Pathology versus statistical infrequency: Potential sources of gender biasin personality disorder criteria

The antisocial, narcissistic, dependent, histrionic, and borderline persona lity disorders often obtain differential sex prevalence rates. One explanat ion has been that the diagnostic criteria for these personality disorders h ave different gender implications for maladaptivity (e.g., perhaps the depe ndent personality disorder diagnostic criteria are considered by clinicians to be more pathological for women than for men). This hypothesis was explo red in two studies that obtained judgments by professional clinicians of th e maladaptivity and statistical infrequency of personality disorder diagnos tic criteria. Significant differences across gender were obtained for the f requency of diagnostic criteria but not for their maladaptivity. The person ality disorder diagnostic criteria appear to be gender neutral with respect to their implications for maladaptivity.