Disinhibited individuals show heterogeneity in their neuropsychosocial characteristics. To better understand this variability, we used a person-centered approach to identify transdiagnostic profiles of disinhibition based on a range of personality and neurocognitive indicators. A community sample of adults (N = 363; ages 18-55; 50.1% female; data collected 2019-2024), enriched for externalizing disorders, completed a multilevel assessment encompassing clinical symptoms, personality traits, neuropsychological task performance, and trauma history. Latent profile analysis of disinhibition-related indicators identified three distinct profiles that differed in both the severity and configuration of disinhibitory features. Two profiles exhibited elevated disinhibition: The Neurocognitive Disinhibition profile (n = 72) was characterized by low cognitive and executive functioning performance but average impulsive personality traits, whereas the Personality Disinhibition profile (n = 103) was marked by high levels of trait impulsivity and intact cognitive-executive functioning. A third profile, Low Disinhibition (n = 188), was characterized by relatively low impulsivity and strong executive functioning. The Neurocognitive and Personality Disinhibition profiles showed higher levels of externalizing psychopathology and self- and other-directed violence compared with the Low Disinhibition profile. In addition, the Neurocognitive Disinhibition profile demonstrated greater specificity for externalizing psychopathology and a more extensive history of trauma exposure, whereas the Personality Disinhibition profile was characterized by elevations across both externalizing and internalizing psychopathology. Together, these findings indicate that symptom-agnostic, person-centered classification approaches can delineate meaningful subtypes of disinhibition that differ across personality, neurocognitive, and environmental risk domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Sadeh et al. (2026) studied this question.