An fMRI study of personality influences on brain reactivity to emotional stimuli.

Functional imaging studies have examined which brain regions respond to emotional stimuli, but they have not determined how stable personality traits moderate such brain activation. Two personality traits, extraversion and neuroticism, are strongly associated with emotional experience and may thus moderate brain reactivity to emotional stimuli. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to directly test whether individual differences in brain reactivity to emotional stimuli are correlated with extraversion and neuroticism in healthy women. Extraversion was correlated with brain reactivity to positive stimuli in localized brain regions, and neuroticism was correlated with brain reactivity to negative stimuli in localized brain regions. This study provides direct evidence that personality is associated with brain reactivity to emotional stimuli and identifies both common and distinct brain regions where such modulation takes place. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is “maturing out” of problematic alcohol involvement related to personality change?

Problematic alcohol involvement typically peaks in the early 20s and declines with age. This maturing out of alcohol involvement is usually attributed to individuals attaining adult statuses incompatible with heavy drinking. Nevertheless, little is known about how changes in problematic alcohol use during emerging/early adulthood relate to changes in etiologically relevant personality traits that also change during this period. This study examined the relation between changes in problematic alcohol involvement and personality (measures of impulsivity, neuroticism, and extraversion) from ages 18 to 35 in a cohort of college students (N = 489) at varying risk for alcohol use disorders. Latent growth models indicated that both normative and individual changes in alcohol involvement occur between ages 18 and 35 and that these changes are associated with changes in neuroticism and impulsivity. Moreover, marital and parental role statuses did not appear to be third-variable explanations of the associated changes in alcohol involvement and personality. Findings suggest that personality change may be an important mechanism in the maturing-out effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating stability and change in personality and depression

Critics have argued that personality factors believed to represent a vulnerability to depression are not stable and are therefore state dependent. However, conclusions regarding the stability of personality and the relation between personality and depression have been drawn (a) without differentiating relative stability among individual differences from absolute stability of change scores and (b) without explicitly modeling change in personality as a function of change in depression. The relation between neuroticism and depression was examined in a sample of depressed outpatients (N = 71) receiving a 5-week trial of pharmacotherapy. Measures of neuroticism and extraversion demonstrated both relative stability and absolute change, and changes in neuroticism and extraversion scores were modestly or not at all accounted for by changes in depression scores. Claims that personality scores are not stable and are state dependent must be reconsidered.     

The relation between personality and anxiety: findings from a 3-year prospective study

The authors tested the extent to which the personality dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, and psychoticism (H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck, 1975) prospectively predicted global anxiety (assessed by items from the Brief Symptom Inventory: L. R. Derogatis & M. S. Spencer, 1982). The authors also examined prospective relations among these personality dimensions and depression to evaluate the specificity of findings. Participants were 466 young adults, primarily undergraduate students, assessed twice over a 3-year interval. An interaction between neuroticism and extraversion predicted both global anxiety and depression 3 years later. Findings indicated that personality, in particular the combination of high neuroticism and low extraversion, may play an important predisposing, etiological role in anxiety. Interpretations and implications of the predictive importance of the Neuroticism x Extraversion interaction in anxiety are discussed, and further speculations about the relation between anxiety and depression are put forth.     

Schizophrenia and personality: Exploring the boundaries and connections between vulnerability and outcome.

Discusses the issues and evidence concerning the relationship between schizophrenia and personality. The personality dimensions in individuals with schizophrenia are examined, both before and after the onset of their psychoses, and in their relatives. Schizophrenia is associated with high levels of peculiarity and neuroticism and with low levels of extraversion. The relationships between schizophrenia and both psychopathy and creativity remain unclear. Personality dimensions vary in the manner in which they are associated with a variety of correlates of psychopathology, such as prognosis. It is recommended that psychopathologists interested in schizophrenia devote more attention to the study of personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-sectional studies of personality in a national sample: II. Stability in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness.

Investigated age differences in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-up Study conducted by J. Cornoni-Huntley et al (1983). Cross-sectional analyses of data from 10,063 32–88 yr old Ss showed that older Ss were slightly lower in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness; that age trends were not curvilinear; and that there were no differences in personality scores that might be attributable to a mid-life crisis or transition. Comparison with data from 654 20–96 yr old Ss in the Augmented Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (ABLSA) showed that the ABLSA sample was lower in extraversion and higher in openness than the national sample, although the differences were small in magnitude. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing optimism from pessimism: Relations to fundamental dimensions of mood and personality.

Contrary to unidimensional conceptions of optimism and pessimism, factor analysis of 2 widely used instruments revealed that optimism and pessimism are empirically differentiable, but related, constructs. Moreover, consistent with expectations, optimism and pessimism were differentially linked with fundamental dimensions of mood and personality. Pessimism was principally associated with neuroticism and negative affect. Optimism was primarily associated with extraversion an positive affect. Findings are discussed with reference to current conceptual and measurement models of optimism and pessimism and their relations to broad dimensions of mood and personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Construct validation of optimism and pessimism in older men: Findings from the normative aging study.

Validation of M. F. Scheier and C. S. Carver's (1985) Life Orientation Test has identified associations between bipolar optimism and several external constructs. However, optimism and pessimism may not be bipolar, but rather separate constructs. Furthermore, these constructs may be indistinguishable from personality traits, such as neuroticism and extraversion. This study examined the associations of separate optimism and pessimism measures with self-reports of hassles, psychological symptoms, and illness severity, controlling for personality. Ss were 1,192 men from the Normative Aging Study. Findings suggest that optimism and pessimism are separate and that their relations to external criteria remain, although attenuated, when neuroticism and extraversion are controlled. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of neuroticism and mastery in spouse caregivers' assessment of and response to a contextual stressor

Data from more than 300 spousal caregivers and their care recipients were analyzed to demonstrate the effects of caregivers' personality attributes--neuroticism and mastery--on their assessment of a contextual stressor (the care recipient's behavioral and functional impairment) and on their experience of distress associated with that stressor. Caregivers who were high in neuroticism and/or low in mastery reported higher levels of behavioral and functional impairment in their disabled spouse and experienced more strain and depressive symptoms associated with caregiving relative to caregivers with lower neuroticism or higher mastery scores. We further showed that the widely reported association between caregiver-assessed impairment of the care recipient and caregiver outcomes can in part be explained by caregivers' personality attributes, such as neuroticism and mastery. Our findings that caregivers' personality variables are related to their assessment of a given objective stressor and their response to a given level of stress have implications for interventions targeting caregivers and for the use of caregivers as proxy informants.     

Longitudinal stability of personality traits: A multitrait–multimethod–multioccasion analysis.

The longitudinal stability of personality was investigated in a group of several hundred adults who were rated by themselves, their marriage partners, and their acquaintances in 1935-1938 and by themselves and their marriage partners in 1954-1955. For both men and women, there were very similar factorial structures in all five sources of ratings. Individual differences in neuroticism, social extraversion, and impulse control had reasonably high levels of longitudinal stability over a 19-year period. Both the synchronic and diachronic correlations converged across methods and discriminated among traits. Self-report personality inventory data available in 1935-1938 and 1954-1955 provided corroborating evidence of the longitudinal and methodological robustness of personality traits. In data gathered on the same panel in 1980-1981, the questionnaire and the life history correlates of neuroticism and social extraversion displayed patterns indicative of temporal stability, methodological convergence, and discrimination among constructs. The data of this longitudinal study carried out over five decades strongly indicate that there is a set of personality traits that are generalizable across methods of assessment and are stable throughout adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Five-factor personality traits and subjective health among caregivers: The role of caregiver strain and self-efficacy.

This study examined the association among caregivers' five-factor personality traits and subjective health with particular emphasis on the role of two theoretically implicated mediators: multi-domain self-efficacy and caregiver strain. The sample comprised 536 informal caregivers (mean age = 62.9 years, SD = 19.9, 72% female, 98% White) of community-dwelling older adults with multiple functional impairments. Both physical health and mental health were negatively associated with neuroticism and positively associated with extraversion and conscientiousness. Agreeableness and openness were associated with better subjective mental health and physical health, respectively. Multiple mediation analyses indicated that self-efficacy mediated all observed associations between personality and subjective health, whereas caregiver strain selectively mediated the associations of neuroticism and agreeableness with mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and leader effectiveness: A moderated mediation model of leadership self-efficacy, job demands, and job autonomy.

The trait theory of leadership is advanced by a joint investigation of the mediating role of (a) leadership self-efficacy (LSE = leader's perceived capabilities to perform leader roles) in linking neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness with leader effectiveness and (b) the moderating role of job demands and job autonomy in influencing the mediation. Using K. J. Preacher, D. D. Rucker, and A. F. Hayes' (2007) moderated mediation framework, the authors tested the model (over a 2-year period) with matched data from 394 military leaders and their supervisors. Results showed that LSE mediated the relationships for neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness with leader effectiveness. Moderated mediation analyses further revealed that LSE mediated the relationships for (a) all 3 personality variables for only those leaders with low job demands; (b) neuroticism and conscientiousness for only those leaders with high job autonomy; and (c) extraversion, regardless of a leader's level of job autonomy. Results underscore the importance of accounting for leaders' situational contexts when examining the relationships between personality, LSE, and effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creativity, divergent thinking, and openness to experience.

Test scores of divergent thinking obtained between 1959 and 1972 were correlated with a variety of personality measures administered since 1980. In this sample of 268 men, divergent thinking was consistently associated with self-reports and ratings of openness to experience, but not with neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness. Both divergent thinking and openness were also modestly correlated with Gough's (1979) empirically derived Creative Personality Scale. Several other personality variables mentioned in the literature were also examined; those that were associated with divergent thinking were also generally correlated with openness. These data suggest that creativity is particularly related to the personality domain of openness to experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality, reaction time, and event-related potentials.

Reaction time (RT), movement time (MT), and the amplitude and latency of the P300 ERP were recorded from 30 Ss during the performance of 6 simple cognitive tasks. Extraversion was negatively associated with MT, a result that endorses the view that extraversion is determined, in part, by individual differences in motor mechanisms. Higher neuroticism scores were associated with faster P300 latency, a measure that is regarded as an index of stimulus evaluation time that is independent of response production. Paradoxically, higher neuroticism scores were associated with slower RT, a measure that is also regarded as an index of speed of information processing. Higher psychoticism scores were associated with smaller P300 amplitude, an effect that may be indicative of less attentional effort invested in the tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactions in predicting mood from extraversion and neuroticism.

Many researchers have found evidence that, when only marginal distributions are examined, extraversion is related primarily to positive affect, whereas neuroticism is related primarily to negative affect. Recent findings have suggested that extraversion and neuroticism interact in predicting mood so that marginal relations could be misleading. The present study used extraversion (and its components, sociability and impulsivity) along with neuroticism in regression equations including interactive and curvilinear components to predict measures of positive and negative affect among 384 undergraduates. Results confirm earlier findings that extraversion and neuroticism interact in predicting both positive and negative affect. The interaction pattern was similar to previous findings: Both positive and negative affect were strongly related to extraversion only among neurotic Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of eyelid conditioning to manifest anxiety, extraversion, and rigidity.

The performance of 100 male and 60 female college students in an eyelid conditioning situation was correlated with personality measures of anxiety, neuroticism, extraversion, and rigidity. As predicted by the writers' drive theory, scores on the (MA) scale and the Neuroticism scale of the Maudsley Personality Inventory were significantly related to performance (p     

Love, work, and changes in extraversion and neuroticism over time.

The present study examined individual differences in change in extraversion, neuroticism, and work and relationship satisfaction. Of particular interest were the correlations between changes. Data were from the Victorian Quality of Life Panel Study (B. Headey & A. Wearing, 1989, 1992), in which an overall 1,130 individuals participated (ages 16 to 70). Respondents were assessed every 2 years from 1981 to 1989. Four major findings emerged. (a) There were significant individual differences in changes in extraversion and neuroticism. (b) Change was not limited to young adulthood. (c) Development was systematic in that increased work and relationship satisfaction was associated with decreases in neuroticism and increases in extraversion over time; on average, the magnitude of the relation between changes in work and relationship satisfaction and traits was .40. (d) Cross-lagged models indicated traits had a greater influence on role satisfaction; however, marginal support emerged for work satisfaction leading to increased extraversion. Implications of correlated change are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation of social network and individual difference variables to loneliness.

179 undergraduates completed a social network list, an inventory of socially supportive behaviors, the Extraversion and Neuroticism scales of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the Marlowe-Crown Social Desirability Scale, and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Both social network variables and individual differences measures (extraversion, neuroticism, and self-disclosure) were predictive of self-reported loneliness in Ss. Of the social network variables, the density of the network showed the strongest and most consistent relation to loneliness, with denser networks being associated with less loneliness. Both extraversion and neuroticism were correlated with loneliness. The relation of extraversion and loneliness was mediated largely by social network variable; partialing out variance attributable to the social network variables reduced the relation of extraversion and loneliness. The relation of neuroticism and loneliness, however, was not mediated by social network variables. Results support W. H. Jones's (1982) conclusion that lonely college students are not necessarily socially isolated. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linking “big” personality traits to anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders: A meta-analysis.

We performed a quantitative review of associations between the higher order personality traits in the Big Three and Big Five models (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, disinhibition, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness) and specific depressive, anxiety, and substance use disorders (SUD) in adults. This approach resulted in 66 meta-analyses. The review included 175 studies published from 1980 to 2007, which yielded 851 effect sizes. For a given analysis, the number of studies ranged from three to 63 (total sample size ranged from 1,076 to 75,229). All diagnostic groups were high on neuroticism (mean Cohen's d = 1.65) and low on conscientiousness (mean d = ?1.01). Many disorders also showed low extraversion, with the largest effect sizes for dysthymic disorder (d = ?1.47) and social phobia (d = ?1.31). Disinhibition was linked to only a few conditions, including SUD (d = 0.72). Finally, agreeableness and openness were largely unrelated to the analyzed diagnoses. Two conditions showed particularly distinct profiles: SUD, which was less related to neuroticism but more elevated on disinhibition and disagreeableness, and specific phobia, which displayed weaker links to all traits. Moderator analyses indicated that epidemiologic samples produced smaller effects than patient samples and that Eysenck's inventories showed weaker associations than NEO scales. In sum, we found that common mental disorders are strongly linked to personality and have similar trait profiles. Neuroticism was the strongest correlate across the board, but several other traits showed substantial effects independent of neuroticism. Greater attention to these constructs can significantly benefit psychopathology research and clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of emotion experiences and their relations to traits of personality.

Presents a theoretical framework for studying emotion–personality relations and an empirical study of the stability of 88 normal middle-class mothers' emotion experiences and their relations to personality during the 3 yrs after childbirth. Ss completed the Differential Emotions Scale (DES), Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire, D. N. Jackson's Personality Research Form, and M. Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale. The DES demonstrated stability over 3 yrs. There was individual stability despite changes in group means during the postpartum period. Positive emotionality, as well as the discrete emotions of interest, enjoyment, and shyness, predicted extraversion. Negative emotionality and the discrete negative emotions were significant predictors of neuroticism. Positive emotionality was inversely related to neuroticism. There were expectable correlations among specific emotions and primary traits of personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)