Histrionic personality disorder, physical attractiveness, and social adjustment

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is the only DSM-IV personality disord er (PD) explicitly linked to a person's physical appearance. This study exa mined the HPD-attractiveness link in a mixed-sex sample of college students . Consistent with expectations, HPD women were rated higher in attractivene ss than women with other PDs or no PD. However, a parallel HPD-attractivene ss link was not found in men. Subsequent analyses indicated that, relative to less attractive HPD women, more attractive HPD women (a) had a more vari ed and supportive social network, (b) exhibited more negative behaviors in important relationships, and (c) showed greater use of immature defenses, a nd less reliance on image-distorting, self-sacrificing, and mature defenses . Similar attractiveness-defense relationships were found in HPD men, but p arallel results did not emerge for men in the other two domains. Implicatio ns of these findings are discussed, and suggestions for future studies are offered.