ArticleClinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science2014
The p Factor: One General Psychopathology Factor in the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders?
Article in Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1,059 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1,059 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Identification of a diagnosis-selective neurobiological substrate for bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia: a meta-analysis of 57,717 subjects.Psychological medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Common neural dysfunction in psychiatric disorders: Insights from a meta-analysis of resting-state fMRI studies.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Functioning, disability, and health of individuals with Hikikomori (prolonged social withdrawal) and their families: A systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control studies.The International journal of social psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Links between personality functioning and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms: a network analysis.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Distinct Representations of Irrelevant Emotional Information in the Visual Network Are Associated With Psychopathology in Youth.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- The neurodevelopmental spectrum: phenotypic architecture, etiology, predictive utility, and specificity across development.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Executive functions as a transdiagnostic endophenotype in developmental psychopathology.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- The entropic brain today.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Review
- Cerebellar Functional Alterations During Executive Functioning Are Associated With General Psychopathology in a Cross-Diagnostic Sample.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Associations between ADHD Symptoms and Psychiatric Symptoms in Children: Effects of Functional Impairment and Temperament.Journal of attention disorders · 2026Article
- Multivariate genetic analyses test for the presence of a general 'JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Symptom Networks, Developmental Pathways, and Intervention Evidence for Co-occurring Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents: A Scoping Review.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2026Article
- Psychological Resilience to Trauma and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome in Women.Biopsychosocial science and medicine · 2026Article
- Parsing the Functional Heterogeneity of the Psychosis Spectrum: A Clinically Informed Application of Genomic Structural Equation Modeling.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- The contribution of common and rare genetic variation to emotional and behavioural symptoms in childhood and adolescence.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Granularity of Emotions in Brain and Behavior and Resilience to Childhood Violence Exposure.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- The Co-development of Depressive Symptoms and Problem Behaviors in Chinese Children and the Effect of Psychological Suzhi: A Longitudinal Study.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2026Article
- Childhood Trauma and Aggression: The Role of Epistemic Trust.Journal of child & adolescent trauma · 2026Article
- Developmental dynamics of symptoms of emotional problems in childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal network analysis.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Diagnostic- and age-based measurement invariance of irritability in youths.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
999 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mental disorders traditionally have been viewed as distinct, episodic, and categorical conditions. This view has been challenged by evidence that many disorders are sequentially comorbid, recurrent/chronic, and exist on a continuum. Using the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, we examined the structure of psychopathology, taking into account dimensionality, persistence, co-occurrence, and sequential comorbidity of mental disorders across 20 years, from adolescence to midlife. Psychiatric disorders were initially explained by three higher-order factors (Internalizing, Externalizing, and Thought Disorder) but explained even better with one General Psychopathology dimension. We have called this dimension the p factor because it conceptually parallels a familiar dimension in psychological science: the g factor of general intelligence. Higher p scores are associated with more life impairment, greater familiality, worse developmental histories, and more compromised early-life brain function. The p factor explains why it is challenging to find causes, consequences, biomarkers, and treatments with specificity to individual mental disorders. Transdiagnostic approaches may improve research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.