The Role of Pathological Personality Traits, Early Maladaptive Schemas and Emotional Schemas in Predicting Personality Disorders of Cluster “B”

Due to the high prevalence of personality disorders and the change of personality disorder classification model in DSM-5, the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of pathological (morbid) personality traits, early maladaptive schemas and emotional schemas in predicting B-Cluster personality disorders. This is a descriptive correlational study. The sample is 359 (230 females and 129 males) who were selected in access from the age range of 18-50 years in Mashhad. The research instruments were Personality Disorder Questionnaire (PDQ-4), DSM-5 Personality Questionnaire (PID-5), Early Maladaptive Schemas Questionnaire (YSQ) and Lay Emotional Schema Scale (LESS). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used for data analysis. The findings of this study showed that the variables of comprehensibility, disinhibition, consensus, antagonism, impaired limits and psychoticism are significantly capable of predicting antisocial personality disorder and the variables of comprehensibility, control, disinhibition, negative affectivity, rumination, numbness, simplistic view of emotion, blame and duration have significant predictive power of borderline personality disorder and variables of antagonism, guilt, blame, psychoticism, higher values and consensus significantly predict the narcissist personality disorder and variables of consensus, disinhibition, antagonism, negative affectivity, other-directedness, over-vigilance and detachment significantly predict the histrionic personality disorder. It can be concluded that morbid personality traits, early maladaptive schemas, and emotional schemas play a significant role in predicting personality disorders of cluster “B”.