The personality of clinical types: an empirically derived taxonomy

Studied the development of a theory of multivariate personality styles that are considered to correspond to the character of specific diagnostic types. Theoretical descriptions of the personality styles of the hysteric, compulsive, character disorder, manic, and depressive were operationalized by predicting specific combinations of personality dimensions measured by previously validated personality measures. A test battery composed of scales hypothesized to operationalize these characteristics was administered to samples of male and female college students (N = 95). A short scale, the Multivariate Personality Inventory, was devised to measure these styles and was found to be reliable and to exhibit concurrent validity with the full test battery. A cluster analysis methodology isolated clusters of males and females who corresponded to the predicted profiles of the hypothesized personality styles. Strongest support was found for the female hysteric, the male and female compulsive, the female character disorder, and the male manic personality style.