, Wrobel AL et al (2022) Coping with COVID-19: exploring coping strategies, distress, and post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Front Psych 13:1025767
Hubenschmid L, Helmreich I, Köber G, Gilan D, Frenzel SB, Rv Dick et al (2022) Effects of general and corona-specific stressors on mental burden during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Germany. Front Public Health. 10:991292
Prout TA, Zilcha-Mano S, Aafjes-van Doorn K, Békés V, Christman-Cohen I, Whistler K et al (2020) Identifying predictors of psychological distress during COVID-19: a machine learning approach. Front Psychol 11:3063
Tabe Bordbar F, Kaveh M (2021) Investigating the relationship between various defense mechanisms and coronavirus Anxiety. Armaghane danesh 25:921–936
Di Giuseppe M, Nepa G, Prout TA, Albertini F, Marcelli S, Orrù G et al (2021) Stress, Burnout, and resilience among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 emergency: the role of defense mechanisms. Int J Environ Res Public Health 18(10):5258
Kavčič T, Avsec A, Kocjan GZ (2021) Psychological functioning of Slovene adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: does resilience matter? Psychiatr Q 92(1):207–216
Osimo SA, Aiello M, Gentili C, Ionta S, Cecchetto C (2021) The influence of personality, resilience, and alexithymia on mental health during COVID-19 pandemic. Front Psychol 12:341
Veer IM, Riepenhausen A, Zerban M, Wackerhagen C, Puhlmann LM, Engen H et al (2021) Psycho-social factors associated with mental resilience in the Corona lockdown. Transl Psychiatry 11(1):1–11
Conversano C, Di Giuseppe M, Miccoli M, Ciacchini R, Gemignani A, Orrù G (2020) Mindfulness, age and gender as protective factors against psychological distress during Covid-19 pandemic. Front Psychol 11:1900
Waters L, Algoe SB, Dutton J, Emmons R, Fredrickson BL, Heaphy E et al (2021) Positive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, bolstering, and building mental health. J Posit Psychol 17(3):303
Midorikawa H, Tachikawa H, Kushibiki N, Wataya K, Takahashi S, Shiratori Y et al (2023) Association of fear of COVID-19 and resilience with psychological distress among health care workers in hospitals responding to COVID-19: analysis of a cross-sectional study. Front Psych 14:659
Egozi Farkash H, Lahad M, Hobfoll SE, Leykin D, Aharonson-Daniel L (2022) Conservation of resources, psychological distress, and resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Int J Public Health 67:1604567
Zajenkowski M, Jonason PK, Leniarska M, Kozakiewicz Z (2020) Who complies with the restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19?: personality and perceptions of the COVID-19 situation. Personality Individ Differ 166:110199
Hardin BS, Smith CV, Jordan LN (2021) Is the COVID-19 pandemic even darker for some? Examining dark personality and affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Personality Individ Differ 171:110504
Hughes S, Machan L (2021) It’s a conspiracy: Covid-19 conspiracies link to psychopathy, Machiavellianism and collective narcissism. Personality Individ Differ 171:110559
Pianowski G, Giromini L, Pimentel RO, Gonçalves AP, Machado GM, Hosseininasab A et al (2023) Cross-cultural investigation from nine countries on the associations of antisocial traits and the WHO’s containment measures for the COVID-19 pandemic. Scand J Psychol 64(2):194–204
Hettich N, Beutel ME, Ernst M, Schliessler C, Kampling H, Kruse J et al (2022) Conspiracy endorsement and its associations with personality functioning, anxiety, loneliness, and sociodemographic characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic in a representative sample of the German population. PLoS ONE 17(1):e0263301
Bender DS, Morey LC, Skodol AE (2011) Toward a model for assessing level of personality functioning in DSM-5, Part I: a review of theory and methods. J Pers Assess 93(4):332–346
American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2013) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edn. Author, Washington, D.C
Tyrer P, Crawford M, Mulder R, Blashfield R, Farnam A, Fossati A et al (2011) The rationale for the reclassification of personality disorder in the 11th revision of the international classification of diseases (ICD-11). Personal Ment Health 5(4):246–259
Zimmermann J, Kerber A, Rek K, Hopwood CJ, Krueger RF (2019) A brief but comprehensive review of research on the alternative DSM-5 model for personality Disorders. Curr Psychiatry Rep 21(9):1–19
Hörz-Sagstetter S, Ohse L, Kampe L (2021) Three dimensional approaches to personality disorders: a review on personality functioning, personality structure, and personality organization. Curr Psychiatry Rep 23(7):1–16
Kampe L, Zimmermann J, Bender D, Caligor E, Borowski A-L, Ehrenthal JC et al (2018) Comparison of the Structured DSM–5 Clinical Interview for the level of personality functioning scale with the structured interview of personality organization. J Pers Assess 100(6):642–649
Ohse L, Zimmermann J, Kerber A, Kampe L, Mohr J, Kendlbacher J, et al. (2022) Reliability, structure, and validity of module I (personality functioning) of the Structured Clinical Interview for the alternative DSM–5 model for personality disorders (SCID-5-AMPD-I). Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Hicklin J, Widiger TA (2005) Similarities and differences among antisocial and psychopathic self-report inventories from the perspective of general personality functioning. Europ J Person Publish Europ Association Person Psychol 19(4):325–342
Leichsenring F, Kunst H, Hoyer J (2003) Borderline personality organization in violent offenders: Correlations of identity diffusion and primitive defense mechanisms with antisocial features, neuroticism, and interpersonal problems. Bull Menninger Clin 67(4):314–327
Miguel FK, Machado GM, Pianowski G, de Francisco CL (2021) Compliance with containment measures to the COVID-19 pandemic over time: do antisocial traits matter? Personality Individ Differ 168:110346
Ernst M, Brähler E, Kruse J, Kampling H, Beutel M (2023) Does loneliness lie within? Personality functioning shapes loneliness and mental distress in a representative population sample. J Affective Disord Report 12:100486
Kernberg OF, Caligor E (2005) A psychoanalytic theory of personality disorders. Major Theories Personality Disorder 2:114–156
Bach B, Simonsen S (2021) How does level of personality functioning inform clinical management and treatment? Implications for ICD-11 classification of personality disorder severity. Curr Opin Psychiatry 34(1):54–63
Vaillant GE, Bond M, Vaillant CO (1986) An empirically validated hierarchy of defense mechanisms. Arch Gen Psychiatry 43(8):786–794
Cramer P (2015) Defense mechanisms: 40 years of empirical research. J Pers Assess 97(2):114–122
Kampe L, Bohn J, Remmers C, Hörz-Sagstetter S (2021) It’s not that great anymore: The central role of defense mechanisms in grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Front Psych 12:596
Sala MN, Testa S, Pons F, Molina P (2015) Emotion regulation and defense mechanisms. J Individual Differen. 36(1):19
Perry JD, Cooper SH (1989) An empirical study of defense mechanisms. Archieves of General Psychiatry 46:444–452
Maryam F, Mohammadi N, Rahimi C, Hadianfard H. (2013) The relationship between personality organization and defense mechanisms. Journal of Psychology.
Perry JC, Presniak MD, Olson TR,, (2013) Defense mechanisms in schizotypal, borderline, antisocial, and narcissistic personality disorders. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes. 76 (1): 32–52.
Di Giuseppe M, Gemignani A, Conversano C (2020) Psychological resources against the traumatic experience of COVID-19. Clin Neuropsychiatry 17(2):85–87
Di Giuseppe M, Orrù G, Gemignani A, Ciacchini R, Miniati M, Conversano C (2022) Mindfulness and defense mechanisms as explicit and implicit emotion regulation strategies against psychological distress during massive catastrophic events. Int J Environ Res Public Health 19(19):12690
Weiss B, Miller JD (2018) Distinguishing between grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, and narcissistic personality disorder. Springer, Handbook of trait narcissism, pp 3–13
Miller JD, Lynam DR, Hyatt CS, Campbell WK (2017) Controversies in narcissism. Annu Rev Clin Psychol 13:291–315
Oltmanns JR, Widiger TA (2018) Assessment of fluctuation between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: Development and initial validation of the FLUX scales. Psychol Assess 30(12):1612
Morf CC, Schürch E, Küfner A, Siegrist P, Vater A, Back M et al (2017) Expanding the nomological net of the pathological narcissism inventory: German validation and extension in a clinical inpatient sample. Assessment 24(4):419–443
Jauk E, Weigle E, Lehmann K, Benedek M, Neubauer AC (2017) The relationship between grandiose and vulnerable (hypersensitive) narcissism. Front Psychol 8:1600
Pincus AL, Cain NM, Wright AGC. (2014) Narcissistic Grandiosity and Narcissistic Vulnerability in Psychotherapy. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Pincus AL, Ansell EB, Pimentel CA, Cain NM, Wright AG, Levy KN (2009) Initial construction and validation of the pathological narcissism inventory. J Pers Assess 21(3):365
Wright AG, Lukowitsky MR, Pincus AL, Conroy DE (2010) The higher order factor structure and gender invariance of the pathological narcissism inventory. Assessment 17(4):467–483
Kaufman SB, Weiss B, Miller JD, Campbell WK (2020) Clinical correlates of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism: a personality perspective. J Pers Disord 34(1):107–130
Wurst SN, Gerlach TM, Dufner M, Rauthmann JF, Grosz MP, Küfner AC et al (2017) Narcissism and romantic relationships: the differential impact of narcissistic admiration and rivalry. J Pers Soc Psychol 112(2):280
Loeffler LA, Huebben AK, Radke S, Habel U, Derntl B (2020) The association between vulnerable/grandiose narcissism and emotion regulation. Front Psychol 11:2732
Rohmann E, Hanke S, Bierhoff H-W (2019) Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in relation to life satisfaction, self-esteem, and self-construal. J Individ Differen. 40(4):194
Di Pierro R, Di Sarno M, Madeddu F (2017) Investigating the relationship between narcissism and emotion regulation difficulties: The role of grandiose and vulnerable traits. Clinical Neuropsychiatry 14(3):1
Jauk E, Kaufman SB (2018) The higher the score, the darker the core: the nonlinear association between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Front Psychol 9:1305
Dickinson KA, Pincus AL (2003) Interpersonal analysis of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. J Pers Disord 17(3):188–207
Franke GH. Mini-SCL. (2016) German manual of the Mini Symptom Checklist [German] Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Spitzer C, Müller S, Kerber A, Hutsebaut J, Brähler E, Zimmermann J. (2021) Die deutsche Version der Level of Personality Functioning Scale-Brief Form 2.0 (LPFS-BF): Faktorenstruktur, konvergente Validität und Normwerte in der Allgemeinbevölkerung. PPmP-Psychotherapie· Psychosomatik· Medizinische Psychologie.
Morey LC (2017) Development and initial evaluation of a self-report form of the DSM–5 Level of Personality Functioning Scale. Psychol Assess 29(10):1302
Hörz-Sagstetter S, Volkert J, Rentrop M, Benecke C, Gremaud-Heitz DJ, Unterrainer H-F, et al. A bifactor model of personality organization. Journal of Personality Assessment. 2021:1–12.
Lenzenweger MF, Clarkin JF, Kernberg OF, Foelsch PA (2001) The Inventory of Personality organization: psychometric properties, factorial composition, and criterion relations with affect, aggressive dyscontrol, psychosis proneness, and self-domains in a nonclinical sample. Psychol Assess 13(4):577
Schauenburg H, Willenborg V, Sammet I, Ehrenthal JC (2007) Self-reported defence mechanisms as an outcome measure in psychotherapy: a study on the German version of the defence style questionnaire DSQ 40. Psychol Psychother Theory Res Pract 80(3):355–366
Andrews G, Singh M, Bond M. (1993) The Defense Style Questionnaire. Journal of Nervous and mental Disease 1.
Morf CC, Schürch E, Küfner A, Siegrist P, Vater A, Back M, et al. (2015) Pathological Narcissism Inventory - German Version.
Eid M. (2020) Multi-Faceted Constructs in Abnormal Psychology: Implications of the Bifactor S-1 Model for Individual Clinical Assessment. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 1–6.
Bohn J, Holtmann J, Luhmann M, Koch T, Eid M (2020) Attachment to parents and well-being after high school graduation: a study using self-and parent ratings. J Happiness Stud 21(7):2493–2525
Eid M, Krumm S, Koch T, Schulze J (2018) Bifactor models for predicting criteria by general and specific factors: Problems of nonidentifiability and alternative solutions. J Intelligence 6(3):42
Heinrich M, Zagorscak P, Eid M, Knaevelsrud C (2020) Giving G a meaning: an application of the bifactor-(S-1) approach to realize a more symptom-oriented modeling of the beck depression inventory–II. Assessment 27(7):1429–1447
Muthén LK, Muthén BO. Mplus User’s Guide. 8th ed. Los Angeles: Muthén and Muthén; 1998–2017.
Schermelleh-Engel K, Moosbrugger H, Müller H (2003) Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: tests of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. Methods Psychol Res online 8(2):23–74
Kim HH, Jung JH (2021) Social isolation and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-national analysis. The Gerontologist 61(1):103–13
Robinson E, Sutin AR, Daly M, Jones A (2022) A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies comparing mental health before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. J Affect Disord 296:567–576
Van Mulukom V, Muzzulini B, Rutjens BT, Van Lissa CJ, Farias M (2021) The psychological impact of threat and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic: exacerbating factors and mitigating actions. Translational behavioral medicine 11(7):1318–1329
Marchetti D, Fontanesi L, Camisasca E, Colasanti M, Covelli V, Di Giandomenico S et al (2023) The role of pre-pandemic mental health status and personality traits on psychological distress during the COVID-19 Lockdown among Italian young adults. Behav Sci 13(2):141
Duarte F, Jiménez-Molina Á (2022) A longitudinal nationwide study of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile. Front Psych 13:744204
Preti E, Di Pierro R, Fanti E, Madeddu F, Calati R (2020) Personality disorders in time of pandemic. Curr Psychiatry Rep 22(12):1–9
Hörz-Sagstetter S, Caligor E, Preti E, Stern BL, De Panfilis C, Clarkin JF (2018) Clinician-guided assessment of personality using the Structural Interview and the structured interview of personality organization (STIPO). J Pers Assess 100(1):30–42
Clarkin J, Caligor E, Stern B, Kernberg O, (2016) The Structured Interview for Personality Organization‐Revised (STIPO‐R). Unpublished manuscript, Weill Medical College of Cornell University (Dt Übs S Hörz-Sagstetter & S Doering, 2020).
Stern BL, Caligor E, Hörz-Sagstetter S, Clarkin JF (2018) An object-relations based model for the assessment of borderline psychopathology. Psychiatric Clinics 41(4):595–611
Paiva TO, Cruz-Martins N, Pasion R, Almeida PR, Barbosa F. (2021) Boldness personality traits are associated with reduced risk perceptions and adoption of protective behaviors during the first COVID-19 outbreak. Frontiers in psychology 974.
Fink M, Bäuerle A, Schmidt K, Rheindorf N, Musche V, Dinse H, et al. (2021) COVID-19-fear affects current safety behavior mediated by neuroticism—results of a large cross-sectional study in Germany. Frontiers in psychology 12.
Pincus AL, Hopwood CJ, Wright AG. (2020) The interpersonal situation: An integrative framework for the study of personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.
Morales-Vives F, Ferrando PJ, Vigil-Colet A, Dueñas J-M (2023) Compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures: the role of intelligence, the dark triad and dysfunctional impulsivity. Psicothema 35(2):149–158
Chávez-Ventura G, Santa-Cruz-Espinoza H, Domínguez-Vergara J, Negreiros-Mora N (2022) Moral disengagement, dark triad and face mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Europ J Invest Health, Psychol Edu 12(9):1300–1310
Blagov PS (2021) Adaptive and dark personality in the COVID-19 pandemic: Predicting health-behavior endorsement and the appeal of public-health messages. Social PsychologPersona Sci 12(5):697–707
Segal S, Sharabany R, Maaravi Y (2021) Policymakers as safe havens: The relationship between adult attachment style, COVID-19 fear, and regulation compliance. Personality Individ Differ 177:110832
Maerz J, Buchheim A, Rabl L, Riedl D, Viviani R, Labek K. (2022) The interplay of Criterion A of the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders, mentalization and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 13.
Volk AA, Brazil KJ, Franklin-Luther P, Dane AV, Vaillancourt T (2021) The influence of demographics and personality on COVID-19 coping in young adults. Personality Individ Differ 168:110398
Carvalho LdF, Pianowski G, Gonçalves AP (2020) Personality differences and COVID-19: are extroversion and conscientiousness personality traits associated with engagement with containment measures? Trends Psych Psychoth 42(2):179–84
Telaku N, Musliu A, Cana L, Han H, Zharku L (2022) The relationship between personality traits and compliance with the COVID-19 preventive measures in kosovo. Psych 4(4):856–867
Gamache D, Savard C, Lemieux R, Berthelot N (2022) Impact of level of personality pathology on affective, behavioral, and thought problems in pregnant women during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Personal Disord Theory Res Treat 13(1):41
Wright AG, Hallquist MN, Stepp SD, Scott LN, Beeney JE, Lazarus SA et al (2016) Modeling heterogeneity in momentary interpersonal and affective dynamic processes in borderline personality disorder. Assessment 23(4):484–495
Kotov R, Krueger RF, Watson D, Achenbach TM, Althoff RR, Bagby RM et al (2017) The hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology (HiTOP): a dimensional alternative to traditional nosologies. J Abnorm Psychol 126(4):454
Bender DS (2019) The P-factor and what it means to be human: commentary on criterion A of the AMPD in HiTOP. J Pers Assess 101(4):356–359
Vierl L, Juen F, Benecke C, Hörz‐Sagstetter S. (2022) Exploring the associations between psychodynamic constructs and psychopathology: A network approach. Personality and Mental Health.
Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis OPD-2: (2008) Manual of diagnosis and treatment planning: Hogrefe Publishing GmbH.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Helene Harnisch, Ilva Heitmann, and Charlotte Weinmann for their help with the data collection, and Franziska Bienecke for the help with the literature research.
Funding
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This research was facilitated by incentive funds of the Freie Universität Berlin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
LK drafted the MS and conceptualized and headed the research project. CR contributed to the conceptualization and project administration and acquired the funding for the study. SHS contributed to the conceptualization and the investigation process. JB developed the methodology, conducted the formal analysis, and created the visualization. All authors critically revised and substantially reviewed the MS and approved the final version to be published.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical approval
The data were collected in a manner consistent with ethical standards for the treatment of human subjects.
Human and animal research
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by ethic commission (IRB) of the Psychologische Hochschule Berlin, Am Köllnischen Park 2, 10179 Berlin.
Consent to participate
The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
Appendix
Appendix
Answer options for the Covid-19 related questions on psychological distress and cognitive and behavioral attitudes:
-
(1)
The answers for psychological distress related to the general health threat of the pandemic were combined in three ordinal categories, ranging from 1 (no distress) over 2 (situational concern, but no ongoing psychological distress) to 3 (Constant psychological distress).
-
(2)
When asked about the psychological distress caused by social distancing, individuals could respond on a scale of 1 (‘no distress’) to 5 (‘mentally ill resulting in psychotherapeutic treatment’), with higher scores representing greater distress. For the evaluation, the sparsely populated response categories 4 (‘psychologically clearly and persistently burdened’) and 5 were combined into one category.
-
(3)
For the third question, participants rated their compliance from 1 (‘I support the measures and comply with all rules’) over 2 (‘I find the rules tend to be excessive, but still stick to them’) and 3 (‘I make small exceptions now and then and expand the rules a bit if necessary’) to 4 (‘I find the measures too rigid and bypass them if there are no consequences / it is not seen’ or ‘I ignore the rules completely’). In a preliminary analysis we tested the construct validity the two COVID related questions (1) & (2) to assess emotional distress, finding high correlations with the BSI scores for somatization, depression, and anxiety.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Kampe, L., Hörz-Sagstetter, S., Bohn, J. et al. How personality functioning relates to psychological distress and behavioral attitudes during the Covid-19 pandemic. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-023-01722-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-023-01722-7