Aaron L. Pincus Associate Professor of Psychology The Pennsylvania State University
Address	Department of Psychology Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802
Office Address	Department of Psychology 542 Moore Building
Phone	814-863-1723
Fax	814-863-7002
E-Mail	alp6@psu.edu

I believe that interpersonal functioning is an integrative nexus for psychological science and practice, bringing together a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of adaptive and maladaptive human behavior ranging from proximal behavioral interaction to mental representations of self and others both past and present. This nomological net, referred to as Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory (CIIT), guides my research program. CIIT is broadly informed and influenced by interpersonal theories, trait theories, object-relations theories, attachment theory, social learning theories, and social cognition (see Pincus, 2005a, 2005b; Pincus & Ansell, 2003; Pincus & Cain, 2008; Pincus & Gurtman, 2006; Pincus, Lukowitsky, & Wright, in press).

Currently I am working on several programs of research integrating clinical and personality psychology. These research programs focus on:

A. Conceptualization, diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of pathological narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

B. Clinical and personality assessment utilizing the Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC) and Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB).

C. Interpersonal problems in psychopathology and psychotherapy.

D. Diagnostic and therapeutic implications of intraindividual variability in interpersonal behavior.

Research Interests | Education | Publications | Professional Affiliations | Courses Taught

Research Interests

Personality Disorders:

My early work focused on the ability of interpersonal models (and other individual difference models) to account for and describe the DSM Axis II personality disorders (Pincus & Wiggins, 1990; Wiggins & Pincus, 1989). Over the years, my view on this has changed, and I now see interpersonal functioning as providing a foundation for the reconceptualization of personality pathology (Pincus, 2005a, 2005b), rather than translating or mapping DSM perspectives.

I have proposed a 3-facet of model of interpersonal dependency (Pincus, 2002; Pincus & Gurtman, 1995; Pincus & Wilson, 2001) to serve as a basis for revising dependent personality disorder and understanding adaptive dependent functioning.

A second specific area of research on personality pathology involves development and validation of clinical criteria and objective assessment scales for pathological narcissism (Cain, Pincus, & Ansell, 2008). Using an integrative approach, I have conducted a series of studies investigating interpersonal problems, attachment, parental representations, and personality traits that demonstrate pathological narcissism includes two broad themes of dysfunction: grandiosity and vulnerability (Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). Most recently my lab has been involved in studies developing and validating the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI; Pincus, Ansell, Pimentel, Cain, Wright, & Levy, Accepted with Revisions).

Interpersonal Assessment:

I have consistently worked on developing and evaluating measures and methods associated with circumplex models of interpersonal behavior. I am a co-developer of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Circumplex Scales (Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 1990: Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000). In collaboration with Dr. Michael Gurtman, I have worked on the development and application of the “structural summary approach” to circumplex measurement (Ansell & Pincus, 2004; Gurtman & Pincus, 2003; Pincus & Gurtman, 2003; Slaney, Pincus, Uliazek, & Wang, 2006). This approach takes advantage of the circular continuum of valid circumplex models to provide a curve fitting approach to interpersonal data. Recent work has also advanced circumplex methods for describing and comparing groups (Wright, Pincus, Conroy, & Elliot, Under Review).

Recent work examines the links between personality and psychopathology through the concept of interpersonal pathoplasticity. Pathoplastic relations are non-etiological and non-spectrum links between personality and psychopathology that bidierectionally influence the expression of traits, behaviors, symptoms, and treatment response. We have examined the added clinical value of identifying interpersonal subtypes in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (e.g., Salzer, et al, 2008), Social Phobia (Cain, Pincus, & Grosse Holtforth, in preparation; Kachin, Newman, & Pincus, 2001), and Fear of Failure (e.g., Conroy, et al, in press; Wright, et al, in press), and as a general approach to integrating research on personality and psychopathology (e.g., Pincus, Lukowitsky, & Wright, in press). Future work will examine interpersonal pathoplasticity in relevant diagnostic groups.

Intraindividual Variability in Interpersonal Behavior:

Most recently, my lab has begun to investigate variability of interpersonal behavior in relation to personality disorders and psychotherapy. Using the constructs of interpersonal flux, interpersonal pulse, and interpersonal spin (see Moskowitz & Zuroff, 2004a, 2004b), we investigate issues of behavioral variability to discriminate personality disorders and evaluate responses to psychotherapeutic intervention. Simply put, when is variability an indicator of maladaptive "lability" and when is it an indicator of adaptive "flexibility." In addition, patterns of behavioral variability across situations and behavioral consistency within situations gives rise to "if-then" behavioral signatures. Such signatures can be associated with the interpersonal situation, thus providing new interpersonal indicators of psychopathology and/or treatment response.

Education

B.S., Psychology, University of California, Davis, 1985

M.A., Personality Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 1987

Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, University of British Columbia, 1992

Recent Publications

Conroy, D.E., Elliot, A.J., & Pincus, A.L. (in press). The expression of achievement motives in interpersonal problems. Journal of Personality.

Hopwood, C.J., Pincus, A.L., DeMoor, R.M., & Koonce, E.A. (in press). Psychometric characteristics of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems – Short Circumplex (IIP-SC) with college students. Journal of Personality Assessment.

Pincus, A.L. (in press). The Five-Factor Model of personality. In I.B. Weiner & W.E. Craighead (Eds.), The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology—4th Edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Pincus, A.L. (in press). Interpersonal theory of personality. In I.B. Weiner & W.E. Craighead (Eds.), The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology—4th Edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Pincus, A.L., Ansell, E.B., Pimentel, C.A., Cain, N.M., Wright, A.G.C., & Levy, K.N. (in press). Initial construction and validation of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. Psychological Assessment.

Pincus, A.L., Lukowitsky, M.R., & Wright, A.G.C. (in press). The interpersonal nexus of personality and psychopathology. In T. Millon, R.F. Krueger, & E. Simonsen (Eds.), Contemporary Directions in Psychopathology: Toward DSM-V and ICD-11. New York: Guilford.

Ruiz, M.A., Pincus, A.L., & Schinka, J.A. (in press). Externalizing disorders and the Five-Factor Model: A meta-analysis of personality traits associated with antisocial personality disorder, substance use disorder, and their co-occurance. Journal of Personality Disorders.

Cain, N.M., Pincus, A.L., & Ansell, E.B. (2008). Narcissism at the crossroads: Phenotypic description of pathological narcissism across clinical theory, social/personality psychology, and psychiatric diagnosis. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 638-656.

Lukowitsky, M.R., Pincus, A.L., Hill, L., & Loos, D.K. (2008). Enduring dispositions as points of contact for the social—clinical interface: Publication trends from 1965 to 2004. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 27, 389-403.

Pincus, A.L., & Cain, N.M. (2008). Interpersonal Psychotherapy. In D.C.S. Richard & S.K. Huprich (Eds.), Clinical Psychology: Assessment, Treatment, & Research (pp. 213-245). New York: Academic Press.

Salzer, S., Pincus, A.L., Hoyer, J., Kreische, R., Leichsenring, F., & Leibing, E. (2008). Interpersonal subtypes within generalized anxiety disorder. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90, 292-299.

Grosse Holtforth, M., Pincus, A., Grawe, K., & Mauler, B. (2007). What you want is not what you get: Motivational correlates of interpersonal problems in clinical and nonclinical samples. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26, 1095-1119.

Hilsenroth, M.J., Menaker, J., Peters, E.J., & Pincus, A.L. (2007). Assessment of borderline pathology using the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Circumplex Scales (IIP-C): A comparison of clinical samples. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 14, 365-376.

Pincus, A.L., & Lukowitsky, M.R. (2007). Trait theory. In W. A. Darity (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (2nd Ed., pp. 425-426). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference.

Conroy, D. & Pincus, A.L.(2006). A comparison of mean partialling and dual- hypothesis testing to evaluate stereotype effects when assessing profile similarity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 86, 142-149.

Pincus, A.L. (2006). The schizotypy of Willy Wonka [Review of the motion picture Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]. PsycCritiques—Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 51, Article 23.

Pincus, A.L., & Gurtman, M.B. (2006). Interpersonal theory and the interpersonal circumplex: Evolving perspectives on normal and abnormal personality. In S. Strack (Ed.), Differentiating normal and abnormal personality (2nd Ed., pp. 83-111). New York: Springer.

Slaney, R., Pincus, A.L., & Uliaszek, A.A., & K. Wang (2006). Conceptions of perfectionism and interpersonal problems: Evaluating groups using the structural summary method for circumplex data. Assessment, 13, 138-153.

Erickson, T.E., & Pincus, A.L. (2005). Using Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) measures of social perception to give interpersonal meaning to symptoms: Anxiety as an exemplar. Assessment, 12, 243-254.

Pincus, A.L. (2005). A contemporary integrative interpersonal theory of personality disorders. In J. Clarkin & M. Lenzenweger (Eds.), Major theories of personality disorder (2nd Ed.) (pp. 282-331). New York: Guilford.

Pincus, A.L. (2005). The interpersonal nexus of personality disorders. In S. Strack (Ed.), Handbook of personology and psychopathology (pp. 120-139). New York: Wiley.

Pincus, A.L. (2005). Book Review: N. McWilliams (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioners guide. Psychologist-Psychoanalyst, 25, 25-27. Washington, DC: APA Division 39.

Ansell, E.B., & Pincus, A.L. (2004). Interpersonal perceptions of the five-factor model of personality: An examination using the structural summary method for circumplex data. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 167-201.

Dickinson, K.A., & Pincus, A.L. (2003). Interpersonal analysis of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Journal of Personality Disorders, 17, 188-207.

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Professional Affiliations

Associate Editor, Psychological Assessment

Associate Editor, Assessment

Member, American Psychological Association, Divisions 8, 12, 39

Member, Society for Personality Assessment

Member, Association for Research in Personality

Past-President/Co-Founder, Society for Interpersonal Theory and Research

Courses Taught

Clinical Personality Assessment (PSY 555): Clinical applications of the MMPI-2, MCMI-3, Rorschach, NEO-PI-R, IIP-C.

Clinical Personality Theory (PSY 541): Reviews psychoanalytic, interpersonal, and existential clinical theories.

Personality Disorders (PSY 540): Reviews current research on classification, diagnosis, and treatment of personality disorders.

Psychotherapy Practicum (PSY 560): Contemporary psychodynamic psychotherapy for personality disorders.

SASB Observational Coding (CNPSY 597): Coding of interpersonal interactions using Structural Analysis of Social Behavior.

Personality Theory (PSYCH 438): Survey of personality theories.

Madness in the First-Person (PSYCH 083S): First-year undergraduate seminar focusing on autobiographical experiences of mental illness.

Personality Disorders (PSYCH 490): Capstone senior seminar in psychology.