Five-factor personality model versus affective temperaments: a study in a nonclinical Polish sample

Abstrakt

Background
The study aimed to evaluate the relationship between five-factor personality model traits and affective temperaments.

Participants and procedure
The sample consisted of 615 healthy Caucasian adults (395 women and 220 men) recruited from a nonclinical population. Participants’ ages ranged from 17 to 69 (M = 30.79, SD = 9.69). The Polish version of Akiskal’s Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego Auto-Questionnaire was used for the assessment of affective temperaments. The five-factor personality model traits were measured with the Polish version of Costa and McCrae’s NEO-FFI Personality Inventory.

Results
Neuroticism positively correlated with depressive, cyclothymic, irritable and anxious temperaments, but negatively with hyper-thymic temperament. Extraversion positively correlated with hyperthymic temperament, but negatively with all other affective temperaments. Neuroticism together with introversion was the best predictor of depressive temperament, accounting for 55% of the variance. Neuroticism also explained 37% of the anxious temperament variance and 22% of cyclothymic temperament vari-ance. Extraversion predicts hyperthymic temperament (accounting for 25% of the variance) and low agreeableness predicts irritable temperament (10% of explained variance). The results confirmed that women are more depressive, cyclothymic and anxious and less hyperthymic than men and have a higher level of neuroticism than men.

Conclusions
The results highlight the importance of two personality traits: neuroticism and extraversion. They may share similarities with certain affective temperaments and may also contribute to development of affective disorders.