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Testing predictions from personality neuroscience. Brain structure and the big five.

ABSTRACT: We used a new theory of the biological basis of the Big Five personality traits to generate hypotheses about the association of each trait with the volume of different brain regions. Controlling for age, sex, and whole-brain volume, results from structural magnetic resonance imaging of 116 healthy adults supported our hypotheses for four of the five traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Extraversion covaried with volume of medial orbitofrontal cortex, a brain region involved in processing reward information. Neuroticism covaried with volume of brain regions associated with threat, punishment, and negative affect. Agreeableness covaried with volume in regions that process information about the intentions and mental states of other individuals. Conscientiousness covaried with volume in lateral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in planning and the voluntary control of behavior. These findings support our biologically based, explanatory model of the Big Five and demonstrate the potential of personality neuroscience (i.e., the systematic study of individual differences in personality using neuroscience methods) as a discipline.

SUBMITTER: DeYoung CG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3049165 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Testing predictions from personality neuroscience. Brain structure and the big five.

DeYoung Colin G CG Hirsh Jacob B JB Shane Matthew S MS Papademetris Xenophon X Rajeevan Nallakkandi N Gray Jeremy R JR

Psychological science 20100430 6

We used a new theory of the biological basis of the Big Five personality traits to generate hypotheses about the association of each trait with the volume of different brain regions. Controlling for age, sex, and whole-brain volume, results from structural magnetic resonance imaging of 116 healthy adults supported our hypotheses for four of the five traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Extraversion covaried with volume of medial orbitofrontal cortex, a brain r ...[more]

PMID: 20435951

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Empathy promotes positive physician-patient communication and is associated with improved patient satisfaction, treatment adherence and clinical outcomes. It has been suggested that personality traits should be taken into consideration in programs designed to enhance empathy in medical education due to the association found between personality and empathy among medical students. However, the associations between empathy and big five personality traits in medical education are still underrepresented in the existing literature and relevant studies have not been conducted among medical students in China, where tensions in the physician-patient relationship have been reported as outstanding problems in the context of China's current medical reform. Thus, the main objective of this study was to examine the associations between empathy and big five personality traits among Chinese medical students. METHODS:A cross-sectional study was conducted in a medical university in Northeast China in June 2016. Self-reported questionnaires including the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Big Five Inventory (BFI) and demographic characteristics were distributed. A total of 530 clinical medical students became our final subjects. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to explore the effects of big five personality traits on empathy. RESULTS:Results of this study showed that big five personality traits accounted for 19.4%, 18.1%, 30.2% of the variance in three dimensions of empathy, namely, perspective taking, empathic concern and personal distress, respectively. Specifically, agreeableness had a strong positive association with empathic concern (? = 0.477, P<0.01), and a moderate association with perspective taking (? = 0.349, P<0.01). Neuroticism was strongly associated with personal distress (? = 0.526, P<0.01) and modestly associated with perspective taking (? = 0.149, P<0.01). Openness to experience had modest associations with perspective taking (? = 0.150, P<0.01) and personal distress (? = -0.160, P<0.01). Conscientiousness had a modest association with perspective taking (? = 0.173, P<0.01). CONCLUSION:This study revealed that big five personality traits were important predictors of self-reported measures of both cognitive and affective empathy among Chinese medical students. Therefore, individualized intervention strategies based on personality traits could be integrated into programs to enhance empathy in medical education.

Dataset Information

Testing predictions from personality neuroscience. Brain structure and the big five.

Publications

Testing predictions from personality neuroscience. Brain structure and the big five.

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