The relationship between temperament and character and subclinical psychotic-like experiences in healthy adults

Abstract

Background: Considerable data support phenomenological and temporal continuity between psychotic disorders and subclinical psychotic-like experiences (PLE's). Although numerous studies have found similar personality correlates for schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder patients, their unaffected first-degree relatives, and healthy adults characterized for schizotypal traits, no study has yet investigated personality correlates of PLE's measured by the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE). Our study sought to examine personality correlates of PLE's using the CAPE in healthy adults.

Method: The CAPE and temperament and character inventory (TCI) were administered to 415 healthy adults. Regressions examined links between TCI traits and overall PLE levels as well as positive and negative PLE's separately.

Results: Consistent with past studies, lower self-directedness (SD) and reward dependence (RD) and higher self-transcendence (ST) and harm avoidance (HA) significantly predicted overall PLE levels. Higher ST and persistence (P) and lower SD significantly predicted higher levels of positive PLE's while lower SD and RD and higher HA, ST, and cooperativeness (C) predicted higher levels of negative PLE's.

Conclusions: Associations between TCI and PLE's using the CAPE are strikingly similar to past work in non-clinical and patient samples and provide additional support for phenomenological continuity between psychotic disorders and sub-syndromal psychotic symptoms.

Keywords: Character; Personality; Psychosis; Schizophrenia; Temperament.