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Personality Disorders as Extreme Variants of Common Personality Dimensions: Can the Five Factor Model Adequately Represent Psychopathy?
Author(s) -
Miller Joshua D.,
Lyman Donald R.,
Widiger Thomas A.,
Leukefeld Carl
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6494.00144
Subject(s) - psychopathy , psychology , dark triad , personality , personality disorders , antisocial personality disorder , psychopathology , clinical psychology , similarity (geometry) , developmental psychology , poison control , injury prevention , social psychology , medicine , environmental health , artificial intelligence , computer science , image (mathematics)
The present study examined Widiger and Lynam’s (1998) hypothesis that psychopathy can be represented using the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality. Participants in the study consisted of 481 21–22 year old men and women who are part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Psychopathy was assessed by the degree of similarity between an individual’s NEO‐PI‐R and an expert‐generated FFM psychopathy prototype. The expert‐based prototype supported the account of Widiger and Lynam (1998), as did the correlations between the NEO‐PI‐R Psychopathy Resemblance Index (PRI) and the individual personality dimensions. The PRI was also related in predicted ways to measures of antisocial behavior, drug use, and psychopathology. The results support the contention that psychopathy can be understood as an extreme variant of common dimensions of personality, and underscore the utility of a dimensional model of personality disorders.