AI Insight
This study examined how personality traits relate to anxiety symptoms in 583 Tibetan adults in western China, finding that neuroticism and extraversion together explained an additional 34.3% of variance in anxiety beyond demographic and health factors. Unlike typical Western findings, both neuroticism and extraversion were positively associated with anxiety in this population. Social support and religious affiliation did not significantly moderate these relationships or add meaningful explanatory value.
Why it matters
The results demonstrate that personality-anxiety associations may differ across cultures, suggesting that mental health screening and interventions in Tibetan populations should account for culture-specific manifestations of these relationships. The findings underscore the critical need for culturally validated assessment tools when conducting psychological research in non-Western populations.
Understand the Science
BackgroundPersonality traits are well-established correlates of anxiety symptoms, yet whether these associations generalize across culturally distinct populations remains insufficiently understood. This study examined the incremental explanatory value of neuroticism and extraversion for anxiety symptoms in a Tibetan sociocultural context after accounting for sociodemographic, health-related, and social-contextual factors.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted among 583 community-dwelling Tibetan adults recruited through convenience sampling in western China. Participants completed the Tibetan adaptations of the Brief Big Five Personality Scale and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), together with measures of sociodemographic characteristics, mental health history, perceived social support, and religious affiliation. Given the absence of published psychometric validation of the Tibetan adaptation, internal consistency was assessed and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to evaluate the reliability and underlying factor structure of the personality measure. Hierarchical multiple regression and exploratory moderation analyses examined the incremental explanatory value of personality traits and the potential moderating effects of perceived social support and religious affiliation.ResultsNeuroticism and extraversion explained an additional 34.3% of the variance in anxiety symptoms beyond sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, increasing the total explained variance from 5.0 to 39.3%. Both traits were positively associated with anxiety symptoms. Perceived social support and religious affiliation contributed negligible additional explanatory value and did not moderate the association between neuroticism and anxiety symptoms. EFA supported a theoretically informed two-factor solution despite substantial overlap between neuroticism and extraversion.ConclusionPersonality traits provided substantial incremental explanatory value for anxiety symptoms in this Tibetan sample. Neuroticism emerged as a robust correlate of anxiety, whereas extraversion was also positively associated with anxiety symptoms, a pattern differing from findings commonly reported in Western populations. These findings highlight the importance of interpreting personality–anxiety associations within their sociocultural and psychometric context and underscore the need for culturally validated personality measures when extending personality research to understudied populations.