Dimensional structure of personality disorder inventories: A comparison of normal and clinical populations

A number of inventories have been developed to measure personality disorders in recent years. The authors of these inventories are not completely in agreement as to the underlying structure of the psychological traits being measured. Multidimensional scaling has been suggested by some recent investigators in order to clarify conceptual issues. In the present study, four personality disorder inventories (Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II, Coolidge Axis-II Inventory, and MMPI-PD scales) were administered to two samples of introductory psychology students. The data were then analyzed through multidimensional scaling in order to highlight similarities and differences between various dimensional models reported in the literature that were derived from clinical populations.