The joint hierarchical structure of psychopathology and dysfunctional personality domain indicators among community‐dwelling adults

Abstract

To examine the hierarchical structure of psychopathology and dysfunctional personality domains, 2416 Italian community‐dwelling adult volunteers were administered a set of psychometrically sound psychopathology measures and the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5 Brief Form+ (PID‐5‐BF+). Parallel analysis, minimum average partial, and very simple structure results suggested that 1–6 principal components (PCs) should be retained. Goldberg's bass‐ackwards model of the joint psychopathology measure and PID‐5‐BF+ ipsatized domain scale correlation matrix evidenced a hierarchical structure that was consistent with the working model proposed by the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) consortium. Hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis around latent variables of the psychopathology indicators and PID‐5‐BF+ domain scales recovered four latent dimensions, which were akin to the corresponding bass‐ackwards components and nicely reproduced the HiTOP Internalizing, Externalizing, Thought Disorder, and Eating Pathology dimensions.

Deriving the Transdiagnostic Scales From the Personality Assessment Inventory and SPECTRA: Indices of Psychopathology: A Demonstration

“…The Internalizing/ Detachment and Externalizing/Thought Disorder dimensions met Goldberg's criteria (Loehlin and Goldberg 2014) for a likely hierarchical structure. Our findings are similar to those of Somma et al (2022), who found a broad internalizing and "non-internalizing" component at level two of their "bass-ackwards" hierarchy. The Somma et al (2022) non-internalizing component "included indicators from both the Externalizing and Thought Disorder spectra" (Somma et al 2022, p. 18), a finding similar to the Externalizing/ Thought Disorder component obtained in the present study.…”

“…Our findings are similar to those of Somma et al (2022), who found a broad internalizing and "non-internalizing" component at level two of their "bass-ackwards" hierarchy. The Somma et al (2022) non-internalizing component "included indicators from both the Externalizing and Thought Disorder spectra" (Somma et al 2022, p. 18), a finding similar to the Externalizing/ Thought Disorder component obtained in the present study. Overall, these findings suggest that hierarchical transdiagnostic scales compatible with contemporary models of psychopathology can be derived from PAI and SPECTRA data.…”

“…Our findings are consistent with those of Somma et al (2022) and Wendt et al (2022), who also replicated these contemporary models of psychopathology using a wide range of established inventories and individual scales. However, we extended their work by demonstrating that scales from two commercially available assessment inventories can be reconfigured into transdiagnostic scales, increasing the potential for clinical adoption.…”

“…For example, at the second level of the hierarchy, our general factor split into broad Detachment/Internalizing and Externalizing/Thought Disorder factors. The broad Externalizing/Thought Disorder factor is consistent with the findings of bothForbes et al (2021) andSomma et al (2022), who also found an Externalizing/Thought Disorder factor (labelled Non-Internalizing) at the second level of the hierarchy. The association of the thought disorder and externalizing dimensions in our study is likely driven by the inclusion of the SPECTRA manic activation (MAN) Kotov et al 2021)…”

“…Additionally, the current study was limited by the exclusive use of self-report data. Exclusive reliance on selfreport data is inconsistent with the multimethod approach used in clinical assessment (Hopwood and Bornstein 2014) and has been raised as a significant concern within the transdiagnostic research community (Stanton et al 2020;Somma et al 2022).…”