Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate the causal relationship between dimensions of pathological personality and dimensions of emotional disorders in students.
Method: The method of this descriptive-correlational study was structural equation modeling. The statistical population of this study included all students studying at Tabriz universities in the first semester of the 2024-2025 academic year, of which 335 were selected using cluster sampling and responded to the personality questionnaire based on the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5-PID; original form) and the Multidimensional Emotional Disorders Questionnaire (MEDI). Structural equation modeling with Smart PLS software was used to analyze the data.
Results: The results show that the negative emotionality dimension has a significant relationship with avoidance, physical anxiety, depressed mood, autonomous arousal, and traumatic re-experiencing (p<0.05). Also, the dimension of faulting is significantly related to avoidance, social anxiety, depressed mood, and autonomic arousal (p<0.05). Psychoticism is only significantly related to intrusive cognitions. The dimensions of oppositionality and disinhibition also do not show any direct and significant relationship with the dimensions of emotional disorders in this model (p<0.05).
Conclusion: These results emphasize the importance of accurately identifying personality dimensions in psychopathology and can help understand the underlying mechanisms of emotional disorders.