Key result
Personality proxies derived from the UK Biobank existing Neuroticism scale showed poor discriminant validity and should not be used to study personality in any dataset.
The items used to proxy the five domains of human personality in a previous UK Biobank study lack discriminant validity and are inappropriate for studying personality traits.
Dahlén, Miguet, Schiöth, and Rukh1 used items from UK Biobank2 to construct “proxies” of the five domains of human personality—Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness3. However, the items used came from an existing Neuroticism scale. In my analyses, I demonstrated that the discriminant validities of these proxies are poor, and so should not be used to study personality in UK Biobank or any other dataset.
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Alexander Weiß (2026) conducted a letter in Myocardial infarction. Personality proxies was evaluated on Discriminant validity of personality proxies. Personality proxies derived from the UK Biobank existing Neuroticism scale showed poor discriminant validity and should not be used to study personality in any dataset.
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