Previous research has established that higher levels of trait Honesty-Humility (HH) are associated with less dishonest behavior in cheating paradigms. However, only imprecise effect size estimates of this HH-cheating link are available. Moreover, evidence is inconclusive on whether other basic personality traits from the HEXACO or Big Five models are associated with unethical decision making and whether such effects have incremental validity beyond HH. We address these issues in a highly powered reanalysis of 16 studies assessing dishonest behavior in an incentivized, one-shot cheating paradigm (N = 5,002). For this purpose, we rely on a newly developed logistic regression approach for the analysis of nested data in cheating paradigms. We also test theoretically derived interactions of HH with other basic personality traits (i.e., Emotionality and Conscientiousness) and situational factors (i.e., the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome) as well as the incremental validity of HH over demographic characteristics. The results show a medium to large effect of HH (odds ratio = 0.53), which was independent of other personality, situational, or demographic variables. Only one other trait (Big Five Agreeableness) was associated with unethical decision making, although it failed to show any incremental validity beyond HH.

In this article, we examine whether there is genetic overlap between personality traits and political participation, interest, and efficacy. We make several contributions to the literature. First, we use new data from a large sample of twins from Denmark to examine the link between genes, the Big Five traits, and political behavior. Previous research in this area has not examined the Danish context. Second, because our measures have some overlap with those used in previous studies, we are able to examine whether previous findings replicate in a different sample. Finally, we extend the literature by examining the possible genetic link between some personality and political traits that have not yet been explored. Overall, we find that genes account for a fairly large share of the correlation between two of the Big Five personality traits (openness and extraversion), political participation, and political interest. Thus, most of the relationship between these personality traits and our measures of political behavior can be accounted for by a common underlying genetic component.

Jaak Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience Theory is of high relevance not only for a better understanding of affective brain disorders but also in personality research. To make Panksepp’s theory more accessible for psychologists and psychiatrists, Davis, Panksepp, and Normansell (2003) developed the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS). These scales assess the manifestation of the primary emotional traits in humans based on a personality trait approach. Given their putative foundation in old subcortical areas in the brain, these primary emotional traits (assessed via the ANPS) could represent the evolutionarily oldest manifestations of personality (but this notion is still a matter of a debate). However, the ANPS inventories were based on using contextual items (e.g., about specific attitudes, behaviors, and feelings in specific situations). Recently, an adjective-based ANPS (ANPS-Adjective Ratings or ANPS-AR) was developed for a less context-dependent and more efficient assessment of Panksepp’s primary emotional systems in humans for use by both individuals and independent observer raters. The present work introduces the first German version of the ANPS-AR. Moreover, the current work investigates the original and ANPS-AR versions of the ANPS and their associations with the Big Five personality traits in two independent English- and German-speaking samples. The results show that the ANPS measures are very similarly correlated with the Big Five personality traits across different samples and scales. This work replicates the previous findings in an English version, and demonstrates the reliability and validity of the adjective-based German ANPS-AR.

No previous research explored the genetic and environmental structure of Big Five dimensions of personality and higher-order factors in a single twin study, except, in part, for just one study. We used the twin design to estimate the effects of genes and environment on both Five Factor model and related second- and third-order factors (i.e., Alpha [stability], Beta [plasticity], and GFP [general factor of personality]). We analyzed data from 314 adult twins (157 pairs: 83 monozygotic, 74 dizygotic; mean age: 52 years) enrolled in the Italian Twin Register. Participants underwent clinical and instrumental evaluations, and completed a 25-adjective list drawn from the Short Adjectives Checklist to Measure Big Five (SACBIF). We applied quantitative genetic models to unravel the sources of variation and covariation for the Big Five and higher-order factors. We found a similar etiological architecture across the different levels of analysis, with moderate to substantial non-additive genetic and unique environmental influences on all the personality traits, and no shared environmental contribution for any of them. We also detected significant genetic correlations for the Big Five dimensions and the Alpha and Beta super-factors. With some limitations, our results suggest that the etiological architecture of personality may be invariant to the factor level of analysis.

Few studies have focused on the Canadian context to examine the political impacts of personality. Even though the Canadian Election Study (CES) has measured the Big Five personality traits since 2011, very few studies have taken advantage of this data to assess personality's political role among the Canadian electorate. Using CES data from the three latest elections (2011, 2015 and 2019), we first explore how reliable the measurement of personality is. Except for agreeableness in 2015, the correlations across the personality items are similar to what is typically found in the literature. We next examine how personality affects ideology and partisan identity in the Canadian context. We show that a two-dimensional measurement of ideology refines our understanding of the impacts of personality on ideology. The findings also suggest that personality plays an essential role in forming ideology in Canada but has a limited impact on partisanship.

In the present research, we replicate and extend previous findings on the relations between human values and bright\dark traits of personality, using the functional theory of human values (Gouveia, 2013). Specifically, we assessed which dark traits are associated with human values and whether the dark traits explained variance in values beyond the bright traits (Big Five). While prior research has investigated the relations between the three sets of constructs mainly in Western countries, we tested whether the findings hold in Brazil (N = 819). Although values are defined as positive constructs, several value subfunctions were positively correlated with the dark traits (e.g., excitement values with narcissism), while other relations were negative. Controlling for participants' age and gender, hierarchical regressions further revealed that dark traits explain variance in values beyond bright traits, although overall bright traits were more strongly associated with values than dark traits. Together, our findings replicate previous research. Implications for our understanding of the Dark Triad and cross-cultural research are discussed.

Numerous studies and meta-analyses have now confirmed that personality traits tend to correlate such that a general factor of personality (GFP) emerges. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate about what these correlations, and therefore the GFP, represents. One interpretation is that the GFP reflects a substantive factor that indicates general social effectiveness or emotional intelligence. Another interpretation is that the GFP merely is an artifact based on measurement or response bias. In the present paper, we elaborate on a selection of topics that are central to the debate about this construct. Specifically, we discuss (a) the GFP in relation to more specific personality dimensions (e.g., Big Five, facets), (b) the validity of the GFP and under what circumstances it seems to ‘disappear’, and (c) the theoretical and practical relevance of the general factor. Overall, the review should provide insight into the nature of the GFP and whether or not it represents a meaningful factor that can contribute to a better understanding of personality.

Little attention has been paid to the effects of personality traits on the consumption of wine and beer. We used a survey to investigate the associations between personality traits and the differences in expected consumption frequencies of wine and beer for 3,482 Norwegian respondents. High scores on extraversion and openness to experiences increased the expected frequency of wine consumption, high score on agreeableness reduced the frequency of wine consumption, while scores on conscientiousness and neuroticism had no effects. For beer, there were no significant effects between personality traits and the frequency of consumption. (JEL Classification: D12, Q13).

The paper explores the relationship between personality characteristics, sense of community and the structure of personal networks. We collected personal network data from 100 adults, consisting of the information about their 45 alters and ties among them. In addition to the typically used bivariate correlations to analyze the relationship between individual psychological differences and network structure, we propose first the use of typologies of networks and personality and second modified versions of the triadic census in ego-networks. The results show that different personality types tend to occupy a different kind of networks and that newly introduced triadic measures show a relatively higher association with examined psychological attributes than global network measures. Overall, the Psychological Sense of Community showed higher associations with network measures than Big Five personality traits. The former was positively correlated with measures of closed triads among alters, but also with alters embedded in triads with weak ties. Regarding personality traits, Emotional Stability was positively correlated with strong closed triads and with the overall indicator of density. The elaboration of typologies and the census of triads are shown to be effective strategies for the description of personal networks, as well as for the analysis of individual psychological differences.

The Oslo University Adolescent and Young Adult Twin Project started in 2006 with the first of three questionnaire data collection waves, 2 years apart. All twins from the birth cohorts 1988–1994 were invited to participate, and both the twins and their parents were asked to sign consent forms. The twins were 12–18 years old at Wave 1, at which time parents were asked to complete similar questionnaires. The parents’ questionnaire enquired about the parents’ ratings of their twin’s traits. In addition, the parents answered questions regarding their own education, demographics and socioeconomic situation. When the twins were 18 years old, they were invited to a face-to-face interview and two new questionnaires were presented. The questionnaires for the waves included a number of personality scales, internalization and externalization traits, affective and behavioral problems, as well as measures of environment and coping. The most common DSM-IV mental disorders and all personality disorders were covered in the interview. Zygosity was established both by questionnaire and gene markers. The original sample consisted of 5374 twin families, and among these, 4668 pairs were alive and living in Norway. Of these, 2486 families (53.3%) consented to participate. Of these, again 1538 twin families (61.9%) actually participated in at least one wave and twins from 1422 pairs (57.3%) participated in the interview. Female gender, but not zygosity, predicted staying in the project. Moreover, having a planning, structured personality (being more conscientious, open to experience [i.e., curious and interested in learning], having higher resilience and better school habits) increased the chance of carrying on in the project. Interestingly, the attrition did not seem to bias the heritability estimates.

The present work gives a short overview of central aspects of Jaak Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience Theory (AN theory) and its relevance for modern personality neuroscience. In contrast to the widely used Big Five approach to studying and understanding human personality, AN theory provides researchers with a distinct roadmap to the biological basis of personality, including molecular and neuroanatomical candidates, to understand individual differences in human behavior. Such molecular and neuroanatomical brain candidates have been derived by means of electrical brain stimulation and pharmacological challenges, while investigating primary emotional systems anchored in the subcortical mammalian brain. Research results derived from the study of emotions in mammals are also of relevance for humans because ancient layers of our minds—those layers where primary emotions originate—have been homologously conserved across species. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense because primal emotions represent “built-in tools for survival” for all mammals. In this context, Montag and Panksepp recently illustrated a potential ancient neurobiological effect by carving out robust associations between individual differences in primary emotions (assessed via self-report) and the Big Five in a cross-cultural study with data from the United States, Germany, and China. These associations together with some ideas derived from MacLean’s Triune Brain concept highlighted (a) that primary emotions likely represent the phylogenetically oldest parts of human personality and (b) that primary emotions influence human personality in a bottom-up fashion given their localization in ancient subcortical brain regions. A comment on the work by Montag and Panksepp asked for insights on putative links between primary emotions and facets of the Big Five. Therefore, we provide some first insights into such associations from recent Germany data. In addition, the present work provides a new short version of the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales to assess individual differences in primary emotions.

A key objective of the emerging field of personality neuroscience is to link the great variety of the enduring dispositions of human behaviour with reliable markers of brain function. This can be achieved by analysing big data-sets with methods that model whole-brain connectivity patterns. To meet these expectations, we exploited a large repository of personality and neuroimaging measures made publicly available via the Human Connectome Project. Using connectomic analyses based on graph theory, we computed global and local indices of functional connectivity (e.g., nodal strength, efficiency, clustering, betweenness centrality) and related these metrics to the five-factor model (FFM) personality traits (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). The maximal information coefficient was used to assess for linear and nonlinear statistical dependencies across the graph “nodes”, which were defined as distinct large-scale brain circuits identified via independent component analysis. Multivariate regression models and “train/test” approaches were used to examine the associations between FFM traits and connectomic indices as well as to assess the generalizability of the main findings, while accounting for age and sex variability. Conscientiousness was the sole FFM trait linked to measures of higher functional connectivity in the fronto-parietal and default mode networks. This offers a mechanistic explanation of the behavioural observation that conscientious people are reliable and efficient in goal-setting or planning. Our study provides new inputs to understanding the neurological basis of personality and contributes to the development of more realistic models of the brain dynamics that mediate personality differences.