Personality disorder concept scales and 16 PF dimensions

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychometrics
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Mapping personality disorders (Axis II) within interpersonal behavior is complex.
• Existing personality assessments may offer insights into personality disorder conceptualizations.
• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF) are widely used.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between the 16 PF and Axis II personality disorders.
• To determine if the 16 PF can predict personality disorder characteristics measured by the MMPI.
• To map Axis II disorders within a circumplex model of interpersonal behavior using psychometric data.

Main Methods:

• Factor analysis of MMPI and 16 PF scores from a private practice sample (n=148).
• Development of regression equations to predict MMPI scales from 16 PF scores.
• Cross-validation using a separate sample (n=43 clients, n=21 students) correlating predicted MMPI scores with Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) scores.

Main Results:

• High concordance was found between personality disorder characterizations across the instruments.
• Many predicted personality disorder characteristics derived from the 16 PF were supported.
• Ten out of eleven correlations between predicted MMPI scores and MCMI scores were significant.

Conclusions:

• The 16 PF is a valuable tool for generating hypotheses about personality disorders.
• Axis II personality disorder conceptualizations align with normal personality structures as measured by the 16 PF.
• The findings support the utility of the 16 PF in understanding personality pathology within a broader personality framework.