 13. Personality in Adolescence  311
al., 2009) in a sample of children assessed 
with the Social Communication Question -
naire (Rutter, Bailey, & Pickles, 2003) to 
screen for autism spectrum symptoms. A 
comparison among 81 children classified 
in the low-  symptom autism spectrum, with 
94 children identified as having high au -
tism spectrum symptoms, and 500 children 
drawn from the general population, showed 
that the high-  symptom group scored sig -
nificantly lower than the general population 
group on all three temperament (negative 
affect, surgency, and effortful control) and 
all five FFM dimensions, with systemati -
cally less favorable trait scores for the high- 
symptom group. Cohen’s d effect size differ -
ences between the high-  symptom versus the 
general population group were all between 
–1.22 (effortful control) and –1.91 (extraver -
sion), with the lowest value (–0.87) for con -
scientiousness. In a similar vein, the trait of 
impulsiveness has been systematically linked 
to adolescents who not only risk injury to 
themselves or others but also to get involved 
in small crime activities (Pechorro, Ayala-
Nunes, Ray, Nunes, & Goncalves, 2016). 
Likewise, the tripartite trait dimensions of 
positive affect, negative affect, and physio -
logical hyperarousal have been proposed to 
help us understand and differentiate anxiety 
from depression in youth (Clark & Watson, 
1991; De Bolle, Decuyper, De Clercq, & De 
Fruyt, 2010).
More recently, however, there was a para -
digm shift from categorical clinical diagno -
ses, such as Axis I disorders described in the 
fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statis -
tical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; 
American Psychiatric Association, 1994), 
to more dimensional operationalizations of 
psychopathology. Especially with respect 
to the characterization of psychopathology 
in childhood and adolescence, the seminal 
work of Achenbach (1991) showed the im -
portance of two conceptually distinct di -
mensions we discussed earlier in the section 
on the three major personality prototypes, 
namely, internalizing and externalizing pa -
thology (Achenbach et al., 2008). Investi -
gating the impact of emotionality, activity, 
and sociability (EAS) temperament traits 
(Buss & Plomin, 1984) in a population- 
based longitudinal sample of 921 Norwe -
gian children studied from 18 months to 4.5 years, Mathiesen, Sanson, Stoolmiller, 
and Karevold (2009) found that high levels 
of child activity and emotionality predicted 
undercontrolled, externalizing problems in 
early childhood, while high levels of child 
emotionality and shyness and low levels of 
sociability predicted internalizing problems. 
Using the same sample at later time points, 
Karevold, Røysamb, Ystrøm, and Mathie -
sen (2009) found that higher levels of shy -
ness and emotionality in childhood predict -
ed increased levels of internalizing problems 
in early adolescence.
De Bolle, Beyers, De Clercq, and De Fruyt 
(2012) examined different conceptual mod -
els outlining how dimensional traits could 
be related to these internalizing and exter -
nalizing pathology dimensions in childhood 
and adolescence. In a combined sample of 
community ( N = 571) and clinically referred 
(N = 146) children and adolescents, they 
examined the validity of continuity, patho -
plasty, and complication models to describe 
associations between general personality 
traits and changes therein, assessed with the 
HiPIC (De Fruyt et al., 2007), and the Inter -
nalizing and Externalizing syndrome scales 
of the CBCL (Achenbach, 1991). They first 
controlled for item overlap between the per -
sonality and psychopathology item sets. De 
Bolle and colleagues (2012) found strong 
support for the continuity model, showing 
dynamic change between personality and 
psychopathology dimensions across time. 
Change in emotional stability and benevo -
lence was negatively related to change in 
both internalizing and externalizing syn -
dromes, whereas change in extraversion was 
negatively related to change in internalizing 
and to a lesser extent in externalizing pa -
thology. Changes in conscientiousness and 
imagination were exclusively associated 
with change in the externalizing dimension. 
Emotional stability and extraversion showed 
stronger continuity associations with inter -
nalizing than with externalizing problems, 
whereas benevolence was more negatively 
associated with externalizing problems than 
with internalizing ones. De Bolle et al. fur -
ther found support for more specific patho -
plasty effects,  that is, personality traits and 
change therein affecting psychopathology. 
Change in benevolence negatively affected 
change in internalizing problems. They also 