Leonard Simms

PhD

Leonard Simms.

Leonard Simms

PhD

Leonard Simms

PhD

Research Interests

Applied and basic psychological assessment; dimensional models of personality and psychopathology; item response theory applications to personality measures and computerized adaptive testing

Education

  • PhD, University of Iowa

Current Research

In the Personality, Psychopathology, and Psychometrics Laboratory, we pursue two interrelated programs of research broadly relevant to measurement of and theory related to personality and psychopathology: (a) research aimed at better understanding the phenotypic description and structure of personality and psychopathology, especially as related to personality pathology and the mood and anxiety disorders, and (b) applied psychometric research designed to create, improve upon, or evaluate psychological assessment tools.  In addition, we are interested in research aiming to translate the above line of research into clinically and practically useful applications.

Selected Publications

  • Simms, L. J., Wright, A. G. C., Cicero, D. C., Kotov, R., Mullins-Sweatt, S. N., Sellbom, M., Watson, D., Widiger, T. A., & Zimmermann, J. (in press). Development of measures for the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP):  A collaborative scale development project. Assessment.
  • Simms, L. J., Zelazny, K., Williams, T. F., & Bernstein, L. (2019). Does the number of response options matter?  Psychometric perspectives using personality questionnaire data. Psychological Assessment31, 557-566.
  • Evans, C., & Simms, L. J. (2019). The latent structure of self-harm. Journal of Abnormal Psychology128, 12-24.
  • Evans, C., & Simms, L. J. (2018). Assessing inter-model continuity between the Section II and Section III conceptualization of borderline personality disorder in DSM-5. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment9, 290-296.
  • Williams, T. F., Scalco, M. D., & Simms, L. J. (2018). The construct validity of general and specific dimensions of personality pathology. Psychological Medicine48, 834-848.
  • Williams, T. F., & Simms, L. J. (2018). Personality traits and maladaptivity: Unipolarity vs. bipolarity. Journal of Personality86, 888-901.
  • Simms, L. J., & Calabrese, W. R. (2016). Incremental validity of the DSM-5 Section III personality disorder traits with respect to psychosocial impairment. Journal of Personality Disorders30, 95-111.
  • Williams, T. F., & Simms, L. J. (2016). Personality disorder models and their coverage of interpersonal problems. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment7, 15-27.
  • Wright, A. G. C., & Simms, L. J. (2015). A metastructural model of mental disorders and pathological personality traits. Psychological Medicine45, 2309-2319.
  • Wright, A. G. C., Calabrese, W. R., Rudick, M. M., Yam, W. H., Zelazny, K., Williams, T. F., Rotterman, J., & Simms, L. J. (2015). Stability of the DSM-5 Section III pathological personality traits and their longitudinal associations with psychosocial functioning in personality disordered individuals. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 124, 199-207.
  • Yam, W. H., & Simms, L. J. (2014). Comparing criterion- and trait-based personality disorder diagnoses in DSM-5. Journal of Abnormal Psychology123, 802-808.
  • Wright, A. G. C., & Simms, L. J. (2014). On the structure of personality disorder traits: Conjoint analyses of the CAT-PD, PID-5, and NEO-PI-3 trait models. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment5, 43-54.
  • Simms, L. J., Prisciandaro, J. J., Krueger, R. F., & Goldberg, D. P. (2012). The structure of depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms in primary care. Psychological Medicine42, 15-28.
  • Simms, L. J., Goldberg, L. R., Roberts, J. E., Watson, D., Welte, J., & Rotterman, J. H. (2011). Computerized Adaptive Assessment of Personality Disorder: Introducing the CAT-PD Project. Journal of Personality Assessment93, 380-389.
  • Simms, L. J., Watson, D., & Doebbeling, B. N. (2002). Confirmatory factor analyses of posttraumatic stress symptoms in deployed and non-deployed veterans of the Gulf War. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 637-647.