Redefining Personality Structure

Abstract

Evidence accumulated over the past two decades suggests that a comprehensive taxonomy of individual differences in personality is incomplete without postulating the existence of a trait-like disposition to phenomena that could be labeled psychotic-like experiences and behaviors (PLEBs). Such a disposition, called Psychoticism, was first proposed by Eysenck (1952), but the evidence did not support his conceptualization of the disposition. Nevertheless, evidence supports the trait-like nature of the PLEBs domain, showing temporal and cross-cultural stability and a dimensionality similar to that of the other basic personality traits. Recently, another model of the domain was proposed (Knežević et al., 2017), postulating a hierarchical structure with nine subdimensions that converge strongly on the higher-order factor (designated Disintegration). It was postulated that Disintegration reflects individual differences in the tendency to see, cognize, and feel connections among factually unrelated events or falsepositive detection errors, leading to phenomena captured by the subdimensions of Disintegration. Disintegration was found to be distinct from the personality traits postulated by models such as the Big Five or HEXACO and implicated in a wide range of behavioral tendencies, from those of clinical relevancesuch as psychosis, depression, narcissism, post-traumatic stress disorder, exposure to stressful events (e.g., Knežević et al., 2022) to those of nonclinical significance, such as irrational beliefs, sociopolitical attitudes, worldviews, thinking styles, criminal behavior, and questionable medical practices (e.g., Lazarević et al., 2023).This topical issue includes a collection of papers that further demonstrate the separation of Disintegration/ Psychoticism from Big Five and HEXACOusing markers of PLEBs different from Disintegration (Watson et al., 2024, this issue) and new samples, including