The Five Factor Model of Personality and the DSM-III-R Personality Disorders: Correspondence and Differentiation

Abstract

A comprehensive appraisal of the relevance of the five factor model of personality to diagnostic categories for the personality disorders requires two steps. First, substantive correspondence between the general personality model and the DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) formulation of the personality disorders must be demonstrated. Second, those manifestations of the general personality dimensions that bear specifically upon personality disorder must be differentiated from their broader, less problematic manifestations. Wiggins and Pincus (1989) and Costa and McCrae (1990) have shown that the personality disorder diagnostic categories can be meaningfully related to the five factor model (FFM) of personality. These studies employed an external analysis to demonstrate correspondence. The present study used an alternative internal conceptual analysis. With regard to correspondence, our findings largely replicate those reported from studies employing an external analysis. In addition, internal conceptual analysis is applied to delineating behavioral manifestations of the FFM personality dimensions especially relevant to the domain of the personality disorders. With regard to differentiation, our findings from this domain point to distinctive variants for the FFM dimensions of Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.