Personality and Presentation of Depression Symptoms: A Preliminary Examination of the Pathoplasticity Model

The pathoplasty model posits that personality influences the manifestation of psychopathology, but has rarely tested the influence on the symptomatic expression of depression. We tested pathoplastic effects of personality on depressive symptoms in five cross-sectional samples varying in age, specific measures of personality, and specific measures of depression. Tests of pathoplastic effects were conducted using moderated non-linear factor analysis. Across samples, we found little evidence for pathoplastic effects of personality on depressive symptoms. We found minimal evidence that personality is associated with the structure of the depression construct (i.e., loadings to indicators). Lower levels of positive emotionality were associated with greater likelihood of endorsing sleep problems, beyond the influence of overall depression severity, but was inconsistent across sleep items. Although we found minimal influence of personality on depression symptom manifestation, longitudinal work can examine similar issues in younger and older samples, as well as examining more dimensions of personality.