Research Interests
I believe that interpersonal functioning is an integrative nexus for psychological science and practice, bringing together a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of adaptive and maladaptive human behavior. This belief guides my research program, which is broadly informed and influenced by the interpersonal theory of personality. In all my research endeavors I use interpersonal theory to integrate aspects of trait theories, object-relations theories, attachment theory, social learning theories, and social cognition to synthetically investigate clinical phenomena.
My research broadly applies interpersonal theory and methods to personality within clinical psychology. This includes: (a) personality disorders and alternative conceptions of abnormal personality, (b) clinical and personality assessment utilizing the Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC) and Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB), and (c) personality factors in psychopathology and psychotherapy.
Recent work has focused on new interpersonal conceptualizations of dependent and narcissistic personalities, interpersonal functioning in anxiety disorders, and the development of new circumplex measurement methodologies.
I have served as president of the Society for Interpersonal Theory and
Research (SITAR). To learn more about SITAR, visit the website at www.vcu.edu/sitar
Recent Publications
Cain, N.M., Pincus, A.L., & Ansell, E.B. (in press). Narcissism at
the crossroads: Phenotypic description of pathological narcissism across
clinical theory, social/personality psychology, and psychiatric diagnosis.
Clinical Psychology Review.
Grosse Holtforth, M., Pincus, A.L., Grawe, K., Castonguay, L.G., Mauler,
B. (in press). When what you want is not what you get: Motivational correlates
of interpersonal problems in clinical and nonclinical samples. Journal
of Social and Clinical Psychology.
Hilsenroth, M.J., Menaker, J., Peters, E.J., & Pincus, A.L. (in press).
Assessment of borderline pathology using the Inventory of Interpersonal
Problems Circumplex Scales (IIP-C): A comparison of clinical samples.
Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.
Pincus, A.L., & Lukowitsky, M.R. (in press). Trait theory. In W.
A. Darity (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
(2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference.
Salzer, S., Pincus, A.L., Hoyer, J., Kreische, R., Leichsenring, F., &
Leibing, E. (in press). Interpersonal subtypes within generalized anxiety
disorder. Journal of Personality Assessment.
Conroy, D. & Pincus, A.L.(2006). A comparison of mean partialling
and dual-hypothesis testing to evaluate stereotype effects when assessing
profile similarity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 86, 142-149.
Pincus, A.L. (2006). The schizotypy of Willy Wonka [Review of the motion picture Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]. PsycCritiques-Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 51, Article 23.
Pincus, A.L., & Gurtman, M.B. (2006). Interpersonal theory and the interpersonal circumplex: Evolving perspectives on normal and abnormal personality. In S. Strack (Ed.), Differentiating normal and abnormal personality (2nd ed., pp. 83-111). New York: Springer.
Slaney, R., Pincus, A.L., & Uliaszek, A.A., & K. Wang (2006).
Conceptions of perfectionism and interpersonal problems: Evaluating groups
using the structural summary method for circumplex data. Assessment,
13, 138-153.
