OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of depressive symptoms has become a significant public health issue in China. Research on the relationship between personality traits and changes in depressive symptoms, as well as further exploration of urban-rural differences, not only benefits for the understanding of the prevalence trend of depression in China, but also provides a useful reference for the government to develop personalized mental health prevention strategies. METHODS: Based on the data from the China Family Panel Studies in 2018 and 2020, a univariate analysis was conducted on 16 198 Chinese residents aged 18 years and above. Five dimensions of personality traits were conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness. In the study, 16 198 residents were divided into "keep good group", "better group", "worse group" and "keep bad group" according to the changes in depressive symptoms in 2018 and 2020. After controlling for factors, such as gender and education, multinomial Logistic regression analysis was used to examine whether personality traits were associated with changes in depressive symptoms. In addition, we evaluated whether urban-rural and personality traits interacted to influence depressive symptoms. RESULTS: The five dimensions of personality traits were significantly correlated with changes in depressive symptoms. Conscientiousness, extroversion, and agreeableness were negatively associated with depressive symptoms, while neuroticism and openness were positively related. Urban and rural differences moderated the relationship between personality traits and depressive symptoms. Compared with urban residents, rural residents showed stronger correlations between neuroticism (OR=1.14; 95%CI: 1.00-1.30) and the group of depression-recovery, as well as conscientiousness (OR=0.79;95%CI: 0.68-0.93) and the group of persistent-depression. CONCLUSION The study finds that personality traits have a significant correlation with changes in depressive symptoms, with certain traits showing a negative or positive relationship. Specifically, higher levels of conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness are associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms, while higher levels of neuroticism and openness are associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms. In addition, the study finds that rural residents have a stronger association between their personality traits and persistent or improved depressive symptoms, which highlights the need for tailoring mental health intervention and prevention programs that should take into account personality traits and urban-rural differences in China. By developing targeted strategies that are sensitive to personality differences and geographic disparities, policymakers and mental health professionals can help prevent and reduce the incidence of depressive symptoms, ultimately improving the overall well-being of Chinese adults. Meanwhile, additional studies in independent populations are needed to corroborate the findings of this study.
Adult ; Humans ; Personality ; Depression/etiology* ; China/epidemiology* ; Personality Inventory ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVE: To explore the correlation between different personality characteristics and self-management attitude such as medication, exercise and diet in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. METHODS: The patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus from 4 Community Healthcare Services and 22 affiliated community stations of Tongzhou District and Shunyi District of Beijing were selected as subjects. The Chinese big five personality inventory and the self-designed scale including the attitudes of medication, exercise and diet were used in the study. RESULTS: In this study, 642 subjects were finally included, among whom the sex ratio of male and female was basically the same, 61.21% were over 61 years old. In this study, different genders had differences in neurotic personality (P<0.05), different age groups had differences in agreeableness and openness (P<0.05), different education levels had differences in openness and extraversion (P<0.05), and different income levels had differences in agreeableness, openness and extraversion (P<0.05). The linear correlation analysis of the five-factor moldel of personality traits with medication, exercise and diet attitude showed that three items of perceived disorders of medication were positively correlated with neuroticism (r=0.125, 0.187, 0.151, P<0.05), four items of perceived disorders of exercise were positively correlated with neurotic personality (r=0.163, 0.129, 0.119, 0.104, P<0.05), and perceived benefits of exercise were positively correlated with conscientiousness (five items, r=0.156, 0.111, 0.131, 0.104, 0.131, P<0.05), agreeableness (two items, r=0.092, 0.078, P<0.05) and extraversion (four items, r=0.079, 0.122, 0.115, 0.123, P<0.05), three items of perceived disorders of diet were positively correlated with neuroticism (r=0.115, 0.137, 0.108, P<0.05), and two items of were negatively correlated with conscientiousness (r=－0.126, －0.161, P<0.05) and agreeableness (r=－0.103, －0.115, P<0.05). In the canonical correlation analysis, according to the formula combination of three groups of typical variables and canonical structure diagrams, neuroticism and agreeableness played major roles in personality traits, and items that represented "obstacles" in medication, exercise, and dietary attitudes played a major role. CONCLUSION All the five personality traits were correlated with the self-management attitude of type 2 diabetes patients, and different personality traits have an impact on the self-management of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. In particular, it is of great significance to understand neuroticism for improving the mental health and quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Therefore, attention should be paid to the influence of psychological factors in community management of type 2 diabetes and disease self-management, and the personalized care and health education should be carried out according to the personality traits of patients.
Attitude ; Beijing ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Personality ; Personality Inventory ; Quality of Life ; Self-Management

OBJECTIVE: Meditation can elicit trait-like changes in psychological and social styles, as well as enhancement of emotional regulatory capacity. We investigated the relation between personality traits and emotional intelligence in meditation practitioners. METHODS: Seventy-two long-term practitioners of mind-body training (MBT) and 62 healthy comparative individuals participated in the study. The participants completed emotional intelligence questionnaires and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). RESULTS: The MBT group revealed higher scores on all five emotional intelligence factors than did those in the control group, such as emotional awareness and expression, empathy, emotional thinking, emotional application, and emotional regulation (all p≤0.001). MBT practitioners also had higher scores on the intuition of perceiving function (t=−2.635, p=0.010) and on the feeling of the judging function (t=−3.340, p=0.001) of the MBTI compared with those in the control group. Only the MBT group showed a robust relationship with every factor of emotional intelligence and MBTI-defined intuitive styles, indicating that higher scores of emotional intelligence were related to higher scores for intuition. CONCLUSION: Emotional intelligence of meditation practitioners showed notable relationships with some features of personality trait. In-depth associations between emotional intelligence and personality traits would help to foster psychological functions in meditation practitioners.
Emotional Intelligence* ; Empathy ; Intuition ; Meditation* ; Personality Inventory ; Thinking

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine whether non-cognitive student attributes such as learning style and personality type affected academic performance in a flipped learning classroom of a pre-dental undergraduate science course. METHODS: ‘Biodiversity and Global Environment,’ a 15-week, 3-credit course, was designed as a flipped class in Seoul National University School of Dentistry in 2017. Second-year pre-dental students were required to enroll in the course and to engage in online learning and in-class discussion. The Kolb's Learning Style Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator were conducted to measure non-cognitive student factors. Independent samples t-test and multivariate regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between self-rated measurements and academic achievement. RESULTS: More than half of the students enrolled in the flipped science course had an assimilator learning style (50%), followed by convergers (24%), accommodators (16%), and divergers (10%), and their personality types were dominated by the introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging types, respectively. Examining group differences using the t-test demonstrated a significant relationship between the diverger group and higher academic success. In particular, the multivariate regression analysis indicated that both thinking types and female students performed better in discussion than feeling types and male students. CONCLUSION: To operate the flipped learning classroom more effectively in medical and dental education, the instructor should carefully develop and apply a more tailored facilitation and relevant assessment by considering student learning styles and personality types.
Dentistry ; Education, Dental ; Female ; Humans ; Learning* ; Male ; Personality Inventory ; Seoul ; Thinking

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality type test book, which is widely used in the field of personal counseling, team organization, school education and research. This study carried out MBTI of 361 medical students in the second grade of premedical course of Keimyung University School of Medicine from 2014 to 2018, and analyzed the data to use them for the students' education. The personality type was mostly distributed to ISTJ, ISTP, ESTP and ESTJ in order among 16 types. According to preference tendency, it was found out that the introverted type was extroverted, the recognition type was intuition type, the thinking type was emotional type, and the recognition type was more distributed than the judgment type. The psychological functions were ST, SF, NF, NT. MBTI type analysis of medical students shows that it is possible to organize members in group activities to improve their ability to understand themselves and understand others in class scenes. In addition, we expect to be able to design for improvement of stress management, conflict management, and communication ability. In the career counseling scene, in addition to the MBTI data analysis, it is expected that it will be possible to recommend a major suitable for the student personality type in parallel with other psychological tests. In addition, we expect to study the preferred field of study, satisfaction with the major in the future research by continuous data accumulation and analysis.
Communication ; Counseling ; Education ; Education, Medical* ; Humans ; Intuition ; Judgment ; Personality Inventory ; Psychological Tests ; Statistics as Topic ; Students, Medical* ; Thinking ; Vocational Guidance

INTRODUCTION: Integrity and willingness to contribute to society are desired traits of medical students beyond academic excellence. We investigated the personality traits of medical students at the National University of Singapore (NUS), who were about to become doctors. Personality traits were compared with a peer population of local university students. METHODS: This study was conducted between October 2013 and December 2014. Year 4 medical students were administered the Revised NEO (Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness) Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), a 240-item Likert scale personality test. Test data was analysed by an institutional psychologist and compared to a separate sample of 377 non-medical students who were peers at the same university taking psychology as a module. Data was collated and analysed. RESULTS: 65 Year 4 medical students completed the NEO PI-R personality test. The personalities of Year 4 medical students at NUS differed from their peers in all domains except for openness. NUS medical students generally had less neuroticism, and were more extroverted, agreeable and conscientious than their peers. CONCLUSION Personality testing of NUS Year 4 medical students showed many of the desired traits of a doctor when compared to their peers at the same university.
Adult ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Peer Group ; Personality ; Personality Inventory ; Psychology ; Singapore ; Students ; psychology ; Students, Medical ; psychology ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Universities ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to identify the association between scoliosis and psychopathological effects using the Military Personality Inventory (MPI). METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted of 19-yr-old examinees admitted to the Military Manpower Administration in Korea from February 2007-January 2010. The authors compared the profiles of MPI of 3004 scoliosis cases with the profiles of MPI of 11920 normal controls. The scoliosis cases were classified into two groups according to severity, including mild to moderate, and severe. RESULTS: There was a significant difference between the two groups based on the validity scales. The neurosis scales, including anxiety, depression, somatization and personality disorder, were significantly different between the groups. Concerning the anxiety, depression and somatization subscales, the scores of the mild to moderate group and the severe group were higher than those of the control group. Regarding the personality disorder subscale, the mild to moderate group was higher than the control group. For the paranoid subscale, there was a significant difference between the groups and the mild to moderate group had a higher score than the control group. Furthermore, the partial eta square was 0.018, 0.019, and 0.018 for anxiety, depression, and somatization respectively, which suggests that scoliosis was significantly associated with symptoms of anxiety, depression, and somatization. CONCLUSION: Young men with scoliosis tended to have higher scores concerning the MPI than young men without scoliosis. In particular, the scores were higher for anxiety, depression, and somatization symptoms. This result shows that scoliosis may have psychopathological effects on young men.
Anxiety ; Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Depression ; Humans ; Korea* ; Male ; Military Personnel* ; Personality Disorders ; Personality Inventory* ; Retrospective Studies* ; Scoliosis* ; Weights and Measures

OBJECTIVES: To explore the occurrence and the differences of clinical manifestations of organic personality disorder with varying degrees of craniocerebral trauma. METHODS: According to the International Classification of Diseases-10, 396 subjects with craniocerebral trauma caused by traffic accidents were diagnosed, and the degrees of craniocerebral trauma were graded. The personality characteristics of all patients were evaluated using the simplified Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Five-Factor Inventory （NEO-FFI）. RESULTS: The occurrence rate of organic personality disorder was 34.6% while it was 34.9% and 49.5% in the patients with moderate and severe craniocerebral trauma, respectively, which significantly higher than that in the patients （18.7%） of mild craniocerebral trauma （P<0.05）. Compared with the patients without personality disorder, the neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness scores all showed significantly differences （P<0.05） in the patients of mild craniocerebral trauma with personality disorder; the neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness scores showed significantly differences （ P>0.05） in the patients of moderate and severe craniocerebral trauma with personality disorder. The agreeableness and conscientiousness scores in the patients of moderate and severe craniocerebral trauma with personality disorder were significantly lower than that of mild craniocerebral trauma, and the patients of severe craniocerebral trauma had a lower score in extraversion than in the patients of mild craniocerebral trauma. CONCLUSIONS The severity of craniocerebral trauma is closely related to the incidence of organic personality disorder, and it also affects the clinical features of the latter, which provides a certain significance and help for forensic psychiatric assessment.
Craniocerebral Trauma/pathology* ; Humans ; Personality ; Personality Disorders/psychology* ; Personality Inventory ; Psychotic Disorders/psychology*

We aimed to examine the potential relationship between season of birth (SOB) and clinical characteristics in Korean patients with unipolar non-psychotic major depressive disorder (MDD). Using data from the Clinical Research Center for Depression (CRESCEND) study in South Korea, 891 MDD patients were divided into two groups, those born in spring/summer (n=457) and those born in autumn/winter (n=434). Measurement tools comprising the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Scale for Suicidal Ideation, Clinical Global Impression of severity, Social and Occupation Functional Assessment Scale, WHO Quality of Life assessment instrument-abbreviated version, Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, and Temperament and Character Inventory were used to evaluate depression, anxiety, overall symptoms, suicidal ideation, global severity, social function, quality of life, drinking, and temperament and character, respectively. Using independent t-tests for continuous variables and χ2 tests for discrete variables, the clinical characteristics of the two groups were compared. MDD patients born in spring/summer were on average younger at onset of first depressive episode (t=2.084, p=0.038), had greater loss of concentration (χ2=4.589, p=0.032), and were more self-directed (t=2.256, p=0.025) than those born in autumn/winter. Clinically, there was a trend for the MDD patients born in spring/summer to display the contradictory characteristics of more severe clinical course and less illness burden; this may have been partly due to a paradoxical effect of the 5-HT system.
Adult ; Age of Onset ; Aged ; Alcohol Drinking ; Bipolar Disorder/*diagnosis/*ethnology/psychology ; Character ; Cost of Illness ; Depression ; Depressive Disorder, Major/*diagnosis/*ethnology/psychology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Personality Inventory/statistics & numerical data ; *Quality of Life ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology ; *Seasons ; Temperament

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: A healthy diet has been reported to be associated with physical development, cognition and academic performance, and personality during adolescence. This study was performed to investigate the relationships among milk consumption and academic performance, learning motivation and strategies, and personality among Korean adolescents. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The study was divided into two parts. The first part was a survey on the relationship between milk consumption and academic performance, in which intakes of milk and milk products and academic scores were examined in percentiles among 630 middle and high school students residing in small and medium-sized cities in 2009. The second part was a survey on the relationships between milk consumption and learning motivation and strategy as well as personality, in which milk consumption habits were collected and Learning Motivation and Strategy Test (L-MOST) for adolescents and Total Personality Inventory for Adolescents (TPI-A) were conducted in 262 high school students in 2011. RESULTS: In the 2009 survey, milk and milk product intakes of subjects were divided into a low intake group (LM: ≤ 60.2 g/day), medium intake group (MM: 60.3-150.9 g/day), and high intake group (HM: ≥ 151.0 g/day). Academic performance of each group was expressed as a percentile, and performance in Korean, social science, and mathematics was significantly higher in the HM group (P < 0.05). In the 2011 survey, the group with a higher frequency of everyday milk consumption showed significantly higher "learning strategy total," "testing technique," and "resources management technique" scores (P < 0.05) in all subjects. However, when subjects were divided by gender, milk intake frequency, learning strategy total, class participation technique, and testing technique showed significantly positive correlations (P < 0.05) in boys, whereas no correlation was observed in girls. Correlations between milk intake frequency and each item of the personality test were only detected in boys, and milk intake frequency showed positive correlations with "total agreeability", "organization", "responsibility", "conscientiousness", and "intellectual curiosity" (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Intakes of milk and milk products were correlated with academic performance (Korean, social science, and mathematics) in Korean adolescents. In male high school students, particularly, higher milk intake frequency was positively correlated with learning motivation and strategy as well as some items of the personality inventory.
Adolescent* ; Cognition ; Diet ; Female ; Humans ; Learning* ; Male ; Mathematics ; Milk* ; Motivation* ; Personality Inventory ; Personality Tests ; Social Sciences