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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
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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

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