Work

The Cognitive Consequences of Using Categorical versus Dimensional Classification Systems: The Case of Personality Disorder Experts - eScholarship

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: Features are inherently ambiguous in that their meanings depend on the categories they describe (e.g., small for planets vs. molecules; Murphy, 1988).However, a new proposal for the next version of the DSM (DSM-IV-TR, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 th Ed., text revision; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) advocates eliminating personality disorder categories, instead describing patients using only dimensions with the well-known Five-Factor Model.We investigated whether experts in personality pathology are able to translate dimensional patient descriptions into their corresponding diagnostic categories in the current version of the DSM.The results showed that even experts had considerable difficulty disambiguating the meaning of the dimensions to determine correct diagnoses and found the utility of the dimensional system to be lacking.Implications for categorization research are discussed.

Source: eScholarship (California Digital Library)

Authors: Woo‐kyoung Ahn, Nancy Kim, Benjamin M. Rottman, Charles A. Sanislow

Language: English

Topic: Personality Disorders and Psychopathology

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health

OpenAlex ID: W2626497283

FWCI:

Cites: 29

Cited by: 2

Related to: 10