Cohort profile: Personality Measurements at the Estonian Biobank of the Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu

Like all behaviour, personality traits are substantially heritable, but their genetic background is poorly understood. Investigating traits’ genetic background could help explain disparities in health and other life outcomes they contribute to. We describe two cohorts of the Estonian Biobank for whom, besides self- and informant-rated personality traits, detailed data are available on a wide range of measures including health behaviour, biomarkers, anthropometric measurements, and medical diagnoses and treatments. The first cohort (Nself-report = 3,640, Ninformant-report = 3,488) filled out the NEO Personality Inventory-3 (NEO-PI-3) between 2008 and 2018. The second cohort (Nself-report = 77,400, Ninformant-report = 21,986), collected between 2021 and 2022, responded to a large and diverse item pool called the 100 Nuances of Personality (100NP) covering the Big Five and other traits. Research opportunities include investigation of personality traits’ properties, gene discovery, prediction of health and well-being, and causal modelling. New data are added periodically through additional data collection waves and linkage with various registries and databases.