Handwriting as a correlate of extraversion

The validity of graphologists' claims that handwriting is a measure of extraversion was examined in this study. Three handwriting measures, line slope, letter slant, and letter width were chosen, and the relationship between these measures and extraversion as measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory was studied. The subjects were 58 tertiary students. No significant correlations between the handwriting measures and extraversion were found, nor were there significant intercorrelations between the three handwriting measures. Thus the results did not support the claim that the three handwriting measures were valid indices of extraversion.     

Sex Differences in Relationships between Verbal Fluency and Personality

The Thurstone Verbal Fluency Test, Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test, and NEO-FFI personality test were administered to 182 university participants (126 female, 56 male). The men scored higher than the women on the spatial test, and the women scored higher than the men for the verbal fluency test, as reported by others. Women reported more extraversion and agreeableness than men. Extraversion was correlated with verbal fluency for both sexes. For the men, verbal fluency was also positively associated with agreeableness, and for the women, verbal fluency was associated with openness and conscientiousness. No relationships between personality and spatial ability were found. Thus, the relationships between cognitive variables and personality factors differed between the sexes. These findings are discussed in terms of the common frontal neural substrate of verbal fluency and these aspects of personality, as well as the inherently social nature of language as a communication tool.     

Sex, gender role, attribution of pathology, and handwriting tidiness

An archival study sampled personality test protocols with spontaneous handwriting specimens from 73 men and 168 women for signatures and scores on selected scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2. Judges applied a 5-point scale to sort signatures for tidiness. Interrater agreement was .93. The mean handwriting tidiness score for men was 1.8 and 2.8 for women, a significant difference of 1 point. Correlations between handwriting tidiness and MMPI-2 scores did not support the hypothesis that erratic handwriting is associated with pathology but scores for gender role correlated significantly with handwriting tidiness. Masculine Gender Role predicted sloppy penmanship and Feminine Gender Role predicted tidy writing, independent of the writers' biological sex.     

Extraversion predicts individual differences in women’s face preferences

Extraversion is positively associated with various indices of women’s mate quality (e.g., facial symmetry and attractiveness). Since such indices are thought to predict variation in women’s preferences for masculine men, we investigated the relationships between each of the ‘Big 5’ personality factors and women’s preferences for facial masculinity. Extraversion, but not the other four personality factors, was positively correlated with women’s preferences for masculinity in men’s, but not women’s, faces. Additionally, extraversion mediated the positive relationship between women’s self-rated attractiveness and their preferences for masculinity in men’s faces, suggesting that extraversion may play a role in condition-dependent mate preferences. Unexpectedly, openness to experience was associated with women’s preferences for femininity in faces of both sexes and this association was independent of that between extraversion and women’s preferences for masculine men. This is the first study that we know of to implicate personality traits in individual differences in women’s preferences for masculine men.     

Personality dimensions and religiosity among Kuwaiti Muslim college students

The aim of the present study was to examine the association between Eysenck’s personality dimensions and religiosity. A sample of 227 Kuwaiti Muslim undergraduates completed the Arabic versions of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Muslim Attitude towards Religiosity Scale. Men obtained significantly higher mean scores on psychoticism than did their female counterparts and the effect size was medium. Religiosity significantly correlated with psychoticism (negative) and lie (positive) among men and women. In addition, religiosity significantly correlated with extraversion (positive) and neuroticism (negative) in women. The only predictor of religiosity was low psychoticism in men and women. The results were discussed in the light of religion of Islam. Most results of the present study reflect previous findings using participants from other religions.     

Reliving emotional personal memories: affective biases linked to personality and sex-related differences

Although available evidence suggests that the emotional valence and recollective properties of autobiographical memories (AMs) may be influenced by personality- and sex-related differences, overall these relationships remain poorly understood. The present study investigated these issues by comparing the effect of general personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism) and specific traits linked to emotion regulation (ER) strategies (reappraisal and suppression) on the retrieval of emotional AMs and on the associated postretrieval emotional states, in men and women. First, extraversion predicted recollection of positive AMs in both men and women, whereas neuroticism predicted the proportion of negative AMs in men and the frequency of rehearsing negative AMs in women. Second, reappraisal predicted positive AMs in men, and suppression predicted negative AMs in women. Third, while reliving of positive memories had an overall indirect effect on postretrieval positive mood through extraversion, reliving of negative AMs had a direct effect on postretrieval negative mood, which was linked to inefficient engagement of suppression in women. Our findings suggest that personality traits associated with positive affect predict recollection of positive AMs and maintenance of a positive mood, whereas personality traits associated with negative affect, along with differential engagement of habitual ER strategies in men and women, predict sex-related differences in the recollection and experiencing of negative AMs. These findings provide insight into the factors that influence affective biases in reliving AMs, and into their possible link to sex-related differences in the susceptibility to affective disorders.     

Validity and Stability of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory in a Nonforensic Sample of Young Adults

Scores were obtained for 103 Subjects on the Sixteen Personality Factor test, Form C; the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule; the Otis Quick Scoring Test, Form G; Raven's Progressive Matrices, Sets A-E; and on 47 handwriting variables. First, personality and intelligence variables, then handwriting variables were factored and rotated, after which factor scores were obtained. Through a regression of handwriting from personality and intelligence factor scores, it was found that 6 of 16 handwriting factors could be predicted by 5 of 10 personality and intelligence factors. These results and their relation to graphology are discussed.     

Personality and culture: a comparison of Francophones and Anglophones in Québec

The authors compared the personality characteristics of Québec Francophones (25 women, 25 men) and Anglophones (25 women, 25 men) aged 16-64 years. Each participant completed a French or English version of 3 personality inventories that measured (a) extraversion (2 scales), (b) neuroticism (2 scales), (c) psychoticism, (d) lying, (e) openness to experience, (f) conscientiousness, (g) agreeableness, (h) conservatism, and (i) altruism. Francophones scored higher than did Anglophones on psychoticism and on 1 measure of extraversion, and Anglophones scored higher than did Francophones on conservatism, but the 2 groups did not differ on the other personality traits. Men scored higher than did women on psychoticism, and women scored higher than did men on conscientiousness and agreeableness. Conservatism and altruism increased with age. The authors discuss the results in the context of cross-cultural theory and research on personality.     

Recalled Parent-Child Relations and Adult Personality

Adult children's ratings of their parents' behaviors on the Parent-Child Relation Questionnaire II were correlated with self-reports and peer ratings of personality on the NEO Personality Inventory in a sample of 619 men and women aged 21 to 96. Individuals who reported that their parents were loving scored lower in neuroticism and higher in extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Individuals, especially men, who described their parents as casual rather than demanding were lower in extraversion and conscientiousness, but higher in openness. Parental attention (i.e., spoiling) was associated with extraversion and low agreeableness. Several of these correlations were replicated when peer ratings of personality were examined. However, all the associations were modest, and several alternative explanations suggest that the correlations may exaggerate the influence of these child-rearing practices on adult personality. Parental behaviors and attitudes seem to have less effect on broad dimensions of adult personality than traditionally supposed.     

Psychological type and sex differences among church leaders in the United Kingdom

A sample of 135 female and 164 male church leaders of mixed denominations completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales. The female church leaders demonstrated clear preferences for extraversion over introversion, for sensing over intuition, for feeling over thinking, and for judging over perceiving. The male church leaders demonstrated clear preferences for introversion over extraversion, for sensing over intuition, for thinking over feeling, and for judging over perceiving. The predominant type among the women was ESFJ (22%) and the predominant type among the men was ISTJ (30%). Extravert and feeling types were significantly overrepresented among female church leaders, compared with male church leaders.     

Lack of association of extraversion and neuroticism with sibship size and birth order among Arab college students

In a sample of 450 (220 men, 230 women) Egyptian undergraduates (M age=20.6 yr., SD=1.9), scores on extraversion and neuroticism scales were not associated with sibship size and birth order.     

Comparison of EPI and psychoticism scales with measures of the five-factor model of personality

The need for a comprehensive model of personality traits acceptable to the entire community of personality researches has often been acknowledged. In this article, two such models are compared. Eysenck scales measuring neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism and lie are correlated with self-report and peer-rating measures of the five-factor model—neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness—in a sample of adult men and women. Findings suggest that: (1) neuroticism and extraversion factors from the two systems match well; (2) sociability and impulsivity are distinguishable traits, but both fall within the broad domain of extraversion; (3) the EPI L scale measures aspects of several substantive traits rather than a response bias; (4) openness to experience is not well-represented in the Eysenck system; and (5) psychoticism corresponds most closely to the low poles of agreeableness and conscientiousness.     

The interpersonal meaning of sexual promiscuity

In order to investigate the interpersonal meaning of sexual promiscuity, the relations between various sexual activities and the Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC) were examined. Two hundred and ten participants (105 women and 105 men; mean age = 24.88 years) indicated the number of people they had engaged in various sexual activates with (e.g., oral manipulation of genitals, sexual intercourse, etc.). These participants’ interpersonal styles were also assessed using the primary dimensions of the IPC: dominance and warmth. As predicted, a positive linear relation was found, for men and women, between interpersonal dominance and the number of partners a person had for each type of sexual activity. Additionally, for both men and women, a curvilinear relation was found between interpersonal warmth and the number of partners a person had for each type of sexual activity. Specifically, participants who were either extremely warm or extremely cold tended to have more sexual partners than individuals who were moderately warm. These findings extend past research linking the Five Factor Model traits of extraversion and agreeableness to sexual promiscuity and also help illustrate the dual interpersonal meaning of sexual experience.     

Perceptual deprivation,extraversion—introversion and the autokinetic phenomenon

The present study examines the relationships between perceptual-deprivation tolerance and three variables: extraversion, the autokinetic (AK) phenomenon and field-dependence. In addition, the relationship between extraversion and autokinesis (AK) was investigated. Thirty-three male subjects were subjected to 3 hr of perceptual deprivation and, in addition, their scores on each of the three independent variables were obtained. It was found, as hypothesized, that perceptual-deprivation tolerance was negatively related to extraversion and positively related to the intensity of the AK effect. Field-dependence was not related to perceptual-deprivation tolerance. The correlation between extraversion and the autokinetic effect was significant but moderate. The nature of the relationship between these two variables is discussed.     

Personality and attitudinal correlates of healthy and unhealthy lifestyles in young adults

Abstract

The relationship between healthy lifestyle and personality and attitudinal variables was analyzed with data collected from 809 men and 996 women aged 18–30 years in England, Belgium, Finland and Norway as part of the European Health and Behaviour Survey. A health practices index was constructed on the basis of performance of sixteen behaviours including smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, sleep time and a variety of dietary and preventive practices. Scores on the health practices index were higher in women than men, but in both sexes the index was normally distributed. Consistently healthy practices were positively correlated with extraversion and optimism, and negatively associated with neuroticism, psychoticism and chance locus of control beliefs. These effects were maintained after controlling for social desirability, but together accounted for only a modest proportion of the variance in the health practices index. The results are discussed in relation to the factors characterising health conscious and unhealthy lifestyles.     

Personality Traits and Body Weight Measures: Concurrent and Across‐Time Associations

We tested the possibility that the five‐factor model of personality is associated with three measures of body weight and with changes in their levels over time and that these associations are gender specific. The study was conducted at two points of time, Time 1 (2664 participants) and Time 2 (1492 participants), over approximately 4 years, controlling for gender, age, education, and having a chronic disease. Body weight was assessed by body mass index, waist circumference, waist‐to‐hip ratio, and the five‐factor model by Saucier's Mini‐Markers. Cross‐sectional regression results indicated that conscientiousness was negatively associated with the three body weight measures, whereas neuroticism and extraversion were positively associated with the three body weight measures. The longitudinal regression results indicate that extraversion was associated with an increase in two of the body weight measures. Neuroticism was associated with increase in all three body weight measures and more strongly for women than for men. Openness was associated with a decrease in all three body weight measures for women, but this association was not significant for men. These findings help identify personality traits that lead to risk of weight gain and point to the modifying role of gender. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The genetic basis of entrepreneurship: Effects of gender and personality

Extending previous research on the genetic underpinnings of entrepreneurship, we investigate gender differences in the genetic influences on the tendency of people to become entrepreneurs. We also examined two mediating variables through which genetic factors may impact this tendency: extraversion and neuroticism. Based on 1285 pairs of identical twins (449 male and 836 female pairs) and 849 pairs of same-sex fraternal twins (283 male and 566 female pairs), we found that females have a strong genetic influence and zero shared-environmental influences on their tendency to become entrepreneurs. In contrast, males show zero genetic influence, but a large shared-environmental influence. Extraversion and neuroticism mediate the genetic influences on women’s tendency to become entrepreneurs, whereas extraversion mediates shared-environmental influences on men’s tendency to become entrepreneurs. We discuss this sharp difference in genetic influences on entrepreneurship across gender groups and highlight the different challenges that men and women face in their entrepreneurial endeavors.     

A comparative study of two taxonomies of coping styles,personality and sex

The factor structures of two sets of coping styles, proposed by Lazarus and Plutchik respectively, were investigated, as well as the relationship between each set with extraversion and neuroticism. Results show that sex is a major moderating variable. The Lazarus data yielded three separate factors for men and women, while the Plutchik data yielded four factors, of which only one was in common for men and women. A factor analysis of both sets of data yielded seven factors, suggesting that about half of the content is common to both sets of coping styles. Extraversion is positively related to six of the coping styles, and negatively to one. Neuroticism is positively related to five coping styles. For the rest, both Extraversion and Neuroticism correlate differently for men and women.     

Sex differences in association of race performance, skin-fold thicknesses, and training variables for recreational half-marathon runners

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between selected skin-fold thicknesses and training variables with a half-marathon race time, for both male and female recreational runners, using bi- and multivariate analysis. In 52 men, two skin-fold thicknesses (abdominal and calf) were significantly and positively correlated with race time; whereas in 15 women, five (pectoral, mid-axilla, subscapular, abdominal, and suprailiac) showed positive and significant relations with total race time. In men, the mean weekly running distance, minimum distance run per week, maximum distance run per week, mean weekly hours of running, number of running training sessions per week, and mean speed of the training sessions were significantly and negatively related to total race time, but not in women. Interaction analyses suggested that race time was more strongly associated with anthropometry in women than men. Race time for the women was independently associated with the sum of eight skin-folds; but for the men, only the mean speed during training sessions was independently associated. Skin-fold thicknesses and training variables in these groups were differently related to race time according to their sex.     

Gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between body esteem and self-esteem.

Gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between body esteem and self-esteem were examined to assess the degree to which these variables change in relation to each other over time. Difference scores (between Time 1 and Time 2, 1 week apart) were obtained using the Self-Esteem Scale (M. Rosenberg, 1979) and the Body Esteem Scale (S. L. Franzoi & S. A. Shields, 1984) for 163 White women, 140 White men, 55 Black women, and 37 Black men. The results indicated that the correlation of the difference scores was stronger for the group of White women than for the other 3 groups, suggesting that changes in self-esteem parallel changes in body esteem more for White women than for White men, Black men, and Black women. The findings are discussed in relation to the prevalence of bulimia nervosa among White women.