The interpersonal problems of the socially avoidant: self and peer shared variance.

We demonstrate a means of conservatively combining self and peer data regarding personality pathology and interpersonal behavior through structural equation modeling, focusing on avoidant personality disorder traits as well as those of two comparison personality disorders (dependent and narcissistic). Assessment of the relationship between personality disorder traits and interpersonal problems based on either self or peer data alone would result in counterintuitive findings regarding avoidant personality disorder. In contrast, analysis of the variance shared between self and peer leads to results that are more in keeping with hypothetical relationships between avoidant traits and interpersonal problems. Similar results were found for both dependent personality disorder traits and narcissistic personality disorder traits, exceeding our expectations for this method.