An Examination of Content Overlap and Disorder-Specific Predictions in the Associations of Neuroticism with Anxiety and Depression

J Res Pers. 2009 Oct 1;43(5):785-794. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.05.009.

Abstract

This study examines whether content overlap artificially inflates estimates of the associations of emotional disorders with neuroticism and whether disorder-specificity of prediction exists. We demonstrated a statistical approach for testing the validity of hypothesized facets of neuroticism. In a sample of 627 adolescents, we indentified six facets of neuroticism, one intermediate facet, and a general neuroticism factor (GNF). Only the GNF and the depression facet were significantly associated with depressive symptomatology. The GNF and all facets significantly predicted anxiety symptomatology. This study offers a new statistical approach for addressing content overlap, testing for disorder specific prediction and identifying facets of a broad personality trait, while indicating that content overlap does not largely explain the associations of neuroticism with psychopathology.