Dimensions and Categories: The "Big Five" Factors and the DSM Personality Disorders

Abstract

The five-factor model of personality, which has been widely studied in personality psychology, has been hypothesized to have specific relevance for DSM-defined personality disorders. To evaluate hypothesized relationships of the five-factor model of personality to personality disorders, 144 patients with personality disorders (diagnosed via a structured interview) completed an inventory to assess the five-factor model. Results indicated that the majority of the personality disorders can be differentiated in theoretically predictable ways using the five-factor model of personality. However, while the personality disorders as a whole appear to be differentiable from normal personality functioning on the five factors, the patterns are quite similar across the disorders, a finding that may provide some insight into the general nature of personality pathology but may also suggest problems with discriminant validity. Third, it does not appear that considering disorders as special combinations of features (as might be expected in some categorical models) is more informative than considering them as the sum of certain features (as might be expected in a dimensional model).

The Representation of Four Personality Disorders by the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality Dimensional Model of Personality.

“…All four personality disorders studied had at least two dimensions that were substantively different from the other personality disorders, and, in some cases, as many as 5 or 6 of the 15 SNAP dimensions appeared to uniquely characterize a disorder. This result compares favorably with results from the FFM, both in previous research (e.g., Morey et al, 2000;Zweig-Frank & Paris, 1995) as well as in results obtained using data from this project (Morey et al, 2002), particularly at lower level examinations of the two models. For example, the kappa for classification accuracy of .376 (.454 in the noncormorbid subsample) provided by discriminant functions derived from the lower order SNAP trait scores obtained in this study represents somewhat of an improvement on the kappa value of .270 (.400 in the noncomorbid sample) obtained in similar analyses using the 30 lower order facet scores of the FFM in these patients (Morey et al, 2002).…”

“…The final model consists of 12 lower order trait dimensions and three higher order temperament dimensions, as shown in Table 1. Although considerable attention has been directed toward understanding the relationship between the FFM and personality disorders (Morey, Gunderson, Quigley, & Lyons, 2000;Trull, 1992;Widiger, 1993), relatively little research has explored Clark's (1993a) model and its relation to personality disorders. The purpose of the current study is to investigate these relationships in four specific personality disorders-borderline, schizotypal, obsessive-compulsive, and avoidant personality disorders-using a large sample of carefully diagnosed patients.…”

Personality Assessment in DSM-5: Empirical Support for Rating Severity, Style, and Traits

“…Analogous to broad severity constructs such as Kernberg's personality organization, the GAF score to represent psychiatric severity more broadly, or the "g" factor in intelligence (Spearman, 1904), correlations of this dimension with PD criteria highlight the influence of multiple psychological domains, including the social (e.g., feelings of inadequacy and ineptness, paranoia), the self (identity problems), and emotion (anger). Moreover, correlations with personality traits are consistent with previous results (e.g., Morey, Gunderson, Quigley, & Lyons, 2000;Morey et al, 2002;Saulsman & Page, 2004) in suggesting that a constellation of traits in a particularly maladaptive direction, rather than one or two specific and extreme traits, can lead to a broad propensity for personality pathology.…”

Understanding Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder in Adolescence: A Dimensional Personality Perspective

“…Despite the relevance of the higher-and lower level FFM dimensions to represent PD criteria and their usefulness in personality pathology assessment, patients with different PDs may still display a similar FFM configuration (Morey, Gunderson, Quigley, & Lyons, 2000;Morey et al, 2002) that is generally characterized by elevated scores on Neuroticism, and below average scores on Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. In an attempt to account for comorbidity among DSM-IV PDs, Trull, Widiger and Burr (2001) controlled for shared variance among PDs, partialling out the summed scores on the other nine PDs.…”