Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T15:11:44.601Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Genetics of Personality Disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Peter McGuffin  and
Anita Thapar
Peter McGuffin*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff
Anita Thapar
Affiliation:
Child and Family Centre, Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most measurable aspects of normal personality appear to be at least moderately heritable, with direct evidence coming from family, twin and adoption studies and indirect support deriving from psychophysiological research and breeding experiments on animals. Interestingly, genetic studies also shed light on the environmental sources of variation in personality and suggest that shared family environment rarely, if ever, has any positive effect on similarity between relatives. Despite problems of classification, and variations in the use of terms, a survey of the literature provides reasonably consistent evidence of a genetic contribution to several categories of abnormal personality, which we here divide into three groups, antisocial, anxious/avoidant, and schizoid–schizotypal personalities. However, personality disorders are complex traits that do not show simple mendelian patterns of inheritance and so far molecular genetics has been of no help in understanding their aetiology. Fortunately, techniques are now becoming available that enable the detection and potential localisation of genes of small effect and which may help elucidate the molecular basis even of (probably) polygenic traits such as abnormal personality.

Type
Review Articles
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 1 , January 1992 , pp. 12 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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

American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM–III). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1987) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn, revised) (DSM–III–R). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Arkonac, O. & Guze, S. B. (1963) A family study of hysteria. New England Journal of Medicine, 268, 239–242.Google Scholar
Baron, M., Gruen, R., Asnis, L., et al (1983) Familial relatedness of schizophrenic and schizotypal states. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 1437–1442.Google Scholar
Baron, M., Gruen, R., Rainer, J. D., et al (1985) A family study of schizophrenic and normal control probands: implications for the spectrum concept of schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 447–455.Google ScholarPubMed
Bohman, M. (1978) Some genetic aspects of alcoholism and criminality. A population of adoptees. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 267–276.Google Scholar
Bohman, M., Cloninger, R., Sigvardsson, S., et al (1982) Predisposition to petty criminality in Swedish adoptees. Genetic and environmental heterogeneity. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 1233–1241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchsbaum, M. S., Cowsey, R. D. & Murphy, D. L. (1976) The biochemical high risk paradigm. Behavioural and family correlates of low platelet monoamine oxidase activity. Science, 194, 339–341.Google Scholar
Cadoret, R. J. (1978) Psychopathology in adopted-away offspring of biologic parents with antisocial behaviour. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 176–184.Google Scholar
Cadoret, R. J. & Cain, C. (1980) Sex differences in predictors of antisocial behaviour adoptees. Archives of General Psychiatry, 37, 1171–1175.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cadoret, R. J., O'Gorman, T. W., Troughton, E., et al (1985) Alcoholism and antisocial personality – interrelationships, genetics and environmental factors. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42, 161–167.Google Scholar
Carey, G., Goldsmith, H. H., Tellegen, A., et al (1978) Genetics and personality inventories. The limits of replication with twin data. Behavior Genetics, 8, 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, G. & Gottesman, I. I. (1981) Twin and family studies of anxiety, phobic and obsessive disorders. In Anxiety: New Research and Changing Concepts (eds Klein, D. F. & Rabkin, J.), pp. 117–135. New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Christiansen, K. O. (1974) The genesis of aggressive criminality. Implications of a study of crime in a Danish twin study. In Determinants and Origins of Aggressive Behaviour (eds De Wit, J. & Hartup, W. W.). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Claridge, G. (1988) Schizotypy and schizophrenia. In Schizophrenia: The Major Issues (eds Bebbington, P. & McGuffin, P.), pp. 187–200. Oxford: Heinemann Medical.Google Scholar
Claridge, G. & Hewitt, J. K. (1987) A biometrical study of schizotypy in a normal population. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 303–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clifford, C. A., Murray, R. M. & Fulker, D. W. (1984) Genetic and environmental influences on obsessional traits and symptoms. Psychological Medicine, 14, 791–800.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cloninger, C. R. & Guze, S. B. (1973) Psychiatric illness in the families of female criminals. A study of 288 first-degree relatives. British Journal of Psychiatry, 122, 697–703.Google Scholar
Cloninger, C. R., Reich, J. & Guze, J. B. (1975) The multifactorial model of disease transmission II. Sex differences in the familial transmission of sociopathy. British Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 11–22.Google Scholar
Cloninger, C. R., Christiansen, K. O., Reich, T., et al (1978) Implications of sex differences in the prevalences of antisocial personality, alcoholism and criminality for familial transmission. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 941–945.Google Scholar
Cloninger, C. R., Sigvardsson, S., Bohman, M., et al (1982) Predisposition to petty criminality in Swedish adoptees II. Cross-fostering analysis of gene-environment interaction. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 1242–1253.Google Scholar
Coryell, W. H. & Zimmerman, M. (1989) Personality disorder in the families of depressed, schizophrenic and never ill probands. American Journal of Psychology, 146, 496–502.Google Scholar
Crowe, R. R. (1972) The adopted offspring of women criminal offenders—a study of their arrest records. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 600–603.Google Scholar
Crowe, R. R. (1974) An adoption study of antisocial personality. Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 785–791.Google Scholar
Crowe, R. R., Pauls, D. L., Kerber, R. E., et al (1981) Panic disorder and mitral valve prolapse. In Anxiety: New Research and Changing Concepts (eds Klein, C. D. F. & Rabkin, J.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Dalgaard, O. S. & Kringlen, E. (1976) A Norwegian study of criminality. British Journal of Criminology, 16, 213–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donis-Keller, H., Helms, C. & Green, P. (1989) A human genetic linkage map with more than 500 RFLP loci and average marker spacing of 6 centimorgans. Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics, 51, 991.Google Scholar
Edwards, J. H. (1965) Association between blood groups and disease. Annals of Human Genetics, 29, 77–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975) Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Google Scholar
Farmer, A. E., McGuffin, P. & Gottesman, I. I. (1987) Twin concordance for DSM–III schizophrenia. Scrutinising the validity of the definition. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 634–641.Google Scholar
Fulker, D. W. (1981) Biometrical genetics and individual differences. British Medical Bulletin, 37, 115–120.Google Scholar
Garrod, A. E. (1908) Croonian lecture on inborn errors of metabolism. Lancet, ii, 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. (1963) Heritability of personality: a demonstration. Psychological Monograph, 77, 1–21.Google Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. (1965) Personality and natural selection. In Methods and Goals in Human Behaviour Genetics (ed. Vanderberg, S. G.). New York: Academic Press Inc.Google Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. & Shields, J. (1972) Schizophrenia and Genetics: A Twin Vantage Point. New York and London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. & Shields, J. (1982) Schizophrenia: The Epigenetic Puzzle. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gunderson, J. G. & Singer, M. T. (1975) Defining borderline patients: an overview. American Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 1–10.Google Scholar
Guze, S. B., Wolfgran, E. D., Mckinnery, J. K., et al (1967) Psychiatric illness in the families of convicted criminals. A study of 519 first-degree relatives. Diseases of the Nervous System, 28, 651–659.Google Scholar
Henderson, N. D. (1982) Human behavior genetics. Annual Review of Psychology, 33, 403–440.Google Scholar
Heston, L. L. (1966) Psychiatric disorders in foster home-related children of schizophrenic mothers. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 819–825.Google Scholar
Heston, L. L. (1970) The genetics of schizophrenia and schizoid disease. Science, 167, 249–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holzman, P. S., Kringlen, E., Matthysse, S., et al (1988) A single dominant gene can account for eye-tracking dysfunction and schizophrenia in offspring of discordant twins. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 641–647.Google Scholar
Hume, W. I. (1973) Physiological measures in twins. In Personality Differences and Biological Variations: A Study of Twins (eds Claridge, G., Canter, S. & Hume, W. I.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Hutchings, B. & Mednick, S. A. (1975) Registered criminality in the adopted and biological parents of registered male adoptees. In Genetics, Environment and Psychopathology (eds Mednick, S. A., Schulzinger, F., Higgins, J., et al). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Iacono, W. G. (1982) Eye tracking in normal twins. Behaviour Genetics, 12, 517–526.Google Scholar
Iacono, W. G. & Koenig, W. G. R. (1983) Features that distinguish the smooth pursuit eye-tracking performance of schizophrenic, affective disorder and normal individuals. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 92, 29–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobs, P. A., Price, W. H., Cower-Brown, W. M., et al (1968) Chromosome studies on men in maximum security hospitals. Annals of Human Genetics, 31, 339–358.Google Scholar
Juel-Nielsen, N. & Harvard, B. (1958) The electroencephalogram in uniovular twins brought up apart. Acta Genetica, 8, 57–64.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Gruenberg, A. M. & Strauss, J. S. (1981) An independent analysis of the Copenhagen sample of the Danish adoption study of schizophrenia. II. The Relationship between schizotypal personality disorders and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 38, 982–984.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Masterson, C. C., Ungaro, R., et al (1984) A family history study of schizophrenic related personality disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 424–427.Google Scholar
Kety, S. S., Rosenthal, D., Wender, P. H., et al (1971) Mental illness in the biological and adoptive families of adopted schizophrenics. American Journal of Psychiatry, 128, 302–306.Google Scholar
Lader, M. & Wing, L. (1966) Physiological Measures, Sedative Drugs and Morbid Anxiety. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lange, J. (1931) Crime as Destiny. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Lennox, W. G., Gibbs, E. L. & Gibbs, F. A. (1945) The brain wave pattern: an hereditary trait. Evidence from 74 ‘normal’ pairs of twins. Journal of Heredity, 36, 233–243.Google Scholar
Lewis, A. (1935) Problems of obsessional illness. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 29, 325–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, A. (1974) Psychopathic personality: a most elusive category. Psychological Medicine, 4, 133–140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewis, E. G., Dustman, R. E. & Beck, C. (1972) Evoked response similarity in monozygotic, dizygotic and unrelated individuals: a comparative study. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 32, 309–316.Google Scholar
Loehlin, J. C. & Nichols, R. C. (1976) Heredity, Environment and Personality. A Study of 850 sets of Twins. Texas: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Loehlin, J. C., Willerman, L. & Horn, J. M. (1988) Human behaviour genetics. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 101–133.Google Scholar
Loranger, A. W., Oldham, J. M. & Tulis, E. H. (1982) Familial transmission of DSM–III borderline personality disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 795–799.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGue, M. & Gottesman, I. I. (1989) Genetic linkage in schizophrenia: perspective from genetic epidemiology. In Genetic Approaches in the Prevention of Mental Illness (eds Bulyzhenkov, V., Christen, Y. & Prilipko, L.), pp. 24–38. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
McGuffin, P. & Mawson, D. (1980) Obsessive compulsive neurosis: two identical twin pairs. British Journal of Psychiatry, 137, 285–287.Google Scholar
McGuffin, P. & Gottesman, I. I. (1984) Genetic influences on normal and abnormal development. In Child Psychiatry: Modern Approaches (2nd edn) (eds Rutter, M. & Hersov, L.). London: Black well.Google Scholar
McGuffin, P. & Katz, R. (1989) The genetics of depression and manic depressive illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 155, 294–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, I. (1986) Genetics of fear and anxiety disorders: a review. British Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 406–418.Google Scholar
Martin, N. & Jardine, R. (1986) Eysenck's contributions to behaviour genetics. In Hans Eysenck: Consensus and Controversy (eds Modgil, S., Modgil, C.), pp. 13–47. Philadelphia: Falmer.Google Scholar
Mednick, S. A., Gabrielli, W. F. & Hutchings, B. (1984) Genetic influences in criminal convictions: evidence from an adoption cohort. Science, 224, 891–894.Google Scholar
Meehl, P. E. (1962) Schizotaxia, schizotypy schizophrenia. American Psychologist, 17, 827–831.Google Scholar
Moldin, S. O. (1990) Transmission of a psychomatic indicator for linkage to schizophrenia in normal families. Genetic Epidemiology, 7, 163–176.Google Scholar
Owen, M. J. & Mullan, M. J. (1989) Molecular genetic studies of manic depression and schizophrenia. Trends in Neuroscience, 13, 29–31.Google Scholar
Owen, M. J. & McGuffin, P. (1991) DNA and classical markers in schizophrenia. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 240, 197–208.Google Scholar
Paterson, A. H., Lander, E. S., Hewitt, J. D., et al (1988) Resolution of quantitative traits into mendelian factors by using a complete linkage map of restriction fragment length polymorphisms. Nature, 335, 721–726.Google Scholar
Pedersen, N. L., Plomin, R., McLearn, G. E., et al (1988) Neuroticism, extroversion, and related traits in adult twins reared apart and reared together. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 950–957.Google Scholar
Penrose, L. S. (1971) Psychiatric genetics (editorial). Psychological Medicine, 1, 265–266.Google Scholar
Plomin, R. (1990) The role of inheritance in behaviour. Science, 248, 183–188.Google Scholar
Pope, H. G., Jonas, J. M., Hudson, J. I., et al (1983) The validity of DSM–III borderline personality disorder: a phenomenologic, family history, treatment response, and long term follow-up study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 23–30.Google Scholar
Reese, W. G. (1979) A dog model for human psychopathology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 1168–1172.Google Scholar
Reveley, M. A., Reveley, A. M., Clifford, C., et al (1986) Genetics of platelet MAO activity in discordant schizophrenic and normal twins. In Contemporary Issues in Schizophrenia (eds Kerr, A. & Snaith, P.), pp. 310–317. London: Gaskell, Royal College of Psychiatrists.Google Scholar
Reznikoff, M. & Honeyman, M. S. (1967) MMPI profiles of monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs (Abstract). Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31, 100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, R. J., Miller, J. Z., Pogue-Geile, M. F., et al (1981) Twin-family studies of common fears and phobias. In Twin Research 3: Intelligence, Personality and Development, pp. 169–174. New York: Alan R. Liss.Google Scholar
Schulzinger, F. (1972) Psychopathy, heredity and environment. International Journal of Mental Health, 1, 190–206.Google Scholar
Schulz, P. M., Schulz, S. C., Goldberg, S. C., et al (1986) Diagnoses of the relatives of schizotypal outpatients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 174, 457–463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shields, J. (1962) Monozygotic Twins Brought Up Apart and Brought Up Together. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sigvardsson, S., Cloninger, C. R., Bohman, M., et al (1982) Predisposition to petty criminality in Swedish adoptees. III. Sex differences and validation of the male typology. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 1248–1253.Google Scholar
Silverton, L. (1988) Crime and the schizophrenia spectrum – a diathesis-stress model. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 78, 72–81.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1943) The neurotic constitution: a statistical study of two thousand soldiers. Journal of Neurological Psychiatry, 6, 1–16.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1961) The Thirty-fifth Maudsley lecture: ‘Hysteria 311’. Journal of Mental Science, 107, 359–381.Google Scholar
Slater, E. & Shields, J. (1969) Genetic aspects of anxiety. In Studies of Anxiety (ed. Lader, M. H.). British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication No. 3. Ashford: Headley Brothers.Google Scholar
Soloff, P. H. & Millward, J. W. (1983) Psychiatric disorders in the families of borderline patients. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 37–44.Google Scholar
Spitzer, R. L., Endicott, J. & Gibbon, M. (1979) Crossing the border into borderline personality and borderline schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 365, 17–24.Google Scholar
Stone, M. H. (1981) Psychiatrically ill relatives of borderline patients: a family study. Psychiatric Quarterly, 58, 71–83.Google Scholar
Torgersen, S. (1979) The nature and origin of common phobic fears. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 343–351.Google Scholar
Torgersen, S. (1980) The old, obsessive and hysterical personality syndrome. A study of heredity and environmental factors by means of the twin method. Archives of General Psychiatry, 37, 1272–1277.Google Scholar
Torgersen, S. (1983) Genetic factors in anxiety disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 1085–1089.Google Scholar
Torgersen, S. (1984) Genetic and nosological aspects of schizotypal and borderline personality disorders. A twin study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 41, 546–554.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Venables, P. H., Wilkins, S., Mitchell, D. A., et al (1990) A Scale for the Measurement of Schizotypy. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 481–495.Google Scholar
Wimer, R. E. & Wimer, C. C. (1985) Animal behavior genetics: A search for the biological foundations of behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 36, 171–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Witkin, H. A., Mednick, S. A. & Schulsinger, F. (1976) Criminality in XYY and XXY men. Science, 193, 547–555.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1978) Mental Disorders. Glossary and Guide to their Classification in Accordance with the Ninth Revision of the International Classification of Disease (9th revision) (ICD–9). Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
Young, J. P. R. & Fenton, G. W. (1971) An investigation of the genetic aspects of the alpha attenuation response. Psychological Medicine, 1, 365–371.Google Scholar
Young, J. P. R., & Lader, M. H. (1971) The inheritance of neurotic traits: a twin study of the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire. British Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 393–398.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.