The Relationship of Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, and Dimensional Models to Personality Disorders David C. Watson University of Alberta ‘The relationship of personality disorders (PDs) with self-esteem, locus of control, and the interpersonal (dominance and love) and five-Factor models (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscien- tiousness, and agreeableness) of personality was investigated using 244 university students. Self-esteem and locus of control were good predic- tors for seven of the 11 personality disorders, indicating that these Variables are useful additions to the interpersonal and five-factor con- ceptions of PD. Self-esteem was a strong predictor of the avoidant, borderline, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive PDs. Most of the PDs are positively related to chance and powerful others control and nega- tively related to internal locus of control, These results suggest possible ‘continuum from interpersonal (antisocial) to intrapsychic conflict (bor- dertine), with the remaining disorders being mixtures of these (wo extremes. This differing composition of interpersonal and psychosocial variables is helpful in discriminating personality disorders. ‘The interpersonal and five-factor models of personality have te- cently been related to personality disorder with compelling heuristic value, e.g., De Jong, Van den Brink, Jansen, and Schippers (1989); Pincus and Wiggins (1990); Widiger, Trull, Clarkin, Sanderson, and Costa (1994); Wiggins and Pincus, 1989. The interpersonal model is based upon the work of personality theorists such as Sullivan (1953),and involves the conception of interpersonal interaction in terms of two broad dimensiqns: dominance and love. Interpersonal theorists (e.g Leary, 1957; Wiggins, 1982) have used a circular model to represe: these two dimensions, with dominance-submission on the dominance axis and warm-cold on the lave axis. Proponents of the interpersonal model such as Wiggins (1979, 1982) use acircular ordering of variables, the circumplex (Guttman, 1954), to divide the interpersonal circle into ‘Author Info: David C. Watson, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 269, dwatson@ psych ualberta.ca. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 1998, Vol. 13, No. 3, 399-420. (©1998 Select Press, Corte Madera, CA, (415) 435-4461. ‘Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest LLC Copyright (c) Select Press