How Heritable Are Maladaptive Personality Traits?

Although heritability for the “Big Five” normative personality traits has been estimated at 40% to 55%, heritability estimates for maladaptive personality features (e.g., those posited for the DSM-5 alternative Trait Model for diagnosis of personality disorder) have not been established. To learn more, researchers analyzed personality traits in a sample of 670 complete twin pairs from the Minnesota Twin Registry (homozygotic female, 42%; homozygotic male, 22%; dizygotic female, 27%; dizygotic male, 9%).

Heritability of the Big Five major domains (based on the IPIP-NEO measure) was compared with that of the five maladaptive personality constructs (using the personality inventory based on the DSM-5 Trait Model). The DSM-5 domains strongly repr…