Sara M. Stasik-O'Brien

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at Carthage College

We examined psychotic-like experiences in adults. In Session 1, 404 participants completed domain measures of the Big Five and HEXACO. We identified 25 potential Psychoticism markers in Session 2, which was roughly 3 weeks later. Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) of the Session 1 and Session 2 scales revealed six factors: the Big Five, plus Psycho...

There is an increased risk for depression and anxiety across the perinatal period (i.e., spanning pregnancy and the first year postpartum); however, limited research has examined elevations in core negative affectivity underlying internalizing disorders more broadly. The current study sought to characterize trajectories of core internalizing proble...

Trigger warnings alert readers that upcoming themes may serve as trauma reminders. They have been proposed as an accommodation for individuals diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the context of higher education. Previous research has raised the concern that deploying and using trigger warnings can increase one’s sense of trauma c...

Free copy of the Individuality in Couples Questionnaire (ICQ) with scoring instructions.

Despite multiple theories and treatment modalities emphasizing the importance of individuality in couple relationships, the field is lacking a reliable and valid measure of this construct. In the present study, we developed the Individuality in Couples (ICQ) questionnaire and demonstrated its strong psychometric properties across two samples of par...

The present study aimed to examine the relationship between perfectionism, OCD symptom dimensions, harm avoidance, and incompleteness at varying levels (i.e., higher-order/subscale) in college students. College students (n = 548) completed measures of perfectionism, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, harm avoidance and incompleteness. The results revea...

Consensual facet structures help to unify a highly fractured personality literature, but mask information obtained from unique personality facets assessed by individual personality inventories. The current study identifies the consensual and unique facets of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness based on analyses of five widely used per...

According to the literature, comorbidity rates observed on emotional disorders are linked to how the main diagnostic classification systems have traditionally defined these disorders. This paper aims to analyze the structure of symptoms evaluated with the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms-II (IDAS-II) with network analysis. A mixed sampl...

Dimensional models of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms, as seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are instrumental in explaining the heterogeneity observed in this condition and for informing cutting-edge assessments. Prior structural work in this area finds that OC symptoms cross-load under both Negative Affectivity and Psychoticism traits...

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) has serious consequences, particularly during high-risk periods such as pregnancy, which poses a significant risk to maternal mental health. However, it is unclear whether IPV presents a broad risk for psychopathology or is specific to distinct diagnoses or symptom dimensions (e.g., panic, social anxiety...

Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms-II (IDAS-II) constitutes a useful measurement tool with demonstrated psychometric properties that is contributing to the advancement of knowledge of emotional disorders within transdiagnostic models. To implement its use in clinical settings it is important that the scores can be interpreted in order to...

Significant research highlights the role of disgust propensity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other anxiety-based diagnoses and suggests that heightened disgust propensity may be a transdiagnostic risk factor for these disorders. However, OCD was reclassified from an anxiety to an obsessive-compulsive and related disorder (OCRD), due in...

Trigger warnings are defined as alerts presented before media to warn that the content may represent a trauma reminder. Their usefulness in higher education has been at the center of debate. While originally created to help individuals with posttraumatic stress symptoms decide whether or not to engage with material that could elicit, or “trigger” s...

Dimensional models of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms, as seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are instrumental in explaining the heterogeneity observed in this condition and have received considerable empirical support. Normative models of personality partially align with OC symptoms; however, maladaptive personality models present a mo...

Background : Research suggests that re-experiencing and avoidance are “core” PTSD symptoms, but there has been little research explicating their unique connections to psychopathology other than internalizing conditions such as depression and anxiety. We aim to unpack symptom heterogeneity within PTSD by exploring associations between re-experiencin...

Previous investigations on the factor structure of perfectionism have largely focused on the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale and the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale. The current study aimed to identify the underlying factor structure of perfectionism, based on several widely used measures, and to examine how these factors related to...

This study examines the extent to which dissociation and its three component facets— Depersonalization/Derealization, Memory Disturbances (amnesia), and Fantasy (absorption/imagination)—show specificity in their relations with symptoms and diagnoses of major forms of psychopathology. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore the gene...

Background The Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS-II) is composed of 99 items organized into 18 specific scales that provides dimensional assessment of depression, anxiety and bipolar symptoms. To date, IDAS-II is only available in the English and Turkish population. The main purpose of this study is to adapt the IDAS-II to the Span...

Extraversion shows both negative and positive associations with psychopathology. Previous work in this area has focused largely on either a broad higher order extraversion domain score or on specific lower-order extraversion facets. The goal of this study was to explicate how two intermediate aspects of the trait-communal extraversion and agentic e...

Objective: Given the strong relationship often found between self-report measures of anxiety and depression, the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS) was created and then expanded (IDAS-II) to assess common and unique symptom dimensions of these emotional disorders. Limited research has focused on the use of the IDAS-II with older ad...

We examine relations between extraversion and psychopathology, using a four-level hierarchical structure in which the general domain is divided into two aspects (Communal Extraversion, Agentic Extraversion), four consensual facets (Sociability, Liveliness, Venturesomeness, Dominance), and six NEO facets (Gregariousness, Warmth, Positive Emotions, A...

We examined the dispositional component of the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs) in a large adult sample. Our battery included two hierarchical measures of personality, which allowed us to examine relations with both higher-order domains and lower-order facets of the five-factor model. In addition, our study included multiple indic...

The relationship between disgust and symptoms of disorders characterized by body image disturbance (BID) is increasingly being examined. In cognitive-behavioral models of psychopathology, disgust may function as a negative emotional response to perceived body defects, leading to avoidance and compulsive behavior. Little research has examined the ro...

Depressive and anxiety disorders are severe and disabling conditions that result in substantial cost and global societal burden. Accurate and efficient identification is thus vital to proper diagnosis and treatment of these disorders. The Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS) is a reliable and well-validated measure that provides dime...

Mania, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder/psychopathy, and substance use (including alcohol use) disorders have been linked through the dominance behavioral system, a biologically based system guiding dominant behavior and responses to perceptions of power (Johnson et al. 2012). We examined the structure and correlates of measures of psych...

Despite the prevalence of postpartum depression and anxiety, current screening recommendations are limited to depression symptoms. Screening using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale–Anxiety subscale (EPDS-A) may enhance ability to detect distress in postpartum women. We aimed to replicate the EPDS-A in 200 mothers with infants hospitalized in...

Objectives: To examine the incremental identification of emotional distress in mothers of hospitalized newborns by screening for anxiety in addition to depression and to provide practical information about anxiety screening scales to facilitate instrument selection and screening implementation by nurses in the NICU. Design: In this secondary dat...

The present study examined the correlation between “not just right experiences” (NJREs)—a discomfort experienced when there is a discrepancy between one’s desired and current sensory state—and symptoms of syndromes classified as obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Participants were 319 nonclinical adults recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk...

This study sought to explicate the strength and direction of the relations between specific facets of positive affectivity (joviality, self-assurance, attentiveness, and serenity) and a broad range of psychopathology. Internalizing, externalizing, mania, and psychoticism were assessed using both self-report and interview measures in a diverse commu...

Although personality and emotion regulation abilities appear to overlap considerably, few studies have adopted an integrative approach by examining personality and emotion regulation together. Therefore, it is unclear how much incremental power emotion regulation demonstrates in predicting psychopathology beyond personality traits, and vice versa....

The primary goal of this study was to explicate the construct validity of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) by examining their relations both to each other and to measures of personality and psychopathology in a community sample (N = 255). Structural evidence indicates that the NPI is defined by...

Each year, hundreds of graduate students fail to match to an internship, preventing students from completing one of the final requirements for receiving a doctorate in professional psychology. Although several leaders in the field have weighed in on this serious issue, the perspectives of many key stakeholders in the internship imbalance—most notab...

The goal of this study was to explicate how the lower order facets of extraversion are related to psychopathology. We used a "bottom-up" approach in which specific extraversion scales from 3 comprehensive personality inventories were used to model these facets as latent factors. We collected both self-report and interview measures of a broad range...

The goal of this study was to explicate the nature of the associations between anomalous sleep experiences—that is, phenomena such as hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and nightmares—and psychopathology. The participants were 406 adults, nearly half of whom (46.3%) had received—or were currently receiving—mental health tre...

Trait affect scales have been a mainstay of the assessment literature for more than 50 years. These scales have demonstrated impressive construct validity, including substantial relations with personality, satisfaction, and psychopathology. However, the accumulating evidence has exposed several limitations, including (a) problems associated with re...

The Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) assesses traits relevant for diagnosing personality disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5). We examined the PID-5 in relation to the Big-Three and Big-Five personality traits in outpatient and community adult samples. Domain-level analyses revealed tha...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous condition, comprised of multiple symptom domains. This study used aggregate composite scales representing three core OCD dimensions (Checking, Cleaning, and Rituals), as well as Hoarding, to examine the discriminant validity, diagnostic specificity, and predictive ability of OCD symptom scales....

The original Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS) contains 11 nonoverlapping scales assessing specific depression and anxiety symptoms. In creating the expanded version of the IDAS (the IDAS-II), our goal was to create new scales assessing other important aspects of the anxiety disorders as well as key symptoms of bipolar disorder. F...

La evidencia anterior ha establecido que el afecto negativo representa un factor general que es común a la ansiedad y a la depresión, mientras que el afecto positivo bajo es más específicamente relacionado a la última. Sin embargo, poco es sabido sobre como los afectos específicos del nivel más bajo se relacionan con la depresión y estos constructo...

Listening Visits (LV), an empirically supported depression treatment delivered by non mental health specialists, were implemented into two distinctly structured programs. The relative importance of providers’ views and organizational context on implementation were examined. Thirty-seven home visitors completed pre- and post-LV training surveys asse...

Maternal depression affects approximately one in five women, is undertreated, and compromises infant development. In the United Kingdom, public health nurses provide an empirically supported intervention (Listening Visits [LV]) to depressed postpartum women. This study evaluates the effectiveness of LV when delivered by U.S. home visitors. Nineteen...

Geometric models of normal working area have been derived from analyses of theoretically possible, but contrived and restrictive arm and hand movements (Farley, 1955; Squire, 1959; Wang et al., 1999). It is unclear whether the resulting boundaries delimit a safe, comfortable and effective reach area. The goal of the current investigation was to obt...