Personality-trait differences in post-occupancy evaluations

Creating healthy and comfortable indoor environments requires not only controlling physical conditions but also accurately capturing how occupants experience them. POE is a practical approach for providing building owners, operators, and design teams with actionable knowledge derived from occupants’ evaluations, yet substantial individual variability persists. One under-explored source of this variability is whether stable personality traits systematically influence the reporting of IEQ-related experiences in POE. A survey of the office environment was conducted with 1,537 white-collar workers from 62 offices (tenant companies) across 29 buildings. Personality was measured using the Big Five personality traits framework comprising extraversion (sociability), agreeableness (cooperativeness), conscientiousness (self-discipline; preference for structure), neuroticism (emotional sensitivity), and openness to experience (curiosity). Item-wise ordinal logistic regressions, controlling for gender, age, and occupation, revealed widespread trait associations. Agreeableness was associated with 39 of the 51 items and was linked primarily to lower favorable evaluations. Extraversion was positively related to spaces that support social interaction and communication. Neuroticism was negatively related to items capturing negative conditions such as internal noise and thermal discomfort. Conscientiousness showed a minimal association. Although the results are subject to cultural and regional constraints and potential measurement tool-related limitations, the findings suggest that personality traits are a meaningful individual-level factor underlying the heterogeneity of POE responses and may inform trait-aware interpretation of occupant surveys.