The genetic and environmental relationship between major depression and the five-factor model of personality.

BACKGROUND: Certain personality traits have long been suspected to reflect an enduring vulnerability to major depression (MD) in part because of shared genetic risk factors. Although many have agreed that normative personality is well captured by the 'Big-Five' personality traits of Openness (O), Conscientiousness (C), Extraversion (E), Agreeableness (A) and Neuroticism (N), to date genetically informative studies have only examined the relationship between MD and N and E.

METHOD: Questionnaires were completed on a website, yielding a sample of 44 112 subjects including both members of 542 same-sex twin pairs. Personality was measured by the Big Five Inventory. Structural modeling was performed by Mx.

RESULTS: Three of the big-five personality traits--O, E and A--had small phenotypic associations with risk for MD and small genetic correlations. Two traits--N and C--had stronger phenotypic associations (positive for N and negative for C) with the following estimates of the genetic correlation with MD: +0.43 for N and -0.36 for C. N and C were moderately negatively correlated. Controlling for N reduced the genetic correlation between C and MD more than controlling for C reduced the genetic correlation between N and MD.

CONCLUSIONS: A large proportion of the genetic risk for MD that is expressed via personality is captured by N, with a modest amount due to C, and small amounts from O, E and A.