The models of the causal structure of child and adolescent psychopathology tested here are partly derived from previous findings that two higher-order “internalizing” and “externalizing” factors account for most of the phenotypic correlations among common psychopathology dimensions in children, adolescents, and adults.3, 15-17 Furthermore, based on the sizable phenotypic correlations between the latent internalizing and externalizing factors in these studies, we also tested the novel hypothesis that the phenotypic correlations between the internalizing and externalizing disorders partly reflect their loadings on a factor reflecting general risk for psychopathology. We present the results of separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of genetic and environmental covariances among 11 prevalent psychopathology dimensions in a representative sample of twin pairs to compare these alternative models of the structure of etiologic influences.
