Personality traits and personality disorders

The structure of personality disorder traits was examined in a sample of 400 undergraduates who completed the personality disorder questionnaire from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‐III–R (SCID‐II). The relations between personality disorder and normal personality traits indexed by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire–Revised (EPQ–R) were examined. The three‐cluster model of personality traits—as described in the DSM scheme—found equivocal support. Exploratory principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis found four broad factors of personality disorder that overlapped with normal personality traits: an asthenic factor related to neuroticism; an antisocial factor associated with psychoticism; an asocial factor linked to introversion–extraversion; and an anankastic (obsessive–compulsive) factor. There is growing agreement about the number and type of broad personality disorder dimensions; similar dimensions may be found in clinical and non‐clinical samples, suggesting that those people with personality disorders differ quantitatively rather than qualitatively from others; and there is substantial overlap between normal and abnormal personality dimensions.