A second issue concerns the overlap between some personality constructs and psychopathology (Lahey 2004). For example, many items on N/NE scales are similar to depressive symptoms (Ormel et al. 2004b). This can inflate associations between measures of personality and depression. On the other hand, personality and symptom assessments usually have different time frames, with trait scales reflecting long-standing patterns and depression measures tapping more recent experiences (e.g., past week, past month). This trait versus state distinction parallels that between personality and other related constructs. For example, measures of N/NE and negative affect have nearly identical content but are distinguished by their time frames (Watson 2000). Thus, the degree to which this content overlap threatens the validity of personality-psychopathology research depends, at least in part, on the duration/chronicity of the disorders of interest. The extent to which this is a concern also depends on one’s model of personality-depression relations. From the continuum/spectrum perspective, personality and depression are variants of the same phenomenon, so the two constructs should overlap. In contrast, the predisposition model views personality and depression as distinct domains, so
