How Personality Traits Tip Over Into Mental Illness

Psychologists are aware that personality can factor into mental health ― for example, perfectionism leading to clinical depression and anxiety disorders  ― but the relationship between certain personality traits and psychiatric illnesses isn’t entirely clear.  A fascinating new study published in Nature Genetics on Dec. 5 takes this association a step further. The findings suggest that personality traits and mental illness exist on a continuum, sharing key influences on a genetic level. In other words, when innate personality traits are pushed to an extreme by age, adversity or other life experiences, a once-benign quality may turn into mental illness. “We found genetic overlap between personality and mental illnesses ― some genetic variants influencing personality also contribute to risks of mental illness,” Dr. Chi-Hua Chen, an assistant professor of radiology at the University of California San Diego and the study’s lead author, told The Huffington Post. “Mental illnesses can be viewed as maladaptive or extreme variants of personality traits.”  Chen and her team examined the genetic profiles of 260,000 people using data from 23andMe and the Genetics of Personality Consortium. In their analysis, the researchers were able to identify six regions of the genome linked with major personality domains. The researchers focused on the “big five” personality traits ― extraversio...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news