Psychology › Personality & intelligence › The Big Five personality traits
Neuroticism and emotional stability
· Concept
Well replicatedStrong, repeated evidence.
The Big Five trait for how easily and intensely a person feels anxiety, worry, sadness and anger; its low end is emotional stability.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
Neuroticism is a normal personality dimension, not a diagnosis. High scorers react more strongly to stress, worry more and take longer to calm down; low scorers stay even under pressure. Hans Eysenck made it a core trait in 1947, before the Big Five existed. Twin studies put its heritability near 40 to 50 percent. It drifts down with age, women average somewhat higher across cultures, and therapy aimed at anxiety reliably lowers scores. Some studies link high scores to holding less in stocks.
Why it matters
It is one of the strongest single predictors of anxiety and depression risk, and it shapes health, relationships, job satisfaction and how hard setbacks hit.
Think of it like
Like a building's sensitivity to weather: some shrug off a storm, others leak at every rain. Both can be retrofitted.
The evidence
Measured by questionnaires like the NEO-PI and checked against ratings by friends and spouses. Long-running cohort studies and a 2017 meta-analysis of therapy trials show both its predictive power and its changeability.
Open questions
Researchers debate how much neuroticism overlaps with a general vulnerability to mental illness, and whether it causes disorders or is an early form of them.
Connections (2)
▸Neuroticism and emotional stability is one of The Big Five personality traitsWell replicated
The connection
Neuroticism is the 'N' in OCEAN, the trait for emotional reactivity. Hans Eysenck identified it as one of the first broad traits in the 1940s, and every major personality model since includes it, sometimes reversed and labeled emotional stability.
Who showed it and when
Eysenck in London from 1947; Paul Costa and Robert McCrae's NEO questionnaires, 1978–1985, which gave it six facets including anxiety and depression.
The evidence
Neuroticism appears in factor analyses of personality data in dozens of cultures, and its scores predict anxiety and depression over time.
Open questions
How best to divide it: Colin DeYoung and colleagues proposed in 2007 two linked aspects, withdrawal (anxiety, sadness) and volatility (anger, irritability), while the NEO uses six facets.
▸Neuroticism and emotional stability raises the risk of Anxiety disordersWell replicated
The connection
People high in neuroticism react more strongly to stress and worry more, making anxiety disorders more likely. In long-term studies, high scorers develop anxiety and depression far more often. The trait and the disorders share much of their genetic basis, so neuroticism works like an underlying vulnerability.
Who showed it and when
Hans Eysenck tied the trait to 'neurosis' in the 1940s–50s; modern evidence comes from cohort studies and genome-wide studies since the 2010s.
The evidence
A 2010 meta-analysis by Roman Kotov found large neuroticism differences across anxiety and depressive disorders; twin studies show shared genes.
Open questions
Whether neuroticism causes anxiety disorders, or is simply a milder, lasting form of the same tendency, is debated.