The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) defines personality disorders as categorical entities that are distinct from themselves and from normal personality traits. However, many scientists now believe that personality disorders can best be conceptualized using a dimensional model of traits that span normal and abnormal personality, such as the Five-Factor Model (FFM). Many research studies have indicated that the current personality disorder system can be adequately conceptualized using the FFM. However, if the FFM or any dimensional model is to be considered as a credible alternative to the current model, it must first demonstrate an increment in the validity of the assessment offered within a clinical setting. Thus, the current study extended previous research by comparing the convergent and discriminant validity of the current DSM-IV-TR model to the FFM across four assessment methodologies. Eighty-eight individuals that were currently receiving ongoing psychotherapy were assessed for the FFM and the DSM-IV-TR personality disorders using self-report, informant report, structured interview, and therapist ratings. The results indicated that the FFM had an appreciable advantage over the DSM-IV-TR in terms of discriminant validity and, at the domain level, convergent validity. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed.

Psychopathy is associated with several behavioral and psychophysiological deficits. Lynam (2002) has argued that the use of an overarching conceptualization of psychopathy can provide a parsimonious explanation of psychopathic pathology. The current study examined relations between tasks used to explore psychopathic pathology and dimensions from the Five Factor Model of personality. Undergraduate participants completed the NEO PI-R, the BART, a go/no-go task, an emotional morph task, and provided physiological responses to stimuli. While hypothesized relations to FFM psychopathy composites were generally unsupported, other interesting relations to traits were identified. Results indicated that hypoarousal to negative stimuli was negatively related to pan-impulsivity. Maladaptive risk taking was positively related to panimpulsivity and high self-directed negative affect. Response modulation deficits were negatively related to pan-impulsivity, low self-directed negative affect, and facets of openness. Deficits in empathic responding were positively related to other-directed negative affect and self-directed negative affect, and negatively related to pan-impulsivity and interpersonal assertiveness. Although it remains unclear whether the failure to support hypotheses was related to the study variables or population, results indicate that the FFM can provide additional information with regard to what deficit tasks assess.

Personality tests are widely used in South Africa. The application of personality assessment techniques for clinical and personnel decisions has been a major activity for psychologists. All main personality models have ken developed in a Western context: the question therefore arises whether these models are adequate and sufficient for South Africa. There is a need to develop personality tests that are based on South African cultures. In South Africa the continuous use of Western-based personality tests raise a challenge. The challenge also lies with the current legislation with regard to the use of psychological tests. The challenge is to construct an inventory suited to the local needs while retaining the standards of validity and reliability expected of established assessment instruments. Our socially diverse society and its wide implications for the cultural dynamics of personality evaluations that we find in South Africa warrant further research. A qualitative research design was used in this study, including interviewing as a data gathering method. A total of 120 Tshivenda speaking people from the Thohoyandou district in Limpopo province and Pretoria in Gauteng province were interviewed. A total of 4 722 personality descriptors with a view to Tshivenda speaking people were obtained from the participants, and then translated into English. Content analysis was used to analyse, interpret and reduce these descriptors to a total of 150 personality characteristics which are the most important perspectives of personality for the Tshivenda speaking individuals. The personality characteristics were divided into eight categories, namely interpersonal relatedness, sociability, conscientiousness, emotionality, meanness, intellect, dominance and a category for other traits. The interpersonal relatedness factor in the Vhavenda personality characteristics could be regarded as a cultural factor. The Tshivenda speaking people are also sociable with a preference for companionship, social skills and numerous friendships. They also have a strong sense of purpose and high inspiration levels. The Tshivenda speaking people also experience emotions and feelings related to situations that they face. Intellect characteristics could also be extrapolated from the personality characteristics of the Vhavenda people. The findings of this study were compared to the five factor model, and evidence was found for extraversion and conscientiousness in particular. Very few characteristics of openness on the five factor model correspond to that of the Tshivenda speaking people, except in the cases of a few personality characteristics that were labelled under the category of intellect. Recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

This study explored psychopathic personality traits among a non-criminal, college undergraduate sample. Much research has been done on conceptualizing the construct of psychopathy, but this work has been conducted primarily with incarcerated individuals using a structured interview, The Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003). The goal of the current study was to assess psychopathic traits among non-criminal individuals using The Self-Report Psychopathy Scale - Version Four (SRP-IV; Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, in press), and compare how SRP-IV scores were associated with a well recognized semi-structured interview for psychopathy, The Psychopathy Checklist – Screening Version (PCL: SV; Hart, Cox, & Hare, 1995). The study also examined whether psychopathic personality traits could be predicted using a measure of normal-range personality, based on the five-factor model (FFM; Digman, 1990), and a measure developed by Loevinger (1976) related to ego development. Five-Factor Model Rating Form (FFMRF; Mullins-Sweat, Jamerson, Samuel, Olson, & Widiger, 2006) scores and Total Protocol Ratings (TPR score) on the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT; Hy & Loevinger, 1996) were used to predict psychopathy scores. Correlations of SRP-IV scores and PCL: SV scores with FFMRF scores and WUSCT TPR scores were also examined for their uniformity. As predicted, there were significant, negative correlations between FFM domains, Agreeableness and Conscientious, and SRP-IV scores, as well as significant, negative correlations between WUSCT TPR scores and SRP-IV scores. These correlations ranged from small to strong for both SRP-IV overall scores and for SRP-IV factor scores (i.e., Interpersonal Manipulation, Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle, and Criminal Tendencies). Additionally, FFM domain scores and WUSCT TPR scores significantly predicted SRP-IV scores. FFM domains, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and WUSCT TPR scores, were the strongest predictors of SRP-IV scores. Similar results were found when FFM domain scores and WUSCT TPR scores predicted SRP-IV factor scores. Results also indicated Agreeableness and Conscientious explained an additional 24% of the variance in psychopathy scores, after controlling for WUSCT TPR scores. Conversely, WUSCT TPR scores explained an additional 5% of the variance in psychopathy scores after controlling for Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Finally, as predicted, the differences in correlations between psychopathy scores (i.e., PCL: SV, SRP-IV), and Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and WUSCT TPR scores were not statistically significant providing evidence that correlates of psychopathic traits can be measured among non-criminal individuals using a self-report measure, the SRP-IV, and that these findings are concordant with those based on a standardized structured assessment for psychopathy. Limitations of the study, implications, and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

This study performs a stress testing exercise on the Italian banking system in view of the 2007 financial crisis which was triggered by the crash of subprime mortgages. At the base of the global financial crisis was a failure of finan- cial regulators to quantify the accumulation of endogenous risks. Following the crisis, stress testing has acquired particular emphasis in the field of risk measurement under the Basel II supervisory framework. An econometric rela- tionship between the probability of default and the macroeconomic indicators is modeled according to the Merton approach for structural analysis using data on the Italian banking system. A latent factor model is employed to under- stand the dependence of the credit risk on the changes in the macroeconomic environment. The resulting relationship is exploited to compute the capital requirement under stressed conditions in order to draw inference about the resilience of the Italian banking system. JEL Classification G0, G01, G17, G10, C50, C22 Keywords Financial crisis, macroeconomic stress testing, credit risk, latent-factor model Author's e-mail jacomessi@yahoo.it Supervisor's e-mail petr.gapko@seznam.cz Abstrakt Klasifikace JEL G0, G01, G17, G10, C50, C22 Klíčová slova Financial crisis, macroeconomic stress test- ing, credit risk,...

EMU as the only functioning single currency area has been criticised as a non-optimal currency area since the Treaty on European Union was signed. Despite this, it has been seen as, probably, the most complete economic project that has ever been conducted by any group of governments. Through Dynamic Factor model and Panel VAR method, we are focusing on the issues of business cycle synchronisation, effectiveness of ECB monetary policy and the euro fiscal dividend, thus to advances the current studies on EMU through assessing whether it can be a sustainable system. For example, whether economic fluctuations can be effectively managed by implementing a single ECB monetary policy and financial market can be relied upon as a monitoring and enforcing device to discipline fiscal behaviour of Eurozone countries. Overall, we concluded that EMU could be more sustainable if it was just formed by its core members, leaving the periphery outside the single currency area. However, since the EU has recently conducted many rescue measures to save the Eurozone, we are unlikely to see those troubled countries to quit EMU, at least, at the present time. The sustainability of the current EMU can be improved if more intra-trade can be promoted to enhance business cycle convergence; hence, it will be more likely to have a union-wide appropriate monetary policy. This will also reduce the requirement of depending upon using fiscal measures to compensate the loss of monetary sovereignty. Moreover, fiscal activities can also be better monitored/enforced since the financial market has begun to adequately adjust the long-term interest rates on Eurozone government bonds according to the development in those countries fiscal stance.

Background: The five-factor model is the most prominent theory in personality science which aspire to understand the thoughts, feelings and behavior of individuals, determined by five relatively stable domains. Neuroticism, defined as a higher threat reactivity and susceptibility to negative affect, is one domain which has proven problematic for well-being, and has estimated societal costs of approximately 2.5 times that of common mental disorder per 1 million inhabitants. Problem: The neural correlates of neuroticism could supply research with a fundamental base of understanding the trait, however, due to scattered founding’s of segregated activity in brain structures relative to neuroticism, meta-analyses argue that increased understanding of global rather than local organization, could be more fruitful for the investigation. Methodology: Since neuroticism is convergent with emotional instability, two structures of interest with regards to global organization are the amygdala, crucial for emotion generation, and the prefrontal cortex (PFC), responsible for emotion interpretation and emotion regulation. Reviewing brain imaging research conducted with emphasis on integrative communication between the amygdala and the PFC in individuals with high trait neuroticism has therefore been the main objective of this thesis. Results/conclusion: According to the investigated research there is compromised structural integrity correlated with neuroticism, while the research on functional communication between the structures explored is not yet sufficiently covered to supply a satisfactory answer. Some of these neurobiological findings are in line with personality science observation in neuroticism, and could hence contribute to the investigation. However, more research is warranted in this field of neuroscience.

The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality is one of the prominent models in contemporary psychology and defines personality in terms of five broad factors, namely, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Recent research, however, questions the applicability of the FFM in non-Western cultures, suggesting that it is not exhaustive enough and that it does not account for some other personality factors, most notably Individualism/Collectivism. Therefore, this study investigated whether the FFM of personality is related to Individualism/Collectivism in a sample of South African students. A total of 176 questionnaires were completed by students from the University of the Witwatersrand. The questionnaire contained the individualism/collectivism (INDCOL) scales and the Basic Traits Inventory (BTI) which is a South African instrument based on the FFM. Results indicate that there were no significant relationships between the five factors and Individualism/Collectivism. In addition no significant difference was found between race and the five factors and Individualism/Collectivism. There were also no significant differences between home language and the five factors and Individualism/Collectivism.

In this Portfolio Optimization Project, we used Markowitz¡¯s modern portfolio theory for portfolio optimization. We selected fifteen stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange and gathered these stocks¡¯ historical data from Yahoo Finance [1]. Then we used Markowitz¡¯s theory to analyze this data in order to obtain the optimal weights of our initial portfolio. To maintain our investment in a current tangency portfolio, we recalculated the optimal weights and rebalanced the positions every week. In the CAPM project, we used the security characteristic line to calculate the stocks¡¯ daily returns. We also computed the risk of each asset, portfolio beta, and portfolio epsilons. In the Factor Modeling project, we computed estimates of each asset¡¯s expected returns and return variances of fifteen stocks for each of our factor models. Also we computed estimates of the covariances among our asset returns. In order to find which model performs best, we compared each portfolio¡¯s actual return with its corresponding estimated portfolio return.

In this Portfolio Optimization Project, we used Markowitz¡¯s modern portfolio theory for portfolio optimization. We selected fifteen stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange and gathered these stocks¡¯ historical data from Yahoo Finance [1]. Then we used Markowitz¡¯s theory to analyze this data in order to obtain the optimal weights of our initial portfolio. To maintain our investment in a current tangency portfolio, we recalculated the optimal weights and rebalanced the positions every week. In the CAPM project, we used the security characteristic line to calculate the stocks¡¯ daily returns. We also computed the risk of each asset, portfolio beta, and portfolio epsilons. In the Factor Modeling project, we computed estimates of each asset¡¯s expected returns and return variances of fifteen stocks for each of our factor models. Also we computed estimates of the covariances among our asset returns. In order to find which model performs best, we compared each portfolio¡¯s actual return with its corresponding estimated portfolio return.