We examined symptom-level relations between the emotional disorders and general traits within the five-factor model of personality. Neuroticism correlated strongly with the symptoms of general distress/negative affectivity (depressed mood, anxious mood, worry) that are central to these disorders; more moderately with symptoms of social phobia, affective lability, panic, posttraumatic stress disorder, lassitude, checking, and obsessive intrusions; and more modestly with agoraphobia, specific phobia, and other symptoms of depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Extraversion was negatively correlated with symptoms of social anxiety/social phobia and was positively related to scales that assess expansive positive mood and increased social engagement in bipolar disorder. Conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness showed weaker associations and generally added little to the prediction of these symptoms. It is noteworthy, moreover, that our key findings replicated well across (a) self-rated versus (b) interview-based symptom measures. We conclude by discussing the diagnostic and assessment implications of these data.
AkiskalH. S.KilziehN.MaserJ. D.ClaytonP. J.SchettlerP. J.SheaM. T.. . . KellerM. B. (2006). The distinct temperament profiles of bipolar I, bipolar II, and unipolar patients. Journal of Affective Disorders, 92, 19–33.
2.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev.) Washington, DC: Author.
3.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
4.
AndrewsG.GoldbergD. P.KruegerR. F.CarpenterW. T.Jr.HymanS. E.SachdevP.PineD. S. (2009). Exploring the feasibility of a meta-structure for DSM-V and ICD-11: Could it improve utility and validity?Psychological Medicine, 39, 1993–2000.
5.
AngstJ.AdolfssonR.BenazziF.GammaA.HantoucheE.MeyerT. D.. . . ScottJ. (2005). The HCL-32: Towards a self-assessment tool for hypomanic symptoms in outpatients. Journal of Affective Disorders, 88, 217–233.
6.
BagbyR. M.BindseilK. D.SchullerD. R.RectorN. A.YoungL. T.CookeR. G.. . . JoffeR. T. (1997). Relationship between the five-factor model of personality and unipolar, bipolar, and schizophrenic patients. Psychiatry Research, 70, 83–94.
7.
BagbyR. M.YoungL. T.SchullerD. R.BindseilK. D.CookeR. G.DickensS. E.. . . JoffeR. T. (1996). Bipolar disorder, unipolar depression and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Affective Disorders, 41, 25–32.
8.
BarnettJ. H.HuangJ.PerlisR. H.YoungM. M.RosenbaumJ. F.NierenbergA. A.. . . SmollerJ. W. (2011). Personality and bipolar disorder: Dissecting state and trait associations between mood and personality. Psychological Medicine, 41, 1593–1604.
9.
BeckA. T.SteerR.GarbinM. (1988). Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory: Twenty-five years of evaluation. Clinical Psychology Review, 8, 77–100.
10.
ClarkL. A. (2005). Temperament as a unifying basis for personality and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 505–521.
11.
ClarkL. A.WatsonD. (1991). Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: Psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 316–336.
12.
ClarkL. A.WatsonD.MinekaS. (1994). Temperament, personality, and the mood and anxiety disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 103–116.
13.
CohenJ. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159.
14.
CostaP. T.Jr.McCraeR. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
15.
DepueR. A.KraussS.SpoontM. R.ArbisiP. (1989). General Behavior Inventory identification of unipolar and bipolar affective conditions in a nonclinical university population. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 117–126.
16.
DepueR. A.SlaterJ. F.Wolfstetter-KauschH.KleinD.GoplerudE.FarrD. (1981). A behavioral paradigm for identifying persons at risk for bipolar depressive disorder: A conceptual framework and five validation studies. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90, 381–437.
17.
DigmanJ. M. (1997). Higher-order factors of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1246–1256.
18.
EckbladM.ChapmanL. J. (1986). Development and validation of a scale for hypomanic personality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 214–222.
19.
FanousA. H.NealeM. C.AggenS. H.KendlerK. S. (2007). A longitudinal study of personality and major depression in a population-based sample of male twins. Psychological Medicine, 37, 1163–1172.
20.
FoaE. B.HuppertJ. D.LeibergS.LangnerR.KichicR.HajcakG.SalkovskisP. M. (2002). The Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory: Development and validation of a short version. Psychological Assessment, 14, 485–496.
21.
FurnhamA.BateyM.AnandK.ManfieldJ. (2008). Personality, hypomania, intelligence and creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1060–1069.
22.
GámezW.KotovR.WatsonD. (2010). The validity of self-report assessment of avoidance and distress. Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 23, 87–99.
23.
GoldbergD. P.KruegerR. F.AndrewsG.HobbsM. J. (2009). Emotional disorders: Cluster 4 of the proposed meta-structure for DSM-5 and ICD-11. Psychological Medicine, 39, 2043–2059.
24.
GootzeitJ.MarkonK. (2011). Factors of PTSD: Differential specificity and external correlates. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 993–1003.
25.
GrubaughA. L.LongM. E.ElhaiJ. D.FruehB. C.MagruderK. M. (2010). An examination of the construct validity of posttraumatic stress disorder with veterans using a revised criterion set. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 909–914.
26.
GruberJ.MaussI. B.TamirM. (2011). A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 222–233.
27.
JardineR.MartinN. G.HendersonA. S. (1984). Genetic covariation between neuroticism and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Genetic Epidemiology, 1, 89–107.
28.
JohnO. P.SrivastavaS. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In PervinL. A.JohnO. P. (Eds.), Handbook of personality (2nd ed., pp. 102–138). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
29.
JohnsonR. E.RosenC. C.DjurdjevicE. (2011). Assessing the impact of common method variance on higher order multidimensional constructs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 744–761.
30.
KendlerK. S.GardnerC. O. (2011). A longitudinal etiological model for symptoms of anxiety and depression in women. Psychological Medicine, 41, 2035–2045.
31.
KendlerK. S.GardnerC. O.GatzM.PedersenN. L. (2007). The sources of co-morbidity between major depression and generalized anxiety disorder in a Swedish national twin sample. Psychological Medicine, 37, 453–462.
32.
KennyD. A. (1987). Statistics for the social and behavioral sciences. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
33.
KesslerR. C.ÜstünT. B. (2004). The World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative Version of the World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 13, 93–121.
34.
KingD. W.LeskinG. A.KingL. A.WeathersF. W. (1998). Confirmatory factor analysis of the clinician-administered PTSD scale: Evidence for the dimensionality of posttraumatic stress disorder. Psychological Assessment, 10, 90–96.
35.
KleinD. N.KotovR.BufferdS. J. (2011). Personality and depression: Explanatory models and review of the evidence. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 7, 269–295.
36.
KoffelE. (2011). Further validation of the Iowa Sleep Disturbances Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 23, 587–598. doi:10.1037/a0022818
37.
KotovR.GámezW.SchmidtF.WatsonD. (2010). Linking “big” personality traits to anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 768–821.
38.
KraemerH. C.KupferD. J.ClarkeD. E.NarrowW. E.RegierD. A. (2012). DSM-5: How reliable is reliable enough?American Journal of Psychiatry, 169, 13–15.
39.
KruegerR. F.DerringerJ.MarkonK. E.WatsonD.SkodolA. E. (2012). Initial construction of a maladaptive personality trait model and inventory for DSM-5. Psychological Medicine, 42, 1879–1890.
40.
KruegerR. F.SouthS. C. (2009). Externalizing disorders: Cluster 5 of the proposed meta-structure for DSM-5 and ICD-11. Psychological Medicine, 39, 2061–2070.
41.
LeckmanJ. F.DenysD.SimpsonH. B.Mataix-ColsD.HollanderE.SaxenaS.. . . SteinD. J. (2010). Obsessive-compulsive disorder: A review of diagnostic criteria and possible subtypes and dimensional specifiers for DSM-V. Depression and Anxiety, 27, 507–527.
42.
LeeK.AshtonM. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 329–358.
43.
MarkonK. EKruegerR. F.WatsonD. (2005). Delineating the structure of normal and abnormal personality: An integrative hierarchical approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 139–157.
44.
MarksI. M.MathewsA. M. (1979). Brief standard self-rating for phobic patients. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 23, 563–569.
45.
Mataix-ColsD.Rosario-CamposM. C.LeckmanJ. F. (2005). A multidimensional model of obsessive-compulsive disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 228–238.
46.
MinekaS.WatsonD.ClarkL. A. (1998). Comorbidity of anxiety and unipolar mood disorders. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 377–412.
47.
MurrayG.GoldstoneE.CunninghamE. (2007). Personality and the predisposition(s) to bipolar disorder: Heuristic benefits of a two-dimensional model. Bipolar Disorders, 9, 453–461.
48.
Naragon-GaineyK.WatsonD.MarkonK. E. (2009). Differential relations of depression and social anxiety symptoms to the facets of extraversion/positive emotionality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 299–310.
49.
NewmanM. G.ZuelligA. R.KachinK. E.ConstantinoM. J.PrzeworskiA.EricksonT.Cashman-McGrathL. (2002). Preliminary reliability and validity of the GADQ-IV: A revised self-report diagnostic measure of generalized anxiety disorder. Behavior Therapy, 33, 215–233.
50.
PodsakoffP. M.MacKenzieS. B.LeeJ.PodsakoffN. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879–903.
51.
RapeeR. M.CraskeM. G.BarlowD. H. (1994/1995). Assessment instrument for panic disorder that includes fear of sensation-producing activities: The Albany Panic and Phobia Questionnaire. Anxiety, 1, 114–122.
52.
SchaletB. D.DurbinC. E.RevelleW. (2011). Multidimensional structure of the Hypomanic Personality Scale. Psychological Assessment, 23, 504–522.
53.
SimmsL. J.WatsonD.DoebbelingB. N. (2002). Confirmatory factor analyses of posttraumatic stress symptoms in deployed and non-deployed veterans of the Gulf War. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 637–647.
54.
SpitzerR. L.FirstM. B.WakefieldJ. C. (2007). Saving PTSD from itself in DSM-V. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 21, 233–241.
55.
SpitzerR. L.WilliamsJ. B. W.EndicottJ. (2012). Standards for DSM-5 reliability. American Journal of Psychiatry, 169, 537.
56.
StasikS. M.Naragon-GaineyK.ChmielewskiM.WatsonD. (2012). Core OCD symptoms: Exploration of specificity and relations with psychopathology. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26, 859–870.
57.
StöberJ.JoormannJ. (2001). A short form of the Worry Domains Questionnaire: Construction and factorial validation. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 591–598.
58.
TackettJ. L.QuiltyL. C.SellbomM.RectorN. A.BagbyR. M. (2008). Additional evidence for a quantitative hierarchical model of mood and anxiety disorders for DSM-V: The context of personality structure. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 812–825.
59.
UliaszekA. A.HaunerK. K. Y.ZinbargR. E.CraskeM. G.MinekaS.GriffithJ. W.RoseR. D. (2009). An examination of content overlap and disorder-specific predictions in the associations of neuroticism with anxiety and depression. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 785–794.
60.
WalshM. A.RoyalA.BrownL. H.Barrantes-VidalN.KwapilT. R. (2012). Looking for bipolar spectrum psychopathology: Identification and expression in daily life. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 53, 409–421.
WatsonD. (2005). Rethinking the mood and anxiety disorders: A quantitative hierarchical model for DSM-V. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 522–536.
63.
WatsonD. (2009). Differentiating the mood and anxiety disorders: A quadripartite model. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 5, 221–247.
64.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A. (1992). On traits and temperament: General and specific factors of emotional experience and their relation to the five-factor model. Journal of Personality, 60, 441–476.
65.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A. (1994a). Introduction to the special issue on personality and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 3–5.
66.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A. (Eds.). (1994b). Personality and psychopathology [Special issue]. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103(1).
67.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A. (1997). Measurement and mismeasurement of mood: Recurrent and emergent issues. Journal of Personality Assessment, 68, 267–296.
68.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A.ChmielewskiM.KotovR. (2013). The value of suppressor effects in explicating the construct validity of symptom measures. Psychological Assessment, 25, 929–941. doi:10.1037/a0032781
69.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A.HarknessA. R. (1994). Structures of personality and their relevance to psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 18–31.
70.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A.StasikS. M. (2011). Emotions and the emotional disorders: A quantitative hierarchical perspective. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 11, 429–442.
71.
WatsonD.GámezW.SimmsL. J. (2005). Basic dimensions of temperament and their relation to anxiety and depression: A symptom-based perspective. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 46–66.
72.
WatsonD.NaragonK. (2009). Positive affectivity: The disposition to experience pleasurable emotional states. In SnyderC. R.LopezS. J. (Eds.), The handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 207–215). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
73.
WatsonD.Naragon-GaineyK. (2010). On the specificity of positive emotional dysfunction in psychopathology: Evidence from the mood and anxiety disorders and schizophrenia/schizotypy. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 839–848.
74.
WatsonD.O’HaraM. W.ChmielewskiM.McDade-MontezE. A.KoffelE.NaragonK.StuartS. (2008). Further validation of the IDAS: Evidence of convergent, discriminant, criterion, and incremental validity. Psychological Assessment, 20, 248–259.
75.
WatsonD.O’HaraM. W.Naragon-GaineyK.KoffelE.ChmielewskiM.KotovR.. . . RuggeroC. J. (2012). Development and validation of new anxiety and bipolar symptom scales for an expanded version of the IDAS (the IDAS-II). Assessment, 19, 399–420.
76.
WatsonD.O’HaraM. W.SimmsL. J.KotovR.ChmielewskiM.McDade-MontezE. A.. . . StuartS. (2007). Development and validation of the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS). Psychological Assessment, 19, 253–268.
77.
WatsonD.StasikS. M. (in press). Examining the comorbidity between depression and the anxiety disorders from the perspective of the quadripartite model. In RichardsC. S.O’HaraM. W. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of depression and comorbidity. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
78.
WatsonD.StasikS. M.RoE.ClarkL. A. (2013). Integrating normal and pathological personality: Relating the DSM-5 trait-dimensional model to general traits of personality. Assessment, 20, 312–326.
79.
WatsonD.TellegenA. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98, 219–235.
80.
WatsonD.WeberK.AssenheimerJ. S.ClarkL. A.StraussM. E.McCormickR. A. (1995). Testing a tripartite model: I. Evaluating the convergent and discriminant validity of anxiety and depression symptom scales. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 3–14.
81.
WatsonD.WieseD.VaidyaJ.TellegenA. (1999). The two general activation systems of affect: Structural findings, evolutionary considerations, and psychobiological evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 820–838.
82.
WatsonD.WuK. D. (2005). Development and validation of the Schedule of Compulsions, Obsessions, and Pathological Impulses (SCOPI). Assessment, 12, 50–65.
83.
WeathersF. W.LitzB. T.HermanD. S.HuskaJ. A.KeaneT. M. (1993, October). The PTSD Checklist (PCL): Reliability, validity, and diagnostic utility. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, San Antonio, TX.
84.
WuK. D.WatsonD. (2003). Further investigation of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory: Psychometric analysis in two nonclinical samples. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 17, 305–319.
85.
YufikT.SimmsL. J. (2010). A meta-analytic investigation of the structure of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119, 764–776.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
