Hello, and happy new week! In the previous episode we discussed extraversion, the first trait in the Big Five model. Today we turn to the second: neuroticism.

If positive emotion is one of extraversion’s core features, negative emotion is the defining mark of neuroticism.A typical person high in neuroticism is easily disturbed and troubled by everyday annoyances. Everyone frequently encounters unpleasant events, but people high in neuroticism have a lower threshold for feeling them and therefore experience negative emotions more often, especially anxiety and depression.

Please note that “anxiety” and “depression” here do not mean anxiety disorders or depressive disorders.Evidence does suggest that extremely high neuroticism is associated to some extent with the onset of anxiety and depressive disorders. But anxiety and depression as clinical conditions must satisfy diagnostic standards such as duration and severity. An illness is also a state that manifests in particular circumstances: someone with an anxiety disorder might, for example, suffer a panic attack while flying at high altitude. As a personality trait, however,the anxiety and depression of people high in neuroticism are diffuse, stable, and enduring behavioral patterns. They do not suddenly become anxious or depressed; they are simply prone to these feelings in everyday life.We might describe such a person as anxious or emotionally reactive, but not to a pathological degree. It is not as severe as an illness; compared with someone low in neuroticism, they merely experience negative emotions more often and in greater quantity.

Take anxiety, an everyday emotion for modern people. Most of us feel it when facing stressful events: perhaps tomorrow brings a crucial examination and you have not begun studying; perhaps you discover that someone you love intends to leave; or perhaps the editors at Vistopia are urging me to submit a manuscript when all I want is to lie down…

Most people feel anxious at such times. Someone high in neuroticism, however, becomes anxious earlier and more intensely. They may also feel anxious without anything that others see as particularly worrying. With a flight two weeks away, for example, they may already be wondering whether to reach the airport four hours early. This is a personality trait: a habitual tendency to respond.