Showing papers on "Revised NEO Personality Inventory published in 2017"
TL;DR: It is argued that these narrow personality characteristics constitute a valid level of the personality hierarchy and may be especially useful for providing a deep and contextualized description of the individual, but also for the prediction of specific outcomes.
Abstract: It has been argued that facets do not represent the bottom of the personality hierarchy-even more specific personality characteristics, nuances, could be useful for describing and understanding individuals and their differences. Combining 2 samples of German twins, we assessed the consensual validity (correlations across different observers), rank-order stability, and heritability of nuances. Personality nuances were operationalized as the 240 items of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Their attributes were examined by analyzing item residuals, controlling for the variance of the facet the item had been assigned to and all other facets. Most nuances demonstrated significant (p < .0002) cross-method agreement and rank-order stability. A substantial proportion of them (48% in self-reports, 20% in informant ratings, and 50% in combined ratings) demonstrated a significant (p < .0002) component of additive genetic variance, whereas evidence for environmental influences shared by twins was modest. Applying a procedure to estimate stability and heritability of true scores of item residuals yielded estimates comparable with those of higher-order personality traits, with median estimates of rank-order stability and heritability being .77 and .52, respectively. Few nuances demonstrated robust associations with age and gender, but many showed incremental, conceptually meaningful, and replicable (across methods and/or samples) predictive validity for a range of interest domains and body mass index. We argue that these narrow personality characteristics constitute a valid level of the personality hierarchy. They may be especially useful for providing a deep and contextualized description of the individual, but also for the prediction of specific outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record
194 citations
TL;DR: The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and its latest version, the NEOPI-3, were designed to measure 30 distinctive personality traits, which are grouped into Neuroticism, Extraversion,... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and its latest version, the NEO-PI-3, were designed to measure 30 distinctive personality traits, which are grouped into Neuroticism, Extraversion, ...
82 citations
TL;DR: The findings support the view that the DSM-5 trait model represents an instantiation of the FFM, and similarities of Openness and Psychoticism domains were supported when the lower-order aspects and facets ofopenness domain were considered.
Abstract: Several studies have shown structural and statistical similarities between the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5) alternative personality disorder model and the Five-Factor Model (FFM). However, no study to date has evaluated the nomological network similarities between the two models. The relations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) with relevant criterion variables were examined in a sample of 336 undergraduate students (Mage = 19.4; 59.8% female). The resulting profiles for each instrument were statistically compared for similarity. Four of the five domains of the two models have highly similar nomological networks, with the exception being FFM Openness to Experience and PID-5 Psychoticism. Further probing of that pair suggested that the NEO PI-R domain scores obscured meaningful similarity between PID-5 Psychoticism and specific aspects and lower-order facets of Openness. The results support the notion that the DSM-5 alternative personality disorder model trait domains represent variants of the FFM domains. Similarities of Openness and Psychoticism domains were supported when the lower-order aspects and facets of Openness domain were considered. The findings support the view that the DSM-5 trait model represents an instantiation of the FFM.
82 citations
TL;DR: No evidence for preclinical change in personality before the onset of mild cognitive impairment or dementia was identified, providing evidence against the reverse causality hypothesis and strengthen evidence for personality traits as a risk factor for dementia.
Abstract: Importance Changes in behavior and personality are 1 criterion for the diagnosis of dementia. It is unclear, however, whether such changes begin before the clinical onset of the disease. Objective To determine whether increases in neuroticism, declines in conscientiousness, and changes in other personality traits occur before the onset of mild cognitive impairment or dementia. Design, Setting, and Participants A cohort of 2046 community-dwelling older adults who volunteered to participate in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging were included. The study examined personality and clinical assessments obtained between 1980 and July 13, 2016, from participants with no cognitive impairment at first assessment who were followed up for as long as 36 years (mean [SD], 12.05 [9.54] years). The self-report personality scales were not considered during consensus diagnostic conferences. Main Outcomes and Measures Change in self-rated personality traits assessed in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer disease and other dementias with the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, a 240-item questionnaire that assesses 30 facets, 6 for each of the 5 major dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Results Of the 2046 participants, 931 [45.5%] were women; mean (SD) age at first assessment was 62.56 (14.63) years. During 24 569 person-years, mild cognitive impairment was diagnosed in 104 (5.1%) individuals, and all-cause dementia was diagnosed in 255 (12.5%) participants, including 194 (9.5%) with Alzheimer disease. Multilevel modeling that accounted for age, sex, race, and educational level found significant differences on the intercept of several traits: individuals who developed dementia scored higher on neuroticism (β = 2.83; 95% CI, 1.44 to 4.22; P P P = .02). Change in personality (ie, slope), however, was not significantly different between the nonimpaired and the Alzheimer disease groups (eg, neuroticism: β = 0.00; 95% CI, −0.08 to 0.08; P = .91; conscientiousness: β = −0.06; 95% CI, −0.16 to 0.04; P = .24). Slopes for individuals who developed mild cognitive impairment (eg, neuroticism: β = 0.00; 95% CI, −0.12 to 0.12; P = .98; conscientiousness: β = −0.09; 95% CI, −0.23 to 0.05; P = .18) and all-cause dementia (eg, neuroticism: β = 0.02; 95% CI, −0.06 to 0.10; P = .49; conscientiousness: β = −0.08; 95% CI, −0.16 to 0.00; P = .07) were also similar to those for nonimpaired participants. Conclusions and Relevance No evidence for preclinical change in personality before the onset of mild cognitive impairment or dementia was identified. These findings provide evidence against the reverse causality hypothesis and strengthen evidence for personality traits as a risk factor for dementia.
81 citations
TL;DR: It was found that personality traits were significantly correlated with diversity of gut microbiota, while their differences were extremely subtle, which will contribute to elucidating potential links between the gut microbiota and personality.
Abstract: Personality affects fundamental behavior patterns and has been related with health outcomes and mental disorders. Recent evidence has emerged supporting a relationship between the microbiota and behavior, referred to as brain-gut relationships. Here, we first report correlations between personality traits and gut microbiota. This research was performed using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and the sequencing data of the 16S rRNA gene in 672 adults. The diversity and the composition of the human gut microbiota exhibited significant difference when stratified by personality traits. We found that personality traits were significantly correlated with diversity of gut microbiota, while their differences were extremely subtle. High neuroticism and low conscientiousness groups were correlated with high abundance of Gammaproteobacteria and Proteobacteria, respectively when covariates, including age, sex, BMI and nutrient intake, were controlled. Additionally, high conscientiousness group also showed increased abundance of some universal butyrate-producing bacteria including Lachnospiraceae. This study was of observational and cross-sectional design and our findings must be further validated through metagenomic or metatranscriptomic methodologies, or metabolomics-based analyses. Our findings will contribute to elucidating potential links between the gut microbiota and personality, and provide useful insights toward developing and testing personality- and microbiota-based interventions for promoting health.
63 citations
TL;DR: Results are consistent with reduced threat-related amygdala reactivity in WS and suggest that common variation in GTF2I contributes to broader variability in socioemotional brain function and behavior, with implications for understanding the neurogenetic bases of WS as well as social anxiety.
32 citations
TL;DR: The pathway-based analysis, the axon guidance pathway was identified to be associated with multiple facets of neuroticism (N2, N4 and N6) and the focal adhesion and extracellular matrix receptor interaction pathways were significantly associated with N2 and N3.
Abstract: Neuroticism is a heritable personality trait that is comprised of distinct sub-factors, or facets. Sub-factors of neuroticism are linked to different emotional states or psychiatric symptoms and studying the genetic variants associated with these facets may help reveal the biological mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders. In the present study, a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for six facets of neuroticism was performed in 5584 participants from three cohorts. Additionally, a Gene Set Enrichment Analysis was conducted to find biological pathways associated with each facet. Six neuroticism facets (N1: anxiety, N2: angry hostility, N3: depression, N4: self-consciousness, N5: impulsivity and N6: vulnerability) were assessed using the Korean version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. In the single-nucleotide polymorphism-based analysis, results showed genome-wide significance for N2 within the MIR548H3 gene (rs1360001, P=4.14 × 10-9). Notable genes with suggestive associations (P<1.0 × 10-6) were ITPR1 for N1, WNT7A for N2, FGF10 and FHIT for N3, DDR1 for N4, VGLL4 for N5 and PTPRD for N6. In the pathway-based analysis, the axon guidance pathway was identified to be associated with multiple facets of neuroticism (N2, N4 and N6). The focal adhesion and extracellular matrix receptor interaction pathways were significantly associated with N2 and N3. Our findings revealed genetic influences and biological pathways that are associated with facets of neuroticism.
28 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that early and specific changes in personality are associated with cerebral AD pathology and Concentrations of CSF biomarkers, additionally to severity of the cognitive impairment, significantly contribute in predicting specific personality changes.
24 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory (DCPI) to assess pathological characteristics of the avoidant personality functioning and found that the internal consistency coefficients showed adequate levels of reliability ranging between 0.80 and 0.91 for the factors.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to revise the Criticism Avoidance dimension of the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory and to investigate its psychometric properties. The participants included 213 subjects aged 18 to 69 years (Mean = 25.56; Standard Deviation = 8.70), mostly females (N = 159; 74.3%). All participants answered the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory and the Brazilian versions of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. A total of 470 new items were developed and selected using content analysis, and 39 items composed the final version. Based on the parallel analysis and factor analysis, three interpretable factors were found. The internal consistency coefficients showed adequate levels of reliability ranging between 0.80 and 0.91 for the factors. Additionally, expected correlations were found between the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory and the other tests. The present study demonstrated the adequacy of the dimension revised to assess pathological characteristics of the avoidant personality functioning.
22 citations
TL;DR: Assessment of personality, particularly features of neuroticism, may be important in management of late-life depression and future studies should determine if depressed patients high in neuroticism may benefit from psychotherapy focusing on emotional regulation and stress management.
Abstract: Neuroticism in older adults is common yet understudied, particularly its effects on depression treatment outcomes. We hypothesized that presence of high neuroticism would be associated with lower 12-week remission rates in older depressed sertraline-treated patients. In this longitudinal cohort study, 43 depressed older adults completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). A study psychiatrist administered the Montgomery Ǻsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale (CIRS, a measure of medical burden) at baseline, and the MADRS at each clinical visit. All subjects began open-label sertraline treatment and were followed over 12 weeks with clinically indicated flexible dosing and an option to switch antidepressants. We used regression analyses to examine factors related to 12-week remission of depression (MADRS score < 8) and final MADRS score. We found that higher total neuroticism (odds ratio (OR) = 0.963, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.928-1.000) and a neuroticism subscale, stress vulnerability (OR = 0.846, 95% CI = 0.728-0.983), were associated with lower likelihood of remission among both the intention-to-treat group and sertraline completers. Findings remained significant after controlling for baseline MADRS and CIRS score. In conclusion, assessment of personality, particularly features of neuroticism, may be important in management of late-life depression. Future studies should determine if depressed patients high in neuroticism may benefit from psychotherapy focusing on emotional regulation and stress management.
20 citations
TL;DR: In hierarchical multivariate regression analyses, including age, gender, education, APOEε4 status and cognitive level, premorbid neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness modulated the effect of CSF biomarkers on cognitive performance.
Abstract: During adulthood, personality characteristics may contribute to the individual capacity to compensate the impact of developing cerebral Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology on cognitive impairment in later life. In this study we aimed to investigate whether and how premorbid personality traits interact with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers of AD pathology to predict cognitive performance in subjects with mild cognitive impairment or mild AD dementia and in participants with normal cognition. One hundred and ten subjects, of whom 66 were patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild AD dementia and 44 were healthy controls, had a comprehensive medical and neuropsychological examination as well as lumbar puncture to measure CSF biomarkers of AD pathology (amyloid beta1–42, phosphorylated tau and total-tau). Participants’ proxies completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, Form R to retrospectively assess subjects’ premorbid personality. In hierarchical multivariate regression analyses, including age, gender, education, APOEe4 status and cognitive level, premorbid neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness modulated the effect of CSF biomarkers on cognitive performance. Low premorbid openness independently predicted lower levels of cognitive functioning after controlling for biomarker concentrations. Our findings suggest that specific premorbid personality traits are associated with cerebral AD pathology and modulate its impact on cognitive performance. Considering personality characteristics may help to appraise a person’s cognitive reserve and the risk of cognitive decline in later life.
TL;DR: Findings on the interrelations between endogenous testosterone, neuroticism and cerebellar morphology provide a cerebellum-oriented framework for the susceptibility to experience negative emotions and mood in adolescence and early adulthood.
TL;DR: The results of this study confirmed significant characteristics in personality profiles among females with alcohol and opiate dependence, as well as the difference between these two groups of substance abusers and their healthy controls.
Abstract: Background The prevalence of female alcohol and substance abusers has markedly increased. The main objective of this research was to explore personality profiles among females who had alcohol and opiate dependence. Aim The aim of the study is to analyse if there is differences in personality profiles of females addicted to alcohol and opiates. We hypothesized that there might be significant differences in personality profiles among subgroups of women who present with alcohol and opiate use disorders. Subjects and methods Of 157 consecutive women with diagnosis of alcohol/opiate addiction, 62 fulfilled following inclusion criteria: age 19-45 years, abstinence from alcohol and opiates for at least 10 days prior to enrollment. Alcohol-dependent group consisted of 30 females, while opiate-dependent group consisted of 32 females. The control group involved 30 age-matched randomly chosen healthy women. The data were collected using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). The multiple stepwise discriminant analysis was used to determine relations between personality traits and the probability of belonging to one of the study groups. Results Significant differences in the NEO-PI-R scores were observed between groups for all main personality traits except for Openness to Experience. Compared with controls, substance-dependent women scored significantly higher on Neuroticism and lower on Conscientiousness. Opiate-dependent females scored the highest on Neuroticism and on Extraversion and lowest on Agreeableness and on Conscientiousness. Alcohol-dependent females scored higher on Conscientiousness and lower on Neuroticism compared to opiate-dependent women. Conclusions The results of our study confirmed significant characteristics in personality profiles among females with alcohol and opiate dependence, as well as the difference between these two groups of substance abusers and their healthy controls. The distinct personality characteristics among different groups of substance addicted women should be taken into account when creating the most effective program of prevention and therapeutic approaches in this specific cohort.
TL;DR: PID-5 scales were strongly impacted by response bias, whereas PID-5-IRF scores were less strongly impacted overall, and more so by overreporting bias.
Abstract: Previous research has raised concerns that scores derived from the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Krueger, Derringer, Markon, Watson, & Skodol, 2012) may be compromised by response styles such as underreporting or overreporting. The informant-report form of the PID-5 (PID-5-IRF; Markon, Quilty, Bagby, & Krueger, 2013) has been recommended for use when response bias is an assessment concern. The purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate PID-5 and PID-5-IRF scale score elevations across participants exhibiting signs of overreporting or underreporting. A total of 245 adults completed the PID-5 and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). A family member or friend of at least 1 year's acquaintance completed the PID-5-IRF for 216 of these. A total of 211 target-informant pairs were available for analysis. Participants were categorized as overreporting and underreporting according to NEO PI-R validity scale cutoffs. The majority of PID-5 scale scores were elevated in those identified as overreporting; more than half of the PID-5-IRF scale scores were similarly elevated. The majority of PID-5 scale scores were lower in those scoring above underreporting cut-offs; however, PID-5-IRF scales were not as consistently or strongly impacted. PID-5 scales were strongly impacted by response bias, whereas PID-5-IRF scores were less strongly impacted overall, and more so by overreporting bias. Caution when using these instruments in the assessment of personality disorders prone to over- or underreporting may be warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record
13 Jan 2017
TL;DR: An approach for the automatic prediction of the Big-Five personality traits and 30 sub dimensions the listeners attribute to a speaker they don't know and these sub dimensions give personality more accurate descriptions to lay the foundation for a more diversified personality classification.
Abstract: In recent decades, personality as a long term paralinguistic information has attracted more and more researchers. The main idea of the personality refers to the characteristics which acts as interactions between persons and the social occasions This paper proposes an approach for the automatic prediction of the Big-Five personality traits and 30 sub dimensions the listeners attribute to a speaker they don't know. The experiments are performed over a corpus of 1031 speech clips (337 identities in total) annotated not only Big-Five personality traits, but also all 30 sub-dimensions by using The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). The results show that it is possible to predict some particular sub-dimension with high accuracy (more than 75%) whether a person is perceived to be in the higher or lower part of the scales corresponding to each of the 30 sub dimensions, these sub dimensions give personality more accurate descriptions to lay the foundation for a more diversified personality classification
TL;DR: In this article, the profile associated with psycho-form and somato-form dissociation was studied and the results indicated that high dissociators showed higher scores on suggestibility, alexithymia, sleep-related experiences, neuroticism, openness to experience, and lower conscientiousness than low disociators, the results being similar to those obtained by high somatizers.
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented the results of the empirical verification of the DSM-5 model in Poland and found that on the level of the five broad traits, the pathological DSM5 model strongly corresponds to the Five-Factor Model of normal personality.
Abstract: The fifth edition of the DSM diagnostic manual has presented a hybrid system of personality disorder diagnosis, which integrates categorical and dimensional approach to diagnosis, building a kind of bridge between psychiatric classifications of disorders and psychological research on the structure of normal personality. The key element of this system is a new dimensional model of pathological personality traits. This article presents the results of the empirical verification of this model in Poland. The participants in the study were 754 individuals from the nonclinical population, aged 16–86 ( M = 36.45, SD = 16.65), including 52% women. Normal personality traits were measured by means of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R), and pathological personality traits – by means of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5); the risk of personality disorders was determined on the basis of SCID-II (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II) questionnaire scores. The obtained results proved to be consistent with the expectations: (1) on the level of the five broad traits, the pathological DSM-5 model strongly corresponds to the Five-Factor Model of normal personality; (2) the DSM-5 model predicts the categories of disorders better than the Five-Factor Model does.
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the relationship between stress and various factors including perfectionism in medical students, and found that students who tend to be perfect feel more academic stress, and personality trait also can influences their psychological stress level.
TL;DR: Predicting alcohol relapse by studying the personality traits would help clinicians in improving treatment outcomes, and factors related to extraversion, specifically, high activity might be associated with higher drinking as well as higher risk of alcohol relapse.
Abstract: Background: Studying personality profiles allows researchers to generate important hypotheses in risk factors and correlates of alcohol use/misuse. Studies examining the association between personality traits and treatment outcome are limited in India. We studied the correlation between personality and treatment outcome in patients with alcohol dependence. Methods: Adult participants with alcohol dependence were recruited from the inpatient and outpatient wards of de-addiction unit of a tertiary care facility in India using a prospective design and followed up after 3 months. Questionnaires administered were revised NEO personality inventory (NEO-PI-R), alcohol use disorders identification test, and advanced warning of alcohol relapse (AWARE). Results: Out of 99 recruited participants (92% males) with mean age of 37 (±8.36) years, 82 (82.8%) patients were followed up to 3 months. E4 (activity) facet of the extraversion domain in the NEO-PI-R significantly correlated with the baseline drinking scores (r = 0.204, P = 0.042, n = 99) and AWARE scores (r = 0.276, P = 0.043, n = 54). There was a significant negative correlation between the E2 (gregariousness) facet and satisfaction with life scores (r = −0.211, P = 0.036, n = 99). Age at first drink was significantly lower among relapsers (P = 0.021). Conclusion: Our study suggests that factors related to extraversion, specifically, high activity might be associated with higher drinking as well as higher risk of alcohol relapse. Predicting alcohol relapse by studying the personality traits would help clinicians in improving treatment outcomes.
01 Nov 2017
TL;DR: For example, this paper proposed a ten-item version (BFI-10) of the 44-item Big Five Inventory by selecting two items (one positive and one negative) from each factor from the original inventory.
Abstract: IntroductionIn recent years, personality inventories have been shortened considerably. While long tests such as the California Psychological Inventory (434 items, Gough, 1987) or the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (338 items; Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008) are still in use, there is also a huge demand for shorter and thus more accessible tests. Many of the well-established tests became shorter over time or were supplemented by a shorter version. For example, the Revised NEO Personality Inventory has 240 items while its shorter counterpart (NEO Five-Factor-Inventory, NEO-FFI) contains 60 items (Costa & McCrae, 1992; 2010).Accordingly, to make the already brief questionnaire even shorter, Rammstedt and John (2007) created a ten-item version (BFI-10) of the 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI; John & Srivastava, 1999) by selecting two items (one positive and one negative) from each factor from the original inventory. This was not the first attempt to create an extremely short questionnaire, Gosling, Rentfrow and Swann published a Big Five measure called Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) in 2003, consisting of pairs of adjectives. The TIPI has been adapted and validated for several languages including German (Herzberg & Brahler, 2006), Dutch (Hofmans, Kuppens, & Allik, 2008) and Japanese (Oshio, Abe, Cutrone, & Gosling, 2013). In fact, even a five-item version was considered but the authors advise against using it for several reasons as it is less reliable, has weaker correlations with other Big Five measures and other variables, it estimates the latent factors with a single item only (resulting in not being able to estimate the error terms) and also cannot balance positive and negative items (and hereby assessing and controlling for acquiescence bias) (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003). Furthermore, Rammstedt, Koch, Borg and Reitz (2004) note that good test-retest measures may be caused by memory effects which is especially problematic for five-item scales. The ten-item test still only requires a couple of minutes from the participants while avoiding most of the aforementioned limitations (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003; Herzberg & Brahler, 2006). In summary, both the TIPI and the BFI-10 have acceptable psychometric properties, especially considering their lengths. In one (relatively small) study, Furnham (2008) found that the validity of the TIPI was even better than that of the NEO-FFI.Naturally, creating very brief measures has its drawbacks, a loss of validity and reliability are most often mentioned. In recent years, the negative consequences of using short (ened) tests have been extensively studied in the literature (Crede et al., 2012; Kruyen, Emons, & Sijtsma, 2013), which is not too surprising looking at the noticeable rise in the number and use of very brief tests. It is out of the scope of the present work to discuss pros and cons of short measures in detail, nevertheless, it is important to remember that the aim of the shortened versions is not necessarily to replace the longer versions but to provide researchers and other users with an effective alternative when the use of a longer test is not feasible.However, one limitation that cannot be avoided with a ten-item test is that these tests can still only assess the highest level of the personality structure (the five factors) and are unable to address all facets of the factors separately (each of the five factors collects six facets, thus a minimum of 30 items would be needed). While these facets are all related, they represent different aspects of the factors and therefore, it would not be surprising to see lower correlations between the items within each of the factors than for the long scale. Since these correlations are sometimes used as reliability measures of the factors for twoitem scales, these reliability measures are expected to be low as well.Despite lower reliability, an argument in favour of the BFI-10 (and short tests in general) is parsimony. …
TL;DR: The hypothesis that BR hypoechogenicity reflects an inclination for depression and anxiety characterized by the personality dimension neuroticism was not supported, however, this disposition may be present in a different state, such as stress.
Abstract: Early diagnosis of anxiety and depression may be facilitated by the use of neurobiological markers. In depression and panic disorder, transcranial sonography (TCS) has revealed decreased echogenicity of the brainstem raphe (BR). The aim of the present study was to detect whether decreased echogenicity of the BR correlates with personality features described in the five-dimension model, especially neuroticism. We examined 100 healthy volunteers using quantitative and qualitative TCS, the five-dimension revised NEO Personality Inventory, Beck´s scales of anxiety and depression, and the Social Re-adjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Visual BR anechogenicity was found in 11 subjects, BR hypoechogenicity in 29 subjects, and normal BR echogenicity in 60 subjects. The visual assessment correlated with the digital assessment. Comparing the groups with visual BR anechogenicity and BR normoechogenicity, only increased SRRS score and increased agreeableness z-score were significant. Our hypothesis that BR hypoechogenicity reflects an inclination for depression and anxiety characterized by the personality dimension neuroticism was not supported. However, this disposition may be present in a different state, such as stress.
TL;DR: In this article, the predictive power of personality traits for EFL students' preference for isolated or integrated form-focused instruction (FFI) was investigated for 160 Iranian EFL university students.
Abstract: This study aims to investigate the predictive power of personality traits for EFL students’ preference for isolated or integrated form-focused instruction (FFI). Participants were 160 Iranian EFL university students. Results indicated that students’ personality traits, as measured by Costa and McCrae (Revised NEO Personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual, Psychological Assessment Resources Inc., Odessa, FL, 1992) NEO-FFI, were significantly related to students’ preference for isolated or integrated grammar instruction as assessed by Student Preference for Grammar Instruction Questionnaire developed by Spada et al. (System, 37(1):70–81, 2009). Multiple regression analyses indicated that NEO-FFI variables of extroversion, agreeableness, and open to experience were significant positive predictors of EFL students’ preferences for integrated FFI while neuroticism had a negative relationship with that. Furthermore, NEO-FFI variables of conscientiousness and neuroticism were significant positive predictors of students’ preferences for isolated FFI while extroversion and open to experience had a negative relationship with it. The results were discussed and the implications were made with regard to individual differences in educational contexts.