Personality traits explain about a quarter of the overall risk of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and phobias, the study found.
Researchers say the findings show personality is one of the most reliable predictors for the onset and persistence of mental health problems.
Health data
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Tartu in Estonia analysed data from more than 16,000 members of the Estonian Biobank – a collection of health data from volunteers across the country.
They surveyed people’s personality according to the five traits psychologists define as the main dimensions of human personality: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience and agreeableness.
They also looked at more nuanced personality traits – such as tendencies to feel embarrassed, needing reassurance and needing help from others – as predictors of general mental health problems.
Mental health
The researchers also looked at both the general risk of experiencing different types of mental health problems and the risk of some specific problems that only some people experience, such as fear, sleeplessness, fatigue, inattention, and hyperactivity.
Each participant described their personality traits and mental health, and each participant was also rated by someone else who knew them well.
They found that personality traits were more strongly related to mental health problems than suggested by previous studies.
About 25 per cent of the differences in people’s risk of mental health problems could be traced to their personality traits.
Personality traits
On top of the general risk, personality traits explained another quarter of the risk for specific mental health problems.
People with a higher general mental health risk tended to have higher neuroticism – a tendency to feel negative emotions.
They also tended to have higher agreeableness – a positive orientation towards other people – and lower conscientiousness – a tendency to be organised and hardworking.
However, specific mental health problems varied in their associations with personality traits.
Some areas of mental health, such as sleep problems, were not particularly strongly correlated with any aspect of personality.