{"doi":"10.31234/osf.io/5uw63","title":"How robust is the p-factor? Using multitrait-multimethod modeling to inform the meaning of general factors of psychopathology in youth","abstract":"We used multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) modeling to examine general factors of psychopathology in three samples of youth (Ns = 2119, 303, 592) for whom three informants reported on the youth’s psychopathology (e.g., child, parent, teacher). Empirical support for the p-factor diminished in multi-informant models compared with mono-informant models: the correlation between externalizing and internalizing factors decreased and the general factor in bifactor models essentially reflected externalizing. Widely used MTMM-informed approaches for modeling multi-informant data cannot distinguish between competing interpretations of the patterns of effects we observed, including that the p-factor reflects, in part, evaluative consistency bias or that psychopathology manifests differently across contexts (e.g., home vs. school). Ultimately, support for the p-factor may be stronger in mono-informant designs, although it is does not entirely vanish in multi-informant models. Instead, the general factor of psychopathology in any given mono-informant model likely reflects a complex mix of variances, some substantive and some methodological.","journal":"PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)","year":2021,"id":213165,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":33,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9428,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":681652,"name":"Bridget A. Makol","orcid":"0000-0002-7627-2614","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":681653,"name":"Isabella M. Palumbo","orcid":"0000-0001-6652-6281","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":601979,"name":"Andres De Los Reyes","orcid":"0000-0003-0214-983X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":341358,"name":"Thomas M. Olino","orcid":"0000-0001-5139-8571","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":332088,"name":"Robert D. Latzman","orcid":"0000-0002-1175-8090","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294803,"name":"Colin G. DeYoung","orcid":"0000-0001-5621-1091","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":255686,"name":"Phillip K. Wood","orcid":"0000-0002-5802-3948","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338698,"name":"Kenneth J. Sher","orcid":"0000-0002-4420-8546","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":559114,"name":"Ashley L. Watts","orcid":"0000-0002-8210-4748","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":78,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:31.378994Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}