The role of maladaptive personality domains across multiple levels of the HiTOP structure

Abstract

This study aimed to examine associations between maladaptive personality traits and psychopathology from the perspective of the hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology (HiTOP). We tested hierarchical structural models to further validate a portion of the structural components of HiTOP. We also tested a priori personality and psychopathology associations with three levels of the HiTOP hierarchy: general psychopathology, spectra and syndromes/disorders. We used a large sample from the general Australian population who completed a large set of personality and psychopathology inventories online. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that internalizing, externalizing and thought dysfunction spectra emerged structurally, as expected per HiTOP, but also revealed that obsessive‐compulsive disorder loaded on both internalizing and thought dysfunction and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder on both externalizing and internalizing. Furthermore, results indicated that almost all personality and psychopathology hypotheses were supported, although trait antagonism did not predict externalizing to the degree initially expected. Implications for personality and psychopathology are discussed. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mapping established psychopathology scales onto the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)

“…Although our sample was not optimal for delineating the true psychopathology hierarchy in the general population (because of extreme group sampling), our results nevertheless indicate that the assumption of simple structure may be unrealistic. This notion is supported by the results of the present bassackwards analysis and also corroborate previous studies that showed deviations from the simple structure (e.g., Krueger et al, 2012;Sellbom et al, 2020). In the context of hierarchical personality assessment, it is assumed that many lower-level personality traits (i.e., facets which correspond to the symptom clusters in this case) are part of several higher order traits (e.g., circumplex models; Hofstee, et al, 1992;Johnson & Ostendorf, 1993).…”

Five Factor model of personality and structure of psychopathological symptoms in adolescents

“…However, ADHD symptoms usually present the lowest factor loadings in most studies (Lahey et al, 2017;Snyder et al, 2017), or even negative factor loadings in the externalizing factor when testing bi-factor models (Castellanos-Ryan et al, 2016). ADHD have also been associated with internalizing problems (Greenbaum & Dedrick, 1998;Sellbom, Carragher, Sunderland, Calear & Batterham, 2019), with some studies proposing them to be a separate factor from internalizing and externalizing (Achenbach, Dumenci, & Rescorla, 2001;Sánchez-Sánchez et al, 2016). These data generally suggest that the location of ADHD symptoms within the psychopathology structure needs further examination.…”

Maximizing the applied value of structural models of psychopathology: Introduction to a special issue of Personality and Mental Health

“…Similarly, Sellbom et al examine correlations among HiTOP dimensions—namely, internalizing, externalizing and thought disorder—and pathological trait domains represented in the DSM‐5 alternative model of personality disorder. They found that, in a representative sample of Australians, personality disorder domains had expected patterns of association with quantitative psychopathology dimensions.…”