“Meta-Analytic Relations between Personality and Cognitive Ability”, Kevin C. Stanek, Deniz S. Ones2023-05-30 (, )⁠:

[OSF, supplement] Personality and cognitive ability are consequential domains of human individuality. More than 100 years of research has examined their connections, and yet most ability-personality relations remain unknown. We quantitatively synthesized 1,325 studies including millions of individuals from more than 50 countries to identify novel, considerable ties between personality traits and cognitive abilities.

Neuroticism facets (eg. suspiciousness, depression) were negatively related to most cognitive abilities including non-invested (eg. fluid reasoning) and invested abilities (eg. knowledge). Extraversion’s activity facet had sizable, positive relations with several non-invested (eg. retrieval fluency and processing abilities) and invested abilities. Conscientiousness’ industriousness and agreeableness’ compassion aspects positively related to most invested abilities.

The previous focus on high-level relations obscured understanding of individual differences and their applications.

Cognitive ability and personality are fundamental domains of human psychology. Despite a century of vast research, most ability-personality relations remain un-established.

Using contemporary hierarchical personality and cognitive abilities frameworks, we meta-analyze unexamined links between personality traits and cognitive abilities and offer large-scale evidence of their relations. This research quantitatively summarizes 60,690 relations between 79 personality and 97 cognitive ability constructs in 3,543 meta-analyses based on data from millions of individuals. Sets of novel relations are illuminated by distinguishing hierarchical personality and ability constructs (eg. factors, aspects, facets).

The links between personality traits and cognitive abilities are not limited to openness and its components. Some aspects and facets of neuroticism, extraversion, and Conscientiousness are also considerably related to primary as well as specific abilities.

Overall, the results provide an encyclopedic quantification of what is currently known about personality-ability relations, identify previously unrecognized trait pairings, and reveal knowledge gaps.

The meta-analytic findings are visualized in an interactive webtool. The database of coded studies and relations is offered to the scientific community to further advance research, understanding, and applications.

This manuscript was initially based on the first author’s doctoral dissertation advised by the second author and Prof. Matt K. McGue. The database and analyses have all been updated. Therefore, the results and findings here supersede those.

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