Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Questionable research practices violate the American Psychological Association’s Code of Ethics.
In this viewpoint article, the authors assert that psychology is in the midst of a “replication crisis” due to factors such as low power, p-hacking, publication bias, and hypothesizing after the results are known (HARKing). Individually, these practices have been decried for decades, but only in the last 15 years has the corrosive effect of these practices been fully appreciated. The authors contend that these practices are more than “questionable” and constitute unethical research practices according to the American Psychological Association’s (2017) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The public deserves the ethical and honest practice of clinical science described by APA's ethics codes. Although these issues cut across all subdisciplines of psychology, they take on special importance within clinical psychology where research on assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health problems have meaningful real-world implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Thinking beyond substances: Why behavioral “addiction” research must move past substance use disorder paradigms.
In this viewpoint article, the authors contend that behavioral addiction (BA) research must move past substance use disorder paradigms. Under the most liberal definitions of BA, activities such as eating, exercise, work, smartphone use, and a litany of others could all become addictions. Abundant clinical evidence shows that people may frequently engage in behaviors in ways that become impairing. Yet, frequency of engagement in a behavior is insufficient evidence that addiction is occurring and may be of little evidentiary value at all. There are also severe problems with assuming equivalence between all behavioral processes and substance use. The conceptual problems manifest in methodological problems, meaning that many of the methodological approaches used in substance use research are likely not valid for BA research. Given abundant evidence that the behavior patterns commonly referred to as BAs are associated with distress and impairment, BAs are likely to continue to garner interest in both clinical care and clinical science. To better understand the phenomenology of BAs, research should first start with systematic and multimethod investigations among patients reporting such problems. That is, rather than simply co-opting methods and measures from substance use disorder (SUD) research, BA research should carefully consider the signs and symptoms reported by people experiencing real impairments from excessive and dysregulated behavioral engagements. Additionally, BA researchers should seek to engage with larger theoretical perspectives on psychopathology regarding the core processes that seem to be driving such impairments. For BA research to achieve scientific legitimacy, explain clinical phenomena, and, ultimately, reduce human suffering, the study of such disorders must move beyond SUD paradigms and addiction framing alone and instead strive for riskier tests of validity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Daily manifestations of psychopathology in response to stress.
Psychological functioning is shaped by how people navigate their environment. Accordingly, psychopathology is often caused and maintained by patterns of responding to the environment that do not meet situational demands. In particular, psychopathology is often expressed in an inflexible or intense manner of coping with stressful situations. Prior research on psychopathology and daily life stress is limited by an overreliance on negative affect reactivity, which neglects the myriad responses that can create problems in a person’s life. In this study, we assessed a broad range of daily manifestations of psychopathology to examine daily psychopathology–stress associations. We conceptualized individual differences in functioning as psychopathology traits and daily fluctuations in the interrelated thoughts, behaviors, and emotions as psychopathology states, with traits and states corresponding to the same domains of functioning (i.e., antagonism, detachment, disinhibition, negative affectivity, anankastia, psychoticism). Data have been taken from two samples enriched for psychopathology (N = 112, N = 294 participants) who completed daily assessments of stressors and psychopathological states (n = 9,201, n = 4,292 days). We used multilevel structural equation models to examine average, within-person associations between stressors and psychopathological states and correlations between psychopathological traits and stress responses. Results showed that (a) most people experience increases in psychopathological states when stressed and (b) psychopathological traits relate to more consistent and stronger increases in psychopathological states. Our study suggests that psychopathology reflects how people cope with stressful situations, and what distinguishes people with high-trait psychopathology from those who experience typical upticks in psychopathology when stressed is the consistency and extremity of their responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
The P300 and hierarchical dimensions of psychopathology.
The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) framework offers the potential to better understand how neurobiological mechanisms relate to psychopathology. The P300 is an event-related potential component that indexes attention, stimulus evaluation, and categorization. A blunted P300 has been associated with psychiatric disorders across externalizing, internalizing, and thought disorder domains. However, there has been little research investigating whether the P300 is related to higher-order dimensions of psychopathology. In a sample of 225 adults aged 18–35 years (Mage = 23.09, SD = 3.83, 82.2% female) who were oversampled for psychopathology, the present study examined the associations between the P300 and both psychopathology spectra and a general factor. Participants completed multiple experimental tasks, while electroencephalography was recorded to measure the P300 elicited by auditory, tactile, and visual stimuli. Participants also completed the self-report Comprehensive Assessment of Traits Relevant to Personality Disorder to assess pathological personality dimensions. We used structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between a latent P300 factor and both psychopathology spectra (negative emotionality, detachment, psychoticism, disinhibition, and antagonism) and a general factor. The results indicated that the P300 was inversely related to the general factor. Further analyses revealed no relationships between the P300 and any individual spectrum when accounting for the general factor. Overall, the present study indicates that the P300 is associated with the general factor of psychopathology, which might explain its association with multiple categorical disorders. The study also demonstrates the potential importance of neuroscience-informed dimensional systems to understand clinical phenomena. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Where does attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder fit in the psychopathology hierarchy? A symptom-focused analysis.
Modern psychopathology classification systems position attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with different groups of conditions, either with externalizing or neurodevelopmental. As such, the optimal placement of ADHD in modern classification systems remains unclear. We advanced the literature by mapping ADHD symptoms onto three transdiagnostic psychopathology spectra—externalizing, neurodevelopmental, and internalizing—and their symptoms. ADHD symptoms had varied associations with different spectra, with subsets of symptoms relating most strongly to externalizing, others to neurodevelopmental, and still others to internalizing. Impulsivity, poor schoolwork, and low perseverance were most closely tied to externalizing, cognitive disengagement symptoms (e.g., confused, stared blankly, daydreamed) and immaturity were most closely tied to neurodevelopment, and cognitive disengagement symptoms were also tied to internalizing. Our findings advise against conceptualizing and treating ADHD as a unitary construct and against placing ADHD exclusively under either externalizing or neurodevelopmental spectra. Symptom-focused approaches will better inform modern psychopathology classification systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Data mining identifies meaningful severity specifiers for anorexia nervosa.
The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines anorexia nervosa (AN) severity based on body mass index (BMI). However, BMI categories do not reliably differentiate the intensity of AN and comorbid symptoms. Shape/weight overvaluation has been proposed as an alternative severity specifier. The present study used structural equation model (SEM) Trees to empirically determine specific levels of BMI and/or shape/weight overvaluation that differentiate AN severity. We also compared whether the SEM Tree-derived severity groups outperformed existing AN severity definitions. Participants were 1,666 adolescents and adults with AN who were receiving eating disorder treatment at one of the three levels of care (outpatient, partial hospital program, or residential). Participants completed self-reported questionnaires assessing eating pathology and comorbid symptoms. SEM Tree analyses first specified an outcome model of AN severity, and then recursively partitioned the outcome model into subgroups based on all values of BMI and shape/weight overvaluation. One-way analyses of variance and t tests determined which severity definition explained the most variance in clinical characteristics. SEM Tree analyses yielded five severity groups, all of which were defined based on increasing intensities of shape/weight overvaluation: <2.25, 2.25–3.24, 3.25–4.24, 4.25–5.24, and ≥ 5.25. No groups were defined based on BMI. SEM Tree-derived groupings explained more variance in clinical characteristics than existing severity definitions. Taken together, shape/weight overvaluation appears to be a more accurate marker of AN severity than BMI. The empirically determined AN severity scheme accounted for the most variance in clinical characteristics. Future research should assess the predictive value of these empirically defined AN severity indicators. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Capturing the experience of borderline personality disorder symptoms in the daily lives of women with eating disorders.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is highly comorbid with eating disorders (EDs), and comorbid ED–BPD is associated with a worse clinical presentation and treatment outcomes. Understanding how BPD symptoms manifest in the daily lives of those with EDs and predict momentary ED symptoms has important treatment implications. This study: (a) compared the nine BPD symptoms, assessed across 14 days, in individuals with comorbid ED–BPD, only an ED, and no ED; and (b) examined average and momentary relationships between BPD symptoms and specific ED symptoms (i.e., binge eating, purging, restriction, and maladaptive exercise) in women with EDs. Individuals with comorbid ED–BPD (n = 60), only an ED (n = 114), and controls (n = 47) completed 14 days of ecological momentary assessment. All BPD symptoms except affective instability were more common in individuals with comorbid ED–BPD than those with only an ED. Affective instability and paranoia/dissociation had the largest effect sizes, indicating the greatest differences across groups. Individuals with more frequent abandonment avoidance, anger, identity disturbance, paranoia/dissociation, and self-harm over the 14 days engaged in more frequent binge eating, while those with greater emptiness engaged in more frequent restriction and maladaptive exercise. Momentary affective instability predicted an increased likelihood of binge eating, while momentary interpersonal difficulties predicted a decreased likelihood of binge eating, at the next prompt. This study highlights the importance of considering BPD symptoms in the treatment of individuals with EDs to improve their clinical outcomes and quality of life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Within-person affect dynamics among individuals in residential treatment for opioid use disorder: An ecological momentary assessment study.
Ecological momentary assessment is increasingly leveraged to better understand affective processes underlying substance use disorder treatment and recovery. Research in this area has yielded novel insights into the roles of mean levels of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in precipitating drug craving and substance use in daily life. Little of the extant substance use disorder treatment research, however, considers dynamic patterns of PA and NA, separately or in relation to one another, or how such patterns may differ from those observed among nonclinical samples. The current ecological momentary assessment study examined between-person differences in within-person affect dynamics—including intensity, variability, instability, inertia, polarity, and spillover—among patients in residential treatment (n = 73) for opioid use disorder (OUD), both collectively and separately according to posttreatment relapse status, relative to a demographically similar nonclinical comparison group (n = 37). The results revealed no group differences in PA dynamics. The OUD group did, however, report higher average NA intensity and within-day variability relative to the comparison group. Furthermore, relative to the comparison group, OUD patients who relapsed within 120 days posttreatment exhibited greater linear declines in NA intensity across days, whereas OUD patients who did not relapse demonstrated weaker affect polarity (i.e., the within-person correlation between PA and NA). Although PA dynamics alone did not differ between groups, weaker affect polarity differentiated OUD patients who avoided relapse from the comparison group. The capacity to experience PA separately from fluctuations in NA may reflect an adaptive tendency that could reduce vulnerability to relapse among individuals in OUD treatment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Enhanced creativity in autism is due to co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
There has been longstanding speculation that enhanced creativity is associated with autism. Evidence for this association, however, is limited and derived from small-scale studies in nonclinical samples. Furthermore, nothing is known about autism-related creativity after accounting for general cognitive ability and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), that is, other factors known to predict creativity. Addressing these issues, we conducted preregistered comparisons of the creativity of autistic and nonautistic adults (N = 352), matched on age, sex, and general cognitive ability. We found clear evidence that there were no group differences on a divergent thinking creativity task. Autistic adults did self-report more real-world creative accomplishments and behaviors, but these differences did not hold after accounting for ADHD. We conclude that enhanced creativity, where observed in autistic people, is likely to be driven by co-occurring ADHD. The clinical and practical implications of these findings for strength-based approaches to psychopathology are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science - Vol 134, Iss 2