Conceptualizing personality traits as “resource catalysts”: An extension to the conservation of resources (COR) theory

P.2.022 - Five-factor personality is associated with aggression and mental distress in violent offenders

Maladaptive Five Factor Model personality traits associated with Borderline Personality Disorder indirectly affect susceptibility to suicide ideation through increased anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns.

Using meta-analytic tests based on 87 statistically independent samples, we investigated the relationships between the five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits and organizational citizenship behaviors in both the aggregate and specific forms, including individual-directed, organization-directed, and change-oriented citizenship. We found that Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness/Intellect have incremental validity for citizenship over and above Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, 2 well-established FFM predictors of citizenship. In addition, FFM personality traits predict citizenship over and above job satisfaction. Finally, we compared the effect sizes obtained in the current meta-analysis with the comparable effect sizes predicting task performance from previous meta-analyses. As a result, we found that Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Extraversion have similar magnitudes of relationships with citizenship and task performance, whereas Openness and Agreeableness have stronger relationships with citizenship than with task performance. This lends some support to the idea that personality traits are (slightly) more important determinants of citizenship than of task performance. We conclude with proposed directions for future research on the relationships between FFM personality traits and specific forms of citizenship, based on the current findings.

Despite the important functional role of the amygdala and hippocampus in socioemotional functioning, there have been limited adequately powered studies testing how the structure of these regions relates to putatively relevant personality traits such as neuroticism. Additionally, recent advances in MRI analysis methods provide unprecedented accuracy in measuring these structures and enable segmentation into their substructures. Using the new FreeSurfer amygdala and hippocampus segmentation pipelines with the full Human Connectome Project sample (N = 1105), the current study investigated whether the morphometry of these structures is associated with the five-factor model (FFM) personality traits in a sample of relatively healthy young adults. Drawing from prior findings, the following hypotheses were tested: 1) amygdala and hippocampus gray matter volume would be associated with neuroticism, 2) CA2/3 and dentate gyrus would account for the relationship of the hippocampus with neuroticism, and 3) amygdala gray matter volume would be inversely associated with extraversion. Exploratory analyses were conducted investigating potential associations between all of the FFM traits and the structure of the hippocampus and amygdala and their subregions. Despite some previous positive findings of whole amygdala and hippocampus with personality traits and related psychopathology (e.g., depression), the current results indicated no relationships between the any of the brain regions and the FFM personality traits. Given the large sample and utilization of sophisticated analytic methodology, the current study suggests no association of amygdala and hippocampus morphometry with major domains of personality.

Objective:Recent research has found associations between the Five Factor Model (FFM) personality traits (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) and risk of developing subjective cognitive decline (SCD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and/or dementia. It has therefore been proposed that personality should be incorporated into conceptual models of dementia risk, as personality assessments have utility as readily available, low-cost measures to predict who is at greater risk for developing pathological cognitive decline. The objective of the present study was to explore the relationship between FFM personality traits and predementia cognitive syndromes including SCD, amnestic MCI (aMCI), and non-amnestic MCI (naMCI). The first aim was to compare baseline personality traits between participants who transitioned from healthy cognition or SCD to aMCI vs. naMCI. The second aim was to determine the relationship between FFM personality traits and risk of transition between predementia cognitive states. The third aim was to explore relationships between levels of FFM personality traits and performance on a comprehensive cognitive battery.Participants and Methods:The participants for this study were 562 (Aim 3; Mean Age = 78.90) older adults from the Einstein Aging Study, 378 of which had at least one follow-up assessment (Aims 1 & 2; Mean Age = 78.60). Baseline levels of FFM personality traits were measured in the EAS using the 50-item International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) version of the NEO-Personality Inventory. Baseline levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms, medical history, performance on a cognitive battery and age sex, and years of education were also collected. A multistate Markov approach was used to model the risk of transition across the four predementia states (cognitively healthy, SCD, aMCI, and naMCI) with each FFM personality trait as covariates.Results:Regarding Aim 1, Mann-Whitney U tests revealed no differences in levels of FFM personality traits between participants who developed aMCI compared to those who developed naMCI. Regarding Aim 2, the multistate Markov model revealed that higher levels of conscientiousness were protective against developing SCD while higher levels of neuroticism resulted in an increased risk of developing SCD. Further, the model revealed that higher levels of extraversion were protective against developing naMCI. Finally, regarding Aim 3, exploratory correlations revealed many positive associations between levels of openness to experience and performance on neuropsychological tests. Few associations were found for the other FFM personality traits.Conclusions:Results from this study suggest that premorbid personality traits may play a predictive role in the risk for or protection against specific predementia syndromes. Thus, FFM personality traits may be useful in improving predictions of who is at greatest risk for developing specific predementia syndromes. These personality measures could be used (in addition to other established risk factors for cognitive decline) to enrich clinical trials by targeting individuals who are at greatest risk for developing specific forms of cognitive decline. Such measures may also be useful in diagnostic prediction models for predementia syndromes. These results should be replicated in future studies with larger sample sizes and younger participants.

Burnout occurs among students when they suddenly lose interest in their studies due to feeling physically and emotionally drained. They experience further emotional depletion due to study demands, distrustfulness and detachment about their work. This study investigated the relationship between the Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality traits and burnout, as operationalised by Maslach's three dimensions of burnout, namely exhaustion, cynicism and reduced personal efficacy. Previous Western research was replicated in order to contribute to the cross-cultural literature on burnout. The Maslach Burnout Inventory – Student Survey University Form and the NEO – Personality Inventory Revised Form S were subjected to stepwise forward regression using FFM factors and facets to predict the scores on each burnout dimension. Five hundred and seventy-seven Filipino college students (age 17 to 24) from private universities and colleges within Metro Manila participated. Results revealed that neuroticism and conscientiousness predict all three burnout constructs. However, certain facets of neuroticism and conscientiousness are more important than others. At the facet level, facets of agreeableness and openness contributed to prediction of burnout as well.

Five-factor model (FFM) personality traits are related to basic cognitive functions and risk of cognitive impairment in late life. The present study addresses whether FFM traits are also associated with a more complex cognitive function, reasoning, across adulthood. We used seven samples to examine the relation between personality and verbal (total N= 39,177) and numeric (total N= 76,388) reasoning. A meta-analysis indicated higher Neuroticism was associated modestly with worse performance on verbal and numeric reasoning tasks. Openness was associated with better verbal reasoning and was unrelated to numeric reasoning. Surprisingly, Extraversion was associated modestly with worse performance in both domains, and Conscientiousness was essentially unrelated to reasoning. Agreeableness was unrelated to reasoning. There was significant heterogeneity across the samples but only limited evidence for moderation by age or sex. Consistent with other cognitive domains, the results suggested that Neuroticism is related to worse performance globally, whereas Openness tends to be associated with better verbal abilities. Among the unexpected findings was the better reasoning of introverts. The pattern also suggests that the common positive association between Conscientiousness and cognition does not extend to reasoning and suggests that Conscientiousness may support healthier cognitive aging through basic cognitive functions rather than through complex functions like reasoning.

Happy to help, happy to change? A meta-analysis of major predictors of affiliative and change-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors

A method was proposed for evaluating the Uchida-Kräpelin psychodiagnostic (UK) test in terms of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits. First, the oblique incomplete procrustes factor-rotation method by Jöreskog (1965) was applied to the results of the Adjective Check List (ACL) and the UK test administered to 370 subjects. Six oblique primary pattern values for the UK test were obtained as related to the task of addition work and personality traits. Second, the basic statistics including the values of test-retest reliabilities for work-curve measures in the UK test were presented, and canonical correlation analysis was applied to the data based on both personality traits and work-curve measures. Finally, correlations between the items of the ACL and the work-curve measures in the UK test were presented in order to confirm the validity of the present proposal for the UK test based on the FFM of personality traits.

For over a quarter of a century, organizational scholars have sought to understand the ways in which employees contribute to organizational success through their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Concurrently, personality traits have provided an important lens for illuminating what motivates such discretionary efforts. Our first purpose is to provide a state-of-the art, theoretically grounded review of the literature linking five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits to OCB. Second, we strive to clarify both our criterion construct (OCB) and our predictor space in order to facilitate the integration of past research and pave the way for future research. For our criterion space, we focus on three prominent types of OCB: directed toward individuals (OCB-I), toward the organization (OCB-O), and toward change (OCB-CH). For our predictor space, we examine FFM personality traits and FFM-based dark-side personality traits. Third, we offer new fruitful directions for future research. We conclude with three key themes for future research.

Purpose– Metacognition – or learning how to learn – is an important competence in business and academic settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine individual difference predictors of metacognition, including two traditional (general mental ability (GMA), five-factor model (FFM) personality traits) ones, and a novel one, individual authenticity.Design/methodology/approach– Volunteers (n=243) were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with the respective statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale for GMA, FFM personality traits, and authenticity measures. Data were collected at different points in time to introduce psychological separation among the study measures.Findings– The authors found that while metacognition is not predicted by GMA, it is positively predicted by two of the five-factor model personality traits, conscientiousness, and extraversion. More importantly, the authors examined that individuals’ authenticity – in the form of (low) self-alienation – will enhance metacognition, over-and-above the previously mentioned predictors.Originality/value– The authors attempt to broaden the understanding of authenticity and its relationship with another important outcome construct, metacognition along with GMA and personality traits, in academic settings.

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Recent life events are associated with transition to and outcome in psychosis. Childhood trauma and personality characteristics play a role in proneness to adult life events. However, little is known about the relative contribution and interrelatedness of these characteristics in psychotic disorders. Therefore, we investigated whether Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality traits and childhood trauma (abuse and neglect) predict adult life events, and whether the effect of childhood trauma on life events is mediated by personality traits.Method: One hundred and sixty-three patients with psychotic disorders were assessed at baseline on history of childhood maltreatment and FFM personality traits, and on recent life events at 3-year follow-up.Results: Childhood abuse is associated with negative life events, and part of the effect of childhood abuse on negative life events is mediated by openness to experience. Openness to experience and extraversion are associated with more positive and negative life events. Childhood neglect and lower extraversion are related to experiencing less positive events.Conclusion: The association between childhood trauma and recent life events is partly mediated by personality. Future research could focus on mechanisms leading to positive life events, as positive life events may buffer against development of mental health problems.

Five-factor model (FFM) personality traits are associated with cognitive function. The present research seeks to replicate and extend prior research on FFM traits and performance in five cognitive domains and informant-rated cognition. Participants (N=2,501) from the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol sub-study of the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe completed a 10-item personality measure in 2017 and were administered a comprehensive cognitive assessment in 2022. Neuroticism was associated with lower global cognitive performance, episodic memory, speed-attention, visuo-spatial ability, verbal fluency and informant-rated cognitive decline; the effects were attenuated by clinical (e.g., hypertension) and behavioral (e.g., physical inactivity) risk factors for cognitive impairment, which may mediate the associations. Openness was associated with better performance in most cognitive domains, even after accounting for behavioral and clinical covariates. Conscientiousness was related to less informant-rated cognitive decline but was surprisingly unrelated to performance in any cognitive domain; extraversion and agreeableness were also largely unrelated to cognitive function. There was not a consistent pattern of moderation by sociodemographic factors, cognitive impairment, or depression across domains, suggesting more similarities than differences across groups. The present research suggests that even with brief FFM scales, neuroticism and openness have replicable associations with multiple cognitive domains, whereas a more comprehensive assessment of conscientiousness may be needed to detect robust associations with cognitive performance.

Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality traits are associated with cognitive function, however, biological pathways accounting for these relations are not well understood. Here, we examined associations between individual FFM traits (self- and informant-reported) and cognitive function (episodic memory, executive control, and working memory), and the indirect effect of a latent index of cardiometabolic risk (composed of adiposity, glycemic control, blood pressure, blood lipids, and inflammation) in a midlife sample. Participants included 856 volunteers (M = 44.6 ± 6.9 years, range: 30 - 54; Female 54%; Caucasian 85%) from the Adult Health and Behavior (AHAB) registry. Structural equation models were used to: (1) regress cognitive performance on FFM traits and (2) test indirect effects of cardiometabolic risk. Age, sex, and race were included as covariates in all models. Lower Neuroticism, higher Openness, and higher Agreeableness were significantly associated with better performance in each cognitive domain, and higher Conscientiousness was associated with better working memory. Associations between these traits and executive control were accounted for by a significant indirect effect of lower cardiometabolic risk, and in component-specific analyses, by indirect effects of adiposity and systemic inflammation. Overall, FFM personality traits were associated with multiple domains of cognitive performance, which, in the case of executive control, was partially explained by differences in cardiometabolic risk. Future investigations should examine whether these pathways account for longitudinal change in cognition.

Five-factor model (FFM) personality traits are associated with concurrent memory function and risk of incident dementia but are less consistently associated with the change in episodic memory. The present research analyzes multiple large-scale studies with a consistent analytic approach to evaluate the association between personality and change in episodic memory over time. Across nine public longitudinal data sets, 120,640 participants provided 471,821 memory assessments over up to 26 years (age range 18-108). FFM traits were tested as predictors of the average level (intercept) and change over time (slope) of episodic memory. Results from the individual samples were meta-analyzed to summarize the associations. Consistent with expectations for the intercept, higher neuroticism was associated with worse memory performance, whereas higher openness and conscientiousness were associated with better performance; extraversion and agreeableness were also associated with better performance. Higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness were related to declines in memory only in samples with more than two assessments of memory. The other three traits were unrelated to memory slope. The pattern was similar when participants with dementia were excluded from the analysis, and the association with the slope was not moderated by age. FFM traits have a robust association with average memory performance. Higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness were associated with declines in memory performance only among samples with more than two memory assessments. The heterogeneity across studies suggests that multiple memory assessments are needed to reliably detect change over time, which may be one reason for past inconsistencies across studies.