Personality and psychopathology in schizophrenia: The association between personality traits and symptoms

RESEARCH has indicated that stable individual differences in personality ex ist among persons with schizophrenia, and that they likely predate the onse t of illness, Little is known, however, about whether individual difference s in personality are related to levels of psychopathology. This study teste d the hypotheses that levels of Extroversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism are associated with symptomatology, Accordingly, measures of these dimensi ons of personality and of symptomatology were obtained simultaneously for 1 13 male subjects with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, Next, subj ects were characterized as having high or low levels on each personality di mension and their scores on the five components of the Positive Negative Sy ndrome Scale were compared using multivariate and univariate procedures. Re sults indicate that extroverted subjects had lower levels of Positive, Nega tive, and Emotional Discomfort symptoms, and higher levels of Excitement sy mptoms than introverted subjects, Subjects with higher levels of Neuroticis m had higher levels of Positive and Emotional Discomfort symptoms than subj ects with lower levels of Neuroticism. No differences in symptoms were foun d among subjects with higher versus lower levels of Psychoticism. Results s uggest individual differences in personality are associated with psychopath ology in schizophrenia and may help further explain the heterogeneity widel y observed in this disorder.