Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Theses Theses and Dissertations 5-1-2016 THE BIG FIVE AND ADHD: AN INVESTIGATION OF SUBTYPES AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION Gabriel Casher Southern Illinois University Carbondale, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at:http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses Recommended Citation Casher, Gabriel, "THE BIG FIVE AND ADHD: AN INVESTIGATION OF SUBTYPES AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION" (2016).Theses.Paper 1914. This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please [email protected]. THE BIG FIVE AND ADHD: AN INVESTIGATION OF SUBTYPES AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION By Gabriel Alan Casher B.A., Hope College, 2013 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Master of Arts Degree Department of Psychology in the Graduate School May 2016 THESIS APPROVAL THE BIG FIVE AND ADHD: AN INVESTIGATION OF SUBTYPES AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION By Gabriel A. Casher A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the field of Psychology Approved by: Michelle Y. Kibby, Ph.D., Chair Lisabeth F. DiLalla, Ph.D. David L. DiLalla, Ph.D. Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale November 19, 2015 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Gabriel A. Casher, for the Master’s degree in Psychology, presented on November 19, 2015, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: The Big Five and ADHD: An Investigation of Subtypes and Emotional Regulation MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Michelle Kibby Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a commonly occurring neurodevelopmental disorder in children, affecting 3-7% of children (APA, 2000). Despite the high prevalence of ADHD, conceptualization of its subtypes, ADHD-PI and ADHD-C, remains under debate. One method of describing psychopathology is through the use of personality traits. The current study evaluated relationships between ADHD subtypes, ADHD symptoms, and the Big Five in 83 children between 8 and 12 years of age. Children with ADHD were consistently rated as having lower Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness than children without ADHD. Additionally, children with ADHD-PI had the lowest Openness, and children with ADHD-C had the lowest Conscientiousness, although these results differed by rater. When evaluating the symptom domains of ADHD, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Instability were associated with H/I, whereas only Conscientiousness was associated with inattention. Hyperactivity, specifically, was related to Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Instability, whereas impulsivity was related to Conscientiousness and Emotional Instability only. Last, connections between the Emotional Regulation, Emotional Instability, and H/I are discussed. Implications regarding the use of personality measures to describe psychopathology in childhood are discussed, as are the challenges of using multiple raters in clinical populations. i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisor, Michelle Kibby, for providing guidance and direction during this project. Additionally, my committee members, Lisabeth DiLalla and Dave DiLalla, provided input that contributed to the overall quality of my thesis. I also would like to thank my family for supporting my academic pursuits. My father, Michael Casher, is a role model for me and has always taught me by example. I owe much of my academic success to him. In addition, I greatly appreciate my sister, Jen Liu, whose positive attitude instills confidence in others, including myself. Last, I would like to thank my mother, Brenda Briest Casher, who instilled in me many of the values that make my work possible. These acknowledgements would not be complete without the mention of my friends and classmates. Most specifically, my graduate school cohort is made up of brilliant students, and I am fortunate to be able to rely upon them as close friends and colleagues. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ ii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................v CHAPTERS CHAPTER 1 – Introduction.................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 – Literature Review .......................................................................................4 CHAPTER 3 – Methods ....................................................................................................47 CHAPTER 4 – Results.......................................................................................................53 CHAPTER 5 – Discussion .................................................................................................63 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................109 APPENDICES Appendix A ......................................................................................................................128 Appendix B .....................................................................................................................131 Appendix C .....................................................................................................................134 VITA ..........................................................................................................................................135 iii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE Table 1: Skewness and Kurtosis Statistics for Continuous Variables ...........................................86 Table 2: Covariate Tests for Subtype Analyses .............................................................................87 Table 3: Covariate Tests for Children with and without ADHD: ..................................................88 Table 4: Internal Reliability for the BFQ-C ...................................................................................89 Table 5: ADHD/Control Comparisons on the Big Five (Parent-Report) ......................................90 Table 6: ADHD/Control Comparisons on the Big Five (Child-Report) ........................................91 Table 7: ADHD-PI/ADHD-C/Control Comparisons on the Big Five (Parent-Report) .................92 Table 8: ADHD-PI/ADHD-C/Control Comparisons on the Big Five (Child-Report....................93 Table 9: Big Five (Parent-Report) as Predictors of BASC-2 Hyperactivity/Impulsivity ..............94 Table 10: Big Five (Parent-Report) as Predictors of BASC-2 Attention Problems ......................95 Table 11: Big Five (Child-Report) as Predictors of BASC-2 Hyperactivity/Impulsivity .............96 Table 12: Big Five (Child-Report) as Predictors of BASC-2 Attention Problems ........................97 Table 13: Emotional Instability, Agreeableness, and Emotional Regulation as Predictors of H/I ..................................................................................................................98 Table 14: Emotional Instability, Agreeableness, and Emotional Regulation as Predictors of H/I (Verification) ..........................................................................................99 Table 15: Internal Reliability for Separate Hyperactivity and Impulsivity Scales ......................100 Table 16: Big Five (Parent-Report) Predicting Hyperactivity .....................................................101 Table 17: Big Five (Parent-Report) Predicting Impulsivity ........................................................102 Table 18: Big Five (Child-Report) Predicting Hyperactivity ......................................................103 Table 19: Big Five (Child-Report) Predicting Impulsivity ..........................................................104 Table 20: BFQ-C Parent-Child Correlations ...............................................................................105 iv LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE Figure 1 ........................................................................................................................................106 Figure 2 ........................................................................................................................................107 Figure 3 ........................................................................................................................................108 v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common disorders in childhood, affecting 3-7% of children (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Furthermore, research indicates that the prevalence of ADHD is increasing. According to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 2003 and 2011, the rate of having a history of ADHD diagnosis increased by 42%. Consistent with this, between 2007 and 2011, the percentage of children taking medication for ADHD increased by an average of 7% per year (Visser et al., 2014). Some researchers question whether this increase is due to an increase in actual ADHD prevalence in the population or a result of misdiagnosis by health care providers (Visser et al., 2014). For this reason, further in-depth understanding of ADHD and the specific characteristics of individuals truly having the disorder is warranted. One construct that is underutilized in the description of some traits related to ADHD is personality. Whereas literature has linked ADHD with a number of academic, cognitive, social, temperamental, neurobiological, and genetic correlates, information regarding the personality traits corresponding with ADHD in children is more scant. Furthermore, although these aforementioned correlates have been studied in relation to the subtypes of ADHD, namely ADHD-predominantly inattentive presentation (ADHD-PI), ADHD-predominantly hyperactive/impulsive presentation, and ADHD-combined presentation (ADHD-C), less is known about any potential personality differences between subtypes. Moreover, ADHD is heterogeneous, with symptom presentation varying significantly between individuals diagnosed with the same disorder (Mash & Barkley, 2003). Despite its utility in potentially fostering our understanding of ADHD, variations in personality traits have not been extensively studied or 1 utilized to help explain the heterogeneous nature of ADHD in children (De Pauw and Mervielde, 2011). This is important because using personality may help in understanding the etiology and symptomatology of psychological disorders (Nigg et al., 2002b). Therefore the purpose of my study was to evaluate differences between ADHD subtypes in terms of personality characteristics. Specifically, I assessed for differences in the levels of each of the Big Five personality traits between children with ADHD-C, ADHD-PI, and controls using a pre-existing dataset. I also investigated how well the Big Five predicted the dimensions of ADHD: inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Thus, by utilizing both a dimensional (number of symptoms) and categorical (DSM-5 diagnosis) approach in defining ADHD, this study provides insight into differences in the presentation of ADHD and how they relate to personality traits. A second purpose was to look at the role emotional regulation plays in the relationship between ADHD and personality. Emotional regulation has been proposed as a trait that differs significantly between ADHD subtypes and between ADHD and controls (Maedgen & Carlson, 2010; Sobanski et al., 2010). Furthermore, it is related both conceptually and empirically with traits from the Big Five (Dyce, 1997; Frick & Morris, 2004; Nigg, 2006). For this reason, I investigated the contribution of emotional regulation in explaining personality’s relation to ADHD, particularly hyperactivity/impulsivity. In understanding the relationships between ADHD and personality, it was of interest to note if personality traits associated with ADHD-C, particularly emotional instability, are related more directly to ADHD symptoms or if they are actually representative of emotional regulation deficits commonly found in ADHD-C. 2