What are the Big 5 personality models?

Antecedents of procrastination: personality and self-regulation

Personality and self-regulation are two major areas of psychological research that have been used to explain why a person might irrationally delay an intended behavior or task despite knowing the probable unwanted and negative consequences of the postponement. We examined the relation between health-related procrastination and these two sets of causal constructs and processes. Consistent with Lay (1997), the associations of general procrastination and conscientiousness with exercise and diet procrastination were statistically significant and practically noticeable. It is important to note that, similar to Conscientiousness and approximately at the same level of effect size but in the opposite direction, Neuroticism had a significant contribution in predicting health-related procrastination. These findings may need to be considered when positioning health-related procrastination within the Big Five personality model and when developing interventions for individuals who procrastinate on health-related behaviors. It can be argued that intervention programs should not only target the enduring tendencies related to low self-discipline and dutifulness (i.e., important facets of Conscientiousness), but also target impulsivities and excessive emotional sensitivity (facets related to Neuroticism). It is difficult to overcome problems that are directly rooted in personality traits such as procrastination. However, it can be argued that people are more likely to “act out of character” (i.e., act as if they were more conscientiousness) if they become aware of the enduring force behind their irrational delay, and if they are repeatedly reminded of the importance of the targeted behaviors or prescribed tasks to enhance or maintain their health and well-being (Little, 2000). In addition, for those with a high level of impulsivity and emotional sensitivity, environmental factors might play an additional intervening factor to reduce procrastination. An environment with lower availability of unhealthy foods, for example, may significantly facilitate the decrease in healthy-diet procrastination.

In line with researchers who indicated that procrastination is rooted in self-regulation problems (Tice & Baumeister, 1997; Senécal, Koestner, & Vallerand, 1995; Wolters, 2003), the correlations between self-regulation and exercise and diet procrastination were significant and in a negative direction. The magnitude of association for both scales were similar and was considered a moderate effect size. Based on the results, it can be argued that both procrastination scales measure a form of failure in self-regulation as conceptualized and discussed by Sirois and Pychyl (2013). These findings related to personality and self-regulation factors supported the construct validity (i.e., convergent) of the scores obtained from the new scales.

2.2 Personality measurement

We studied the personality models used in all the primary studies analyzed in the present meta-analysis. As could be verified in our first review, the vast majority of the studies measured the personality traits using the Big Five Personality model (Big Five; McCrae & Costa Jr., 2008). This is one of the most validated personality questionnaires and it proposed five basic dimensions of personality (e.g., De Raad, 2000): Openness to Experience (O, related to intellectual curiosity and openness to try new things), Conscientiousness (C, related to self-discipline and to behave according to duty), Extraversion (E, generally characterized by pronounced engagement with the external world), Agreeableness (A, individuals with high scores in this trait tend to be considerate, kind, generous, and helpful with others), and Neuroticism (N, mostly related to the tendency to experience negative emotions like anger, anxiety or depression). The Big Five Personality model has received a lot of research among the last years, accumulating a solid body of knowledge on the stability and the universality of the personality traits proposed within it (e.g., McCrae & Costa Jr., 2008), and also showing high cross-validity coefficients compared to other popular personality inventories in recent studies (e.g., Grucza & Goldberg, 2007), which reflects bandwidth in the diversity of behavior that can be predicted, and fidelity to predict each type of behavior within its range.

4.1.3 Personality

Results summarized in former meta-analysis by Hayduk (1983) and also Aiello (1987) show mixed results on personality characteristics such as the big five, leading to the conclusion by Hayduk (1983, p. 318) that “there does not seem to be sufficient consistency or strength among the relationships between personality and personal space for personality characteristics to be a prime determinant of spacing preferences.“. Gillespie and Leffler (1983) had no consistent findings in their review, and Aiello (1987) also argued that personality variables may not be very meaningful, unless they become salient in situations.

Results on personality influences in human-robot interaction studies are similarly mixed and unclear. Most of the studies use the big five personality model which includes five factors defined as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. One of the studies used the Eysenck three factor model (Walters et al., 2005). So far, almost every factor of the big five had been found to influence distance-related measurements at least once. Extraversion was nominated by Syrdal, Dautenhahn, Woods, Walters, and Koay (2006) and Gockley and Mataric (2006), neuroticism by Rossi et al. (2017) and Takayama and Pantofaru (2009), agreeableness by Koay et al. (2007) and Takayama and Pantofaru (2009), and intellect/openness by Koay et al. (2007). However, studies on personality showed similar methodological and theoretical weaknesses as discussed on gender or age. First, all of the studies were exploratory in nature, and thus have no theoretical grounding. Second, all of the studies only used a very small sample size ranging from 11 to 50. Studies are thus underpowered because, for personality, only small effect sizes should be expected (Richard, Bond, & Stokes-Zoota, 2003). Third, questionable research methods were used. For example, the preferred distances were clustered (Koay et al., 2007), the sample was divided into sets with high and low values on certain dimensions (Rossi et al., 2017), or more factors than just the big five were included in the explorative model such as need for cognition or attitudes (Takayama & Pantofaru, 2009). Low power and the inclusion of many different predictors (and thus many tests) leads to a higher chance that results are false-positives or, at least, overestimated.

2.1.2 Measures

Note: All scale scores and factor scores were calculated as the mean of constituent items after correcting for reverse-keyed items.

Dark Triad. The 27-item Short Dark Triad (SD3; Jones & Paulhus, 2014) measures Machiavellianism, sub-clinical Psychopathy, and Narcissism. Each scale score was calculated by averaging the corresponding nine items. Participants responded to items on a five-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Big Five Personality Model. The 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI; John & Srivastava, 1999) provides scores on five personality factors: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Participants responded to items on a five-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

HEXACO Personality Model. The 60-item version of the HEXACO-PI (Ashton & Lee, 2009) assesses six broad personality factors: Honesty–Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Participants responded to items on a five-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Factor 1 and Zero-Empathy Models. The 64-item Self-Report Psychopathy III (SRP-III; Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, in press) yields an overall psychopathy score, as well as four subscales: Interpersonal Manipulation, Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle, and Antisocial Behavior. Factor 1 comprises the Interpersonal Manipulation and Callous Affect subscales, and Factor 2 comprises the Erratic Lifestyle and Antisocial Behavior subscales. Participants responded to items on a five-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Zero-empathy was conceptualized as Callous Affect on the SRP, given that this subscale includes items relating to lack of empathy.

Fast Life History Strategy. As a proxy for a fast life history strategy, we included eight items from Birnbaum’s (2007) sexual fantasy scale, tapping unrestricted (e.g., participating in an orgy) and romantic (e.g., kissing passionately) sexual behavior. Rather than asking about fantasy frequency (as Birnbaum did), participants in the current research reported how frequently they’d engaged in fantasized behaviors on a scale from 1 (Never) to 5 (Very Often). Unrestricted sexual behavior requires being willing to pursue sexual relations without investment in or commitment to relationships (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991), and correlates with fast life history strategies (Baughman, Jonason, Veselka, & Vernon, 2014).

We also included the Interpersonal Manipulation subscale of the SRP in this model, as Jonason et al. (2010) suggest that it is integral to an exploitative and fast life history strategy. Unrestricted sexual behavior, romantic sexual behavior, and Interpersonal Manipulation were entered together into a canonical correlation analysis (CCA) predicting the three subscales of the Dark Triad. We did not have any variables that directly tapped self-control, which is another important aspect of exploitativeness, according to Jonason et al. As such, results should be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, we feel that these elements fairly represent the core aspect of a fast life history strategy that ultimately revolves around early, frequent, and unrestricted sexual activities (Stearns, 1977).

4 A brief overview of the associations between dimensions in Cloninger's personality model and ADHD and justification for a meta-analysis

There is now a relatively large number of studies involving clinical and non-clinical samples that have examined the associations between Cloninger's personality dimensions and ADHD in children, adolescents and adults (see Table 1 for a full list of these studies). Overall, these studies show reasonable support for the view that six (Novelty-Seeking, Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence, Persistence, Self-Directedness, and Cooperativeness) of Cloninger's personality dimensions are associated with ADHD. Despite this, there is no data that clearly establishes the relative magnitude of these relationships, or the factors that may moderate these relationships. An appropriate way to synthesize past findings, while at the same time determining the strength of relationships and the moderating effects of these relationships, is to perform a quantitative meta-analysis. A meta-analysis will provide summary statistics of the effects sizes of the relationships between Cloninger's personality dimensions and ADHD; it will also uncover the nature and magnitude of the moderators of these relationships.

Table 1. Characteristics of studies examining the relationships of Cloninger's model with ADHD.

StudyParticipantsADHDPersonality#Age Group% MalesSourceStudy DesignDSM versionScaleDimensionsAnckarsater et al. (2006)400AdultNRClinicalIGIVTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STCho et al. (2008)/parent102Child90ClinicalIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STCho et al. (2009)261Child74ClinicalIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STDonfrancesco et al. (2015)369Child82ClinicalIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STDowney, Pomerleau, and Pomerleau (1996)35Adult100ClinicalIGIIITPQHA, NS, RD, PDowney, Stelson, Pomerleau, and Giordani (1997)341Adult78ClinicalIGIIITPQHA, NS, RDDrechsler, Zulauf Logoz, Walitza, and Steinhausen (in press)250Child79ClinicalIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STFaraone, Kunwar, Adamson, and Biederman (2009)250Adult49ClinicalIGIVTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STGomez, Woodworth, Waugh, and Corr (2012)231Adult39CommunityCorIVTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STInstanes, Haavik, and Halmøy (2016)120Adult56ClinicalIGIVTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STJacob et al. (2007)806Adult38ClinicalIGIVTPQHA, NS, RD, SD, Cop, STKerekes et al. (2013)1886Child50CommunityIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STLynn et al. (2005)171Adult51ClinicalIGIVTCIHA, NS, SD, Cop, STMelegari et al. (2015)60Child90ClinicalIGIVPTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STPurper-Ouakila et al. (2010)162Adult100ClinicalIGIVTCIHA, NS, SD, Cop, STRettew, Copeland, Stanger, and Hudziak (2004)83Child68ClinicalIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STSizoo, van den Brink, van Eenige, and van der Gaag (2009)353Adult75ClinicalIGIVTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STSmalley, Loo, Hale, Shrestha, and McGough (2009)105Adult47CommunityIGIVTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STTillman, Geller, and Craney (2003)133Child70ClinicalIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, STYoo et al. (2006)104Child49CommunityIGIVJTCIHA, NS, RD, P, SD, Cop, ST

For % of males, NR = not reported.

For Study design, IG = independent group; Corr = correlation.

For Source, when underlined, ADHD based on interview, otherwise rating scales.

For Scales, JTCI = Junior Temperament and Character Inventory, PTCI = Preschool Junior Temperament and Character Inventory, TCI = Temperament and Character Inventory, TPQ = Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire.

For Dimensions, Cop = Cooperativeness, HA = Harm Avoidance, NS = Novelty-Seeking, P = Persistence, RD = Reward Dependence, SD = Self-Directedness, ST = Self-Transcendence/Spirituality.

The Gomez and Corr (2014) meta-analysis study included Cloninger's personality dimensions as part of the IFFM factors. The IFFM was developed from an earlier meta-analysis study by Markon et al. (2005) that used factor analysis to examined the relationships within and between the personality dimensions in the measures relevant to the following personality models: Big Five/FMM, Eysenck's (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976), Tellegen's (2000) (Tellegen & Waller, 2008), Cloninger's (1987) (Cloninger et al., 1993), and Livesley and Jackson's (2009) model of abnormal personality. Factor analysis was conducted using the correlations from these studies after integrating all the personality dimensions in these measures into a single meta-analytic correlation matrix. In relation to Cloninger's (1987) dimensions, Novelty-Seeking and Persistence were both part of the Conscientious Inhibition factor; Harm Avoidance and Self-Directedness were both part of the Negative Emotionality factor; Reward Dependence was part of the Positive Emotionality factor; Cooperation was part of the Agreeable Inhibition factor, and Self-Transcendence was part of the Openness factor.

Given the approach adopted by Markon et al. (2005) to develop the IFFM, it can be argued that the five latent factors of the IFFM are not strictly comparable to the five factors in the FFM. Also the individual personality dimensions in each of the IFFM factors are different from its original forms as they are defined in terms of the variances shared with the other personality dimensions in the relavent IFFM factor.

What this means is that Gomez and Corr's meta-analysis did not examine the original or “pure” form of of Cloninger's personality dimensions Additionally, and noted previously, for at least two IFFM factors, two of Cloninger's personality dimensions were in the same factors: Thus, the Gomez and Corr (2014) meta-analysis study cannot be used to infer how the personality dimensions in Cloninger's model are related to ADHD. For this, it could be necessary to conduct a meta-analysis involving each of Cloninger's dimensions, separately, with ADHD. Such an analysis was not undertaken in the previous Gomez and Corr (2014) study as there was insufficient data to justify it. Since then, the literature on Cloninger's personality and ADHD has grown, and it is now sufficiently large (at least 20 data sets) for an independent meta-analytic review.

A comprehensive understanding of how Cloninger's personality dimensions are related to ADHD could have significant theoretical and clinical implications for our understanding of ADHD. Clinically, Cloninger's personality dimensions are related to monoaminergic activity involving the serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine (and epinephrine) systems. Having a clear understanding of how Cloninger's personality dimensions are related to ADHD will allow us to extrapolate monoaminergic activity in individual with ADHD. This has implications for applying medication in the treatment of ADHD. Also, knowing the profile of ADHD in terms of Cloninger's personality dimensions would facilitate the use of scores on Cloninger's personality dimensions for assessment and diagnosis of ADHD. Theoretically, Cloninger's personality model implicates the interplay between biological and environmental factors. As monoaminergic activity involving the serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine (and epinephrine) systems, and the interplay between biological and environmental factors, have also been implicated in the cause, phenotypic expression, continuity, and changes in the clinical presentation of ADHD, it follows that Cloninger's model of personality will improve our understanding ADHD in these respects.

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