We found that one internalizing psychopathology factor was strongly related to neuroticism. The relationship was so strong (r=.98) when neuroticism was indicated by self- and peer-report that one might suspect that the personality trait of neuroticism may be the single characteristic common to anxiety and depression. However, such a strong conclusion would require replication of our study, and more research across various populations. The results of the current study are suggestive, but not conclusive, that neuroticism and the core of internalizing psychopathology may be one and the same in adolescents. However, studies of adults (e.g., Krueger et al. 2001) have found smaller, yet significant, associations between internalization and neuroticism. Thus, neuroticism may be necessary to describe the structure of mood and anxiety disorders, but is not sufficient to describe all of the common variance across different populations.5
