Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6118-6587

Date Available

11-23-2025

Year of Publication

2025

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

Psychology

Faculty

Shannon Sauer-Zavala

Faculty

Mike Bardo

Abstract

BPD Compass was designed to engage the BPD-relevant traits from the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders in the DSM-5 by targeting putative mechanisms associated with these personality domains: aversive reactivity to engage negative affectivity, attachment insecurity to engage antagonism, and self-efficacy to engage disinhibition. The goal of the present study was to test the associations between putative mechanisms and respective personality traits. We used multilevel structural equation modeling to test if personality domains and putative mechanisms changed in treatment, if changes in putative mechanism were associated with changes in respective personality domain, and if within-person changes in putative mechanisms predicted changes in respective personality domains. We found that all putative mechanisms and personality traits changed in treatment and changes in putative mechanisms were correlated with changes in respective personality domain. Relations between within-person changes of all putative mechanisms and their respective trait domain were bidirectional apart from attachment avoidance and antagonism. Only within-person changes in antagonism predicted changes in attachment avoidance. These results suggest that personality can be a target of treatment and BPD Compass engages the mechanisms it is thought to target, but the temporal precedence of putative mechanisms and respective traits vary.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.535

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