Dimensions of personality--relationship between DSM-IV personality disorder symptoms, the five-factor model, and the biosocial model of personality.

Dimensional approaches regard personality disorders as extreme or maladaptive variants of traits that are commonly used to describe normal personality. Previous clinical and nonclinical studies identified four factors interpreted as Antisocial, Asocial, Asthenic, and Anankastic. To investigate the validity of this four-factor structure in healthy volunteers, 97 male and 98 female students completed versions of the NEO-PI-R and TPQ. Symptoms of personality disorders were assessed using the ADP-IV questionnaire. A factor analysis of the personality and symptom scales revealed a four-factor solution accounting for 71.55% of the total variance. These factors resembling the "four A's" were labelled Asthenic, Sociable vs. Asocial, Antisocial, and Disorderly vs. Anankastic. The results of this study support the presence of four factors in the description of adaptive as well as maladaptive personality traits.