Unity and Diversity of NEO-PI Personality Profiles of 162 Phenotypes

For over 30 years, detailed personality-phenotype association profiles based on the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI) have been published, yet the phenotype profiles have been rarely linked across studies as has been done in brain imaging and genetics. Here, we apply a similar method to explore the similarities, differences, and healthfulness of various phenotypes regarding their NEO PI correlates. We systematically searched for profiles of NEO PI-phenotype correlations across various phenotype domains. Our initial dataset comprised 311 profiles from 90 papers. After standardising the metrics and meta-analysing similar profiles, the data was consolidated into 162 distinct phenotypes. Cluster analysis resulted in five broad cross-domain clusters, characterised by mental health strains, psychopathology dimensions, educational attainment, and health-related behaviours. Most clusters showed moderate deviation from an expert-rated ‘healthy’ personality profile. Furthermore, we replicated ‘personality correlations’, exploring the similarities between uncontrolled eating and addictive phenotypes, accounting for sample sizes of the profiles as well as the correlations among facets. Our findings demonstrate that comparing personality-phenotype profiles across studies offers novel insights and possibilities for theory-testing and exploratory comparisons.