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Associations Between Lower Order Facets of Personality and Dimensions of Mental Disorder

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Abstract

Although there is a plethora of research documenting the relations between broad personality traits and psychopathology, there is decidedly less on the relations between lower order facets and psychopathology. In the current study, we explored the associations between lower order personality traits and dimensions of mental disorder. A combined sample of undergraduates and outpatients completed self-reports of personality and mental disorder. Symptom counts of mental disorders were factor analyzed, and a higher order three-factor solution emerged. One factor was substance use disorder (SUD), and internalizing branched into distress and fear. These dimensions were regressed on facets from the Big Five model of personality. SUD was significantly predicted by high excitement-seeking from the extraversion domain and low self-discipline from conscientiousness. Distress and fear were indistinguishable from one another but showed a different pattern of relations from SUD. High anxiety and depression from neuroticism, low gregariousness from extraversion, high aesthetics and low actions from openness, low trust and high tender-mindedness from agreeableness, and low self-discipline from conscientiousness significantly predicted distress and fear. The findings demonstrate that lower order traits within a single domain have complex relations with psychopathology, which are shrouded when examining broad, higher order traits. Assessment and treatment implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Given that obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder showed some dissimilar patterns of correlations with neuroticism compared to the other disorders within their respective dimensions, and that there is some question as to whether obsessive-compulsive disorder is best conceptualized as a fear disorder (Tackett et al. 2008; Watson 2005), we excluded these two disorders from their respective dimensions and fit the regression models a second time. The pattern of findings was largely unaltered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, St. John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Jamaica, NY, 11439, USA

    Kate E. Walton, Gerald Pantoja & Wilson McDermut

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  1. Kate E. Walton
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  2. Gerald Pantoja
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  3. Wilson McDermut
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Correspondence to Kate E. Walton.

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Kate E. Walton, Gerald Pantoja, and Wilson McDermut declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Walton, K.E., Pantoja, G. & McDermut, W. Associations Between Lower Order Facets of Personality and Dimensions of Mental Disorder. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 40, 465–475 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-017-9633-7

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