Neuroscience
Clinical psychology and psychotherapy
Personality psychology and psychopathology are the main areas of the interest of the Unit. Personality may be described as a complex system involving emotional, cognitive and behavioral components which develops across the life cycle in a complex network of person-environment transactions. Personality and its role in the adaptive processes are the core research interests of our Unit. Latent structure analyses of adaptive and maladaptive personality, the role of the so-called adaptive traits in maladaptive behaviors, such as aggressive behaviors, the study of impulsivity and aggression, and the development of evidence based techniques to treat personality disorders represent some contents of group research activities.
Research activity
1. Continuities and discontinuities between “normal” personality traits and dysfunctional personality traits across the life cycle. The group is trying to understand how early difficulties with emotion regulation (callousness, fearlessness) interact with disinhibition in school-age children in predicting the risk for psychopathy in adolescence and adulthood.
2. Trait model of psychopathology concerning in particular way the Alternative Model of Personality Disorder proposed by DSM-5, Section III.
3. Squealer of childhood Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on adolescent’s and adult’s life, and evidence-based treatment for effective intervention on adolescent/adult ADHD.
4. Adolescence as a major developmental window for prosocial/antisocial behavior. Specifically, the research group is interested in the development of self-regulatory processes in adolescence as a core component of adaptive personality development; indeed, failure in this process is linked to the onset of substance misuse (i.e., abuse or dependence), and self-destructive and self-injurious behaviors in adolescence.
5. Emotional processes and emotional responding in Borderline Personality Disorder considering subjective, physiological and behavioral measures.
6. Mindfulness assessment and its relation to emotion recognition.
7. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) implementation in Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) treatment and empirical research related to this.
8. Process-outcome research in order to clarify mechanisms associated with DBT therapeutic change.
Scalabrini A, Cavicchioli M, Fossati A, Maffei, C. The Extent of Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. 2017 Jul-Sep;18(4):522-543.
Fossati A, Widiger TA, Borroni S, Maffei C, Somma A. Item response theory modeling and categorical regression analyses of the Five-Factor Model Rating Form: A study on Italian community-dwelling adolescent participants and adult participants. Assessment 2017 Jun;24(4):467-483.
Fossati A, Somma A, Karyadi KA, Cyders MA, Bortolla R and Borroni S. Reliability and validity of the Italian translation of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale in a sample of consecutively admitted psychotherapy patients. Personality and Individual Differences 2016; 91: 1-6.
Fossati A, Somma A, Borroni S, Frera F, Maffei C and Andershed H. The factor structure and construct validity of the short version of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory in two independent samples of non referred adolescents. Assessment 2016 Dec;23(6):683-697.
Fossati A, Krueger RF, Markon KE, Borroni S, Maffei C and Somma A. The DSM-5 Alternative Model of Personality Disorders from the Perspective of Adult Attachment: A Study in Community Dwelling Adults. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 2015 Apr;203(4):252-8.
Fossati A, Gratz KL, Borroni S, Maffei C, Somma A and Carlotta D. The relationship between childhood history of ADHD symptoms and DSM-IV borderline personality disorder features among personality disordered outpatients: The moderating role of gender and the mediating roles of emotion dysregulation and impulsivity. Comprehensive Psychiatry 2015 Jan;56:121-7.
Cavicchioli M, Rugi C, Maffei C. Inability to withstand present-moment experiences in Borderline Personality Disorder: a meta-analytic review. Clinical Neuropsychiatry 2015;12(4):101-110.
Fossati A, Pincus, AL, Borroni S, Munteanu AF and Maffei C. Are Pathological Narcissism and Psychopathy Different Constructs or Different Names for the Same Thing? A Study Based on Italian Nonclinical Adult Participants. Journal of personality disorders 2014 Jun;28(3):394-418.
Fossati A, Gratz KL, Maffei C, & Borroni S. Impulsivity dimensions, emotion dysregulation, and borderline personality disorder features among Italian nonclinical adolescents. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation 2014; 1: 5.
Fossati A, Krueger RF, Markon KE, Borroni S and Maffei C. Reliability and validity of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) predicting DSM-IV personality disorders and psychopathy in community-dwelling Italian adults. Assessment 2013 Dec;20(6):689-708.
