Personality and the experience of environmental adversity

Kenneth S. Kendler · Caleb Gardner · Carol Arlene Prescott

226 citations0/0 files storedPsychological Medicine

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Personality Traits and Psychology Personality Disorders and Psychopathology Mental Health Research Topics

Abstract

BACKGROUND: While psychiatric epidemiology often focuses on the causal relationship between environmental adversity and the individual (e.g. environment to person), individuals probably make important contributions to the quality of their environments (person to environment). METHOD: In a population based sample of > 7000 male and female adult twins, we examined the relationship between the personality trait of neuroticism (N) and the occurrence of stressful life events (SLEs) and the quality of interpersonal relationships (IPR). We compared the magnitude of the prediction of twin 1's self-reported SLEs and IPR from: (i) twin 1's self-reported N; (ii) twin 2's report of twin 1's N; and (iii) twin 2's report of twin 2's N in monozygotic pairs. RESULTS: In our entire sample, self-report N significantly predicted the occurrence of most SLEs and all dimensions of IPR. Using the co-twin's report of N produced associations that were of the same magnitude for SLEs and modestly weaker for IPR. In monozygotic pairs, the level of N in one twin predicted SLEs and IPR in the co-twin at levels similar to those found for the co-twin's report of N. Repeating these analyses with a prospective subsample produced similar results. CONCLUSION: An individual's personality in adulthood plays a significant role in influencing exposure to some forms of environmental adversity and this association is not the result of reporting bias. Furthermore, this relationship is largely mediated by a common set of familial factors that predispose both to a 'difficult' temperament and to environmental adversity. Developmental models of psychiatric illness should adopt an interactionist view of individuals and their environment (person and environment).

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 226 citations exist upstream.

References

1985A revised version of the psychoticism scale 1997THE EFFECTS OF STRESSFUL LIFE EVENTS ON DEPRESSION 1968A reinterpretation of the direction of effects in studies of socialization.1991Personality and the Problems of Everyday Life: The Role of Neuroticism In Exposure and Reactivity to Daily Stressors 2002Toward a Comprehensive Developmental Model for Major Depression in Women 1992Genes and environment in personality development 1982Neurosis and the Social Environment 1989Genes, culture, and personality : an empirical approach

Cited by

2011Life Events as Environmental States and Genetic Traits and the Role of Personality: A Longitudinal Twin Study 2009The role of neuroticism and extraversion in the stress–anxiety and stress–depression relationships 2010Dependent Stressful Life Events and Prior Depressive Episodes in the Prediction of Major Depression 2011A Longitudinal Analysis of Self-Regulation and Well-Being: Avoidance Personal Goals, Avoidance Coping, Stress Generation, and Subjective Well-Being 2011A longitudinal examination of stress generation in depressive and anxiety disorders.

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.