ArticleBrain and behavior2018
Are people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) particularly nice? An international online case-control study of the Big Five personality factors.
Article in Brain and behavior, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early life events may be the first steps on the multistep path to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Coping as a resource to allow for psychosocial adjustment in fatal disease: results from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- The association between lifelong personality and clinical phenotype in the FTD-ALS spectrum.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Are people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) particularly nice? An international online case-control study of the Big Five personality factors.Brain and behavior · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMany people with ALS have been suggested to have a "nice" personality, but most ALS personality studies to date have had limited numbers of participants and have not taken into account personality differences between genders. We used Big Five Inventory data obtained from an online questionnaire looking for risk factors for ALS to investigate personality traits in large numbers of people with ALS and controls.
methodsA total of 741 questionnaire respondents aged 40 years and over indicated the extent to which they agreed with each of the 44 Big Five Inventory statements. Respondents were 339 with ALS (212 male, 127 female) who responded to the statements as they applied to them before their diagnosis and 402 controls (120 male, 282 female). Unpaired t tests with 95% confidence intervals were used to compare mean values of Big Five-factor scores.
resultsFemale respondents taken together had higher mean scores for Agreeableness and Neuroticism than all male respondents. Male ALS respondents had higher mean scores than male controls for Conscientiousness and Extraversion. Female ALS respondents had higher mean scores than female controls for Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, and a lower score for Neuroticism.
conclusionsMany people with ALS have personality traits that are likely to underlie the perception they are particularly "nice." This raises the possibility that genetic polymorphisms that influence personality could play a role in ALS. Furthermore, different personality traits could underlie lifestyle choices that are currently thought to be risk factors for ALS.
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