General Psychopathology Masks the Associations Between Psychiatric Disorders and Personality Traits

General Psychopathology Masks the Associations Between Psychiatric Disorders and Personality Traits

Many studies have tried to link mental disorders to normal personality structure, however findings are often inconsistent, or do not clearly show associations with personality traits. I hypothesize that these inconsistencies are for two reasons, the first being that general psychopathology, a latent factor which all mental disorders are found to load onto, is partially masking these associations, and the second being that most studies use correlations to investigate these associations instead of factor analysis. In this paper I demonstrate that several mental disorders map clearly onto the big five via factor analysis when controlling for general psychopathology. Before controlling for general psychopathology, nearly all disorders loaded highly on neuroticism. When controlling for general psychopathology, autism maps onto low openness (particularly the social/imagination domain), and high conscientiousness (particularly the repetitive/detail oriented domain). Schizotypy maps onto high openness (positive and disorganized schizotypy), low extraversion (negative schizotypy), and low conscientiousness (impulsive and positive schizotypy). Primary psychopathy maps onto low agreeableness, and secondary psychopathy onto low conscientiousness. Borderline personality and vulnerable narcissism primarily map onto neuroticism. Grandiose narcissism, histrionic personality, and appearance-oriented eating disorders map onto high extraversion. OCD seems to map onto neuroticism and high agreeableness. OcPD maps onto high conscientiousness. 

Methods

All scales for mental disorders being measured in the datasets, along with neuroticism were entered into a principal components analysis to extract the general psychopathology factor (loadings presented in tables). The non-adjusted and adjusted scores for the scales were entered into separate factor analyses along with items measuring big five traits, and five rotated factors were extracted (loadings for non-adjusted and adjusted scales presented in tables, GP meaning controlling for general psychopathology). 

Dataset 1

The first dataset includes measures for grandiose & vulnerable narcissism, borderline, psychopathic, histrionic personality traits, four factors of schizotypy, and scales for the repetitive and social domains of autistic traits. The sample size is 150, from a self report online survey. The brief pathological narcissism inventory (Schoenleber et al. 2015) was used to measure grandiose & vulnerable narcissism. Borderline personality traits, psychopathic traits, and histrionic personality traits were measured with the 4-item shorted versions of the McLean Screening Instrument (Zanarini et al. 2003), the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (Levenson et al. 1995), and the Brief Histrionic Personality Scale (Ferguson & Negy 2014). The shortened versions were created based on items which correlated highest with each respective scale above the other three scales, from dataset 2 which used the full versions of these scales. Positive and impulsive schizotypy were measured with the Unusual Experiences and Impulsive-Nonconformity subscales of the short O-LIFE (Mason et al. 2005), and disorganized & negative schizotypy with the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire Brief-Revised (Cohen et al. 2010). Repetitive autistic traits were measured with the Autistic Interests Scale (Cloudfindings 2022a) and social autistic traits with the Literal Language Scale (Cloudfindings 2021). Big five personality traits were measured with the Short Big Five Inventory (Gerlitz & Schupp 2005).

	O	O-GP	C	C-GP	E	E-GP	A	A-GP	N	N-GP	GP
Pos. Schizotypy	0.34	0.57				-0.30	-0.27		0.61		0.73
Dis. Schizotypy	0.32	0.60					-0.18		0.63		0.71
Imp. Schizotypy			-0.25	-0.51			-0.46	-0.20	0.63	-0.33	0.83
Psychopathy F2		-0.29	-0.49	-0.57				0.29	0.57		0.62
Autistic Interests	-0.31	-0.32	0.65	0.72					0.38		0.35
Literal Language	-0.26		0.43	0.56					0.56	0.41	0.40
Neg. Schizotypy	-0.18			0.21	-0.60	-0.75			0.47		0.40
Histrionic					0.69	0.70	-0.24		0.24	-0.32	0.43
Grand. Narcism	0.32				0.37	0.43	-0.62	-0.48	0.19	-0.38	0.48
Psychopathy F1							-0.84	-0.74		-0.38	0.34
Borderline		-0.22	-0.21					0.28	0.72		0.72
Vuln. Narcism		-0.28		0.30	0.22		-0.18		0.61		0.65

Dataset 2

The second dataset includes primary and secondary psychopathy, literal language, autistic interests, autistic identity, imagination, borderline traits, positive schizotypy, OCD traits, OcPD traits, body dysmorphic symptoms, eating disorder behavior, and histrionic personality. The sample size is 123, from a self report online survey. This dataset was used in previous papers (Cloudfindings 2022a,b,c,d) OcPD traits were measured with 8 items corresponding to each diagnostic criteria, which are reported in Cloudfindings (2022b). Autistic identity and interest scales are reported in Cloudfindings (2022c) and Cloudfindings (2022d) respectively. The imagination subscale of the Autism Quotient (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001) was also used. Borderline personality traits, psychopathic traits, and histrionic personality traits were measured with the McLean Screening Instrument (Zanarini et al. 2003), the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (Levenson et al. 1995), and the Brief Histrionic Personality Scale (Ferguson & Negy 2014). OCD traits were measured with a 9-item version of the Brief Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Bejerot et al. 2014). This scale was created based on a previous study that I have not published the results of yet, and used the most strongly loading items on three factors extracted from the BOCS. Body dysmorphic symptoms and eating disorder symptoms were measured with a 3 item and 5 item scale developed based on the body dysmorphia and drive for thinness factors found in Cloudfindings (2022e), with the addition of items used in an unpublished study. 

	O	O-GP	C	C-GP	E	E-GP	A	A-GP	N	N-GP	GP
Pos. Schizotypy	0.53	0.41		-0.49			-0.26		0.44		0.58
Autism (imagine)	-0.49	-0.64	0.28			-0.25			0.18		0.19
OcPD			0.77	0.67							0.58
Autistic Interests			0.67	0.50		-0.27					0.55
Literal Language		-0.39	0.64	0.36							0.52
Autistic Identity	0.25		0.53	0.39		0.30			0.24		0.64
Borderline	0.31			-0.44			-0.45	-0.29	0.51		0.69
Psychopathy F2				-0.60			-0.65	-0.32	0.32		0.50
Eating Disorder					0.55	0.56			0.24	0.29	0.24
Histrionic	0.30	0.30			0.74	0.72					0.19
OCD	0.35		0.38					0.39	0.43		0.70
Psychopathy F1							-0.66	-0.64	-0.30
Dysmorphia				-0.39		-0.27		0.36	0.68	0.31	0.38

1. Schoenleber et al. (2015) Development of a brief version of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory

2. Zanarini et al. (2003) A screening measure for BPD: The McLean screening instrument for borderline personality disorder (MSI-BPD)

3. Levenson et al. (1995) Assessing psychopathic attributes in a noninstitutionalized population.

4. Ferguson & Negy (2014) Development of a brief screening questionnaire for histrionic personality symptoms

5. Mason et al. (2005) Short scales for measuring schizotypy.

6. Cohen et al. (2010) Toward a more psychometrically sound brief measure of schizotypal traits: introducing the SPQ-Brief Revised

7. Cloudfindings (2022a) Characterizing Repetitive Behaviors & Interests Specific to Autism: The Autistic Interests Scale

8. Cloudfindings (2021) Literal Language Scale: Development & Association With Social Intelligence

9. Gerlitz & Schupp (2005) Zur Erhebung der Big-Five-basierten persoenlichkeitsmerkmale im SOEP

10. Cloudfindings (2022b) Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder as an Autism Spectrum Disorder

11. Cloudfindings (2022c) Characterizing Repetitive Behaviors & Interests Specific to Autism: The Autistic Interests Scale

12. Cloudfindings (2022d) Identity in Autism

13. Bejerot et al. (2014) The Brief Obsessive–Compulsive Scale (BOCS): A self-report scale for OCD and obsessive–compulsive related disorders

14. Cloudfindings (2022e) Latent Structure of Body Dysmorphia, Eating Disorder Symptoms, and Self Esteem Problems in Heterosexual Women, and Their Association with Cluster B Personality Traits

15. Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians