Abstract
Objective: Despite a long history of interest in personality traits and psychosis, the association between personality traits and psychotic experiences in the general population is not yet well understood. One possible factor that could influence the degree of distress from psychotic experiences is emotion regulation. The purpose of this study was to explore whether the association between personality and psychotic symptoms is already apparent in non-clinical youth as well as the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies between personality traits and psychotic experiences.Methods: Three thousand one hundred and forty seven college students were surveyed via self-report questionnaires measuring the Five-Factor model of personality, emotion regulation strategies, and psychotic experiences.Results: Neuroticism was found to be significantly positively correlated with psychotic experiences, while Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were found to be significantly negatively correlated. Both the suppression and reappraisal strategies mediated the relationship between personality traits and psychotic experiences.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that youth with certain personality traits are more likely to have psychotic experiences. The reappraisal emotion regulation strategy could serve as a protective factor against the distress of psychotic experiences.
Highlights
Attention has long been paid to exploring the role of personality in psychopathology
The results of the regression analysis indicated that all five personality factors had significant effect on the use frequency of the reappraisal strategy (β = −0.223∼0.344; P < 0.01); at step 3, the Sobel test was conducted for the five models, and the results suggested that the cognitive reappraisal strategy significantly mediated the relationship between all of the five personality factors and psychotic experiences
The results of the regression analysis indicated that except for Conscientiousness (β = −0.032; P > 0.05), the four other personality factors had significant effect on the use frequency of the suppression strategy (β = −0.059∼0.314; P < 0.01); at step 3, the Sobel test was conducted for the five models, and the results suggested that the expressive suppression strategy significantly mediated the relationship between the four personality factors and psychotic experiences
Summary
Attention has long been paid to exploring the role of personality in psychopathology. The five personality traits of the FFM are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is understood as the tendency toward dutifulness and competence These five personal traits are viewed as the most basic dimensions of personality [2]. People with schizophrenia were found to demonstrate higher levels of Neuroticism This construct of personal traits has a strong predictive effect on the level of positive symptoms in psychosis studies [3]. High levels of neuroticism prior to onset reflects a vulnerability to feeling anxious and being distressed This trait was found to be a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia [4,5,6], while a high level of extraversion could reduce the risk [6]. In samples with first-episode schizophrenia and chronic psychosis, lower levels of both extraversion and agreeableness have been associated with higher levels of positive psychotic symptoms and relapse [7]
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