Enduring dispositions as points of contact for the social-clinical interface: Publication trends from 1965 to 2004

The purpose of the current study was to identify enduring dispositions as potential points of contact between social and clinical psychology, investigate trends in their use in clinical research over time, and evaluate their applicability to the social-clinical interface. In light of the "emerging symbiosis" between social and personality psychology (Snyder, 2006; Swann & Seyle, 2005) and the historically strong association between personality and clinical psychology, we hypothesized that individual differences in enduring dispositions could serve as points of contact that would help inform the evolving social-clinical interface and provide a focus for future interface research. The results of our study suggest that despite some lulls, enduring dispositions are consistent aspects of clinical research over the last 40 years and thus serve as an area of overlap and intersection between social and clinical psychology. Our results also suggest that while personality traits are the most widely studied enduring dispositions in clinical psychology, individual differences in cognitive and affective traits, and to a lesser extent, motivation traits, are also broadly applicable to all three interface sub-areas identified by Leary (1987). Results are discussed with reference to historical milestones in clinical psychology that have helped procure the relevance of enduring dispositions to the social-clinical interface.