Five-Factor Model Traits Research Articles

Is risk propensity unique from the big five factors of personality? A meta-analytic investigation

Meta-analysis of 6,644 correlations from 133 independent samples (N = 69,125) was conducted to examine whether risk propensity is subsumed by or independent of the traits comprising the five-factor model (FFM) of personality, and whether risk propensity has predictive utility above and beyond the FFM. Analyses revealed weak to modest relations between risk propensity and the FFM traits. The strongest observed relation was found for openness to experience (ρ = .30), and the combined FFM traits accounted for 22% of the variance in risk propensity. Together with the earlier investigations of risk propensity and the FFM, the evidence strongly suggests that risk propensity is largely independent of the FFM, and predicts risky outcomes (especially adaptive ones) over and above the FFM.

Predicting academic achievement in music in secondary schools: The role of personality and self-theories of musicality

Recent meta-analyses have confirmed the significance of three personality traits of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) in predicting academic achievement, namely, conscientiousness, emotional stability (neuroticism), and openness. However, there is little agreement on which FFM traits are relevant in predicting academic achievement in music. The underlying mechanisms for the observed correlations between personality traits and academic achievement are also unclear. Thus, by including self-theories as mediator variables, we examine the relationships between personality traits, academic achievement in music and their underlying mechanisms. We analyzed longitudinal data collected from secondary school students ( N = 564, Mage = 11.98) in Germany and the United Kingdom in 2017 and 2018. A series of path models were used to examine the effect of personality traits and self-theories on academic achievement in music and overall achievement, while controlling for previous achievement. Conscientiousness and agreeableness emerged as best predictors of the development of overall performance and achievement in music, respectively. Subjective theories about one’s own musicality (e.g., musical self-theories) affect academic achievement in music even when personality traits and previous achievements are accounted for. This study demonstrates that personality traits contribute to the development of musical self-theories that in turn affect the growth of academic achievement in music.

The tangled webs we wreak: Examining the structure of aggressive personality using psychometric networks.

Trait aggression is a prominent construct in the psychological literature, yet little work has sought to situate trait aggression among broader frameworks of personality. Initial evidence suggests that trait aggression may be best couched within the nomological network of the Five-Factor Model (FFM). The current work sought to locate the most appropriate home for trait aggression among the FFM. We applied a preregistered regimen of psychometric network analyses to three datasets (combined N=2927) that contained self-reports of trait aggression and the FFM traits. Trait aggression was highly central in the factor-level networks, which contained associations consistent with the conceptualization of this construct as a lower-order component of low agreeableness. The facet-level networks revealed that the behavioral facets of trait aggression reflected low agreeableness, but that the anger and hostility facets reflected high neuroticism. The item-level network suggested that the intent to initiate aggressive encounters was the primary bridge that empirically linked trait aggression to agreeableness. Our results indicate that trait aggression is primarily a lower-order facet of agreeableness, advance our understanding of trait aggression, integrate it with broader frameworks of personality, and suggest future directions to refine this complex dispositional tendency.

A Quantitative Assessment of the Impact of Homogeneity in Personality Traits on Software Quality and Team Productivity

Software industry is increasingly focusing on the improvement of software quality and team performance to survive in a competitive and rapidly growing environment. Previous studies reveal the importance of social and human factors in software engineering. Despite the importance of these personality factors, only a handful of empirical studies have quantitatively evaluated the impact of personality traits on software quality and effectiveness of software engineering teams. This study quantifies the abstract notion of trait-wise team homogeneity based on the Five-Factor Model (FFM). Additionally, this study also aims to measure its impact on team productivity and software quality. Trait-wise team homogeneity measures the Team Homogeneity Index (THI) for each of the five personality traits of FFM. Therefore, five new metrics i.e. Openness THI (O-THI), Conscientiousness THI (C-THI), Extraversion THI (E-THI), Agreeableness THI (A-THI), and Neuroticism THI (N-THI) are proposed. The utility of these five metrics is evaluated by conducting experiments in academic and industrial environments for three different phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) i.e. analysis and design, implementation, and testing. During the analysis and design phase, it was observed that teams (composed of either students or professionals) with greater values of C-THI and A-THI produced better quality design models and teams with greater values of C-THI were more productive. In the implementation phase, teams with higher values of O-THI, C-THI, and E-THI were noticeably more productive and produced better quality code. For the testing phase, teams with greater values of C-THI and A-THI produced better quality test cases and were more productive. Results obtained so far indicate that the newly proposed five metrics – O-THI, C-THI, E-THI, A-THI, and N-THI – appear to have the potential to aid managers and academics alike in building productive teams which can produce better quality software.

The role of five-factor model traits in predicting physical and verbal aggression during the transition to college.

The role of five-factor model traits in predicting physical and verbal aggression during the transition to college.

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

We meta-analytically test the extent to which positive and negative affect predict change-oriented citizenship behaviors (OCB-CH). More importantly, we examine the predictive power of affect versus established predictors, including (a) job satisfaction and (b) the five-factor model (FFM) personality traits. For comparative purposes, we include as outcomes two affiliative forms of citizenship: directed at other individuals (OCB-I) and directed at the organization (OCB-O). Meta-analytic results show three noteworthy findings. First, OCB-CH is significantly more strongly related to positive affect (ρ¯̂ = 0.27, k = 28) than to negative affect (ρ¯̂ = −0.11, k = 23), and positive affect is more strongly related to OCB-CH (ρ¯̂ = 27, k = 28) than to OCB-I (ρ¯̂ = 0.17, k = 12) and OCB-O (ρ¯̂ = 0.17, k = 9). Second, a large portion of the explained variance in OCB-CH is dominated by positive and negative affect (47%), substantially more than by the FFM personality traits (31%) or by job satisfaction (23%). Third, the incremental validity for predicting OCB-CH above and beyond the other predictors is the largest for (a) positive and negative affect in combination, followed by (b) the FFM personality traits and then (c) job satisfaction. These findings indicate that affect (in particular, positive affect) is a relatively stronger driver of OCB-CH compared to the FFM traits and job satisfaction.

Toward a biological basis of the FFM Meta-traits: Associations between the Fisher Type Indicator (FTI) temperament construct and the hierarchical Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality

BackgroundThis large-scale (N = 1870) replication effort of Fisher et al. (2015) (N = 190) examines associations between the Fisher Type Indicator (FTI) temperament construct and the hierarchical Big5/Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality. AimThe original and current studies are among contemporary efforts to link biologically related temperament/personality dimensions with socio-cultural and lexical personality traits. In this context, the current study explores possible links between FFM traits and higher-order personality factors such as the ‘Big Two’ (Stability and Plasticity) and the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and their implications. MethodsBoth studies examine possible associations between four broad neural systems—dopamine and related norepinephrine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen/oxytocin and Big5/FFM personality traits. The current sample size is ten times larger (1870 vs. 190) and represents a much broader age distribution (13–82 vs. 20–22) than the original study. Similar statistical procedures were employed to ensure accurate methodological replication. Results and conclusionsThe current study replicated most FTI-FFM associations reported in the original study, thereby lending greater validity to the original findings. Given the current study's larger sample and broader age range, it extended into three other domains: 1. Improved understanding of dopamine-serotonin based meta-traits in the FFM construct and beyond; 2. Consolidated and expanded understanding of gender-related temperament differences; 3. Explore developmental aspects concerning how associations between biological-temperament and socio-cultural FFM personality traits change with age.

Commercial Brain Training: Efficacy, Transfer Effects, and the Influence of Personality Traits: A Study Conducted on Healthy Young Adults.

In the present study, we investigated the effects of a four-week working memory (WM) and attention training program using commercial brain training (Synaptikon GmbH, Berlin). Sixty young healthy adults were assigned to the experimental and active control training programs. The training was conducted in a naturalistic home-based setting, while the pre- and post-examinations were conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. Transfer effects to an untrained WM task and to an untrained episodic memory task were examined. Furthermore, possible influences of personality, i.e., the five-factor model (FFM) traits and need for cognition (NFC), on training outcomes were examined. Additionally, the direct relationship between improvement in single trained tasks and improvement in the transfer tasks was investigated. Our results showed that both training groups significantly increased performance in the WM task, but only the WM training group increased their performance in the episodic memory transfer task. One of the training tasks, a visuospatial WM task, was particularly associated with improvement in the episodic memory task. Neuroticism and conscientiousness showed differential effects on the improvement in training and transfer tasks. It needs to be further examined whether these effects represent training effects or, for example, retest/practice or motivation effects.

Longitudinal Associations Between the Five-Factor Model of Personality and The Bi-Factor Model of Psychopathology: Continuity, Pathoplasty and Complication Effects in Adolescents

The study of the bifactor structure of psychopathology, which includes a general factor of psychopathology (or p factor) in addition to the internalizing and externalizing factors, has gained attention. However, its associations with the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality has been addressed in few studies, and none has examined different plausible etiological models (i.e., continuity, pathoplasty, complication) to explain its relationship, which is the aim of the present research. Additionally, the longitudinal association of the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and the p factor will be also explored. Personality and psychopathological symptoms of high school students were assessed at three time points (once a year) (n = 655; M = 13.79, SD = 1.24; 49.8% girls). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (and measurement invariance across waves) were tested for the traits, the GFP and the bifactor model of psychopathology. While the bifactor model and the one-factor solution for each personality trait displayed good fit to the data and remained invariant over time, the structure of the GFP was adequate and invariant in two of the three waves. The resulting factors were included in cross-lagged panel models and showed that the FFM traits and the psychopathology factors influenced each other reciprocally. Most associations fell in line with the continuity model, but minor pathoplastic and complication effects were also reported. Similar associations were found between the GFP and the p factor. These results suggest that interventions in riskier personality profiles might prevent the development of general and more specific psychopathology spectra.

Self-esteem mediates effects of normal and pathological personality traits on subjective well-being.

As subjective well-being is foundational to understanding people, researchers have sought to uncover its correlates. Some theorizing proposes that effects of broad personality traits on subjective well-being constructs are mediated by self-esteem; unfortunately, evidence pertaining to this idea has been limited to the study of "normal" broad personality traits and limited measures of subjective well-being. Here, we provided a more comprehensive test of this theory, and we examined the dominance of self-esteem over normal and pathological broad personality traits in predicting an array of subjective well-being constructs. In a primarily college sample (N=272), we found that self-esteem generally mediated the effects of all Five-Factor Model (FFM) traits except Agreeableness and all pathological personality traits-represented in the Personality Inventory of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders traits (5th edition; PID-5)-except Antagonism on a set of subjective well-being measures; moreover, dominance analyses showed that self-esteem was generally more important than any FFM or PID-5 trait in predicting the subjective well-being measures. We discuss limitations of our study along with some of its basic and applied implications.

Longitudinal associations between borderline personality disorder and five-factor model traits over 24 years

Are five-factor traits and borderline personality symptoms the same features with different names? The existing literature offers reasons to think they are the same and reasons to think they are different. We examined longitudinal associations between these variables in a sample of patients assessed 12 times over 24 years using latent curve models with structured residuals. Mean trajectories for all variables were in the direction of symptom reduction/personality maturation and could be parsed into an initial, rapid improvement phase and a subsequent, gradual improvement phase. We found robust between-person associations among intercepts and long-term slopes of traits and symptoms. Specifically, higher levels of neuroticism as well as lower levels of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were associated with higher levels of borderline personality symptoms, and changes in these traits were correlated with reduction in symptoms over time. Associations among time-structured residuals allowed for examinations of within-person deflections from these general trends at briefer (two year) intervals. All variables exhibited robust within-person carry-over effects. Other within-person effects were more specific to certain traits. These results suggest that, despite their distinct theoretical and methodological bases, normal trait and psychiatric diagnostic approaches largely converged on a similar conception of borderline personality.

Thin slice derived personality types predict longitudinal symptom trajectories.

Resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled personality types have been identified across the life span and are associated with psychiatric symptoms and functioning. However, it is unknown whether these types are identifiable in preschool-aged children using observational indices or whether they predict longitudinal outcomes. The current study used observationally coded five-factor model (FFM) traits in a sample of preschoolers to identify whether personality traits cluster into types, whether types predict psychiatric symptoms and impairment across development, and whether types better predict outcomes than trait dimensions. Using a validated "thin slice" approach, preschool personality was observationally coded in a clinically enriched sample oversampled for depression (N = 299). Latent class analysis tested how FFM dimensions organized into types, identifying resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled preschoolers. Types demonstrated baseline diagnostic differences and multilevel models indicated above baseline diagnoses, undercontrolled children exhibited elevated externalizing symptoms and worse functioning across development, whereas overcontrolled and resilient children did not differ. Personality types and dimensions both provided similar predictive utility. Resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled personality types are identifiable using FFM observational coding in clinically heterogeneous preschoolers and undercontrolled children demonstrated the most severe trajectories. Findings highlight that personality types are detectable at early ages and have unique predictive power for psychiatric outcomes across development compared with dimensions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigating Personality Traits as the Antecedents of Workplace Bullying

There is an ample body of knowledge showing significant association between five factor model (FFM) of personality traits and workplace bullying, yet exploring cause-and-effect relationship between them is still under addressed. To address this issue, current study has analyzed personality traits of Five-Factor Model as a potential antecedent of workplace bullying and its three sub-facets (verbal bullying, social bullying and physical bullying). Study analyzed responses of 266 respondents to draw inferences. Simple random sampling technique was used to collect data from the respondents. Correlation analysis showed a positive association of extraversion with physical bullying; negative association of agreeableness with workplace bullying, verbal bullying, social bullying and physical bullying; negative association of conscientiousness with workplace bullying, verbal bullying, social bullying and physical bullying; and negative association of emotional stability with physical bullying. Results of regression analysis showed significant effect of agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experiences on workplace bullying, verbal bullying, social bullying and physical bullying. Current study has identified personality as an important predictor of workplace bullying through which organizations may control incidence of bullying at their workplace environments. Current study also has highlighted important insights for future research directions. Keywords: Five Factor Model (FFM), Personality Traits, Workplace Bullying, Physical Bullying, Verbal Bullying, Social Bullying.

Reprint of: Using a co-twin control design to evaluate alternative trait measures as indices of liability for substance use disorders

To establish a trait-dispositional variable as an indicator of liability for the development of substance use disorders (SUDs), the trait must share heritable variance with SUDs and its association should not be primarily attributable to a direct impact of SUDs on characteristics that define the trait. The current work applied a co-twin control (CTC) modeling approach to data from two monozygotic twin samples to investigate the degree to which different measures of trait-impulsiveness represent indicants of vulnerability to SUDs (liability indicators), or outcomes or concomitants of SUDs (exposure indicators). The Five Factor Model (FFM) trait of conscientiousness was assessed via self-report, and a counterpart neurobehavioral trait of disinhibition was assessed both through self-report and using self-report and brain response measures combined. FFM trait data were available for one twin sample (N = 298); data for variants of P3 brain response were available along with a scale measure of disinhibition in the other (N = 258). CTC analyses revealed only an exposure effect of SUD symptomatology on FFM conscientiousness, indicating that this self-report assessed trait does not index liability for SUDs. By contrast, the disinhibition scale measure showed pronounced liability and weaker exposure-based associations with SUDs – and when quantified using scale scores together with P3 brain response, the exposure-based association was eliminated, such that this disinhibition measure related to SUD symptoms exclusively as a function of liability influences. These findings highlight a distinct advantage of quantifying traits in neurobehavioral terms – namely, the capacity to effectively index dispositional liability for psychopathological outcomes.

The Association Between Five Factor Model Personality Traits and Verbal and Numeric Reasoning

ABSTRACT 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.

DSM-5 alternative personality disorder model traits as extreme variants of five-factor model traits in adolescents.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) recognizes a developmental perspective on personality pathology owing to its proposal to conceptualize personality pathology in terms of maladaptive personality traits. Previous research has found that the DSM-5 maladaptive traits and the five-factor model (FFM) for normative personality traits share common underlying dimensions. Although the DSM-5 generally assumes DSM-5 traits to be extreme versions of FFM traits, empirical evidence is scarce in adolescents. The present study therefore extended previous studies by comparing the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 and the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) in an adolescent sample (n = 353), using item response theory. Results indicated an underlying dimension for all domain pairs except for FFM Openness and Psychoticism. Consistent with the general assumption, IRT results demonstrated that Personality Inventory for DSM-5 scales generally provided more information than the BFI-2 scales at the upper levels of the latent dimension. The BFI-2 scales provided more information at the lower levels. For FFM Conscientiousness and Disinhibition, however, the BFI-2 scale provided more information for almost the entire range of the latent dimension. The findings indicate similarities in the DSM-5 conceptualization of personality pathology between adults and adolescents and at the same time identify important differences that need to be considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Main and Moderating Influence of Five-Factor Model Traits on the Association between Intimate Partner Violence and Depressive Symptoms

ABSTRACT Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common problem for young adult women and is associated with symptoms of depression. However, not all women who experience IPV exhibit depressive symptoms. Research suggests that one factor that influences women’s degree of depressive symptoms in the aftermath of IPV is personality, but different studies have emphasized different aspects of personality (e.g., affective vs. interpersonal). The Five-Factor Model of personality (FFM) provides a framework for integrating different models of personality traits, although research on FFM traits in the context of IPV has thus far been limited. In this study, we examine the main and moderating effects of FFM traits on the association between IPV and depressive symptoms in a sample of young adult women (N = 565) using a Bayesian approach to multiple regression. Results suggested strong effects of two of the five FFM traits: Neuroticism exacerbated and Extraversion buffered the effect of IPV on depressive symptoms. These findings contribute to our understanding of vulnerability and resilience to women’s mental health in the context of IPV and provide directions for future research and clinical intervention.

Further Validation of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment – Short Form (EPA-SF) in a Large University Sample

The purpose of the current study was to provide further validation of the short form of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment (EPA-SF), which was developed on the basis of a general personality model, the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality. This study evaluated the internal structure of the EPA-SF trait scales, and examined the EPA-SF scales against two other psychopathy measures, the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) and the Expanded Leveson Self-Report Psychopathy Scales (E-LSRP), as well as a general FFM measure, in a sample of 924 university students. Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling generally supported internal structure for EPA-SF scales, in that the 18 EPA-SF traits generally loaded onto their four respective domain scales: Antagonism, Emotional Stability, Inhibition and Narcissism. Tucker’s congruence coefficients (.95-.99) indicated excellent replicability of the original structure. The EPA-SF total and domain scale scores also showed moderate to large correlations with TriPM, E-LSRP and FFM domain scales in a manner mostly consistent with conceptual expectations. Finally, EPA-SF trait scales were also mostly associated with their corresponding FFM trait scale counterparts. Overall, the EPA-SF scale scores showed evidence for good convergent and discriminant validity.

Supplemental Material for DSM–5 Alternative Personality Disorder Model Traits as Extreme Variants of Five-Factor Model Traits in Adolescents

Supplemental Material for DSM–5 Alternative Personality Disorder Model Traits as Extreme Variants of Five-Factor Model Traits in Adolescents

Hereditary and environmental factors of the Five-Factor Model traits: A cross-cultural study

This study examines cultural differences in genetic and environmental influences on Five-Factor Model (FFM) across Croatian, German and Serbian cultures. Participants were 1021 monozygotic and 722 dizygotic twin pairs and NEO Five-Factor Inventory– NEO-FFI is used to assess FFM personality traits. Results show a similar pattern of genetic and environmental contribution to the variance of all FFM dimensions, indicating that culture has no significant effect on the genetic and environmental variance of personality traits. The best fitted common factor - common AE pathway models show that FFM dimensions are accounted for by the common latent factor. Although FFM dimensions clearly share some common sources of variance, the effects of specific genetic and environmental factors are more pronounced than common ones. Different patterns of genetic and environmental correlations across three samples may reflect the way that the synergy of personality traits responds to the specificities of a particular culture, as well as possible subtle differences in item translation, testing conditions, and measurement error.