Research Feed

A curated collection of research papers and articles exploring the Big Five personality traits.

RESEARCH
International Personality Item Pool: A Scientific Collaboratory for the Development of Advanced Measures of Personality Traits and Other Individual Differences
Johnson, J.A. · International Personality Item Pool

The site includes over 3,000 items and over 250 scales that have been constructed from the items. New items and scales are developed on an irregular basis. The items and scales are in the public domain. This work offers a robust scientific foundation for understanding the stable patterns of human...

RESEARCH
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Big-Five personality traits and dream experiences: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Marin et al. · Dreaming · January 2026

This meta-analysis of over 65,000 participants confirms that Big Five traits significantly shape our nocturnal experiences. Neuroticism is the primary predictor of nightmare frequency and emotional distress, while Openness correlates with high dream recall, vividness, and lucid dreaming. Extraver...

RESEARCH
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Neuroticism
Personality traits can predict which exercise intensities we enjoy most, and the magnitude of stress reduction experienced following a training program
Ronca et al. · Front. Psychol · July 2025

This study highlights that core personality traits are powerful predictors of baseline fitness and the specific exercise intensities individuals enjoy. Notably, participants scoring high in Neuroticism experienced the most significant stress-reduction benefits from aerobic training, suggesting a ...

RESEARCH
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Linking Big Five personality traits to components of diet: A meta-analytic review
Allen et al. · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · January 2025

This large-scale meta-analysis of over 150,000 participants explores how the Big Five traits influence dietary habits. Researchers found that lower Neuroticism and higher levels of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness consistently predict a healthier diet. These traits aff...

RESEARCH
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Neuroticism
The Relationship Between Big Five Personality Traits and Sleep Patterns: A Systematic Review
Guerreiro et al. · Nature and science of sleep · March 2024

This systematic review of 58,812 participants demonstrates that Big Five personality traits significantly influence sleep. High Neuroticism consistently correlates with poor sleep quality and disturbances, while Conscientiousness is a strong predictor of 'morningness' and better sleep hygiene. Th...

RESEARCH
Neuroticism
Neuroticism and relationship quality: A meta-analytic review
Esplin et al. · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes · January 2024

This meta-analysis of 148 studies confirms a consistent negative correlation (r = -0.238) between neuroticism and relationship quality. Interestingly, factors like race, sexual orientation, and the use of longitudinal versus cross-sectional data did not change this fundamental link. However, the ...

RESEARCH
Personality profiles of 263 occupations
Anni et. Al. · Journal of Applied Psychology · January 2024

This study mapped the personality profiles of 263 occupations using data from over 88,000 individuals. It found that while broad Big Five traits vary across jobs, specific personality 'nuances' offer even deeper insights into occupational differences. Interestingly, high-performance roles tend to...

RESEARCH
How well can an AI chatbot infer personality? Examining psychometric properties of machine-inferred personality scores
Fan et al. · Journal of Applied Psychology · January 2023

This study investigated using AI chatbots and machine learning to infer Big Five personality traits from text-based interviews. Researchers found that while these machine-inferred scores were reliable and followed expected factor structures, they struggled with discriminant validity, meaning the ...

RESEARCH
The relationship between Big Five Personality Traits, eating habits, physical activity, and obesity in Indonesia based on analysis of the 5th wave Indonesia Family Life Survey (2014)
Pristyna et al. · Frontiers in Psychology · August 2022

Using data from over 30,000 participants, this study links the Big Five personality traits to dietary habits, exercise, and obesity. Conscientiousness emerged as a key predictor of health, correlating with recommended food intake, higher physical activity, and lower obesity risk. Conversely, Neur...

RESEARCH
Neuroticism
Deep-seated psychological histories of COVID-19 vaccine hesitance and resistance
Moffitt et al. · PNAS Nexus · March 2022

This five-decade longitudinal study reveals that vaccine resistance and hesitancy are rooted in deep-seated psychological histories rather than simple misunderstandings. Key predictors include adverse childhood experiences, long-standing mental health struggles, and specific personality traits li...

RESEARCH
The association between the five-factor model of personality and problem cannabis use: A meta-analysis
Winters et al. · Personality and Individual Differences · January 2022

This meta-analysis examined how Big Five personality traits relate to problematic cannabis use. Findings showed that higher neuroticism and openness, along with lower conscientiousness and agreeableness, were associated with greater risk of problematic use. Notably, openness distinguished cannabi...

RESEARCH
Personalism
Williams & Bengtsson · Web Site · January 2022
RESEARCH
Personality Psychology
Roberts & Yoon · Annual review of psychology · January 2022

This review highlights a significant resurgence in personality psychology, organizing the field around four core responsibilities: defining the units of analysis, documenting development across the lifespan, explaining the psychological processes behind behavior, and providing a framework to unde...

RESEARCH
The AI-IP: Minimizing the guesswork of personality scale item development through artificial intelligence
Hernandez & Nie · Personnel Psychology · January 2022

This research introduces a multimodel NLP framework designed to automate and enhance the psychological scale development process. By adapting the GPT-2 model, researchers generated a massive 'AI-based item pool' (AI-IP) of one million personality items, which were then filtered using a BERT model...

RESEARCH
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Universals and Variations in Musical Preferences: A Study of Preferential Reactions to Western Music in 53 Countries
Greenberg et al. · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Personality Processes and Individual Differences · January 2022

This massive study of over 350,000 people across six continents reveals that preferences for Western music follow universal patterns that transcend cultural boundaries. By analyzing both genre favorability and direct audio reactions, researchers identified five consistent latent factors of musica...

RESEARCH
Deep lexical hypothesis: Identifying personality structure in natural language
Cutler & Condon · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. · January 2022

This study introduces a method to extract personality traits directly from large-scale language models, mimicking traditional survey-based psycholexical research. By analyzing millions of words in natural settings, researchers recovered a correlational structure nearly identical to human ratings....

RESEARCH
Personality stability and change: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies
Bleidorn et al. · Psychological Bulletin · January 2022

This updated research, involving over 240,000 participants, refines our understanding of how personality matures. It confirms that 'rank-order stability' (how you compare to others your age) increases rapidly until age 25 before plateauing. While most traits show smaller changes than previously t...

RESEARCH
Openness Neuroticism
Personality and intelligence: A meta-analysis
Anglim et al. · Psychological Bulletin · January 2022

This comprehensive meta-analysis of over 160,000 participants explores the deep connections between personality and intelligence. The findings identify Openness and Neuroticism as the strongest predictors of cognitive ability, with Openness specifically linked to 'crystallized' intelligence, or a...

RESEARCH
COVID-19 and Seasonal Flu Vaccination Hesitancy: Links to Personality and General Intelligence in a Large, UK Cohort
Halstead et al. · Vaccine · October 2021

This study of 9,667 UK adults identifies lower general intelligence and lower neuroticism as primary predictors of vaccine hesitancy. While lower intelligence consistently linked to various justifications for avoiding shots, lower neuroticism specifically predicted COVID-19 hesitancy. These findi...

RESEARCH
Openness
Spring 2020 COVID-19 Surge: Prospective Relations between Demographic Factors, Personality Traits, Social Cognitions and Guideline Adherence, Mask Wearing, and Symptoms in a U
Milad & Bogg · Annals of Behavioral Medicine: A Publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. · July 2021

Most research on how individual differences affect COVID-19 guideline adherence has been cross-sectional, capturing only a single point in time. This leaves a significant gap in understanding prospective associations; how specific personality traits or behaviors actually predict future actions. S...