Facial Emotion Recognition, Lower-Order Face Processing and Crystallized Intelligence in Personality Pathology: A Multimethod Study

Personality disorders (PDs) are commonly associated with impairments in social cognition, particularly facial emotion recognition. However, evidence also suggests deficits in more basic cognitive functions, including lower-order face processing (e.g., detection of non-emotional facial features) and indicators of general intelligence (e.g., crystallized intelligence). We examined associations of facial emotion recognition, lower-order face processing, and crystallized intelligence with personality pathology, considering both categorical and dimensional PD models and distinguishing general personality pathology (personality functioning) from specific personality pathology (pathological personality traits and specific PDs). We further tested whether associations between personality functioning and facial emotion recognition were accounted for by lower-order face processing or crystallized intelligence. In a clinical sample (n = 219), cognitive abilities were assessed using performance-based measures, and personality pathology was assessed using interviews and self-reports. Structural equation modeling, including correlated factor and bifactor-(S-1) models, was applied to separate general from specific personality pathology variance. General personality pathology showed strong negative associations with facial emotion recognition and small-to-moderate negative associations with lower-order face processing and crystallized intelligence. Associations with specific personality pathology were substantially attenuated when controlling for general personality pathology. The link between personality functioning and facial emotion recognition was only minimally accounted for by lower-order face processing or crystallized intelligence. These findings indicate that cognitive deficits in PD primarily reflect severity rather than disorder-specific variance, while also pointing to partially independent cognitive domains linked to general personality dysfunction. Our study suggests that dimensional models provide a more nuanced framework for understanding cognitive impairment in personality pathology.