ABSTRACT
Over the past 15 years, the aetiology and developmental psychopathology of personality disorder has received increased attention. While earlier theories, primarily based on clinical observations, stressed the psychosocial origins of personality disorders, more recent research has suggested that genetic, biological, and environmental factors may all play important contributory roles in the development of personality disorder, with each variable on its own accounting for small to moderate outcome variance. Because personality disorders often start during early adolescence, there is a clear need for prospective longitudinal studies to investigate risk factors that contribute to the development of personality disorder, but few longitudinal studies have been conducted so far.
