Participants who completed the diagnostic interview were also administered the 196-item Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982), a Big Three measure of personality. The MPQ consists of three higher-order scales that are each composed of 3–4 lower-order subscales: Constraint (Control, Traditionalism, and Harm Avoidance), Negative Emotionality (Stress Reaction, Alienation, and Aggression), and Positive Emotionality (Wellbeing, Social Potency, Social Closeness, and Achievement). The current study used the 14-item Stress Reaction subscale (SR; e.g. ‘I am too sensitive for my own good’) and the 20-item Control subscale (CON; e.g. ‘I often act without thinking’). As a subscale of negative emotionality, SR correlates strongly with other indicators of the tendency to experience negative affective states, such as Neuroticism from the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; McCrae & Costa, 1987) (r = 0.73; Tellegen & Waller, 2008). In contrast, the CON subscale was developed to assess self-regulation and correlates moderately with Conscientiousness from the NEO-FFI (r = 0.52). Adequate internal consistency was demonstrated for both SR (α = 0.86) and CON (α = 0.81) in the current sample.
