Differential relationships in the association of the Big Five personality traits with positive mental health and psychopathology

By Sanne M. A. Lamers, Gerben J. Westerhof, V. Kovacs, Ernst T. Bohlmeijer. 2012

184 citations recorded by the source corpus.

According to the two continua model of mental health, psychopathology and positive mental health (emotional, psychological, and social well-being) are related but distinct continua. This study investigates the two continua model by examining whether psychopathology and positive mental health show differential associations with the Big Five personality traits. The paper draws on data of the representative LISS panel (CentERdata). Participants (N = 1161; age 18–88) filled out questionnaires on personality, psychopathology, and positive mental health. Personality traits were differentially related to psychopathology and positive mental health, supporting the two continua model. Emotional stability (reversed neuroticism) is the main correlate of psychopathology, whereas the personality traits extraversion and agreeableness are uniquely associated with positive mental health.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aafb1f86dd49805186d85806faaf6761f638657e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Applied Psychology

1. Ernst T. Bohlmeijer
2. Gerben J. Westerhof
3. Sanne M. A. Lamers

In Clinical Psychology

1. E. Muir‐Cochrane
2. Cees A. W. Glas
3. Ernst T. Bohlmeijer
4. Gerben J. Westerhof
5. M. Iasiello
6. Sanne M. A. Lamers
7. J. Agteren

In Social Psychology

1. Ernst T. Bohlmeijer
2. Sanne M. A. Lamers
3. E. Muir‐Cochrane
4. M. Iasiello
5. J. Agteren
6. Gerben J. Westerhof
7. Cees A. W. Glas
8. Corey Keyes

Citations in the corpus

• Mental Health and/or Mental Illness: A Scoping Review of the Evidence and Implications of the Dual-Continua Model of Mental Health (2020, background): “Examples of specific resources or outcomes that where studied included curiosity (Jovanovic and Brdaric, 2012), personality (Lyons et al., 2013; Spinhoven et al., 2015; Lamers et al., 2012), self-efficacy (Schonfeld et al.”
• The bidirectional relation between positive mental health and psychopathology in a longitudinal representative panel study (2015, background): “…symptoms and positive mental health, earlier cross-sectional studies have shown that the pattern becomes more differentiated when different mental illnesses as well as the different components of positive mental health are distinguished (Lamers et al., 2012; Westerhof & Keyes, 2009).”