BACKGROUND: Familial influences on the development of many psychopathologies are well recognised, yet the psychosocial risk factors that could help explain apparently intergenerational continuities of personality disorder (PD) are less well understood. AIMS: To establish whether there is an association between the severity of PD in men and their offspring in a community cohort, and whether factors recognised as having the potential to increase risk of psychopathology mediate this. METHODS: Participants in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (n = 452 dyads) were assessed using the Tyrer and Johnson model of PD severity. Severe PD was defined as antisocial PD plus at least one other PD from a different cluster. Original participants were assessed by interview and their offspring by screening questionnaire. Chi-square tests and mediation models were used to investigate the intergenerational continuity of PD severity and its relationship with psychosocial risk factors. RESULTS: An association between severe PD in fathers and severe PD in their offspring was confirmed, regardless of whether the offspring were male or female. Whilst preliminary tests suggested that employment problems, poor parental supervision and family disruption we associated with severe PD in daughters, mediation analysis suggested that these variables had very little effect once severity of father's disorder was in the model. CONCLUSIONS: Psychosocial risk factors appear to play a limited role in the intergenerational transmission of PD severity, although future studies should take account of interaction data, for example, quality and quantity of paternal interaction given a child's temperamental traits.