Certain personality traits can put people at greater risk of developing depression

A small team of psychiatrists and psychologists from the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, the University of Cambridge, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of Virginia has found that certain personality traits can put people at risk greater than to develop depression.

The importance of personality traits

In theirs study published in the Journal of Affective Disordersthe team analyzed data from nearly 1,500 questionnaires returned by people aged 6 to 85.

Depression is a mood disorder that affects millions of people around the world. Previous research has shown that the degree of symptoms can vary between individuals and during different stages of life. Medical researchers have been working for many years to provide relief from depression, including understanding the factors that lead to the disorder.

In this new study, the research team asked whether certain traits could be associated with the likelihood of developing the disorder. To find out, they created a questionnaire that could help classify P. traits; questions asked whether respondents had ever suffered from depression and, if so, when and to what extent.

The researchers received 1,494 completed questionnaires from people of almost all ages, many of whom had had bouts of depression and some of whom had chronic depression. The researchers used a variety of techniques to find patterns in the data, one of which involved a machine learning application.

They found that people with certain P traits, such as introversion or neuroticism, were more likely to experience bouts of depression. They also found that traits of p. associated changes over the course of a person's life. And they found that such associations were strongest during adolescence, which, they note, makes sense logically: the prefrontal cortex, which has been linked to many p. , is not fully developed until adulthood.

Key mechanisms are involved in personality change

A pair of psychologists, one from Washington University in St. Louis, the other from the University of Zurich, have found, through examining previous research, that there are four key mechanisms involved when a person truly wants to make changes, even if small changes, at their creativity.

In their article, published in the journal Nature Reviews Psychology, Joshua Jackson and Amanda Wright describe the four mechanisms and how they might be used by someone trying to change their p.

A common adage is that humans develop a personality in their youth and that, once established, it becomes permanent. There is reportedly no way to change one's p.: if a person is greedy, grumpy, or carefree, they remain so until death. But research over the past few decades has shown that these beliefs aren't exactly true.

As the researchers note, even if a certain personality remains in place for much of an individual's life, there are examples that demonstrate that some changes are possible if there is a strong desire to achieve them. In this review, Jackson and Wright discovered four key mechanisms that come into play when someone succeeds in making changes in estrus.

The first mechanism involves preconditions, which are the tools necessary to alter the p. The second involves making changes to the living environment: by doing so, they suggest, it is possible to remove the triggers that bring a person back to the traits of the p. precedents. These changes lead to the third mechanism: reinforcements.

These are elements in an individual's life that support a desirable personality trait. Finally, the fourth mechanism involves supplements, which are factors that allow an individual to maintain ongoing support for new traits after they have been achieved.

The researchers note that one of the most important factors in trying to make changes to p. it is a strong desire to succeed: an individual must want to make changes and have good reasons for wanting them. Otherwise, they note, they will fight against their desire to return to previous traits.

The researchers also note that timing may be important. Making changes when you move to a new place, get married, or have a baby, for example, can provide ample incentive not just to make changes, but to stick with them.

The diagnosis and treatment of personality disorders requires a dynamic approach

Someone who is “neurotic” does not necessarily show anger or anxiety in a given situation, even though these are generally accepted traits of a person with that personality style.

Research from New University of California, Davis, suggests that the aggregation of people with personality disorders into a bundle of traits should be left behind for more dynamic analysis. Those who study and treat people with personality disorders need to look more deeply at personality dynamics and variation over time, not just categorize people into specific categories or traits.

“Just as water levels might be affected by climate, tides and weather, different levels of personality dynamics can be classified based on the time scales along which they occur,” said Christopher Hopwood, professor of psychology and author of “Interpersonal Dynamics in Personality and Personality Disorders,” recently published in the European Journal of Personality.

“Personality researchers are on the cusp of combining technological advances and psychological theories to generate new insights into why people are different and how that can go wrong,” he said.

Hopwood recognizes that there is value in trait-focused clinical descriptions of personality disorders, which he describes as abstract concepts, mediated across situations. For example, neuroticism includes characteristics such as anger, impulsivity, anxiety, and self-consciousness, but these traits are overgeneralized and could apply to various psychopathologies.

They are poorly suited to answering specific questions about particular moments in daily life and environmental changes over time, Hopwood said.

“By analogy,” said Hopwood, “although it would be more helpful for a musician to understand chords (personality factors) and notes (personality facets) than to learn some songs (categories of personality disorders), that doesn't mean that ultimately he does not prefer a model of rhythm, melody and tonality (dynamics) through which he can better understand and even generate his own music.”

Hopwood said this research can help improve the treatment of people with personality disorders and improve their lives because:

•research on clinical personality disorders and basic or “normal” personality processes are both converging on the importance of dynamics,

•These dynamics may explain why personality characteristics that are not adaptive remain stable

•understanding personality in terms of dynamics can provide greater guidance for intervention and therefore bridge the gap between research and practice.

To realize this potential, he added, the field must abandon old debates and address the enormous methodological challenges involved in studying dynamic personality processes.

Personality differences between the sexes are greatest in countries with the greatest gender equality

According to recent research from the University of Gothenburg, West University and the University of Skövde, the self-rated personalities of men and women differ more in countries with greater gender equality.

In the study, over 130,000 people from 22 different countries filled out a validated personality test. The test measured the “big five” personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), considered the most accepted categorization in personality research.

The average differences between men's and women's personality scores were calculated for each country and then compared to the country's level of gender equality as measured by the World Economic Forum.

Replicating previous research, the study showed that higher levels of gender equality were associated with greater personality differences between the sexes.

Countries with very high levels of gender equality, such as Sweden and Norway, showed personality differences between the sexes that were about twice as large as countries with substantially lower levels of gender equality, such as China and Malaysia.

Furthermore, women generally rated themselves as more concerned (neuroticism), sociable (extraversion), curious (openness), thoughtful (agreeableness), and responsible (conscientiousness) than men, and these relative differences were greater in gender-equal countries.

“To the extent that these traits can be classified as stereotypically feminine, our interpretation of the data is that as countries become more progressive, men and women gravitate toward their traditional gender norms. But in reality we don't know why this is so, and unfortunately our data do not allow us to identify causal explanations,” says Erik Mac Giolla, Ph.D. in Psychology.

“One possible explanation is that people in more progressive and egalitarian countries have more opportunities to express inherent biological differences.

Another theory is that people in progressive countries have a greater desire to express differences in their identity through their gender,” says Petri Kajnoius, Associate Professor in Psychology and Behavioral Measures.

Ultimately, a combination of social role theory and evolutionary perspectives may be needed to explain these findings.