The big seven model of personality and its relevance to personality pathology

Proponents of the Big Seven model of personality have suggested that Positive Valence (PV) and Negative Valence (NV) are independent of the Big Five personality dimensions and may be particularly relevant to personality disorder. These hypotheses were tested with 403 undergraduates who completed a Big Seven measure and markers of the Big Five and personality pathology. Results revealed that PV and NV incrementally predicted personality pathology dimensions beyond those predicted by multiple markers of the Big Five. However, factor analyses suggested that PV and NV might be best understood as specific, mal-adaptive aspects of positive emotionality and low agreeableness, respectively, as opposed to independent factors of personality. Implications for the description of normal and abnormal personality are discussed.