This study examined the overlap and validity of several measures of mother - child attachment developed for preadolescents. Validity was assessed in part by examining how attachment is related to children's mood and emotion regulation. Mother - child attachment was assessed in a sample of 9 to 11 year-old children using a story stem interview technique and questionnaires. Positive and negative mood were scored from daily logs completed by children. Emotion regulation was assessed with mothers' reports of constructive coping and teacher reports of children's ability to tolerate frustration. Interview and questionnaire measures of attachment were not consistently related to one another, although both were related to mood and emotion regulation. As expected, secure attachment and maternal secure base support were related to higher levels of positive mood, more constructive coping, and better regulation of emotion in the classroom, with effects stronger for emotion regulation than for mood. Children classified Disorganized or Ambivalent displayed the most negative mood. All effects remained significant after controlling for child temperament.

The trait of "impulsivity" is difficult to place within a personality framework due to the many potential pathways to impulsive behavior and the lack of consensus regarding the structure of the trait(s). This lack of consensus also hinders systematic investigation into relations between "impulsivity" and its behavioral manifestations. Undergraduates (Sample 1 N = 507) completed a battery of self-report measures, all purporting to assess trait "impulsivity"; a subset (n = 408) and Sample 2 (N = 388) also completed a retrospective questionnaire about specific behaviors they may have engaged in over the past year, and another subset of Sample 1 agreed to complete (n = 208) and actually completed (n = 152) a 2-week prospective measure of impulsive behaviors. Finally, a subset of Sample 1 (n = 321) and Sample 2 completed an omnibus self-report inventory in a follow-up study. Structural equation modeling confirmed a 3-factor structure of what we call impulsigenic traits-traits that are manifested in impulsive behavior. This finding is consistent with previous research and supports the growing consensus that "impulsivity" is a colloquial label attached to a group of distinct traits that have phenotypically similar behavioral manifestations. Each of these impulsigenic traits relates differentially to impulsive behavior and to broad temperamental dimensions. The results also show clear 2-factor structures of both daily and less frequent (yearly/semiyearly) impulsive behaviors. Finally, a unique method of data collection permitted an investigation of relations between the impulsigenic and other personality traits and observed behaviors, demonstrating the predictive utility of personality traits to discrete, in situ behaviors.

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Synopsis: Several studies of the prevalence of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in community and clinical settings have been carried out to date. Although results vary according to sampling method and assessment method, median point prevalence of BPD is roughly 1%, with higher or lower rates in certain community subpopulations. In clinical settings, BPD prevalence is around 10-12% in outpatient psychiatric clinics and 20-22% among inpatient clinics. Further research is needed to identify the prevalence and correlates of BPD in other clinical settings (e.g., primary care) and to investigate the impact of demographic variables on BPD prevalence.