Personality disorder symptoms in adolescence: A five-factor model perspective

The five-factor model has been widely used to describe adaptive and maladaptive functioning in adulthood. However, less is known about the structure and developmental antecedents of personality pathology and personality disorders. In the present study, we examined the validity of the most recent DSM-IV predictions Widiger, Trull, Clarkin, Sanderson, & Costa, 2002) in a sample of 419 non-clinical adolescents and explored the validity of the unique FFM facet variances (using the NEO PI-R) to predict disorder symptoms (using the ADP-IV). Our results demonstrate a largely similar correlation and regression pattern between adult and adolescent data, indicating that adaptive and maladaptive trait-descriptive systems relate across a more extended developmental span than has been demonstrated before.