The Continuum of Conscientiousness: The Antagonistic Interests among Obsessive and Antisocial Personalities

The five factor trait of conscientiousnessis a supertrait, denoting on one hand a pattern of excessive labor, rigidity, orderliness and compulsivity,and on the other hand a pattern of strict rectitude, scrupulosity, dutifulness and morality. In both respects the obsessive-compulsive personality is conscientious; indeed, it has been labeled a disorder of extreme conscientiousness (Widiger et al., 2009). Antisocial personality disorder, in the present paper, is described as occupying the opposite end of the conscientiousness continuum. The antisocial is impulsive rather than compulsive, illicit rather than licit, and furtive rather than forthright.After clinically comparing the obsessive and antisocial personalities, the present paper invokes evolutionary theory to explain their resultant behavioral, ideological, political and demographic differences.