The mediating role of emotion dysregulation as a transdiagnostic factor in the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders symptoms severity

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The mediating role of emotion dysregulation as a transdiagnostic factor in the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders symptoms severity Reza Abdia, , Razieh Pakb ⁎

a b

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran Faculty of Education and Psychology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran

ARTICLE INFO

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Pathological personality dimensions Emotional disorders Emotion dysregulation Transdiagnostic factor

The present study aims to investigate the mediating role of emotional dysregulation as a transdiagnostic factor in the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorder symptoms severity. A total of 440 university students were selected randomly from two universities, and were assessed through Personality Inventory for DSM 5 Brief Form (PID-5-BF)-Adult, Depression, Anxiety and stress Scales (DASS-21), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERs). The results obtained from the correlation revealed that there is a direct and significant relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders (anxiety and depression). In addition, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) depicted that emotional dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, can mediate the relationship between pathological personality and emotional disorders (anxiety, depression, and stress). The current findings illustrate how emotional dysregulation can increase the influenceability of pathological personality dimensions on emotional disorders.

1. Introduction Emotions refer to brief and general sentimental reactions, which emerge along with a pleasant or unpleasant affective state in the face of an unexpected reality (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006). Emotion depends not only on the nature of emotion provoking factor, but it is also dependent on other factors like personality (Gross, 2008). Emotions, feelings, and affections - aside from constituting a major part of human personality - have highly sensitive and fundamental position, as they can be the source of many psychological-physical disorders (Gross et al., 2006). A number of experts emphasize that emotion bonds with personality (Gross, 2008); and presume tendency toward negative emotions, positive emotions, and social emotions is associated with negative affectivity, detachment, and antagonism from DSM-5 traits model (Vachon & Krueger, 2015). Similar to the fact that negative affect is considered as a common element in emotional disorder syndromes (Watson, Clark, & Carey, 1988). Emotional disorders, as the most prevalent group of psychological disorders, hold high levels of anxiety, depression, fear, and physical symptoms (Goldberg, Krueger, Andrews, & Hobbs, 2009). The majority of scholars include depression and anxiety disorders in emotional disorders (Barlow, 2014). Depression and anxiety disorders share the same

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biological and psychological vulnerabilities and mediating mechanisms. Anxiety is the very first reaction to a stressful situation, and depression occurs following disappointment in coping with demanding life events (Chorpita & Barlow, 1998). The triple vulnerability model, which is applied to anxiety and depression, suggests that biological vulnerabilities, general psychological vulnerabilities, and specific psychological vulnerabilities contribute to the development and maintenance of such emotional disorders (Barlow, Allen, & Choate, 2004). In addition, primary life experiences can develop the feeling of uncontrollability and unpredictability of events and, most particularly, negative incidents. If these feelings are accompanied by ineffective and weak coping styles, the contribution of general psychological pathology will depend on the subsequent negative emotional states and anxiety experiences. A major part of researches on biological vulnerability is focused on psychoticism, negative affect, and behavioral inhibition; and it seems they share a common cause with biological vulnerability in the development of emotional disorders (Bentley et al., 2013). For example, many personality traits such as extraversion, conscientiousness, and especially neuroticism have shown strong association with emotional disorders (Mahaffey, Watson, Clark, & Kotov, 2016). Although personality and psychopathology are different entities,

Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Abdi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.09.026 Received 7 April 2018; Received in revised form 15 September 2018; Accepted 18 September 2018 0191-8869/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Abdi, R., Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.09.026

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students were randomly selected as participants. Participants were undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students, with the average age of 19 to 37 years old (M = 26.22; SD = 2.06), being 158 (35.9%) males and 281 (63.9%) females. In general, 90% (n = 400) of the participants were single and only 10% (n = 40) were married. In the study population, 257 (58.4%) participants were undergraduate students, 119 (27%) participants were postgraduate students, and 64 (14.5%) participants were studying at the PhD level. This study was conducted in accordance with Declaration of Helsinki Standards. To conduct this research, the purpose of the research was first described for participants, their consent was drawn to participate in the evaluations, and the subjects were assured that the extracted information and their names were confidential. At all stages of the research, ethical considerations were observed.

pathological personality is considered as a risk factor for psychopathology (e.g., Kotov, Watson, Robles, & Schmidt, 2007; Vachon & Krueger, 2015). The common structure of personality and psychological damage can be seen in DSM-5 Trait Model, which is considered to be the basis for psychological disorders (Kendler, Prescott, Myers, & Neale, 2003; Krueger, 1999). The DSM-5 Trait Model is focused on the Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) model (Roskam et al., 2015), and is organized by inferring from an experimental pathological personality structure including several broad domains: negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism (Krueger, Derringer, Markon, Watson, & Skodol, 2012). For instance, empirical evidences have highlighted the key role of negative affectivity (Böhnke, Lutz, & Delgadillo, 2014), as a transdiagnostic factor, in emotional disorders. Also, a study by Pollock, McCabe, Southard, and Zeigler-Hill (2016) revealed that pathological personality traits are strongly associated with emotional dysregulation (Pollock et al., 2016). Actually, failure in emotional regulation, same as the use of maladaptive regulation strategies, have been observed in many emotional disorders as well as some other disorders (qtd. in Abdi, Bakhshipor, & MahmoudAlilou, 2013; Kring & Bachorowski, 1999). Although emotion regulation plays a role in the majority of emotional disorders, its role is more fundamental in depression and anxiety (Brandt, Gonzalez, Grover, & Zvolensky, 2013; Marganska, Gallagher, & Miranda, 2013). Recently, emotional dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, has attracted much attention to the occurrence of various types of psychological disorders (e.g., Vine & Aldao, 2014; Fairholme et al., 2013; Gruber, Eidelman, & Harvey, 2008; Aldao, 2012 showed that emotion dysregulation had a transdiagnostic nature in the emergence of a large number of psychological disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders). Diagnosis of transdiagnostic problems of pathological personality dimensions (Rodriguez-Seijas, Eaton, & Krueger, 2015) and the process of emotion regulation in psychiatric disorders provide useful intervening information for effective treatment. The psychological pathology approach gains a conceptual understanding of complex correlated patterns among psychological disorders by means of transdiagnostic framework (Ellard, Fairholme, Boisseau, Farchione, & Barlow, 2010; Farchione et al., 2012). Generally, transdiagnostic factors include several agents (environmental and biological) which, as risk factors, contribute to the development or persistence of psychological vulnerability of psychiatric disorders. These factors may be influential in the comorbidity of disorders (Aldao, Gee, De Los Reyes, & Seager, 2016). Although theoretical (Eysenck, 1987 and Gray, 1972) and empirical (Stanton, Rozek, Stasik-O'Brien, Ellickson-Larew, & Watson, 2016; Watson & Naragon-Gainey, 2014) literature is dedicated to the relationship between personality and psychological damage and how motivational and emotional system may mediate a relationship as such, the majority of theories and previous experiences are focused on normal personality traits. Therefore, it seems that limited researches have been conducted to investigate the transdiagnostic effects of emotion dysregulation in relation to pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders. In this study, the researchers presumed that 1. There is a direct and significant relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders; and 2. Emotion dysregulation is considered as a transdiagnostic factor in the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders (like depression, anxiety, and stress). Thus, the present study aimed at investigating whether emotion dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, mediates the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorder symptoms severity (Fig. 1).

3. Measurements 3.1. Personality Inventory for DSM 5 Brief Form (PID-5-BF)-Adult Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Brief Form is developed by Kruger et al., to measure the dimensional model of DSM-5 personality traits (Krueger et al., 2012). Iranian version of this questionnaire consists of 25 items. The factor structure of this questionnaire has identified five factors including negative affect, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism. Items are scored on a 4-value Likert scale from Strongly disagree (0 points) to Strongly agree (3 points). The overall reliability is 0.86 and the internal consistency of its factors is reported to be ranging from 0.76 to 0.89 by Abdi and Chalabianloo (Abdi & Chalabianloo, 2017). In the current study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.80. 3.2. Depression, Anxiety and stress Scales (DASS-21) This scale is designed by Lovibond and Lovibond (1995). The Iranian version of this questionnaire consists of 21 multiple choice items, and each of the options is scored 0 to 3 points, respectfully. The subscales of anxiety, depression, and stress were each measured with 14 separate questions. Higher scores are indicative of more severe symptoms. This scale is validated by Sahebi, Asghari, and Salari (2005) for Iranian population; Cronbach's alpha is reported to be 0.78 for stress, 0.77 for depression, and 0.79 for anxiety. Correlation of depression subscale of this test with Beck Depression Inventory is reported 0.70, anxiety subscale with Zung Anxiety Scale is reported 0.76, and stress subscale with Perceived Stress Scale is reported to be 0.49 (Sahebi et al., 2005). In the present study, the DASS total score demonstrated good internal consistency, and the sub-scores for DASS_Depression (Cronbach's α = 0.82), DASS_anxiety (Cronbach's α = 0.80), and DASS_ stress (Cronbach's α = 0.75) also displayed good internal consistency. 3.3. Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERs) First designed by Gratz and Roemer (2004) the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) contains 36 items. It has one overall score and 6 exclusive scores for subscales associated with various facets of difficulty in emotion regulation. The subscales are: nonacceptance, inability to employ behavior which is fit for the goal, troubles in impulse control, lack of emotional awareness, limited access to emotion regulation strategies, and lack of emotional clarity. The items are scored based on a five point Likert scale ranging from Almost never (1) to Almost always (5). In Iran, Khanzadeh et al. reported the Cronbach's alpha of this scale between 0.80 and 0.89, and retest coefficients of this scale ranged from 0.57 to 0.80 (Khanzadeh, Saeediyan, Hosseinchari, & Edrissi, 2012). In the current study, the DERS total score displayed good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.85).

2. Methods 2.1. Participants and procedures In this research, from several faculties in two universities, 440 2

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Fig. 1. The finalized structural model (N = 440). Note: factor loadings are standardized.

personality dimensions (r-0.438), emotional disorders (r-458), depression (r-0.569), anxiety (r-0.816), and stress (r-0.592). The overall results showed that emotion dysregulation had a significant and direct correlation with the variables of pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders (depression, anxiety, and stress).

3.4. Data analysis Initially, descriptive statistics and bivariate Pearson correlation coefficient between all variables were examined. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to assess the hypothesized structural relationships between variables. The mediation model examined whether dysfunctional emotion regulation mediated the relationship between Pathological Personality Dimensions and Emotional Disorders Symptoms Severity. The mediation model as well as model fit was examined with IBM SPSS AMOS Version 18. The model fit was assessed based on several criteria: Normative Fitness Index (NFI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), AIC = Akaike information criterion, and ECVI = expected cross − validation index. Values lower than 0.08 for the RMSEA and values close to 0.90 for the GFI, NFI, IFI, and CFI were used to determine a good-fitting model (Hu & Bentler, 1999). When testing the indirect effects, the researchers used a bootstrapping mediation method with 2000 re-samples and bias-corrected confidence intervals.

4.2. Mediating role of emotional difficulty In order to test the hypothesis that emotion dysregulation mediates between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders, structural equation method of AMOS 18 was used (Table 2). The indexes illustrated that the model provides a relatively adequate medium for data (Model 1). However, based on the indexes suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999) the fitness of the model was relatively low. Using output information from the AMOS software, correction indexes were presented for model 1, and it depicted that conditions of variable subscales of error were allowed to correlate. Thus, convergent variances for these errors were designed and the model was retested (Model 2). The result of the analysis of corrected model (Model 2) presented adequate and acceptable fitness for data (Table 2). As the results revealed, model 2 in comparison to model 1 could increase the fitness indexes, significantly. Therefore, model 2 was chosen as the better model (Fig. 1). Bootstrapping procedures in AMOS were used to test the significance of the mediation effects of emotion dysregulation. In this study, 2000 bootstrapping samples were generated from the original data set (N = 440) by random sampling. According to the results, pathological personality exerted its indirect effect on emotional disorders through the mediating effect of emotion dysregulation. The mediating effect of emotion dysregulation and its associated 95% confidence intervals are displayed in Table 3. Table 3, illustrates the direct, indirect, and overall effect of pathological personality dimensions on emotional disorders through emotional dysregulations. According to the table, pathological personality dimensions have overall effect on emotional disorders; and emotional dysregulation plays a mediating role in the effect of pathological

4. Results The current research used SPSS 22.0 and Amos 18.0 to analyze the data. This research first conducted a correlation analysis to establish the correlation between the main variables. 4.1. Descriptive statistics The correlations, mean, and standard deviation of the variables in the study are provided in Table 1. Significant correlations were found among the study variables (pathological personality dimensions, emotional disorders, and emotional dysregulation). The pathological personality dimensions were significantly correlated with the use of emotional disorders symptom (anxiety and stress), while no significant correlations were found in depression, and pathological personality. Emotion dysregulation depicted a strong correlation with pathological 3

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlation among variables (N = 440).

1 Negative affectivity 2 Detachment 3 Antagonism 4 Disinhibition 5 Psychoticism 6 Depression 7 Anxiety 8 Stress 9 Pathological personality 10 Emotional disorders 11 Emotion dysregulation Mean Standard deviation ⁎⁎

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

1 0.289⁎⁎ 0.294⁎⁎ 0.300⁎⁎ 0.399⁎⁎ 0.082 0.372⁎⁎ 0.261⁎⁎ 0.663⁎⁎ 0.377⁎⁎ 0.314⁎⁎ 6.89 3.03

1 0.512⁎⁎ 0.429⁎⁎ 0.457⁎⁎ 0.050 0.269⁎⁎ 0.176⁎⁎ 0.737⁎⁎ 0.452⁎⁎ 0.275⁎⁎ 6.26 2.28

1 0.377⁎⁎ 0.530⁎⁎ −0.001 0.381⁎⁎ 0.165⁎⁎ 0.754⁎⁎ 0.394⁎⁎ 0.337⁎⁎ 6.49 2.27

1 0.371⁎⁎ 0.033 0.326⁎⁎ 0.174⁎⁎ 0.678⁎⁎ 0.482⁎⁎ 0.301⁎⁎ 5.87 2.61

1 0.016 0.361⁎⁎ 0.212⁎⁎ 0.763⁎⁎ 0.378⁎⁎ 0.321⁎⁎ 6.94 2.15

1 0.240⁎⁎ 0.448⁎⁎ 0.068 0.464⁎⁎ 0.569⁎⁎ 18.82 3.93

1 0.289⁎⁎ 0.480⁎⁎ 0.484⁎⁎ 0.816⁎⁎ 21.87 5.01

1 0.284⁎⁎ 0.277⁎⁎ 0.592⁎⁎ 13.79 2.53

1 0.578⁎⁎ 0.436⁎⁎ 32.41 9.671

1 0.458⁎⁎ 50.13 17.827

1 102.19 16.706

p < 0.01.

personality dimensions on emotional disorders. In other words, people who have higher levels of pathological personality dimensions are more likely to suffer from emotional dysregulation problems which, in turn, enhance the risk of emotional disorders. Therefore, emotion dysregulation could increase the effectiveness of personality pathology and act as a reinforcing factor in effecting emotional disorders.

enhanced feelings of tension, anxiety, or fear (Watson, 2005). Negative affectivity creates an abundance of tendency and scope toward negative emotion and emotional disorders (Watson et al., 1988). Individuals, who show high levels of detachment, face limitations in the expression of emotions, especially in pleasure seeking capacity. They often prefer solitude and avoid social activities and contacts (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These individuals tend to be seriously stressed and troubled in certain situations regarding communicating with others. Actually, high levels of stress and anxiety are considered as aspects of psychological disorders or psychological defects (TuckerLadd, 2000). The results of the present review indicated that pathological personality dimensions are not significantly associated with depression. This finding is not in line with the results of a study by Clark, Watson, & Mineka, 1994; however, the findings of the present research may be influenced by the data, in which the rate of depression was reported to be low in the nonclinical sample. Yet, Mineka, Watson, and Clark (1998) suggested that low level of positive emotion is a particular attribute of depression, which distinguishes it from anxiety. Therefore, negative affectivity is a nonspecific aspect, which is common between anxiety and depression. Watson et al. (1988) suggested that low level of positive emotion (e.g. Lack of pleasure) is specifically related to depression and differentiates it from anxiety disorders. Given that emotional disturbances constitute a wide range of psychiatric disorders, emotional maladaptation and some common causative factors play a significant role in psychiatric disorders. The main goal of this study was to investigate the mediating role of emotion dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, in pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorder symptoms severity. The results of this study indicated that emotion dysregulation has a direct and significant correlation with the variables of pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders (depression, anxiety, and stress). Also, pathological personality dimensions effect emotional disorders directly and indirectly; and emotion dysregulation could increase the effectiveness of personality pathology and mediate the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders. Actually, emotion dysregulation is considered as a transdiagnostic structure, and is persistently linked to emotional disorders

5. Discussion Previous literature is dedicated to the relationship between personality and psychological damages with mediation of emotional systems, and has confirmed that pathological personality traits are associated with emotional disorders and emotional dysregulation (Pollock et al., 2016). Also, emotional dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, plays a role in a variety of emotional disorders (Aldao, 2012; Fairholme et al., 2013; Gruber et al., 2008; Vine & Aldao, 2014). However, the current study is not concentrated on the transdiagnostic effects of emotional dysregulation in the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders. In this study, the mediating role of emotional dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, is investigated between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders (depression, anxiety, and stress). The results obtained from the study revealed that pathological personality dimensions are directly and significantly associated with emotional disorder symptoms (anxiety and stress). These results are in line with the studies of Mahaffey et al., 2016; Stanton et al., 2016; Watson & Naragon-Gainey, 2014; Kotov et al., 2007; Markon, Krueger, & Watson, 2005, which indicate that there is a significant and systematic relationship between personality (normal and abnormal) and psychological damages. While these findings suggest that the hierarchical structure of personality is intertwined in a complicated way with emotional disorders, pathological personality traits have stronger predictive power for emotional disorders. For instance, multiple studies have depicted that a significant dimension of negative affect and detachment is positively related to the majority of anxiety disorders (Mahaffey et al., 2016). As the potential signs of threat are perceived, individuals react with high levels of negative affectivity with emphasis on the threat and also Table 2 Fit indices among the competing models.

Model 1 Model 2 (Modified Model 1)

χ2

df

χ2/df

RMSEA

IFI

CFI

NFI

AIC

ECVI

410.273 69.070

77 49

5.328 1.410

0.099 0.031

0.847 0.991

0.846 0.991

0.818 0.971

466.273 209.070

1.062 0.476

Note: N = 440, RMSEA = root – mean square error of approximation, IFI = Incremental Fit Index, CFI - comparative Fit Index, AIC = Akaike information criterion, and ECVI = expected cross – validation index. 4

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Table 3 Bootstrapping total effect, indirect effect, direct effect and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the meditational model. Model path ways

Total

Direct

Indirect

Estimate

95% CI

Emotion dysregulation → pathological personality

0.583

0.583

0.000

0.583

Emotion dysregulation → emotional disorders Pathological personality → emotional disorders

0.331 0.756

0.331 0.563

0.000 0.193

0.331 0.563⁎⁎⁎

Lower 0.480 0.168 0.401

⁎⁎⁎

⁎⁎⁎

⁎⁎⁎

Upper 0.675 0.490 0.717

p < 0.001.

and personality pathology. These results, with regards to the mediating role of emotion dysregulation and increase in the effect of pathological personality dimensions (predictive variable) on emotional disorders (criterion variable), are in line with the findings of Hambour, ZimmerGembeck, Clear, Rowe, & Avdagic, 2018; Vachon & Krueger, 2015; Stanton et al., 2016; Aldao, 2012; Watson & Naragon-Gainey, 2014; Fairholme et al., 2013 which indicate emotional dysregulation, as a transdiagnostic factor, benefits from increasing predictive potency. The relationship between non-acceptance of emotional responses and negative emotions (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) increases individual's vulnerability to anxiety and depression; thus, non-acceptance of emotional responses makes individuals who have a high level of negative affectivity become tense, anxious, and fearful in the face of negative emotions (Thomas et al., 2013), and takes away their ability to evaluate the proper situation and employ effective strategies to change the situation or adapt their emotional responses (Pollock et al., 2016). These people are likely to be unable to identify and describe their emotions, thus they lose the potency of reviewing, assessment of emotional experiences, and emotion modification. Therefore, emotion dysregulation leads to stabilized negative emotion and vulnerability to anxiety and depressive disorders. Emotion dysregulation can bond with the antagonism dimension of pathological personality and also emotional disorders. Antagonistic individuals often face difficulties in controlling their movements and impulses. Inability to control their movements and impulses in confrontation with negative emotions and experiences, without considering their own demands and tendencies, and also lack of partial emotional responsiveness in antagonistic individuals makes them perceive others' aggressive responses as attempts to challenge or hinder their innate demands (Pollock et al., 2016). Thus, inability to employ efficient strategies of emotion regulation in emergency situations leads to stress and anxiety in these individuals. Generally, the processing of emotional experiences plays a major role in development and permanence of emotional disorders. A large number of emotional disorders including anxiety and depression are linked to the individual's inability to regulate emotions. Emotion regulation process can influence mental health (Gross, 2008). Some transdiagnostic or common causative factors, including emotional dysregulation, play significant roles in emotional disorders which are mainly constituted of depressive and anxiety disorders (Barlow et al., 2004). According to Barlow's triple vulnerability model, the placement of these two types of biological and general psychological vulnerabilities in one path and their intensification due to life-threatening stresses may lead to the appearance of clinical symptoms, the way in which symptoms appear is determined by specific psychological vulnerability of the individual (Bentley et al., 2013). Accordingly, this research proposes that emotional dysregulation can be a common vulnerability factor among emotional and pathological personality disorders; thus, emotion dysregulation mediates as a transdiagnostic factor in this regard, and is considered as a key factor in psychotherapy which can be considered in treatment interventions. More particularly, this is the very first step, in our knowledge, toward the investigation of emotional dysregulation in relation to these two variables. Focusing the treatment on the transdiagnostic factor of emotion

dysregulation can be a beneficial way of treatment and prevention from emotional disorders. The findings of this research call up factors such as rumination (Mclaughlin & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2011), negative repetitive thoughts (Ehring & Watkins, 2008), and perfectionism (Egan, Wade, & Shafran, 2011); so that multiple risk factors in other concurrent models are taken into consideration. Although many risk factors, alone, can be correlated with or are predictive of the signs of emotional disorders, models that include multiple factors can enhance the ability to scrutinize and predict, and add to the validity of the results. Therefore, it is important to consider further types of mental disorders and emotional disorders in order to determine whether emotion dysregulation can explain the association with personality pathology or is unique to emotional disorders, as emotion dysregulation can be a major factor which relates personality pathology to various types of emotional disorders. This study had some limitations. First, it only considered one transdiagnostic factor. In future researches, it will be the best to investigate other transdiagnostic factors as well. In addition, following the repetition of these findings, future research is suggested to be conducted to investigating the symptoms severity of certain emotional disorders; and in order to be generalized, this research can be conducted with other samples (for instance clinical examples). Particularly, due to the fact that this sample was nonclinical and included university students, it might not be representative of other samples. Despite these limitations, the current study was the first attempt to investigate emotion dysregulation as a transdiagnostic factor in the relationship between pathological personality dimensions and emotional disorders in a sample of Iranian cases. This study includes important implications for a better understanding of the relationship between pathological personality dimensions, emotional disorders, and emotional dysregulation. As emotional dysregulation is the cause and indicative of severe load of emotional disorders along with personality pathology, the importance of the present research in the identification of fundamental processes is justified. Ethical approval This manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. All authors have approved the manuscript, and agree with its submission to Personality and Individual Differences Journal. This research is not conducted as a clinical trial. According to the manuscript's corresponding author, there is no conflict of interest and this study did not benefit from any funds or financial support. Conflict of interest According to the manuscript's corresponding author, there is no conflict of interest and this study did not have any funds or financial support. This research is not conducted as a clinical trial, and thus, there was no need for codes of ethics. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 5

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