A holistic view of gender traits and personality traits predict human health

Abstract

Mainstream psychology disassembles human psyche into psychological components (i.e., parts) to predict human health, including internalizing problems (e.g., aggression) and externalizing problems (e.g., depression and loneliness). However, this approach ignores the complexity of the human psyche as a whole. We have devised comprehensive methods for calculating the parts-whole relationships based on holism (N = 5986). In Study 1, masculinity and femininity were identified as risk and protective factors for aggression, respectively. The proportion of masculinity within the whole gender role orientation predicted aggression more strongly than the risk factors alone. In Study 2, both masculinity and femininity acted as protective factors against depression within the whole gender role orientation, with their additive effects, assessed by the relationships between the actual additive effect of the parts and the potential whole maximum effect, being better predictors of depression than either trait alone. In Study 3, neuroticism and openness were identified as risk factors for loneliness, whereas conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were identified as protective factors. The proportion of these two risk factors within the whole Big Five personality traits provided better predictors of loneliness than each risk factor alone. This study provides new insights into predicting human health from a holistic perspective.