We also identified three unique environmental factors. The first resulted from environmental experiences predisposing to all personality disorders. The second reflected environmental factors altering risk solely to internalizing axis I disorders. Consistent with our Virginia study (13), with respect to individual-specific environmental risk factors, alcohol abuse or dependence more closely resembled major depression and generalized anxiety disorder than antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder, or drug abuse or dependence. The third environmental factor reflected environmental exposures that predisposed to the anxiety disorders while protecting against the core externalizing disorders (or vice versa). The inverse relationship between anxiety and externalizing traits is, in our analyses, largely environmental in origin.
