Episode 097: The Big Five Personality Traits: Conscientiousness Part 1
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Article Authors: Alexis Carnduff BS, Alec Zane BA, Maddison Ulrich, BS, Matthew Hagele MA, Kyle Logan BS, David Puder, MD
There are no conflicts of interest for this episode.
Facets of the Big Five:
We are examining the facets of the most studied personality model, the Big Five. The facets are as follows:
Extraversion: the positive emotion dimension associated with gregariousness, charisma, enthusiasm, assertiveness, and social ability.
Neuroticism: negative emotionality associated with proclivity to anxiety, anger, irritability, and emotional pain.
Agreeableness: compassion, politeness, maternal in orientation (those who often care about others more than themselves), cooperative more than competitive. Prone to be taken advantage of and harbor resentment.
Openness to experience: the combination of interest and ideas known as intellect. Associated interest in aesthetics. Enjoyment in ideas and spending time in creative pursuits.
Conscientiousness: central to orderliness and industrialism. Good predictor of long term life success, especially in academic attainment. Focus of energy on attention to detail and responsibility (DeYoung, 2007).
When looking at causes of mortality, we know that high blood pressure and high serum cholesterol increases the risk of mortality. It’s fascinating that low conscientiousness also increases mortality risk. In a meta-analysis of 7 cohorts containing 76,150 participants, low conscientiousness reflecting poor self-control and lack of long-term planning was associated with an increased risk of mortality. Those that scored in the lowest third of conscientiousness had a 1.4 times higher risk of death after correcting for age, sex, and ethnicity (Jokela, et al., 2013).
A Brief History
The five factor model, or Big Five, originating from studies of trait-descriptive adjectives drawn from the lexicon, is the most widely used classification system for personality traits. The Lexicon approach to personality proposes that people naturally create terms for common traits so that they can describe and discuss them (DeYoung, 2007). Sir Francis Galton first proposed that the world’s language encodes single terms for personality-descriptive terms (Goldberg, 1993).
Gordon Allport and Henry S. Odbert used Webster's New International Dictionary as their source of vocabulary. From a list of approximately 400,000 words, Allport and Odbert identified 17,953 unique terms to describe personality or behavior.
Using their list of nearly 18,000 terms, Allport and Odbert created four categories or "columns":
Column I: This group contains 4,504 terms that describe or are related to personality traits. Arguably the most important of the four, its terms most closely related to those used by modern personality psychologists (e.g. aggressive, introverted, sociable).
Column II: In contrast with the more stable dispositions described by terms in Column I, this group includes terms describing present states, attitudes, emotions, and moods (e.g. rejoicing, frantic).
Column III: The largest of the four groups, Column III contains 5,226 words related to social evaluations of an individual's character (e.g. worthy, insignificant). Unlike the previous two columns, this group does not refer to internal psychological attributes of a person. As such, Allport and Odbert acknowledged that Column III did not meet their definition of trait-related terms.
Column IV: The last of Allport and Odbert's four columns contained 3,682 words. Called the "miscellaneous column" by the authors, Column IV contains important personality-descriptive terms that did not fit into the other three columns.
Throughout the 1940s, researchers such as Raymond Cattell and Donald Fiske used factor analysis to explore the overarching structure of the trait terms in Allport and Odbert's Column I. Rather than rely on factors obtained by these researchers, Warren Norman conducted an independent analysis of Allport and Odbert's terms in 1963. Despite finding a five-factor structure similar to Fiske's, Norman decided to return to Allport and Odbert's original list to create a more precise and better-structured taxonomy of terms. Using the 1961 edition of Webster's International Dictionary, Norman added relevant terms and removed those from the list that were no longer in use. This resulted in a source list of approximately 40,000 potential trait-descriptive terms. Using this list, Norman then removed terms that were deemed archaic or obsolete, solely evaluative, overly obscure, dialect-specific, loosely related to personality, and purely physical. By doing so, the original list was reduced to 2,797 unique trait-descriptive adjectives. Norman's work would eventually serve as the basis for Dean Peabody and Lewis Goldberg's explorations of the Big Five personality traits.
Factor analysis
Take a large set of questions to administer to a large number of people and then statistically analyze, to see what groups of questions seem to group together. For example, imagine at first you have 2,797 unique terms that are connected to fish, the question would be which groups of fish swim the same direction.
Gold Standard Measurement:
The NEO inventories are concise measures of the five major dimensions, or domains, of personality and the most important traits or facets that define each domain. Together, the five broad domain scales and the 30 specific facet scales allow a comprehensive assessment of adolescent and adult personality (Costa Jr& McCrae, 2008). The NEO-PI-3 is the newer version of the inventory, and it is suitable for the assessment of individuals aged 12 years and older. The NEO-PI-3 is a modification of NEO PI-R in which 37 of the 240 items have been replaced. Compared to prior forms, the new items are easier to understand and have better psychometric properties. This new form has also been shown to be suitable for assessing personality in middle school-aged children and adolescents, as well as in adults.
There are two versions of all NEO inventories: Form S, for self reports, and Form R, for observer ratings. Form S consists of a series of items answered by respondents to describe themselves; Form R is a companion instrument with parallel items written in third person for peer, spouse, or expert ratings. Table 1 lists the NEO domains and their facets and provides a rough sense of the constructs measured by this instrument.
The Domains of Conscientiousness:
The conscientious individual is purposeful, strong willed, and determined. Digman and Takemoto-Chock (1981) referred to this domain as “will to achieve”. On the positive side, high C is associated with academic and occupational achievement; On the negative side, high C may lead to annoying fastidiousness, compulsive neatness, or workaholic behavior (Brummett, Siegler, Day & Costa. 2008).
C1: competence
“Competence refers to the sense that one is capable, sensible, prudent, and effective. High scores on this scale feel well prepared to deal with life. Low scorers have a lower opinion of their abilities and admit that they are often unprepared and inept. Of all the C facet scaled, competence is highly associated with self-esteem and internal locus of control” (Costa, McCrae, et al., 1991).
C2: order
“High scorers on this scale are neat, tidy, and well organized. They keep things in their proper places. Low scorers are unable to get organized and describe themselves as unmethodical. Carried to an extreme, high order may contribute to obsessive compulsive personality disorder” (Costa, McCrae, et al., 1991).
C3: dutifulness
“In one sense, conscientiousness means ‘governed by conscience’, and that aspect of C is assessed as dutifulness. High scorers on this scale adhere strictly to their ethical principles and scrupulously fulfill their moral obligations as they understand them. Low scorers are more casual about such matters and may be somewhat undependable or unreliable” (Costa, McCrae, et al., 1991).
C4: achievement striving
“Individuals who score high on this facet have high aspiration levels and work hard to achieve their goals. They are diligent and purposeful and have a sense of direction in life. Very high scorers, however, may invest too much in their careers and become workaholics. Low scorers are lackadaisical and perhaps even lazy. They are not driven to succeed. They lack ambition and may seem aimless, but they are often perfectly content with their low levels of achievement.” (Costa, McCrae, et al., 1991)
C5: self-discipline
“By this term, we refer to an individual’s ability to begin tasks and carry them through to completion, despite boredom or distractions. High scorers can motivate themselves to get the job done. Low scorers procrastinate in beginning chores and are easily discouraged and eager to quit. Low self-discipline is easily confused with impulsiveness - both are evidence of poor self-control -- but empirically, they are distinct. People who have high levels of impulsiveness cannot resist doing what they do not want themselves to do; people who have low levels of self discipline cannot force themselves to do what they want themselves to do. The former requires an emotional stability; the latter, a degree of motivation that they do not possess” (Costa, McCrae, et al., 1991).
C6: deliberation
“The final facet of conscientiousness is deliberation -- the tendency to think carefully before acting. High scorers on this facet are cautious and deliberate. Low scorers are hasty and often speak or act without considering the consequences. At best, low scorers are spontaneous and able to make snap decisions when necessary” (Costa, McCrae, et al., 1991).
Conscientiousness Over the Life Course:
The Handbook of Personality Development describes different “life tasks” that a person might experience in different phases of their life. These events “are indicative of investing in one’s future success” and will influence the development of a person’s conscientiousness (McAdams, Shiner, & Tackett, 2018).
Childhood and adolescence:
Childhood:
To assess origins of conscientiousness in childhood, one paper looked at the elements of “self-regulation”, “academic motivation”, and “internalized compliance/internalization of standards” (Eisenberg, 2014).
To measure self-regulation, this study assessed “effortful control”, which they defined as “the efficiency of executive attention--including the ability to inhibit a dominant response and/or to activate a subdominant response, to plan, and to detect errors.” They explained that “as well as planning and the integration of information, effortful control includes the following:
Attention focusing (the tendency to maintain an attentional focus upon task-related channels)
Attention shifting (the capacity to intentionally shift attentional focus to desired channels, thereby avoiding unintentional focusing on particular channels)
Inhibitory control (i.e., the capacity to suppress positively toned impulses and resist the execution of inappropriate approach tendencies)
Activation control (i.e., the capacity to perform an action when there is a strong tendency to avoid” Evans & Rothbart, 2007; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994)
The researchers found that starting at approximately 3 years of age, the test-retest consistency of effortful control is roughly between .2 and .5 during childhood, depending on the time in between assessments and age at assessment (Eisenberg, 2014). While these levels of consistency are a far cry from unity, they suggest meaningful consistency across childhood from an early age, especially in light of assessment difficulties in children.
What are the experiences responsible for driving these changes between different groups of children? The most important social experience during this time period is in education. Here, children are exposed to new ideas, interact with different people, and form peer groups. Relative to later adolescence, there is some work suggesting that success in school is related to positive conscientiousness development (Brandt, 2019). For example, increases in conscientiousness are related to increases in achievement behavior. School encourages skills that lead to success, such as being responsible, paying attention in class, and resisting impulses. By doing this, schools are rewarding students to modify their motivations, goals, and behaviors. The end result is that spending a significant amount of time immersed in environments that promote changes in behavior may lead to enduring, prolonged changes in one’s identity and ultimately conscientiousness. This study also found that positive student-teacher relationships, positive peers, parents who are involved in school, positive feelings about school, finding school and classes engaging, and putting effort into one’s schoolwork are associated with increases in conscientiousness (Brandt, 2019).
The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment
Attention in Delay of Gratification.
In the marshmallow experiment, the researcher placed a marshmallow in front of the child, and told the child that he was going to leave the room. If the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow. The choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later. The researcher left the room for 15 minutes and watched what happened (MIschel, 1970).
Adolescence:
To obtain a more objective measure of cognitive academic competencies and school-related achievements in adolescence, follow-up studies looked at Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of the participants. In parts of the experiment where the rewards were exposed and no strategies were supplied, the children who were able to wait longer as preschoolers were rated in adolescence by their parents as significantly more attentive, better able to concentrate, more competent, more planful, and more intelligent. They were also seen as better at pursuing goals, delaying gratification, showing self-control, resisting temptation, tolerating frustration, and coping maturely with stress. Beyond parental ratings, both verbal and quantitative SAT scores were significantly related to seconds of preschool delay time. The linear regression slope predicting SAT verbal scores from seconds of preschool delay time was 0.10 with a standard error of 0.04; for predicting SAT quantitative scores, the slope was 0.13 with a standard error of 0.03. The correlations were 0.42 for SAT verbal scores and 0.57 for SAT quantitative scores. In contrast, individual differences in delay behavior when the rewards were obscured did not reliably predict either parental ratings or SAT performance (Mischel, 1989). (Notice in the table below how conscientious defines the construct of many of the statements.)
“To more closely assess the nature of the competencies in adolescence predicted by preschool waiting time, and in particular to estimate which of the significant correlations with parental rating measures may reflect such school-related achievements and abilities as assessed by SAT scores, partial correlations between delay time and parental ratings were computed, controlling for both verbal and quantitative SAT scores. After the variance attributable to SAT was partialed out, of the 11 CCQ items judged relevant (see Table 3), the following remained significantly correlated with delay time (p < .05, df= 29): uses and responds to reason (r= .40); is planful, thinks ahead (r = .38); and tends to go to pieces under stress, becomes rattled and disorganized(r= -.36). The correlation between preschool delay time and the item is unable to delay gratification remained virtually unchanged (r = —.33). On the ACQ, 2 items remained significant (p< .05, df= 23): how likely is your child to exhibit self-control in frustrating situations? (r = .47) and when trying to concentrate, how distractible is your son or daughter? (r = -.54)” (Shoda, 1990).
Adulthood:
Conscientiousness starts in childhood with the traits “self-regulation, academic motivation, and internalized compliance/internalization of standards” (Eisenberg, 2014). The following flow chart shows the progression of these three traits over time into the facets of conscientiousness in adulthood:
When assessed in one study, conscientiousness was largely independent of intelligence, and when academic achievement in high school was accounted for, conscientiousness continued to predict achievement at university (Poropat, 2009).
Many previous cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have found that conscientiousness increases from young adulthood to 60 years of age. More specifically, a person’s conscientiousness increases the most during their young adult years, then tapers off by the time they reach middle age (Widiger, 2017).
To expand on the findings from childhood school success, as stated in the Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model, “some of the most influential experiences in adulthood relate to achievement settings. For example, students tend to increase in conscientiousness during the final year of high school, likely in preparation for the new responsibilities they anticipate taking on in college or in the workforce (Bleidhorn, 2012). However, individual experiences are important, as not everyone follows this pattern.” (Widiger, 2017) A few things mentioned in the book which are associated with increased conscientiousness are: starting your first job, healthy eating, exercising, safe driving, entering into your first romantic relationship. Conversely, substance abuse was linked to decreased conscientiousness. Interestingly, no long-term changes in consciousness were associated with having a child, despite all of the increased responsibilities that go into parenting (van Scheppingen et al., 2016). In summary, a calm life in terms of having a job, family, and housing situation set up prior to retirement age bodes well for the transition into retirement, but it may not prompt improvement in personality traits (Widiger, 2017).
Older adulthood:
After middle age, a person’s conscientiousness declines as they get older (Widiger, 2017). This may be due to leaving the workplace and starting retirement. “With the loss of structure provided by work, older adults may feel disorganized or have fewer daily pressures for orderliness. Conscientious individuals may be especially affected by the transition to retirement given that they tend to invest a lot into work, as well as excel at it. While engaging in new activities such as volunteering and spending more time with one’s family makes the transition easier, these activities may be especially important for the highly conscientious, who likely desire more structures, goal-oriented activities to fill their time” (Widiger, 2017). Conscientiousness also plays an important role in declining health as a person ages.
Family Dynamics:
Children whose parents were affectionate towards them tend to score higher on conscientiousness scales (McCrae & Costa Jr, 1988). One study states that “interactions of parents with their children are among the major determinants of adult character and personality. Cautiously interpreted, retrospective reports provide one useful source of evidence -- particularly in an area in which so few prospective studies have been completed.” This study uses the subject’s self-report and the report of a peer to assess personality.
According to the self-report, more loving fathers had a positive 0.10 correlation with higher conscientious adult children. More demanding fathers had a negative 0.11 correlation. More loving mothers had a positive 0.19 correlation with higher conscientious adult children. More demanding mothers had a negative 0.14 correlation. The peer rating was not statistically significant. Of note, these results show about <4% variance for conscientiousness. From this study, we can assume that the parents’ actions (as remembered retrospectively) have little consequence in terms of conscientiousness.
Conscientiousness and Genetics:
The previous articles demonstrate the ongoing importance of conscientiousness throughout life as well as the potential for changing levels of conscientiousness. These changing levels likely reflect environmental factors, but genetics likely also contribute to conscientiousness. One group approached this question and the five dimensions by “decomposing observed trait variance into genetic and environmental components” (Jang, Livesley, & Vemon, 1996).
Participants: 123 monozygotic and 127 dizygotic twin pairs 16 years or older and who were raised in the same home. Participants were recruited through “newspaper advertisements and media stories.”
Methods: Participants completed the NEO-PI-R form (questionnaire used most widely for personality assessment).
“The principal genetic effects are additive, symbolized by the heritability coefficient, h^2, indicating the extent to which parents and offspring genetically resemble one another, and non-additive effects due to dominance (d^2) when two genes at the same locus on a homologous chromosome interact. Environmental variance is routinely decomposed into shared environmental factors (c^2), features that distinguish the general environment of one family from another” (emphasis added).
Results: Monozygotic and dizygotic twin correlations with the five dimensions as well as the estimated contributions of genetic and environmental effects are provided below:
“Pearson correlations for the MZ twins exceeded those for the DZ twins for all scales except modesty and self-discipline; this suggests a genetic influence on most NEO-PI-R scales” (emphasis added). From data in this study, we can infer that conscientiousness is heritable by 44%.
The above study was an expansion of similar work done with a twin study a few years earlier based on data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. This study examined the genetic variance in openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness through the use of an abbreviated NEO-PI (Bergeman, Chlpuer, Plomin, et al., 1993).
Participants: Four populations were examined including 82 pairs of monozygotic twins raised apart, 171 pairs of dizygotic twins raised apart, 132 pairs of monozygotic twins raised together, and 167 pairs of dizygotic twins raised together.
Method: Participants were born between 1886 and 1958, so zygosity was determined based on physical similarities. Shortened NEO-PI was completed in 1984 as part of a larger battery.
Results: The monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins reared apart correlated .43 and .23, respectively, for openness, .15 and —.03 for conscientiousness, and .19 and .10 for agreeableness. For MZ and DZ twins reared together, the correlations were slightly higher: for openness, .51 and .14, for conscientiousness, .41 and .23, and for agreeableness, .47 and .11, respectively.
Total genetic influences estimated using model fitting techniques accounted for 40%, 12%, and 29% of the variance for openness, agreeableness,and conscientiousness, respectively.
A recent meta-analysis examined personality heritability with special attention to “possible moderator effects of study design, type of personality model, and gender on heritability estimates.” This study found that roughly 40% of personality differences could be attributed to genetics while 60% of these differences were due to environmental factors (Vukasović & Bratko, 2015).
Participants: A total of 39 published and 6 unpublished studies with 62 independent effect sizes were included in this meta-analysis. These papers included more than 100,000 total participants.
Method: Multiple hypotheses were tested, but we are most interested in the first hypothesis which claims “there will be a statistically significant genetic effect on individual differences in personality. To do this, a meta-analysis was conducted for average personality heritability estimates and additional 11 analyses were conducted for each personality trait in three personality models included in this study.”
Results:
“There is a statistically significant genetic effect on individual differences in personality, with an average heritability estimate of 0.39, SE 0.020, 95% CI [.35, .43].”
Based on 16 effect sizes, differences in conscientiousness could be attributed to genetic factors 31% of the time with an effect size estimate of 0.31 and 95% CI of [.22, .40].
This meta-analysis examined both twin and non-twin data which may explain its lower estimates of genetic influence when compared to previous studies which were based only on twin data such as (Johnson et al., 2008) and (van den Berg et al., 2014). Of note, gender and personality models were not significant moderators of personality variability.
Another recent meta-analysis examined the link between specific genetic variations and personality variance. Studies included “twin, linkage, candidate gene association studies, genome-wide association studies and polygenic analyses.” We will report on the specific genetic links to conscientiousness as they are most relevant to the current discussion (Sanchez‐Roige, Gray, MacKillop, Chen, & Palmer, 2018).
Participants: A meta-analysis of the study types described above.
Methods: Meta-analysis focusing on “polygenic strategies for studying the genetics of personality” including SNP heritability, gene-set and pathway-based analyses, and genomic profile risk scoring.
Meta-analysis of NEO personality traits and genome-wide association studies. GWAS interrogates hundreds of thousands to millions of SNPs. Does not assume any prior knowledge about how traits are presented.
Genome-wide linkage studies - take advantage of close familial relationships to identify chromosomal regions.
Results: the study reported “significant linkage results for conscientiousness (NEO) at 20p13.
A later meta-analysis (N = 6149) of 4 genome-wide linkage scans by (Amin et al, 62) identified 11q24 for openness to experience (NEO). “De Moor et al77 conducted a meta-analysis of NEO personality traits that showed significant associations for (...) conscientiousness in the gene KATNAL2 (rs2576037, P = 4.9 × 10−8 ).” Of note, the KATNAL2 gene is linked with neurodevelopment including neuronal migration, axonal growth, and dendritic pruning (P=2.0 x 10-6).
So, if genes and early environment have an impact, what about free will?
Though it is difficult to examine the direct impact of free will due to its unsettled existence and nature, it is possible to examine a belief in free will. A study by Stillman, et al., 2010 on personal achievement and job performance found correlations between a belief in free will and the Big Five personality traits. This study included multiple variables and an additional study which will not be discussed here. (For a deeper dive into the concept of free will, please see Free Will in Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)
Participants: 143 undergraduate students participated for partial course credit
Methods: Testing measures included the Free Will subscale of the Free Will and Determinism Scale (measuring belief in free will), Ten-Item Personality Inventory (measuring Big Five traits), SAT scores (measuring intelligence), Locus of Control Scale (interanality dimension), and a self-reported measure of “expected career performance”
Results: The study found a 0.25 correlation between a belief in free will and conscientiousness. The original table is included below.
Multiple facets of conscientiousness such as competence, order, dutifulness, and self-discipline may appear to be colloquially linked to free will. However, these categories could also be linked to other concepts such as locus of control and will require additional research to clarify any associations or correlations between these sub-facets of conscientiousness and a belief in free will.
A belief in free will has been associated with a number of positive life outcomes such as decreases in racial prejudice (Zhao, X., Liu, L., Zhang, X. X., Shi, J. X., & Huang, Z. W. (2014)), setting more personal goals, and higher academic performance (Crescioni, A. W., Baumeister, R. F., Ainsworth, S. E., Ent, M., & Lambert, N. M. (2016)). Future research may reveal conscientiousness or some of its sub-facets as mediators of these associations with belief in free will.
Key Points
Higher conscientiousness is associated with a healthy body weight, engaging in preventative medicine, healthier diets, and exercising more. Conscientiousness is also associated with self-control and responsibility. The current research in this article supports that the environment has powerful effects on conscientiousness.
Positive student-teacher relationships, positive peers, parents who are involved in school, positive feelings about school, finding school and classes engaging, and putting effort into one’s schoolwork are associated with increases in conscientiousness.
Kids with affectionate parents tend to score higher on conscientiousness as adults while kids with demanding parents tend to score lower on conscientiousness as adults.
The environment has significant effects on conscientiousness: Monozygotic twins reared apart only had a 0.15 correlation on conscientiousness, when reared together there was a 0.41 correlation on conscientiousness.
Both conscientiousness and self control increase in young adulthood and continue to increase up to the age 60.
The correlation of 0.25 between a belief in free will and conscientiousness represents an interesting opportunity for growth since both conscientiousness and a belief in free will can change throughout life and individual decisions.
References
Johnson, A. M., Vernon, P. A., & Feiler, A. R. (2008). Behavioral genetic studies of personality: An introduction and review of the results of 50 years of research. In G. J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D. H. Saklofske (Eds.), The Sage handbook of personality theory and assessment. Vol. 1: Personality theories and models (pp. 145–173). London, England: Sage.
McAdams, D. P., Shiner, R. L., & Tackett, J. L. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of personality development. Guilford Publications.
Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory
Widiger, T. A. (2017). The Oxford Handbook of the Five Factor Model (Oxford Library of Psychology) (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.