Association of Personality Trait with Auditory and Visual Reaction Time among Young Healthy Subjects

Abstract

Background: Personality traits along with well-known factors like socioeconomic status and cognitive ability, predict important life outcomes such as health and lifespan, educational and occupational attainment, and may promote specific types of task effectiveness, which occurs in part via the processing of information. Reaction time provides an indirect index of the central nervous system’s integrity and processing ability. Material and Methods: The 111 healthy subjects (aged 17 -23 years) interviewed to pre-designed proforma regarding socio-demographic profile, “Glazer-Stress Control Lifestyle” questionnaire for personality trait and reaction time recorded by “Audio-Visual reaction time apparatus”. Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS Statistics 20, and the P-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 19.21±1.40 years, with a mean body mass index 20.65±4.32 kg/m2. Male subjects (68%) outnumbered the female participants (43%), and more than half of the subjects doing exercise. The nuclear family was the preferred mode of living belonging to class-II socioeconomic status (86%). The association of personality traits with auditory (low and high frequency) and visual (red and green light) reaction time was non-significant. Type-A personality subjects were maximum (13/20th), followed by Type-AB (6/20th) and least of Type-B personality (1/20th). Conclusion: The personality trait has no impact on auditory and visual reaction time. Though maximum participants belong to type A personality, still ambitious, proactive, and competitive nature does not influence the basic neurophysiological characteristics of the human body. Keywords: Auditory reaction time, Personality trait, Visual reaction time