impairment) and can be used to specify the seve rity of impairment pr esent for an individual
with any personality disorder at  a given point in time. The LPFS may also be used as a global
indicator of personality functi oning without specification of a personality disorder diagnosis,
or in the event that personality impairment  is subthreshold for a disorder diagnosis.
Personality Traits
Definition and Description
Criterion B in the alternative model involves assessments of personality traits that are
grouped into five domains. A personality trait is a tendency to feel, perceive, behave, and
think in relatively consistent ways across time  and across situations in which the trait may
manifest. For example, individuals with a high level of the personality trait of anxiousness
would tend to feel anxious readily, including in circumstances in which most people
would be calm and relaxed.  Individuals high in trait anxiousness also would perceive  sit-
uations to be anxiety-provoking more freque ntly than would individuals with lower lev-
els of this trait, and those high in the trait would tend to behave  so as to avoid situations that
they think  would make them anxious. They would thereby tend to think  about the world as
more anxiety provoking than other people.
Importantly, individuals high in trait anxiousness would not nece ssarily be anxious at
all times and in all situations. Individuals’ trait levels also can and do change throughout
life. Some changes are very general and reflect maturation (e.g., teenagers generally are
higher on trait impulsivity than are older ad ults), whereas other ch anges reflect individ-
uals’ life experiences.
Dimensionality of personality traits. All individuals can be located on the spectrum of
trait dimensions; that is, personality traits apply to everyone in different degrees rather