Angular Discrepancy and Personality Functioning Across Interpersonal Circumplex Surfaces

Multisurface interpersonal assessment (MSIA) compares interpersonal circumplex (IPC) profiles across surfaces such as problems, sensitivities, values, and efficacies. A core premise of MSIA is that cross-surface discrepancy, the degree to which interpersonal themes align or diverge across these surfaces, carries clinical meaning beyond the elevation of any single surface, yet this assumption has rarely been tested directly. The present study operationalized cross-surface discrepancy as the angular distance between surface peaks and examined its association with personality functioning in 1,101 community adults. Greater discrepancy between problems and efficacies (r = -.47) and problems and values (r = -.37) predicted higher levels of personality functioning and explained incremental variance beyond surface elevations (change in R² = .034 and .044). Follow-up analyses suggested that people whose primary problems involved being too cold had higher personality functioning if they had values and efficacies in non-cold regions of the IPC. Associations between personality functioning and problems-sensitivities discrepancy were mostly explained by shared interpersonal dysfunction, and non-problem pairs showed negligible effects. These findings offer initial evidence that people who tend to have problems being too cold have higher levels of personality functioning to the degree they value and can engage in non-cold interpersonal behaviors.