ArticleNeuroImage2020
Little evidence for associations between the Big Five personality traits and variability in brain gray or white matter.
Article in NeuroImage, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Gray matter structures associated with neuroticism: A meta-analysis of whole-brain voxel-based morphometry studies.Human brain mapping · 2021Pooled it
- Decreased amygdala volume in adults after premature birth.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Positive association between emotional intelligence and white matter integrity in the cingulum and superior longitudinal fasciculus in healthy Japanese adults.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Predicting the degree of trait emotional empathy from cortical features using surface-based morphometry.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Association between neuroticism and brain-wide structural outcomes: Mediation by vascular and mental conditions.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Goal-directedness deficit in Huntington's disease.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- The Serial Effects of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Gray Matter Density in the Right Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex on Social Desirability.PsyCh journal · 2025Article
- Mechanical Properties of the Cortex in Older Adults and Relationships With Personality Traits.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Fractional Anisotropy of Cingulum Cingulate Mediates the Relationship Between Happiness and Work Performance in Healthy Individuals.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Weak and unstable prediction of personality from the structural connectome.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- From big associations to big practices-Why normative modeling should be the default in personality neuroscience.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Computational complexity as a potential limitation on brain-behaviour mapping.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Review
- Leveraging normative personality data and machine learning to examine the brain structure correlates of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder traits.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2024Article
- Identifying tripartite relationship among cortical thickness, neuroticism, and mood and anxiety disorders.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Elevating the field for applying neuroimaging to individual patients in psychiatry.Translational psychiatry · 2024Review
- Trait absorption is not reliably associated with brain structure or resting-state functional connectivity.Neuroimage. Reports · 2023Article
- Stability of associations between neuroticism and microstructural asymmetry of the cingulum during late childhood and adolescence: Insights from a longitudinal study with up to 11 waves.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Premorbid Personality Traits as Risk Factors for Behavioral Addictions: A Systematic Review of a Vulnerability Hypothesis.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Dynamic phase-locking states and personality in sub-acute mild traumatic brain injury: An exploratory study.PloS one · 2023Article
- Motion-corrected 4D-Flow MRI for neurovascular applications.NeuroImage · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Attempts to link the Big Five personality traits of Openness-to-Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism with variability in trait-like features of brain structure have produced inconsistent results. Small sample sizes and heterogeneous methodology have been suspected in driving these inconsistencies. Here, using data collected from 1,107 university students (636 women, mean age 19.69 ± 1.24 years), representing the largest sample to date of unrelated individuals, we tested for associations between the Big Five personality traits and measures of cortical thickness and surface area, subcortical volume, and white matter microstructural integrity. In addition to replication analyses based on a prior study, we conducted exploratory whole-brain analyses. Four supplementary analyses were also conducted to examine 1) possible associations with lower-order facets of personality; 2) modulatory effects of sex; 3) effect of controlling for non-target personality traits; and 4) parcellation scheme effects. Our analyses failed to identify significant associations between the Big Five personality traits and brain morphometry, except for a weak association between greater surface area of the superior temporal gyrus and lower conscientiousness scores. As the latter association is not supported by previous studies, it should be treated with caution. Our supplementary analyses mirrored these predominantly null findings, suggesting they were not substantively biased by our analytic choices. Collectively, these results indicate that if there are associations between the Big Five personality traits and brain structure, they are likely of very small effect size and will require very large samples for reliable detection.
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