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

TLDR

The authors evaluated the genetic and environmental etiology of the five‑factor model of personality by testing 123 identical and 127 fraternal twin pairs using the revised NEO Personality Inventory. Broad genetic influence on Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness was estimated at 41–61 %, with facets also highly heritable but often nonadditive, while shared environment contributed negligibly and nonshared environment accounted for the majority of environmental variance.

Abstract

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.