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Conscientiousness and ObsessiveCompulsive Personality Disorder

Article in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment July 2011
DOI: 10.1037/a0021216 Source: PubMed

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Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment

2011, Vol. 2, No. 3, 161174

2011 American Psychological Association

1949-2715/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0021216

Conscientiousness and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

Douglas B. Samuel

Thomas A. Widiger

Yale University School of Medicine and VA New

England MIRECC, West Haven, Connecticut

University of Kentucky

A dimensional perspective on personality disorder hypothesizes that the current diagnostic categories represent maladaptive variants of general personality traits. However,
a fundamental foundation of this viewpoint is that dimensional models can adequately
account for the pathology currently described by these categories. While most of the
personality disorders have well established links to dimensional models that buttress
this hypothesis, obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) has obtained only
inconsistent support. The current study administered multiple measures of 1) conscientiousness-related personality traits, 2) DSMIV OCPD, and 3) specific components of
OCPD (e.g., compulsivity and perfectionism) to a sample of 536 undergraduates who
were oversampled for elevated OCPD scores. Six existing measures of conscientiousness-related personality traits converged strongly with each other supporting their
assessment of a common trait. These measures of conscientiousness correlated highly
with scales assessing specific components of OCPD, but obtained variable relationships
with measures of DSMIV OCPD. More specifically, there were differences within the
conscientiousness instruments such that those designed to assess general personality
functioning had small to medium relationships with OCPD, but those assessing more
maladaptive variants obtained large effect sizes. These findings support the view that
OCPD does represent a maladaptive variant of normal-range conscientiousness.
Keywords: obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, compulsivity, conscientiousness, persistence, achievement

Personality disorders are currently conceptualized as qualitatively distinct clinical syndromes in the American Psychiatric Associations (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSMIVTR; APA, 2000,
p. 689). However, researchers have highlighted
the limitations of this categorical model and
have suggested that a dimensional model of
personality disorder (PD) might provide a via-

This article was published Online First April 18, 2011.

Douglas B. Samuel, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine and VA New England MIRECC, West Haven, Connecticut; and Thomas A. Widiger,
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky.
Writing of this article was supported by the Office of
Academic Affiliations, Advanced Fellowship Program in
Mental Illness Research and Treatment, Department of Veterans Affairs. This research was made possible, in part, by
a fellowship (F31MH074245) awarded to the Douglas B.
Samuel from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Douglas B. Samuel at VA Connecticut Healthcare, 950 Campbell Avenue 151-D, Building 35, West Haven, CT 06516. E-mail: [Link]@[Link]

ble alternative (Krueger, Skodol, Livesley,

Shrout, & Huang, 2007; Trull & Durrett, 2005;
Widiger & Samuel, 2005). One such proposal is to
consider PDs maladaptive variants of the fivefactor model (FFM; Widiger & Trull, 2007).
The FFM has compelling support as a model
of general personality (John, Naumann, & Soto,
2008; McCrae & Costa, 2008) and a considerable body of evidence also suggests that the
DSMIVTR PDs can be understood as maladaptive variants of the FFM (Clark, 2007;
OConnor, 2005; Samuel & Widiger, 2008).
However, less consistent support has been obtained for obsessive compulsive personality
disorder (OCPD).
DSMIVTR describes the essential feature
of OCPD as a preoccupation with orderliness,
perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal
control, at the expense of flexibility, openness,
and efficiency (p. 669) and includes such
symptoms as perfectionism, preoccupation with
order and organization, workaholism, and overconscientiousness (APA, 2000). Within dimensional models, this appears similar to a domain

161

162

SAMUEL AND WIDIGER

concerned with the control and regulation of

behavior that has been referred to as constraint, compulsivity, or conscientiousness
(Widiger & Simonsen, 2005, p. 116). The FFM
domain of conscientiousness includes traits
such as dutifulness, self-discipline, deliberation,
and order (McCrae & Costa, 2003). Persons
within a normal range of conscientiousness
would be organized, ordered, reliable, businesslike, industrious, punctual, and disciplined
(Roberts, Jackson, Fayard, Edmonds, & Meints,
2009). It is reasonable to hypothesize that persons who are excessively conscientious will be
overconscientious; will engage in excessive deliberation; will be excessively devoted to their
work to the detriment of social and leisure activities; will be perfectionistic to the point that
tasks are not completed; or will be preoccupied
with order, organization, rules, and details
(APA, 2000; Widiger, Trull, Clarkin, Sanderson, & Costa, 2002).
Nevertheless, FFM conscientiousness has not
obtained consistent correlations with OCPD.
Saulsman and Page (2004) meta-analyzed 15
independent samples reporting correlations between the FFM and PDs and computed a
weighted mean effect size of .23 ( p .0001)
for the relationship between OCPD and conscientiousness. Moderator analyses indicated that
this effect was dependent upon the PD instrument as the mean weighted effect size was .52
for a version of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial
Inventory (e.g., MCMI-III; Millon, Millon, &
Davis, 1997), but only .03 when all other PD
instruments were considered.
This specificity of the finding to the MCMIIII is further troubling in light of the poor convergence of the MCMI-III with other measures
of OCPD. Widiger and Boyd (2009) reported
that the median convergent validity of any two
self-report measures of OCPD was .45 when the
MCMI was excluded, whereas the median convergence of any other OCPD measure with the
MCMI was .14. In sum, the predominant support for the relationship of FFM conscientiousness with OCPD is derived largely from a measure of OCPD that relates negatively to other
measures of the same construct.
Samuel and Widiger (2008) replicated the
meta-analysis of Saulsman and Page (2004) using 18 independent samples (16 of which were
novel). At the domain level they reported a
mean weighted effect size of .24 between

OCPD and conscientiousness and also found a

moderating effect of PD instrument. For example, the average correlation between the facets
of conscientiousness and OCPD was .45 for the
MCMI-III, but only .01 with the Personality
Diagnostic Questionnaire (PDQ-4; Hyler,
1994). However, they noted that the OCPD
scale from the Schedule for Nonadaptive and
Adaptive Personality (SNAP; Clark, 1993) also
obtained a correlation of .21, suggesting that the
relationship between OCPD and conscientiousness was particularly strong with the MCMI-III,
but was not entirely specific to that instrument.
Beyond differences among OCPD scales,
there may also be variations among assessments
of conscientiousness that impact the relationship. A majority of the studies within these
meta-analyses have relied upon the NEO Personality InventoryRevised (NEO PI-R; Costa
& McCrae, 1992) to assess the FFM. The NEO
PI-R is, by far, the most commonly used measure
of the FFM and has extensive validity (McCrae &
Costa, 2008). Nevertheless, a potential limitation
of using it to test the hypothesis that OCPD relates
to conscientiousness is that the NEO PI-R was
developed as a measure of normal personality
functioning. The NEO PI-R does contain a few
items assessing maladaptive conscientiousness
(e.g., Im something of a workaholic), but
Haigler and Widiger (2001) indicated that 90%
of the conscientiousness items are keyed in the
direction of adaptive rather than maladaptive
functioning and suggested the inconsistent relationship with OCPD is due to the NEO PI-R.
Haigler and Widiger (2001) experimentally
manipulated each NEO PI-R conscientiousness item by adding terms such as excessively, too much, or preoccupied. It is
important to note that they did not manipulate
the NEO PI-R items to become indicators of
OCPD, but rather, more maladaptive conscientiousness. For example, the item I keep my
belongings neat and clean became I keep
my belongings excessively neat and clean.
They found that the original NEO PI-R conscientiousness domain correlated .27 with the
OCPD scale from the SNAP (Clark, 1993),
.15 with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory2 (MMPI-2) OCPD scale
(Morey, Waugh, & Blashfield, 1985), and
.02 with the PDQ-4 OCPD scale (Hyler,
1994). The experimentally manipulated conscientiousness scale increased the correla-

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND OCPD

tions with the OCPD scales to .69, .47, and

.69 with the SNAP, MMPI-2, and PDQ-4,
respectively.
There are, of course, several other measures
of conscientiousness beyond the NEO PI-R,
such as the HEXACO Personality Inventory
Revised (HEXACO PI-R; Ashton & Lee,
2008), the Temperament and Character InventoryRevised (TCI-R; Cloninger, 1999, 2008),
the Five Factor Model Rating Form (FFMRF;
Mullins-Sweatt, Jamerson, Samuel, Olsen, &
Widiger, 2006), and the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen &
Waller, 2008). Factor analytic research supports
considering these measures as alternative conceptualizations of a common higher order construct (Markon, Krueger, & Watson, 2005; Widiger & Simonson, 2005) and a more complete
understanding of the hypothesized relationship
between conscientiousness and OCPD would be
provided by an examination of these measures.
The HEXACO PI-R provides an alternative
conceptualization of conscientiousness. The primary difference between the HEXACO PI-R
and FFM is that the former includes a sixth
domain (labeled honesty-humility) that the
FFM includes as aspects of agreeableness.
The HEXACO PI-R and the NEO PI-R both
include a domain of conscientiousness but the
HEXACO PI-R includes different facets (i.e.,
organization, diligence, perfectionism, and prudence). No study has correlated the HEXACO
PI-R with any OCPD scale.
The MPQ assesses 11 primary trait scales that
are combined, using factor weights, into four
higher-order domains, including constraint (Tellegen & Waller, 2008). However, because the calculation of constraint requires the administration
of eight trait scales, we focused specifically on the
achievement scale, which appeared most conceptually related to the aims of the current study. No
previous study has investigated the relationship
between the MPQ and OCPD.
The Temperament and Character Inventory
(TCI) assesses a dimensional model that was
developed to cover both normal and abnormal
personality functioning (Cloninger, Przybeck,
Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994). Of particular relevance to the current study is the domain of
persistence which aligns with FFM conscientiousness (Markon et al., 2005). Unlike the
MPQ and HEXACO PI-R, there have been at
least 10 studies that have provided correlations

163

between persistence and OCPD. The relationship has ranged from .08 (Svrakic, Whitehead,
Przybeck, & Cloninger, 1993) to .51 (Bagby,
Marshall, & Georgiades, 2005), with a mean
weighted correlation of .20. While the magnitude of this relationship is not large, it should be
noted that these studies all used the TCI, rather
than the TCI-R (Cloninger, 1999, 2008). This is
potentially quite important as a primary revision
for the TCI-R was the expansion of persistence
from a single 8-item scale to a 35-item scale
consisting of four subscales that are closely
related to aspects of OCPD (i.e., eagerness of
effort, work-hardened, ambitious, and perfectionist). It is possible that the revised version
provides a more comprehensive assessment of
the domain and might obtain a larger relationship with OCPD.
Finally, the FFMRF (Mullins-Sweatt et al.,
2006) is a one-page instrument with an item
corresponding to the six facets for each domain
described by the NEO PI-R. For their metaanalysis, Samuel and Widiger (2008) identified
six studies that had included the FFMRF and
reported the mean weighted effect sizes between OCPD and the facets of conscientiousness ranged from .15 (deliberation) to .23
(achievement striving).
The overarching aim of the current study is
an examination of the empirical relationship
between conscientiousness and OCPD that transcends the idiosyncrasies of individual instruments that assess both constructs. This will be
accomplished by considering multiple scales assessing 1) conscientiousness, 2) DSMIV
OCPD, and 3) specific components of OCPD.
The conscientiousness-related scales will include not only the NEO PI-R, but also the
experimentally manipulated version of NEO
PI-R by Haigler and Widiger (2001), the
HEXACO PI-R, the TCI-R, the MPQ, and the
FFMRF. Recognizing that prior studies have
suggested differences among measures of
OCPD and their relationship with conscientiousness (Samuel & Widiger, 2008), we also
include seven OCPD scales. We hypothesize
that the conscientiousness-related instruments
will obtain significant and substantial relationships with OCPD scores.
These findings will also be buttressed by considering more specific components of OCPD
measured by the compulsivity scale from the
Dimensional Assessment of Personality Patholo-

164

SAMUEL AND WIDIGER

gy-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ; Livesley &

Jackson, 2009) and the propriety and workaholism
scales from the SNAP (Clark, 1993). Both the
SNAP and the DAPP-BQ were separately developed using bottom up approaches. Their authors
compiled exhaustive lists of PD symptoms and
used iterative processes, including factor analysis,
to identify the lower-order facets that define personality pathology. These three scales will provide
a means of assessing whether the relationship between conscientiousness and OCPD is stronger
with respect to more specific components of
OCPD.
Method
Procedure
The study was approved by the appropriate
institutional review board and the sample was
drawn from the introductory psychology student
participant pool at the University of Kentucky.
Existing taxometric evidence suggests that OCPD
exists on a continuum rather than a taxon (Arntz et
al., 2009) indicating that it can be fruitfully studied
within a general population sample. Nonetheless,
in order to maximize the presence of DSMIV
OCPD symptomatology, the OCPD scale from
the PDQ-4 was included in a packet of prescreening measures that were completed by the entire
pool of potential participants. Individuals who endorsed at least five of the eight PDQ-4 items were
formally invited (via email) to participate in the
current study. After 150 from this group had participated to ensure the oversampling for OCPD
pathology, the study was opened to the entire
subject pool in order to expand the range. In total,
559 participants provided informed consent and
completed selected scales from personality and
personality disorder instruments over the course
of approximately two hours. The order of these
scales was standard across all participants.1 Of the
total sample, 23 (4%) of the participants provided
incomplete protocols and were dropped from the
study, yielding a final sample of 536 participants,
155 (29%) of whom had been prescreened for
elevated OCPD symptomatology.

Asian American, and additional 3.2% described

themselves as multiracial or other. Two
percent of the sample listed their ethnicity as
Latino/a. The participants ranged in age from 18
to 27, with a mean of 18.8 (SD 1.0) and
consisted primarily of students (68.4%) in their
first semester of college. Two hundred and 13
(40.9%) of the participants reached the diagnostic threshold for OCPD on the PDQ-4
and 50.4% met criteria using the Structured
Clinical Interview for DSMIV IIPersonality
Questionnaire (SCID-II PQ). Given the tendency of these screening instruments to diagnose at much higher rates than structured interviews (Bagby & Farvolden, 2004), one should
not conclude that 40% or 50% of the sample
would or should be diagnosed with OCPD.
However, these results do suggest that the prescreening was successful in sampling an adequate range of OCPD symptomatology.
Assessments and Measures
The current study includes six alternative
measures of the domain of conscientiousness,
seven alternative measures of OCPD, and three
scales assessing specific components of OCPD.
Conscientiousness-Related Scales
NEO PI-R.
The NEO PI-R (Costa &
McCrae, 1992) is a measure of the five-factor
model of personality and contains 240 items that
are rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). This
instrument is composed of five broad domain
scales, which are each, in turn, assessed by six
underlying facet scales. For example, the conscientiousness scale contains the facets of competence, order, dutifulness, achievement-striving,
self-discipline, and deliberation. The entire NEO
PI-R was administered in the current study.
Experimentally manipulated NEO PI-R
(EXP-NEO).
Haigler and Widiger (2001)
conducted an experimental manipulation of the
items from the NEO PI-R, in which they systematically transformed each item into a more

Participants
The sample was largely female (62.7%) and
predominantly Caucasian (91.0%). Four percent
of the sample was African American, 1.7%

1
The exact order of administration was NEO PI-R,
EXP-NEO, HEXACO, MCMI-III, MMPI-2, OMNI,
WISPI, SCID-II PQ, SNAP, DAPP-BQ, MPQ, TCI-R,
PDQ-4, and FFMRF.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND OCPD

extreme variant by adding words such as excessive. For example, the conscientiousness
item I strive for excellence in everything I do
became My tendency to strive for excellence in
everything I do often becomes excessive. Only
the 48 items from the conscientiousness domain
were administered.
HEXACO PI-R.
The HEXACO-PI-R
(Ashton & Lee, 2008) is measure of general
personality that contains 200 items rated on a
Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree)
to 5 (strongly agree). This instrument assesses
six broad domains of general personality functioning (each containing four facets) as well as
a single interstitial facet. Only the 32 items
from the conscientiousness domain, containing
the facet scales labeled organization, diligence,
perfectionism, and prudence were administered.
MPQ.
The MPQ (Tellegen & Waller,
2008) is a 276-item, true/false measure that
assesses four broad traits via 11 scales. The
current study included the 20-item achievement scale, which assesses ones tendency to
push hard for achievement and strive for excellence and perfection (e.g., I push myself
to my limits).
TCI-R. The TCI-R (Cloninger, 1999, 2008)
assesses a seven-factor model with 240-items
rated on a 1 (definitely false) to 5 (definitely true)
scale, where a response of 3 indicates neither true
nor false. The 35-item persistence scale and its
four subscales (i.e., eagerness of effort, workhardened, ambitious, and perfectionist) were administered in the present study.
FFMRF. The FFMRF (Mullins-Sweatt et
al., 2006) is a one page rating form that has been
used to record descriptions of the FFM using
one item for each of the 30 facets. Each facet
includes 23 adjective anchors at each pole and
is rated on a 1 (low) to 5 (high) metric. The
entire instrument was administered.
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality
Disorder Scales
MCMI-III. The MCMI-III (Millon et al.,
1997) is a 175-item true/false self-report inventory, developed in accordance with the
DSMIV, which assesses 14 PDs as well as 10
other clinical syndromes. The MCMI-III is
among the most frequently used self-report
inventories in clinical practice (Camara, Na-

165

than, & Puente, 2000) and its 17-item OCPD

scale was administered.
MMPI-2.
The MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) is
a 567-item true/false self-report inventory that
provides scores on 10 clinical scales as well as
supplemental scales. Morey, Waugh, and Blashfield (1985) selected those items from the inventory that appeared to represent DSMIII
(APA, 1980) OCPD and demonstrated good
internal consistency. The resulting scale contained 13 items. Somwaru and Ben-Porath
(1995) subsequently created their own OCPD
scale from the MMPI-2, utilizing 10 of the
items from Morey and colleagues as well as 10
additional items. All 23 items were collapsed
and administered in the current study.
OMNI personality inventory. The OMNI
(Loranger, 2001) consists of 375 items designed
to assess both normal and abnormal personality
traits, including 10 scales corresponding to the
DSMIV PDs. Items are scored on a scale ranging from 1 (definitely agree) to 7 (definitely
disagree). The OCPD scale containing 18 items
was administered.
PDQ-4.
The PDQ-4 (Hyler, 1994) is a
99-item true/false self-report inventory that assesses 12 PDs according to the DSMIV. The
PDQ-4 is commonly used within clinical research (Bagby & Farvolden, 2004; Widiger &
Boyd, 2009). The OCPD scale has eight items,
corresponding to each diagnostic criterion for
the disorder. The entire instrument was administered in the current study.
SCID-II-PQ. The SCID-II-PQ (First, Gibbon, Spitzer, Williams, & Benjamin, 1997) is a
self-report, screening instrument for the
SCID-II clinical interview, which assesses each
of the DSMIV PDs. It contains a total of 117
items that are answered as either true or false.
The nine items corresponding to the diagnostic
criteria for OCPD were administered.
Wisconsin Personality Inventory-IV
(WISPI-IV). The WISPI-IV (Klein & Benjamin, 1996) consists of 204 items that are
scored along a scale that ranges from 1 (not at
all, never applies to me) to 10 (extremely, always applies to me). The WISPI-IV OCPD
scale containing 18 items was administered.
SNAP. The SNAP (Clark, 1993) is a 375item true/false instrument that assesses a dimensional model of personality disorder containing
three temperament and 12 primary trait scales, as

166

SAMUEL AND WIDIGER

well as the DSMIIIR (APA, 1987) PDs. The

present study administered the propriety and
workaholism trait scales as well as the OCPD
scale. The propriety scale consists of 20 items and
assesses ones tendency to be concerned with
proper standards of conduct and social conventions (e.g., I like to keep my dignity at all costs).
The workaholism scale contains 18 items and
measures ones tendency to put work above leisure pursuits (e.g., My work is more important to
me than anything else). The OCPD scale from
the SNAP contains 23 items, 9 of which are also
scored for workaholism (5) and propriety (4).
DAPP-BQ.
The DAPP-BQ (Livesley &
Jackson, 2009) contains 290 statements to which
an individual responds on a 5-point Likert-type
scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly
agree. The DAPP-BQ includes 18 scales assessing aspects of personality pathology. In the current
study we included the 16-item compulsivity (e.g.,
I do jobs thoroughly even if no one will ever see
them) scale.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for
the conscientiousness and OCPD component
scales. With the exception of FFMRF conscientiousness (.73), all the Cronbachs alpha values
presented in Table 1 were above .80. Descrip-

tive statistics for the OCPD scales within this

sample have been reported elsewhere (Samuel
& Widiger, 2010) and so are not reproduced
here. The OCPD scales had Cronbachs alpha
values that were lower, ranging from .44
(PDQ-4) to .90 (WISPI-IV). A previous report
from this data set study focused explicitly on
differences among the OCPD scales and reported that although most converged well with
one another (i.e., median correlation was .49),
the MCMI-III was a notable exception (Samuel
& Widiger, 2010). Whereas the lowest convergent correlation among the other measures was
.40 (MMPI-2 with WISPI-IV), the highest convergent correlation for the MCMI-III was .26
(with the SNAP).
Correlations Among Conscientiousness
Measures
Table 2 presents the correlations of the conscientiousness scales with one another. Because
we examined a number of comparisons we
chose a Bonferroni correction to limit the
chance of Type I error. The total number of
experiment-wise comparisons was 275, yielding
a corrected alpha value (.05/275) of .00018. All
correlations within Table 2 were significant at
this threshold. The individual correlations
ranged from a low of .51 (MPQ achievement
with FFMRF conscientiousness) to a high of .84
(HEXACO PI-R and NEO PI-R conscientious-

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics

Conscientiousness-Related Scales
NEO PI-R Conscientiousness
EXP-NEO Conscientiousness
HEXACO PI-R Conscientiousness
FFMRF Conscientiousness
TCI-R Persistence
MPQ Achievement
OCPD Component Scales
SNAP Workaholism
SNAP Propriety
DAPP-BQ Compulsivity

# items

SD

48
48
32
6
35
20

156.7
140.2
103.2
20.6
116.1
10.7

19.2
17.1
15.0
3.3
18.7
5.0

.91
.88
.90
.73
.94
.86

18
20
16

6.4
11.7
50.9

4.0
4.3
9.7

.83
.81
.88

Note. OCPD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; NEO PI-R NEO Personality InventoryRevised; EXP-NEO Experimentally manipulated NEO PI-R items; HEXACO HEXACO
Personality Inventory-Revised; FFMRF Five Factor Model Rating Form; TCI-R Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised; MPQ Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire; SNAP Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; DAPP-BQ Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND OCPD

167

Table 2
Correlations Among Conscientiousness-Related Scales

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

NEO PI-R Conscientiousness

FFMRF Conscientiousness
HEXACO Conscientiousness
TCI-R Persistence
MPQ Achievement
EXP-NEO Conscientiousness
median correlation

.68
.84
.64
.59
.70
.68

.70
.56
.51
.60
.60

.66
.60
.75
.70

.83
.61
.64

.59
.59

.61

Note. n 536. All correlations are significant at p .00018 (two-tailed). NEO PI-R NEO Personality Inventory-Revised;
EXP-NEO Experimentally manipulated NEO PI-R items; FFMRF Five Factor Model Rating Form; HEXACO HEXACO
Personality Inventory-Revised; MPQ Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire; TCI-R Temperament and Character
Inventory-Revised.

ness). The final row of Table 2 presents the

median correlations of each measure with all
other measures. These median values ranged
from .59 (MPQ achievement) to .70 (HEXACO
PI-R), indicating that the instruments converged
quite highly.
Correlations Between Conscientiousness
and OCPD
Table 3 presents the correlations of each conscientiousness-related measure (and their respective facets) with seven measures of OCPD.
When looking down the columns, it is apparent
that the MCMI-III OCPD scale achieved a significant (and often quite large) correlation with
every conscientiousness scale included in the
current study. The MMPI-2 scale, on the other
hand, related weakly, achieving significant positive correlations with only EXP-NEO conscientiousness (as well as three facets). Even these
significant relationships were generally lower in
magnitude than the EXP-NEO scales correlations with other OCPD measures.
When looking across the rows, Table 3 provides the range of correlations between the individual conscientiousness-related scales and
each OCPD measure. In order to summarize this
information, the final columns provide the median correlation across the OCPD measures as
well as an indicator as to whether this median
effect size is considered small (.10), medium
(.24), or large (.37) according to Cohen
(1992). The median effect sizes for the NEO
PI-R were all considered small except for the
facets of order and self-discipline which did not
even reach this threshold. Similarly, the domain

and three facets from the HEXACO PI-R obtained small effect sizes. The HEXACO PI-R
facet of perfectionism, however, actually
achieved a large median effect size (r .37),
suggesting that this facet has unique variance
related to OCPD. The MPQ achievement,
FFMRF conscientiousness, and TCI-R persistence scales all achieved significant correlations
with each of the OCPD measures except the
MMPI-2 and obtained median effect sizes that
were in the medium range. The TCI-R subscales
of perfectionist and ambitious also had medium
effect sizes, while the correlations for the other
two subscales were small. The EXP-NEO conscientiousness domain correlated significantly
with all seven of the OCPD measures and had a
median value of .52. The facets of competence
(.42) and achievement-striving (.38) also garnered large effect sizes, while the remaining
facets ranged from .28 to .35 and were considered medium.
Table 4 presents the correlations of the conscientiousness-related scales with specific components of OCPD pathology assessed by the
SNAP scales of workaholism and propriety as
well as DAPP-BQ compulsivity. These provide
a finer grained assessment of specific aspects of
OCPD. All values within this table were significant at the Bonferroni-corrected threshold ( p
.00018). SNAP workaholism showed the greatest specificity, obtaining the strongest convergence with facets from each measure that are
most theoretically related to the construct. For
example, within the HEXACO PI-R, it correlated .58 and .51 with the diligence and perfectionist facets, respectively, but only .18 and .17

168

SAMUEL AND WIDIGER

Table 3
Correlations Among Conscientiousness and OCPD Scales
NEO PI-R Conscientiousnessa
Competence
Order
Dutifulness
Achievement-Striving
Self-Discipline
Deliberation
FFMRF Conscientiousness
HEXACO Conscientiousness
Organization
Diligence
Perfectionism
Prudence
TCI-R Persistence
Eagerness of Effort
Work Hardened
Ambitious
Perfectionist
MPQ Achievement
EXP-NEO Conscientiousness
Competence
Order
Dutifulness
Achievement-Striving
Self-Discipline
Deliberation

MCMI

MMPI

OMNI

PDQ

SCID-II

SNAP

WISPI

median

.71
.51
.46
.52
.49
.57
.61
.56
.71
.49
.52
.47
.68
.45
.36
.37
.40
.38
.42
.56
.37
.50
.30
.43
.48
.32

.11
.15
.02
.06
.10
.24
.01
.07
.01
.05
.06
.16
.08
.00
.05
.05
.06
.09
.08
.30
.29
.08
.21
.16
.09
.40

.18
.09
.22
.17
.18
.02
.11
.27
.22
.18
.24
.39
.05
.29
.15
.17
.29
.35
.34
.52
.45
.28
.42
.40
.38
.36

.11
.09
.08
.12
.10
.02
.11
.17
.19
.06
.16
.33
.05
.26
.10
.18
.25
.33
.30
.39
.33
.14
.31
.31
.27
.31

.21
.13
.22
.23
.18
.05
.15
.30
.28
.18
.21
.37
.09
.31
.19
.22
.29
.34
.32
.48
.42
.28
.34
.36
.32
.35

.31
.23
.22
.30
.32
.14
.22
.36
.39
.20
.37
.47
.20
.47
.24
.36
.47
.52
.54
.56
.48
.32
.43
.49
.43
.34

.17
.05
.17
.16
.12
.02
.20
.17
.22
.13
.18
.30
.09
.29
.20
.16
.26
.35
.34
.53
.43
.23
.48
.38
.34
.44

0.18
0.09
0.22
0.17
0.18
0.02
0.15
0.27
0.22
0.18
0.21
0.37
0.09
0.29
0.19
0.18
0.29
0.35
0.34
0.52
0.42
0.28
0.34
0.38
0.34
0.35

S
S
S
S
S
M
S
S
S
L
M
S
S
M
M
M
L
L
M
M
L
M
M

Note. All correlations listed in boldface type are significant at p .00018 (two-tailed); The final column indicates whether
the median correlation is small (S; .10), medium (M; .24), or large (L; .37) according to Cohen (1992). MCMI
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-3rd Edition; MMPI Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2nd edition;
OMNI OMNI Personality Inventory; PDQ Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4; SCID-II Structured Clinical
Interview for DSM-IV-Axis II-Personality Questionnaire; SNAP Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality;
WISPI Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory-IV. NEO PI-R NEO Personality Inventory-Revised; EXP-NEO
Experimentally manipulated NEO PI-R items; HEXACO HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised; FFMRF Five
Factor Model Rating Form; TCI-R Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised; MPQ Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire.
a
The findings for the NEO PI-R were adapted from Samuel and Widiger (2010).

with organization and prudence. Similarly,

SNAP workaholism obtained the highest correlation with the achievement striving facets from
both the NEO PI-R and the EXP-NEO.
The effects were not as specific for the SNAP
propriety and DAPP-BQ compulsivity scales as
they typically correlated most highly with the
domain measures (i.e., conscientiousness)
rather than individual facets. Nonetheless, these
symptom scales still obtained strong correlations with the measures of conscientiousness.
For instance, even the lowest correlation for
DAPP-BQ compulsivity (.38 with NEO PI-R
competence) would still be considered a large
effect size.

Discussion
Despite the acknowledged limitations inherent to the current categorical model of personality disorder, it is important to recognize that
the symptoms encoded within the DSMIVTR
(APA, 2000) personality disorder categories do
represent important aspects of personality
pathology (Livesley, 2001). As such, a fundamental and primary step for any proposed dimensional model is to demonstrate that it can
reasonably account for the symptoms and disorders included in the current nomenclature.
However, there has been inconsistent support
for the accounting of OCPD symptomatology

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND OCPD

169

Table 4
Correlations of Conscientiousness Scales With OCPD Symptom Scales

NEO PI-R Conscientiousness

Competence
Order
Dutifulness
Achievement-Striving
Self-Discipline
Deliberation
FFMRF Conscientiousness
HEXACO Conscientiousness
Organization
Diligence
Perfectionism
Prudence
TCI-R Persistence
Eagerness of Effort
Work Hardened
Ambitious
Perfectionist
MPQ Achievement
EXP-NEO Conscientiousness
Competence
Order
Dutifulness
Achievement-Striving
Self-Discipline
Deliberation

SNAP

SNAP

DAPP-BQ

Workaholism

Propriety

Compulsivity

.42
.30
.22
.39
.50
.32
.17
.41
.45
.18
.58
.51
.17
.70
.50
.52
.56
.72
.76
.64
.46
.32
.55
.62
.58
.27

.39
.31
.29
.38
.27
.24
.30
.39
.44
.32
.31
.40
.33
.39
.30
.29
.39
.37
.38
.49
.45
.35
.33
.34
.37
.32

.63
.38
.58
.45
.48
.45
.39
.53
.73
.63
.54
.60
.41
.63
.46
.47
.58
.61
.59
.72
.49
.64
.48
.55
.57
.38

Note. All correlations are significant at p .00018 (two-tailed). DAPP-BQ Dimensional

Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire; SNAP Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; NEO PI-R NEO Personality Inventory-Revised;
FFMRF Five Factor Model Rating Form; HEXACO HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised; TCI-R Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised; MPQ Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire; EXP-NEO Experimentally manipulated NEO
PI-R items. Minimum pairwise n 471.

within the FFM, leading the authors of the DSM-5

Personality Disorders Work Group to state that
meta-analyses indicate that Obsessive-Compulsive PD is not well-covered by the FFM (Saulsman & Page, 2004) (DSM-5 Personality &
Personality Disorders Work Group, 2010). Regrettably, the Work Group did not acknowledge
the subsequent meta-analysis of Samuel and Widiger (2008) in which clear support was in fact
reported, albeit confined to the MCMI-III and
SNAP assessments of OCPD. In addition, there
was also no mention of the findings of Haigler
and Widiger (2001), who indicated empirically
that the weak support for other OCPD scales is
due largely to the fact that the NEO PI-R lacks
adequate fidelity for the assessment of maladaptive conscientiousness. In any case, the current

study found a consistent and strong relationship

of DAPP-BQ compulsivity with all of the measures of conscientiousness, which counters the
DSM-5 Work Groups conclusion that their
compulsivity dimension is unrelated to conscientiousness.
OCPD would appear most similar to a domain concerned with the control and regulation
of behavior that is included in most dimensional models and has been referred to as constraint, compulsivity, or conscientiousness
(Widiger & Simonsen, 2005, p. 116). The results of the present study provide compelling
support for this hypothesized link. The correlations within Table 3 demonstrated that the six
conscientiousness-related scales correlate significantly with all but one OCPD scale, consis-

170

SAMUEL AND WIDIGER

tent with theoretical expectations. This further

supports the notion that general personality
models can adequately account for OCPD as
described within DSMIV.
It is also noteworthy that these measures of
conscientiousness all correlated strongly with
specific components of OCPD assessed by the
SNAP and DAPP-BQ. It is perhaps not surprising that the three scales assessing components
of OCPD correlated more strongly with conscientiousness than did the full OCPD measures.
The DAPP-BQ and SNAP scales do bespeak
more clearly facets of conscientiousness, including workaholism and propriety. The full
syndrome of OCPD, in contrast, includes some
components of personality beyond conscientiousness, such as high neuroticism and low
openness (Lynam & Widiger, 2001; Samuel &
Widiger, 2008; Samuel & Widiger, 2010).
The relationship of conscientiousness with
workaholism, propriety, and compulsivity also
echoes previous factor analyses suggesting that
they all fall along a common latent dimension
(Markon et al., 2005; OConnor, 2005) as well
as recent IRT findings indicating that the SNAP
and DAPP-BQ assess more extreme levels of
the traits measured by the NEO PI-R (Samuel,
Simms, Clark, Livesley, & Widiger, 2010).
However, the current study also goes further to
indicate that a scale such as SNAP workaholism
is most closely related to specific facets that are
conceptually linked (e.g., HEXACO PI-R diligence and NEO PI-R achievement striving).
The current study also goes beyond previous
findings (Saulsman & Page, 2004; Samuel &
Widiger, 2008) to demonstrate that the scale
used to assess the personality trait of conscientiousness, as well as the instrument used to
assess OCPD, have an appreciable impact on
the magnitude of this relationship. While a
number of studies have previously provided
correlations between conscientiousness and
OCPD, a vast majority of the prior research has
been confined to the NEO PI-R. While the current study did demonstrate a relationship between OCPD and NEO PI-R conscientiousness,
the finding was not particularly robust. For example, the median effect size between the NEO
PI-R and seven measures of OCPD (i.e., .18) is
considered small according to Cohen (1992).
This suggests, perhaps ironically, that the NEO
PI-R represents the measure of conscientiousness that is least related to OCPD symptoms.

The results of the current study therefore suggest that the weak to inconsistent relationship of
conscientiousness to OCPD reported in previous research (Saulsman & Page, 2004) is due in
part to the reliance on the NEO PI-Rs assessment of conscientiousness.
The current study is the first to correlate
OCPD with HEXACO PI-R conscientiousness,
TCI-R persistence, and MPQ achievement.
Each of these scales obtained significant correlations with all but one of the OCPD measures
(MMPI-2 was the lone exception). While several previous studies have provided these results
for the TCI, this study is also the first to do so
for the revised version of the persistence scale
from the TCI-R. The TCI-R persistence scale
obtained significant correlations with the other
OCPD measures ranging from .26 (PDQ-4) to
.47 (SNAP), with an overall median of .29. This
value was larger than those reported in previous
research with the TCI suggesting that the expansion of the persistence scale was successful
in capturing more extreme variants of the trait.
The MPQ evidenced a large correlation with
SNAP workaholism and its median effect size
with the OCPD measures (.34) was just below
the cutoff for being considered large. This finding, though, is tempered by the fact that only the
single achievement scale was administered.
This particular scale assesses a more specific
trait (that is conceptually well-aligned with
OCPD) than do the more broad domains of
TCI-R persistence and NEO PI-R, HEXACO
PI-R, and EXP-NEO conscientiousness. The
MPQ has a unique scoring strategy such that the
administration of eight subscales is required to
produce a score for the higher-order constraint
domain. We felt that administering only one
scale was preferable to abandoning the MPQ
altogether and so we selected the single subscale we felt best captured OCPD pathology.
Nonetheless, when viewed in hindsight, it is
regrettable that the constraint domain was not
included in the study. Clearly, it would be useful for future research to administer the entire
MPQ, or at least the constraint domain, alongside one or more measures of OCPD.
It was clear from the present analyses that the
conscientiousness scale from the EXP-NEO
correlated more highly with the OCPD scales.
While the NEO PI-R, HEXACO PI-R, TCI-R,
and MPQ confine their assessments of conscientiousness largely to the normal, adaptive

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND OCPD

range of functioning, the EXP-NEO was an

experimental manipulation of existing NEO
PI-R items that converted the instrument into a
maladaptive variant (Haigler & Widiger, 2001).
The current study indicates, consistent with expectations, that maladaptive conscientiousness
is even more strongly to OCPD symptomatology than is adaptive conscientiousness.
Although the results for the EXP-NEO demonstrate that the experimentally manipulated
NEO PI-R conscientiousness items can account
for OCPD, one might question whether it is
appropriate to suggest that the experimentally
manipulated items can be said to be still measuring conscientiousness. For example, one
concern might be that the NEO PI-R items were
simply revised to describe OCPD symptomatology. However, this was not the case. As indicated by Haigler and Widiger (2001), existing
items were revised by inserting words such as
preoccupied, excessive, too much, or
counterproductive to reverse the direction of
maladaptivity of the item without otherwise altering its content. For example, the NEO PI-R
items Im known for my prudence and common sense, Im a very competent person,
and I work hard to accomplish my goals
(Costa & McCrae, 1992, p. 73) became I have
been told that I may at times display an excessive prudence and rigid common sense, I
place too much emphasis on competence, and
I work too hard to accomplish my goals (respectively). It is possible that in some cases the
insertion of words that made the item a more
extreme and/or maladaptive variant of the original content did make the item closer in content
to an OCPD symptom; however, this would
itself support the position that OCPD can be
understood as excessive or extreme conscientiousness. In any case, empirical support for the
validity of the EXP-NEO as a measure of conscientiousness is provided by the finding that
the EXP-NEO conscientiousness scale correlated strongly (median .61) with other measures of conscientiousness (including .75 with
HEXACO conscientiousness, .61 with TCI-R
Persistence, and .59 with MPQ achievement).
However, it would be of interest for future
research to investigate the relationship of measures of adaptive and maladaptive conscientiousness with various outcome variables.
This would be particularly interesting as the
relationship of OCPD with impairment has been

171

mixed. Several studies have reported that

OCPD is unrelated to psychosocial impairment
(Ryder, Costa, & Bagby, 2005; Cramer, Torgersen, & Kringlen, 2007) and even associated
with positive outcomes such as status/wealth
(Ullrich, Farrington, & Coid, 2007). Such findings are not attributable to self-report measures
within subclinical populations, as Skodol and
colleagues (2005) reported a negative correlation between OCPD and employment impairment in a sample of patients with PDs carefully
diagnosed via a structured interview. In sum,
OCPD, as currently diagnosed and assessed,
appears to be a mixture of adaptive and maladaptive conscientiousness (the MCMI-III is particularly strong in its representation of adaptive conscientiousness). On the other hand, there have
been a number of studies indicating that FFM
conscientiousness relates negatively to risky
health behaviors, including substance abuse, and
positively with familial satisfaction, longevity,
and career success (see Ozer and Benet-Martinez
[2006] for a review). It might be of interest for
future studies to include a more explicit distinction between adaptive and maladaptive
conscientiousness when assessing its relationship to successful and unsuccessful life outcomes (Mullins-Sweatt & Widiger, in press).
Limitations and Future Directions
While the current study provides evidence
that general personality models can account
for the personality pathology currently encoded
in the OCPD construct, it is not without limitations. The current study compared exclusively
self-report instruments, while semistructured interviews are the preferred method of assessment
within clinical research (McDermut & Zimmerman, 2005; Rogers, 2001). This particular limitation was partially unavoidable as there is only
a single semistructured interview for any dimensional model of personality (e.g., the Semistructured Interview for the Five Factor Model;
Trull & Widiger, 1997). Nonetheless, there are
a number of alternative interview measures for
OCPD. Future research that employs an OCPD
interview as a criterion would be helpful in
extending the current findings.
Although evidence indicates that OCPD exists on continuum rather than as a taxon (e.g.,
Arntz et al., 2009), the relevance of the OCPD
scales is typically understood in reference to

172

SAMUEL AND WIDIGER

psychiatric populations. There is reason to believe that OCPD may be studied effectively
within an undergraduate population where traits
such as workaholism and perfectionism may not
be terribly uncommon. In fact, Blanco et al.
(2008) reported that OCPD was the single most
prevalent PD within the college population
(8%) and Grant and colleagues (2004) found
that rates of OCPD were significantly higher for
persons with at least some college education.
Additionally, Torgersen, Kringlen, and Cramer
(2001) reported that within a large community
sample, OCPD was the only PD that obtained a
significant, positive relationship with education
level. Our screening of well over 1,000 participants was likely successful in capturing clinically significant levels of OCPD symptomatology; nevertheless, it would be of interest to
determine whether comparable findings
would be obtained within outpatient clinical
samples where persons diagnosed with OCPD
are being treated.
Finally, the study administered specific
scales, taken from larger inventories. We are
not aware of evidence suggesting responses to
these items are context dependent (i.e., an
individuals response to a given item should
be unaffected by the items that precede it). In
fact, computer adaptive tests such as the
Graduate Record Examination are predicated
on the idea that item ordering is irrelevant and
are widely recognized as valid measures.
However, this is an empirical question and it
is possible that these particular items might
perform differently when removed from their
standard ordering.
Conclusions
Amid the emerging likelihood that DSM-5
will incorporate a dimensional understanding
of personality disorder, it is important that
these dimensional models encompass the pathology currently encoded into the DSM
IVTR categories. While most PDs have well
established links to models of general personality, OCPD has garnered only inconsistent
support. The current study compared six existing measures of conscientiousness-related
personality traits and, contrary to the conclusions of the DSM-5 Personality Disorders
Work Group, found that they converged well
with measures of OCPD and quite strongly

with specific components of OCPD pathology. These results support the hypothesis that
OCPD is a maladaptive version of the normal
personality trait of conscientiousness.
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