Affective neuroscience correlates of personality and the formation of early maladaptive schemas – preliminary reports

Purpose:
The concept of emotional needs occupies a key place in Young’s theory of early maladaptive schemas (EMS). The primary caregiver’s attitude that is ineffective from the point of view of such needs leads to frustration, which is expressed in the personality of the child and in the resulting disorders. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between retrospective evaluation of parenting as a tool for meeting basic emotional needs and the neural correlates of personality – affective neuroscience emotional systems, according to the theory by Panksepp.

Methods:
The study involved 65 individuals between the age of 18 and 62 years (mean age: M = 34.09). The following instruments were used: Young Parenting Inventory (YPI) and Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS).

Results:
Meaningful statistical differences in mothers’ and fathers’ behavior are related to one domain – Impaired Autonomy and/or Performance (p < 0.001). Within this domain, all schemas reached statistical significance, with fathers showing the strongest influence on the formation of the Failure schema (p = 0.022). Across all schema, the majority of statistically significant results were found in two domains: Disconnection/Rejection and the Impaired Autonomy and/or Performance. Significant statistical correlations between EMS and neural emotional systems were predominantly associated with the Anger and Sadness systems.

Conclusions:
Retrospective assessments of maternal and paternal behaviors show the strongest associations with schemas in two EMS domains: Disconnection/Rejection and Impaired Autonomy/Performance. These two domains are further linked to the activation of two neural emotional systems: Anger and Sadness.