A conceptual dismantling of the Five Factor Form: Lexical support for the bipolarity of maladaptive personality structure

The Five Factor Form (FFF) assesses adaptive and maladaptive variants for both poles of the five-factor model (FFM), consistent with the hypothesis that there are indeed maladaptive variants for all 10 poles of the FFM. The current study dismantled the 30 FFF items. It was hypothesized that for each FFF item, the two maladaptive and adaptive components occupying the same side would be rated as similar in meaning, whereas components occupying opposite sides would be dissimilar (opposite) in meaning. The results supported the FFF scoring for four domains with mixed support for openness. The findings support not only the validity of the FFF but as well the perspective that there are maladaptive variants of all ten poles of the FFM.