Mood, Personality, and Personality Disorder

This chapter explores the role of affect or mood in personality and personality disorders which has been theorized since ancient times. Theories across history agree that biological factors underlie observable personality characteristics and that different personalities have primarily emotional defining features. This chapter also discusses existing studies on the structures of mood and personality, along with recent developments in the past decade which have enabled the merging of these two separate bodies of research. Both mood and personality dimensions have been shown to exhibit the same pattern of correlations regarding social activity and positive and negative affects. The following section discusses Gray's motivational model which involves the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), the behavioral activation system (BAS), and the fight-flight system. This chapter ends with a discussion on personality disorders and the psychobiological model which studies the four dimensions underlying personality disorders—anxiety/inhibition, affective instability, impulsivity/aggression, and cognitive/perceptual organization.