Dimensions over categories: a meta-analysis of taxometric research

2020/06/04 by Nick Haslam, Melanie J. McGrath, Wolfgang Viechtbauer +1 · 285 citations
Arts and Humanities · Medicine · Psychology · #Categorical variable #Clinical psychology #Construct (python library) #Developmental psychology #Medicine #Mental Health and Psychiatry #Meta-analysis #Personality #Personality Disorders and Psychopathology #Psychology #Psychopathology #Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending #Social psychology #Typology

paper · open access · doi:10.1017/s003329172000183x

published in Psychological Medicine 50(9), 1418-1432 (Cambridge University Press)

openalex publication_date 2020/06/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Taxometric procedures have been used extensively to investigate whether individual differences in personality and psychopathology are latently dimensional or categorical ('taxonic'). We report the first meta-analysis of taxometric research, examining 317 findings drawn from 183 articles that employed an index of the comparative fit of observed data to dimensional and taxonic data simulations. Findings supporting dimensional models outnumbered those supporting taxonic models five to one. There were systematic differences among 17 construct domains in support for the two models, but psychopathology was no more likely to generate taxonic findings than normal variation (i.e. individual differences in personality, response styles, gender, and sexuality). No content domain showed aggregate support for the taxonic model. Six variables - alcohol use disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, problem gambling, autism, suicide risk, and pedophilia - emerged as the most plausible taxon candidates based on a preponderance of independently replicated findings. We also compared the 317 meta-analyzed findings to 185 additional taxometric findings from 96 articles that did not employ the comparative fit index. Studies that used the index were 4.88 times more likely to generate dimensional findings than those that did not after controlling for construct domain, implying that many taxonic findings obtained before the popularization of simulation-based techniques are spurious. The meta-analytic findings support the conclusion that the great majority of psychological differences between people are latently continuous, and that psychopathology is no exception.

Citations

• Research Domain Criteria (RDoC): Toward a New Classification Framework for Research on Mental Disorders
• Categories of social relationship
• Are adult attachment styles categorical or dimensional? A taxometric analysis of general and relationship-specific attachment orientations.
• Psychopathic, not psychopath: Taxometric evidence for the dimensional structure of psychopathy.
• A taxometric analysis of the latent structure of psychopathy: Evidence for dimensionality.
• The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): A dimensional alternative to traditional nosologies.

Cited by

• Burnout forever
• The distinction between psychometric and clinimetric approaches will not move the field forward
• Rethinking the Diagnosis of Mental Disorders: Data-Driven Psychological Dimensions, Not Categories, as a Framework for Mental-Health Research, Treatment, and Training
• Development and Initial Evaluation of the German Version of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology Self-Report (HiTOP-SR)
• Inhibition of emotional faces in clinical and subclinical depression
• A taxometric analysis of developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence for a categorically distinct impairment
• A comprehensive overview of neuropsychiatric symptoms in adolescents with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome
• Anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty track distinct neurobehavioral dimensions of avoidance in anxiety-related disorders
• What Does Personality Have to Do with Mental Disorder?
• The Psychodynamic Core of Personality Disorder
• Testing Criterion Validity in Hierarchical Models of Psychopathology: Comparison of Latent-Variable and Factor-Score Approaches
• Paul E. Meehl [wikipedia]
• Post-Psychedelic Reductions in Experiential Avoidance Are Associated With Decreases in Depression Severity and Suicidal Ideation. [europepmc]
• The P-factor and its genomic and neural equivalents: an integrated perspective. [europepmc]
• Psychometric properties of the social interaction anxiety scale and the social phobia scale in Hungarian adults and adolescents. [europepmc]
• Set Shifting and Inhibition Deficits as Potential Endophenotypes for Depression. [europepmc]
• Addressing neuropsychological diagnostics in adults with epilepsy: Introducing the International Classification of Cognitive Disorders in Epilepsy: The IC CODE Initiative. [europepmc]
• Does Psychedelic Therapy Have a Transdiagnostic Action and Prophylactic Potential? [europepmc]
• Securing Your Relationship: Quality of Intimate Relationships During the COVID-19 Pandemic Can Be Predicted by Attachment Style. [europepmc]
• Connecting quantitatively derived personality-psychopathology models and neuroscience. [europepmc]
• A prospective study of college student depressive symptoms, sense of purpose, and response to a COVID-19 campus shutdown. [europepmc]
• Validity and utility of Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): III. Emotional dysfunction superspectrum. [europepmc]
• Reconceptualizing schizophrenia in the Hierarchical Taxonomy Of Psychopathology (HiTOP). [europepmc]
• Personality traits associate with behavioral problems in pet dogs. [europepmc]
• A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) Primer for Mental Health Researchers. [europepmc]
• Conceptualization of the latent structure of autism: further evidence and discussion of dimensional and hybrid models. [europepmc]
• Annual Research Review: Perspectives on progress in ADHD science - from characterization to cause. [europepmc]
• Translating the hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology (HiTOP) from potential to practice: Ten research questions. [europepmc]
• Context v. algorithm: evidence that a transdiagnostic framework of contextual clinical characterization is of more clinical value than categorical diagnosis. [europepmc]
• Seven reasons why binary diagnostic categories should be replaced with empirically sounder and less stigmatizing dimensions. [europepmc]
• Categorical versus dimensional structure of autism spectrum disorder: A multi-method investigation. [europepmc]
• Psychosis superspectrum I: Nosology, etiology, and lifespan development. [europepmc]
• Association of temporal discounting with transdiagnostic symptom dimensions. [europepmc]
• A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis of 30 years of stress generation research: Clinical, psychological, and sociodemographic risk and protective factors for prospective negative life events. [europepmc]
• Examining the role of personality functioning in a hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology using two years of ambulatory assessed data. [europepmc]
• The hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology and the search for neurobiological substrates of mental illness: A systematic review and roadmap for future research. [europepmc]
• Categorical and Dimensional Approaches for Psychiatric Classification and Treatment Targeting: Considerations from Psychosis Biotypes. [europepmc]

Related

• Categories versus dimensions in personality and psychopathology: a quantitative review of taxometric research
• A taxometric analysis of the latent structure of psychopathy: Evidence for dimensionality.
• Meta-analysis of structural evidence for the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) model
• Measurement invariance of hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology across sociodemographic covariates: A moderated nonlinear factor analysis approach.
• Psychopathic, not psychopath: Taxometric evidence for the dimensional structure of psychopathy.