Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:12:48.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - The Five-Factor Model of Personality Disorders

from Part II - Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2020

By
Joshua D. Miller  and
Thomas A. Widiger
Edited by
Carl W. Lejuez  and
Kim L. Gratz
Carl W. Lejuez
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Kim L. Gratz
Affiliation:
University of Toledo, Ohio
Get access

Summary

The use of dimensional personality traits with explicit ties to general or normative personality has gone mainstream with instantiation in the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and the soon to be released 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Much of the theoretical and empirical work that supports the transition to dimensional trait-based models of personality disorder has used the prominent five-factor model of personality to do so, which suggests that five basic dimensions capture much of the important and reliable personality variance: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. This chapter reviews this literature and demonstrates how general and pathological five-factor models of personality are parsimonious, valid, and useful. The authors believe that the use of such models for the diagnosis of personality disorder represents a much needed and empirically supported movement to integrate normative and pathological personality.

Keywords

five-factor modelpersonality disorderdimensionaltraitsparsimonyvalidityutility
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Disorders , pp. 145 - 160
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allik, J., & Realo, A. (2017). Universal and specific in the five factor model. In Widiger, T. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model (pp. 173–190). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (revised 3rd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.Google Scholar
Anderson, J., Snider, S., Sellbom, M., Krueger, R., & Hopwood, C. (2014). A comparison of the DSM-5 Section II and Section III personality disorder structures. Psychiatry Research, 216, 363–372.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bagby, R. M., Uliaszek, A. A., Gralnick, T. M., & Al-Dajani, N. (2017). Axis I disorders. In Widiger, T. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model (pp. 479–506). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bagby, R. M., & Widiger, T. A. (2018). Five factor model personality disorder scales: An introduction to a special section on assessment of maladaptive variants of the five factor model. Psychological Assessment, 30, 1–9.Google Scholar
Blashfield, R. K., & Reynolds, S. M. (2012). An invisible college view of the DSM-5 personality disorder classification. Journal of Personality Disorders, 26, 821–829.Google Scholar
Chmielewski, M., Bagby, R. M., Markon, K., Ring, A. J., & Ryder, A. G. (2014). Openness to experience, intellect, schizotypal personality disorder, and psychoticism: Resolving the controversy. Journal of Personality Disorders, 28, 483–499.Google Scholar
Clark, L. A. (1993). Manual for the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992a). The five-factor model of personality and its relevance to personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 6, 343–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992b). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1995). Primary traits of Eysenck’s P-E-N model: Three- and five-factor solutions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 308–317.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crowe, M. L., Lynam, D. R., & Miller, J. D. (2018). Uncovering the structure of agreeableness from self-report measures. Journal of Personality, 86, 771–787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Decuyper, M., De Pauw, S., De Fruyt, F., De Bolle, M., & De Clercq, B. J. (2009). A meta‐analysis of psychopathy‐, antisocial PD‐ and FFM associations. European Journal of Personality, 23, 531–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derefinko, K. J., & Lynam, D. R. (2007). Using the FFM to conceptualize psychopathy: A test using a drug abusing sample. Journal of Personality Disorders, 21, 638–656.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edmundson, M., Lynam, D. R., Miller, J. D., Gore, W. L., & Widiger, T. A. (2011). A five-factor measure of schizotypal personality traits. Assessment, 18, 321–334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysenck, S. G., & Eysenck, H. J. (1970). Crime and personality: An empirical study of the three-factor theory. British Journal of Criminology, 10, 225–239.Google Scholar
Few, L. R., Miller, J. D., Morse, J. Q., Yaggi, K. E., Reynolds, S. K., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2010). Examining the reliability and validity of clinician ratings on the Five-Factor Model score sheet. Assessment, 17, 440–453.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Few, L. R., Miller, J. D., Rothbaum, A., Meller, S., Maples, J., Terry, D., … MacKillop, J. (2013). Examination of the Section III DSM-5 diagnostic system for personality disorders in an outpatient clinical sample. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 22, 1057–1069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frances, A. (1993). Dimensional diagnosis of personality: Not whether, but when and which. Psychological Inquiry, 4, 110–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glover, N., Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., Crego, C., & Widiger, T. A. (2012). The Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory: A five-factor measure of narcissistic personality traits. Journal of Personality Assessment, 94, 500–512.Google Scholar
Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48, 26–34.Google Scholar
Gudonis, L. C., Miller, D. J., Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2008). Conceptualizing personality disorders from a general model of personality functioning: Antisocial personality disorder and the five-factor model. Personality and Mental Health, 2, 249–264.Google Scholar
Gunderson, J. G. (2010). Revising the borderline diagnosis for DSM-V: An alternative proposal. Journal of Personality Disorders, 24, 694–708.Google Scholar
Gunderson, J. G. (2013). Seeking clarity for future revisions of the personality disorders in DSM-5. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4, 368–376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hare, R. D. (2003). The Psychopathy Checklist–Revised. Multi-Health Systems, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Hopwood, C. J., Thomas, K. M., Markon, K. E., Wright, A. G., & Krueger, R. F. (2012). DSM-5 personality traits and DSM-IV personality disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121, 424–432.Google Scholar
Jarnecke, A. M., & South, S. C. (2017). Behavior and molecular genetics of the five-factor model. In Widiger, T. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model (pp. 301–318). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In John, O. P., Robins, R. R., & Pervin, L. A. (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (3rd. ed., pp. 114–158). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Krueger, R. F., Derringer, J., Markon, K., Watson, D., & Skodol, A. (2012). Initial construction of a maladaptive personality trait model and inventory for DSM-5. Psychological Medicine, 42, 1879–1890.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lilienfeld, S. O., Watts, A. L., & Smith, S. F. (2012). The DSM revision as a social psychological process: A commentary on Blashfield and Reynolds. Journal of Personality Disorders, 26, 830–834.Google Scholar
Livesley, J. (2012). Tradition versus empiricism in the current DSM‐5 proposal for revising the classification of personality disorders. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 22, 81–90.Google Scholar
Livesley, W. J., Jackson, D. N., & Schroeder, M. L. (1992). Factorial structure of traits delineating personality disorders in clinical and general population samples. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101, 432–440.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lowe, J. R., Edmundson, M., & Widiger, T. A. (2009). Assessment of dependency, agreeableness, and their relationship. Psychological Assessment, 21, 543–553.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynam, D. R., Gaughan, E. T., Miller, J. D., Miller, D. J., Mullins-Sweatt, S., & Widiger, T. A. (2011). Assessing the basic traits associated with psychopathy: Development and validation of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment. Psychological Assessment, 23, 108–124.Google Scholar
Lynam, D. R., & Widiger, T. A. (2001). Using the five-factor model to represent the DSM-IV personality disorders: An expert consensus approach. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 401–412.Google Scholar
Lynam, D. R., & Widiger, T. A. (2007). Using a general model of personality to understand sex differences in the personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 21, 583–602.Google Scholar
Maples, J. L., Carter, N. T., Few, L. R., Crego, C., Gore, W. L., Samuel, D. B., … Miller, J. D. (2015). Testing whether the DSM-5 personality disorder trait model can be measured with a reduced set of items: An item response theory investigation of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Psychological Assessment, 27, 1195–1210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mervielde, I., De Clercq, B., De Fruyt, F., & Van Leeuwen, K. (2005). Temperament, personality, and developmental psychopathology as childhood antecedents of personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 19, 171–201.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D. (2019). Personality disorders as collections of traits. In Samuel, D. B. & Lynam, D. L. (Eds.), Using Basic Personality Research to Inform Personality Pathology (pp. 40–69). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Bagby, R. M., Pilkonis, P. A., Reynolds, S. K., & Lynam, D. R. (2005). A simplified technique for scoring the DSM-IV personality disorders with the five-factor model. Assessment, 12, 404–415.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Few, L. R., Lynam, D. R., & MacKillop, J. (2015). Pathological personality traits can capture DSM-IV personality disorder types. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 6, 32–40.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Few, L. R., & Widiger, T. A. (2012). Assessment of personality disorders and related traits: Bridging DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5. In Widiger, T. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Personality Disorders (pp. 108–140). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2003). Psychopathy and the five factor model of personality: A replication and extension. Journal of Personality Assessment, 81, 168–178.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2008). Dependent personality disorder: Comparing an expert generated and empirically derived five-factor model personality disorder count. Assessment, 15, 4–15.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2013). Missed opportunities in the DSM-5 section III personality disorder model. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4, 365–366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, J., Lynam, D., Widiger, T., & Leukefeld, C. (2001). Personality disorders as extreme variants of common personality dimensions: Can the five factor model adequately represent psychopathy? Journal of Personality, 69, 253–276.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Maples, J., Pryor, L. R., Morse, J. Q., Yaggi, K., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2010). Using clinician-rated five-factor model data to score the DSM-IV personality disorders. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92, 296–305.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Morse, J. Q., Nolf, K., Stepp, S. D., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2012). Can DSM-IV borderline personality disorder be diagnosed via dimensional personality traits? Implications for the DSM-5 personality disorder proposal. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121, 944–950.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Reynolds, S. K., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2004). The validity of the five-factor model prototypes for personality disorders in two clinical samples. Psychological Assessment, 16, 310–322.Google Scholar
Miller, J. D., Sleep, C. E., & Lynam, D. R. (2018). DSM-5 alternative model of personality disorder: Testing the trait perspective captured in criterion B. Current Opinion in Psychology, 21, 50–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morey, L. C., Skodol, A. E., & Oldham, J. M. (2014). Clinician judgments of clinical utility: A comparison of DSM-IV-TR personality disorders and the alternative model for DSM-5 personality disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 123, 398–405.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mullins-Sweatt, S. N., Edmundson, M., Sauer-Zavala, S., Lynam, D. R., Miller, J. D., & Widiger, T. A. (2012). Five-factor measure of borderline personality traits. Journal of Personality Assessment, 94, 475–487.Google Scholar
Mullins‐Sweatt, S. N., & Lengel, G. J. (2012). Clinical utility of the five‐factor model of personality disorder. Journal of Personality, 80, 1615–1639.Google Scholar
O’Boyle, E. H., Forsyth, D. R., Banks, G. C., Story, P. A., & White, C. D. (2015). A meta‐analytic test of redundancy and relative importance of the dark triad and five‐factor model of personality. Journal of Personality, 83, 644–664.Google Scholar
O’Connor, B. P. (2017). Robustness. In Widiger, T. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model (pp. 151–172). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ozer, D. J., & Benet-Martinez, V. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 401–421.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Presnall, J. R. (2012). Disorders of personality: Clinical treatment from a five-factor perspective. In Widiger, T. A. & Costa, P. T (Eds.), Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (3rd ed., pp. 409–432). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Roberts, B. W., & DelVecchio, W. F. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 3–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, B. W., Kuncel, N. R., Shiner, R., Caspi, A., & Goldberg, L. R. (2007). The power of personality: The comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 313–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, B. W., Luo, J., Briley, D. A., Chow, P. I., Su, R., & Hill, P. L. (2017). A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 117–141.Google Scholar
Rottman, B., Ahn, W. K., Sanislow, C., & Kim, N. (2009). Can clinicians recognize DSM-IV personality disorders from five-factor model descriptions of patient cases? American Journal of Psychiatry, 166, 427–433.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. B., Hopwood, C. J., Krueger, R. F., Thomas, K. M., & Ruggero, C. J. (2013). Comparing methods for scoring personality disorder types using maladaptive traits in DSM-5. Assessment, 20, 353–361.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Samuel, D. B., Lynam, D. R., Widiger, T. A., & Ball, S. A. (2012). An expert consensus approach to relating the proposed DSM-5 types and traits. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 3, 1–16.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. B., Riddell, A. D. B., Lynam, D. R., Miller, J. D., & Widiger, T. A. (2012). A five-factor measure of obsessive-compulsive personality traits. Journal of Personality Assessment, 94, 456–465.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2004). Clinicians’ personality descriptions of prototypic personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 18, 286–308.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2006). Clinicians’ judgments of clinical utility: A comparison of the DSM-IV and five-factor models. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 298–308.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2008). A meta-analytic review of the relationships between the five-factor model and DSM-IV-TR personality disorders: A facet level analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 1326–1342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saulsman, L. M., & Page, A. C. (2004). The five-factor model and personality disorder empirical literature: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 1055–1085.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shedler, J., Beck, A., Fonagy, P., Gabbard, G. O., Gunderson, J., Kernberg, O., … Westen, D. (2010). Personality disorders in DSM-5. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 1026–1028.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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 Assessment, 93, 380–389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spitzer, R. L., First, M. B., Shedler, J., Westen, D., & Skodol, A. E. (2008). Clinical utility of five dimensional systems for personality diagnosis: A “consumer preference” study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 196, 356–374.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sprock, J. (2003). Dimensional versus categorical classification of prototypic and nonprototypic cases of personality disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59, 991–1014.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stepp, S., & Trull, T. J. (2007). Predictive validity of the five-factor model prototype scores for antisocial and borderline personality disorders. Personality and Mental Health, 1, 27–39.Google Scholar
Trull, T. J., & Widiger, T. A. (1997). Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model of Personality (SIFFM): Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
Trull, T. J., Widiger, T. A, Lynam, D. R., & Costa, P. T. (2003). Borderline personality disorder from the perspective of general personality functioning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112, 193–202.Google Scholar
Warner, M. B., Morey, L. C., Finch, J. F., Gunderson, J. G., Skodol, A. E., Sanislow, C. A., … Grilo, C. M. (2004). The longitudinal relationship of personality traits and disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 217–227.Google Scholar
Widiger, T. A. (2013). A postmortem and future look at the personality disorders in DSM-5. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4, 382–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widiger, T. A., & Costa, P. T. (Eds.) (2012). Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Widiger, T. A., Gore, W. L, Crego, C., Rojas, S. L., & Oltmanns, J. R. (2017). Five factor model and personality disorder. In Widiger, T. A. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model (pp. 449–478). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Widiger, T. A., & Lynam, D. R. (1998). Psychopathy and the five-factor model of personality. In Millon, T. & Simonsen, E. (Eds.), Psychopathy: Antisocial, Criminal, and Violent Behavior (pp. 171–187). New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Widiger, T. A., Lynam, D. R., Miller, J. D., & Oltmanns, T. F. (2012). Measures to assess maladaptive variants of the five factor model. Journal of Personality Assessment, 94, 450–455.Google Scholar
Widiger, T. A., & Trull, T. J. (1992). Personality and psychopathology: An application of the five‐factor model. Journal of Personality, 60, 363–393.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Widiger, T. A., Trull, T. J., Clarkin, J. F., Sanderson, C. J., & Costa, P. T. (1994). A description of the DSM-III-R and DSM-IV personality disorders with the five-factor model of personality. In Costa, P. T. Jr. & Widiger, T. A. (Eds.), Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (pp. 41–56). Washington, DC: APA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, A. G., Hopwood, C. J., & Zanarini, M. C. (2015). Associations between changes in normal personality traits and borderline personality disorder symptoms over 16 years. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 6, 1–11.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, M., Rothschild, L., & Chelminski, I. (2005). The prevalence of DSM-IV personality disorders in psychiatric outpatients. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 1911–1919.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×