The impact of the Big Five personality traits on help-seeking stigmas, attitudes, and intentions.

Mental illness is common, consequential, and increasing in prevalence.Despite this, most individuals do not seek professional help for mental health concerns.Research has begun to investigate the impact of personality on help-seeking, but it has suffered from many limitations.As such, the purpose of this study was to establish the effects of the Big Five personality traits on public and selfstigma of seeking help, help-seeking attitudes, and intentions.We employed hierarchical regression models in a large cross-sectional sample (N = 5712) to evaluate personality traits in the context of other established predictors of help-seeking.Agreeableness had consistent protective effects across all models and extraversion was especially protective regarding help-seeking intentions.In contrast to these beneficial effects, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism had complex relationships with helpseeking constructs.Our findings have implications for understanding the influence of the Big Five on which individuals may be unlikely to seek mental health services in the face of a need.Through this understanding, we can begin to develop targeted strategies directed towards individuals at risk to not seek help for mental health concerns, and increase help-seeking behaviour.