The Life History Model of Psychopathology Explains the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders and the Emergence of the p Factor: A Simulation Study

In recent years, tremendous progress has been made in mapping the structure of comorbidity between psychiatric disorders. In particular, empirical findings have suggested the existence of a general p factor of susceptibility to psychopathology. In the present study, simulation methods were used to test whether the observed structure of psychiatric disorders can be reproduced by the life history model of psychopathology, a recent classification model based on evolutionary theory. The assumptions of the life history model were used to generate virtual epidemiological samples, which were then analyzed with the methods used by earlier researchers. Analyses of simulated data successfully replicated the key findings by these researchers, including the emergence of the p factor and the switch from positive to negative correlation between internalizing and externalizing symptoms after inclusion of the p factor. These results offer initial support for the validity of the life history model.