Do dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs contribute to interpersonal distress beyond interpersonal styles, parental bonds, depression and anxiety? A prospective within-person study

Background: General interpersonal problems and distress are transdiagnostic features across the psychopathology spectrum and relate to reduced quality of life, greater emotional symptom severity, and worse outcomes following psychotherapy. Identifying within-person dynamic factors influencing interpersonal distress could therefore advance clinical formulation and intervention, benefiting a large number of patients. Methods: Based on a four-wave longitudinal study, we used latent growth modelling to investigate whether metacognitive beliefs, the key mechanism of psychological dysfunction in the metacognitive model, predicted the trajectory of interpersonal distress within individuals over time. We controlled gender, parental bonds to mother and father, and interpersonal style factors agency and communion at baseline, in addition to time-varying changes in anxiety and depression symptoms at the within-person level. Results: We found that all the predictors except for gender were associated with greater interpersonal distress at baseline on the between-person level. Between-person differences in parental bonds and interpersonal style did not predict the trajectory of interpersonal distress over time. Increases in anxiety and depression symptoms at the within-person level predicted greater interpersonal distress within individuals over time. Finally, all metacognitive belief domains assessed with the MCQ-30 except cognitive self-consciousness were unique predictors of greater interpersonal distress over time within individuals beyond the included between- and within-person covariates. Conclusion: These findings suggest that targeting metacognitions could be relevant to alleviate interpersonal distress, potentially independent of parental bonds, interpersonal style configuration and within-person fluctuations in emotional disorder symptoms.