The Similarity Between Chinese Five-Pattern and Eysenck's Personality Traits: Evidence From Theory and Resting-State fMRI.

Wentao Zhao,Hao Wang,Liang Zhang,Jing Li,Jian Du,Xiaozhen Li,Liping Song,Long Cheng,Yong Xu,Xinrong Li,Qiuli Yang

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2020.00038

Abstract

Chinese five-pattern and Eysenck’s personality traits are two types of personality theories based on different cultural backgrounds. The former is an indigenous theory, and the latter is a cross-cultural theory. In order to verify the relationship between two different personality traits from theory and neuropsychology, the current study recruited 170 healthy adults to calculate their five-Pattern Personality Inventory (FPPI) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ) scales and to scan their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Then, we performed stepwise-regression analysis and mediation-effect analysis to explore the association between brain regional homogeneity (ReHo) and two types of personality traits. The results showed that the ReHo of the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) positively correlated with TaiYang traits for FPPI and that there was a significant linear relationship with extraversion and neuroticism for EPQ. Besides, the ReHo of the right medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) positively correlated with TaiYin for FPPI, and it also showed a significant linear relationship with neuroticism for EPQ. Furthermore, we found that extroversion and neuroticism partially mediated the relationship between five-pattern personality traits and the regional brain function, based on the mediation-effect analysis. Our findings suggest that Chinese five-pattern personality traits have a close relationship with Eysenck’s personality traits and that both may be engaged in similar neurobiological mechanisms in common brain regions to some extent. Hence, these findings first reveal a relationship between Chinese traditional personality traits and Western Eysenck’s personality traits in terms of both theoretical and neurobiological contexts.

Highlights

Personality traits are core concepts of psychology that organically integrate into an individual’s specific patterns of feelings, behaviors, emotions, cognition, and thought
The correlation analysis results showed that the regional homogeneity (ReHo) of the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) was significantly positively correlated to TaiYang scores after controlling for each subject’s age, gender, and mean relative displacement (r = 0.391, p < 0.0001, cluster size = 30 voxels)
These results suggest that five-pattern personality traits and Eysenck personality traits may be compatible with one another and that these traits overlapped at the neuronal level to some extent

Summary

Introduction

Personality traits are core concepts of psychology that organically integrate into an individual’s specific patterns of feelings, behaviors, emotions, cognition, and thought. Several personality studies focused on neurobiology have indicated that the neural mechanisms of neuroticism, extroversion, and psychoticism are common psychological and behavioral characteristics that are prevalent in individuals across various cultural backgrounds (Eysenck and Abdel-Khalek, 1989; Loo, 1995; Eysenck and Barrett, 2013). Many psychologists have recently been working on constructing indigenous personality theories relevant to culture-specific experiences, such as in India, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan (Guanzon-Lapeña et al, 1998; Chae and Lee, 2015; De Fruyt et al, 2015)

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