Neuroticism and Conscientiousness as Moderators of the Relation Between Social Withdrawal and Internalizing Problems in Adolescence

Abstract

Social withdrawal, or refraining from social interaction in the presence of peers, places adolescents at risk of developing emotional problems like anxiety and depression. The personality traits of neuroticism and conscientiousness also relate to emotional difficulties. For example, high conscientiousness predicts lower incidence of anxiety disorders and depression, while high neuroticism relates to greater likelihood of these problems. Based on these associations, socially withdrawn adolescents high in conscientiousness or low in neuroticism were expected to have lower levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Participants included 103 adolescents (59% female) who reported on their personality traits in 8th grade and their anxiety and depressive symptoms in 9th grade. Peer ratings of social withdrawal were collected within schools in 8th grade. A structural equation model revealed that 8th grade withdrawal positively predicted 9th grade anxiety and depressive symptoms controlling for 8th grade anxiety and depressive symptoms, but neuroticism did not. Conscientiousness moderated the relation of withdrawal with depressive symptoms but not anxiety, such that high levels of conscientiousness attenuated the association between withdrawal and depressive symptoms. This buffering effect may stem from the conceptual relation between conscientiousness and self-regulation. Conscientiousness did not, however, moderate the association between withdrawal and anxiety, which may be partly due to the role anxiety plays in driving withdrawal. Thus, a conscientious, well-regulated personality partially protects withdrawn adolescents from the increased risk of emotional difficulties.

Linking Personality Traits to Individual Differences in Affective Spaces

“…Multiple regression revealed that increasing dispersion of the fear/violence cluster was linked to increasing Neuroticism and decreasing Conscientiousness (see also Supplementary Table 5). Such an opposite relationship between these two personality dimensions is not entirely unexpected, as it has been reported as a general finding when assessing the Big Five personality factors (Costa et al, 1991), linked to mental disorders (Trull and Sher, 1994;Kotov et al, 2010), and tied to such domains as social media activity (Liu et al, 2016), emotional problems in adolescents (Smith et al, 2017), and even physiological mechanisms of inflammation (Sutin et al, 2010). Regarding Neuroticism, it is possible that higher Neuroticism coincides with a greater differentiation in the processing of negative stimuli, thereby leading to a finer-grained categorization (i.e., a more dispersed clustering) of negative information.…”

Personality and Functional Limitations: Investigating the Mediating Effect of Positive Social Exchanges

“…Differing from conscientiousness, neuroticism was the only personality trait linked to less PSS. Individuals who are higher in neuroticism may choose to withdraw from social interactions because of anxiety (Smith et al, 2017). Contrary, extraversion was linked to more PSS and less functional limitations.…”

“…For example, individuals scoring higher in neuroticism are often depressed or anxious, which makes them more likely to withdraw from social situations (Bowling, et al, 2005). Therefore, individuals who are higher in neuroticism likely experience less social interaction, including PSS, which can be especially challenging over long periods of time (Smith, Barstead, & Rubin, 2017). Contrary to neuroticism, individuals higher in conscientiousness or extraversion were less likely to withdraw from their social network even when dealing with depression because of the propensity to uphold responsibility in their relationships (Cukrowicz et al, 2008).…”

“…The findings indicated that the tendency to be responsible, maintain social interactions with others, and reach out to others increased PSS. Individuals who are higher in conscientiousness, whom are better at selfregulation, are more apt to dealing with the difficulty if a lack of social interaction does occur (Smith et al, 2017). Individuals higher in extraversion are more likely to seek out social situations in general because these situations provided opportunities for extraverted behaviors such as being talkative, lively and friendly (Snyder, 1983).…”

“…Individuals higher in extraversion may prefer social interactions and may demonstrate more positive affect and provide PSS. Therefore, these individuals may experience more PSS because reciprocity is predictive of PSS (Bowling et al, 2005;Smith et al, 2017;Snyder, 1983). Similarly, individuals higher in agreeableness also tend to provide more PSS and, therefore, experience more PSS in return (Bowling et al, 2005).…”