ArticleBrain sciences2021
The Big Five Personality Traits and Brain Arousal in the Resting State.
Article in Brain sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Functional Aspects of Resting EEG Microstates: A Systematic Review.Brain topography · 2024Pooled it
- Investigating biomarkers for personality alterations in temporal lobe epilepsy patients: based on peripheral inflammatory indices, electroencephalography, and neuroimaging.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- MEG Microstates: An Investigation of Underlying Brain Sources and Potential Neurophysiological Processes.Brain topography · 2024Article
- Comparison of power spectra from overnight electroencephalography between patients with Down syndrome and matched control subjects.Journal of sleep research · 2024Article
- Linking Brain Age Gap to Mental and Physical Health in the Berlin Aging Study II.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Based on Eysenck's biopsychological trait theory, brain arousal has long been considered to explain individual differences in human personality. Yet, results from empirical studies remained inconclusive. However, most published results have been derived from small samples and, despite inherent limitations, EEG alpha power has usually served as an exclusive indicator for brain arousal. To overcome these problems, we here selected N = 468 individuals of the LIFE-Adult cohort and investigated the associations between the Big Five personality traits and brain arousal by using the validated EEG- and EOG-based analysis tool VIGALL. Our analyses revealed that participants who reported higher levels of extraversion and openness to experience, respectively, exhibited lower levels of brain arousal in the resting state. Bayesian and frequentist analysis results were especially convincing for openness to experience. Among the lower-order personality traits, we obtained the strongest evidence for neuroticism facet 'impulsivity' and reduced brain arousal. In line with this, both impulsivity and openness have previously been conceptualized as aspects of extraversion. We regard our findings as well in line with the postulations of Eysenck and consistent with the recently proposed 'arousal regulation model'. Our results also agree with meta-analytically derived effect sizes in the field of individual differences research, highlighting the need for large (collaborative) studies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.