Subjective and Behavioral Difficulties in Social Contexts: Unique and Interacting Effects on Social Dysfunction Transdiagnostically
Abstract
Prior research indicates that social functioning is impacted by both social engagement and subjective experience regarding social interactions. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which each component, as well as their interaction, contributes to social dysfunction in a combined nonclinical and transdiagnostic psychiatric sample. A sample of young adults (n=193) spanning the social dysfunction spectrum completed measures that capture different forms of psychopathology relevant to social dysfunction, from which two dimensions – Subjective Psychosocial Difficulties (SPD) and Observed Social Difficulties (OSD) – were extracted using Principal Components Analysis. Participants additionally completed a variety of clinician-rated and self-reported social functioning measures that were aggregated into one overall social functioning score. Hierarchical regression was used to examine the unique contribution of SPD and OSD and their interaction on overall social functioning. SPD and OSD explained unique variance (Δr2=61.0%), indicating that elevated SPD and OSD levels predicted worse social functioning. The SPD-by-OSD interaction was positive and explained significant additional amounts of variance (Δr2=1.9%), indicating a less-than-additive effect on social dysfunction. The findings suggest that examining observable social behaviors and subjective psychosocial experience simultaneously is important for understanding social functional outcomes in clinical populations.
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BibTeX
@misc{kemp2026subjective,
title = {{Subjective and Behavioral Difficulties in Social Contexts: Unique and Interacting Effects on Social Dysfunction Transdiagnostically}},
author = {Kathryn Kemp and Carly A Lasagna and Scott D. Blain and Cynthia Z. Burton and Costanza Colombi and Aubrey M. Moe and Ivy Fei Tso},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/efnuh_v2},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/efnuh_v2/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Subjective and Behavioral Difficulties in Social Contexts: Unique and Interacting Effects on Social Dysfunction Transdiagnostically
AU - Kathryn Kemp
AU - Carly A Lasagna
AU - Scott D. Blain
AU - Cynthia Z. Burton
AU - Costanza Colombi
AU - Aubrey M. Moe
AU - Ivy Fei Tso
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/07
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/efnuh_v2
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/efnuh_v2/
AB - Prior research indicates that social functioning is impacted by both social engagement and subjective experience regarding social interactions. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which each component, as well as their interaction, contributes to social dysfunction in a combined nonclinical and transdiagnostic psychiatric sample. A sample of young adults (n=193) spanning the social dysfunction spectrum completed measures that capture different forms of psychopathology relevant to social dysfunction, from which two dimensions – Subjective Psychosocial Difficulties (SPD) and Observed Social Difficulties (OSD) – were extracted using Principal Components Analysis. Participants additionally completed a variety of clinician-rated and self-reported social functioning measures that were aggregated into one overall social functioning score. Hierarchical regression was used to examine the unique contribution of SPD and OSD and their interaction on overall social functioning. SPD and OSD explained unique variance (Δr2=61.0%), indicating that elevated SPD and OSD levels predicted worse social functioning. The SPD-by-OSD interaction was positive and explained significant additional amounts of variance (Δr2=1.9%), indicating a less-than-additive effect on social dysfunction. The findings suggest that examining observable social behaviors and subjective psychosocial experience simultaneously is important for understanding social functional outcomes in clinical populations.
ER -