A Broad Internalizing Dimension Accounts for the Genetic Associations between Personality and Individual Internalizing Disorders

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: holly E. Poore, Rutgers University; Ashley L. Watts, University of Missouri; Hannah P. Friedman, University of Mississippi; Irwin Waldman, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-11
• Publisher: American Psychological Association
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2022, American Psychological Association
• Final Published Version (URL): https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000782
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science
• Volume: 131
• Issue: 8
• Start Page: 857
• End Page: 867
• Grant/Funding Information: ALW is funded through K99AA028306 (Principal Investigator: Watts).
• Keywords: quantitative genetic models; personality-psychopathology associations; dimensions of psychopathology
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Mental Health; Psychology, Personality; Health Sciences, Pathology

Abstract

Much research has demonstrated that psychopathology can be described in terms of broad dimensions, representing liability for multiple psychiatric disorders. Broad spectra of psychopathology (e.g., internalizing and externalizing) are increasingly used as targets for research investigating the development, etiology, and course of psychopathology because they account for patterns of relatedness among disorders that were once presumed distinct. Thus, these spectra represent alluring targets due to their comprehensive and parsimonious nature. Nevertheless, little research has established the role of individual disorders over and above broad dimensions in the study of psychopathology. In the current study, we investigate whether there are unique etiological associations between individual internalizing disorders and personality traits after accounting for their etiological associations with a broad internalizing dimension. We used a community sample of twins (Npairs = 448) ages 4–19 to examine the etiological associations between internalizing psychopathology and Big 5 personality dimensions. In terms of genetic covariation, a broad internalizing dimension was positively associated with neuroticism and negatively associated with extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Moreover, internalizing accounted for most of the genetic variance shared between individual internalizing disorders and personality traits. Nevertheless, there were unique genetic associations between the following pairs of personality traits and disorders: neuroticism and social anxiety, extraversion and social anxiety, agreeableness and depression, and conscientiousness and compulsions. There was little evidence of environmental influences shared between internalizing and personality. In sum, a broad internalizing dimension adequately accounted for almost all of the etiologic covariation between internalizing disorders and personality, with several interesting exceptions.