Heritability of the Big Five Personality Dimensions and Their Facets: A Twin Study

doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00522.x

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Wiley InterScience

Journal of Personality

Volume 64 Issue 3, Pages 577 - 592

Published Online: 28 Apr 2006

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Heritability of the Big Five Personality Dimensions and Their Facets: A Twin Study

Kerry L. Jang ¹ W. John Livesley ¹ Philip A. Vemon ²

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia ² University of Western Ontario

Address correspondence to Kerry L. Jang, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, 2255 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T-2A1.

This research was partially supported by a fellowship from the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation to K. L. Jang, and by Grant MA9424 from the Medical Research Council of Canada and Grant 181(91-2) from the British Columbia Health Care Research Foundation to W. J. Livesley.

ABSTRACT

The genetic and environmental etiology of the five-factor model of personality as measured by the revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) was assessed using 123 pairs of identical twins and 127 pairs of fraternal twins. Broad genetic influence on the five dimensions of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness was estimated at 41%, 53%, 61%, 41%, and 44%, respectively. The facet scales also showed substantial heritability, although for several facets the genetic influence was largely nonadditive. The influence of the environment was consistent across all dimensions and facets. Shared environmental influences accounted for a negligible proportion of the variance in most scales, whereas nonshared environmental influences accounted for the majority of the environmental variance in all scales.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00522.x About DOI

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